hi class so in an earlier video I talked about some of the mechanics of the elements of short story that we um weely on because they're very tangible they're things that we can see like characters plot point of view setting these are things that we can actually see we can quote um and we can um discuss in that way cuz they're so tangible but in this video um I'm going to be talking about some elements in fiction that go beyond the tangible where you need some critical thinking skills um to figure out what's going on in the story so those include symbolism theme style tone and irony and that's what I call reading between the lines because you need to have much more create critical thinking skills to figure these things out than um the other obvious ones that you can point with your finger so um when reading a story you can often figure out the obvious parts of it with plot character point of view and setting however there's more to a story that you can interpret by reading between the lines the skills you would use to do that is by making inferences when you make inferences you rely on the suggestions made by the author as a reader you can make inferences about a story and analyze it by looking at it through symbolism theme style tone and irony now when you're making inferences you can't just go making up things that go beyond what's being told to you in the story so you still have to be connected you still have to rely on what you get obviously but you just make connections from what those obvious things are so we'll talk about that a little more in the next few um PowerPoint slides so the first one is called symbolism so a symbol can be a person an object an event that suggests more than its literal meaning authors use symbolism to foreshadow future events symbols often appear as a way to shed light on the story symbols are hidden meanings embedded in a story to give readers a chance to interpret the message of a story so sometimes a dead dog or a dead animal can could foreshadow a dead human being that's going to happen later cuz death is coming um that's been done in many um stories um often times animals are used in symbolic ways to in uh to reveal parts of a community how they treat the animals how they treat each other or what's happening to the animal is um happening to what's going on around them um and To Kill a Mocking Bird the Mocking Bird was definitely itely a symbol of something very precious that makes beautiful music and it's a shame to Kill a Mocking Bird which um had a lot to do with the main car with the m the character of Tom Robinson and um it was a symbolic meaning of the way um you know you don't kill a bird the same way a mocking bird the same way you wouldn't kill someone like Tom Robinson um these are symbolic meanings um there's different things beside it could be a car it could be uh a weather event it could be snow um it could be a blockade a lot of things could be symbolism um you have to really be able to look in the story and how you interpret symbolism has a lot to do with how you're looking at the story and from your own particular point of view and you and your friend could be reading the same story but come up with different symbols and that's very common because every one looks at things from different perspectives and they see different nuances and authors put in many many shades in a story a good author will put Many Many Shades many many symbols to um rely to convey his or her message so there are conventional symbols that um are often referred to that we know what that means so a ring on the left hand indicates a married person so an author may not say this this per so and so is was married but just describe the ring on the left hand finger or um an author may not say a person's religion but just talk about their religious um ornaments to relay that message for you so there are um conventional symbols that are very common to us that we know of that we can say oh yes and we don't have to go further than that because those are conventional symbols but the unconventional ones are things that can come from anywhere it could be the weather it could be an event it could be all sorts of things um that come from all over the place that could be symbols so a literary symbol could be a setting character action object name of anything uh or anyone um a work that means literal significant while suggest the other meanings in your reading you should be watching for s s symbols that may be repeated or have a Common Thread that links them so um sometimes the the symbol of a dog could reappear many times somebody sometimes the symbol of the color a color can reappear many times the color black or the color blue could appear many many times and it has um uh symbolic meaning to it um it could be a symbol of a ribbon um lots of things uh that could be repeated so one of the important things is to look at what being repeated um are characters repeated repeatedly going to a particular color or using a particular object um or are there lots of dogs or lots of birds in your story or maybe lots of cats these symbols have um a strong message for the reader it could be waves um in the ocean they they could they could have other significant meanings than what the actual meaning is so um maybe an ocean wave isn't really talking about the literal ocean waves but just the changing in times and or the changing of days it could it depends on how the author is using it sometimes they could say the winds blew this morning at you know so and so speed and then a few pages later you the winds blew that way often times um authors will you also use the Sun the the sun setting or the sun rising as a symbol of that day has begun night is in so those are also um symbols that are repeated throughout a story for um telling a story the theme the best way to define theme is to say that a theme has a unifying Point some people think that theme is the moral of a story or the lesson but the theme is much broader than that the theme is one IDE idea that holds the story together so um examples of theme could be moral values such as religious values or questioning conventional Role Models um we're looking at a story of an hour um by Kate chopan and definitely it's questioning the conventional role models of marriage and it's also con questioning the convention of marriage and and relation ships and that's the theme of the story there um it goes beyond that but those are some of the things that um stories do is that they have this theme um this overall it could you know some some stories could be talking about the moral values of human character like in um tequilla Mockingbird about the moral values of the community that puts Tom on trial with very little evidence um that that's questioning the moral values of the people in the community and what they're doing so that would be the theme of a story the style refers to the way the author use writes his or her piece some authors use very few words to get a story across um and Hemingway was really good with that he hardly used any words but he told a big story while other use very descriptive long passages to get a story across um Henry James is an author that comes to my mind who used very descriptive long passages to get a story across um where he would talk about he would describe a a street in eight pages whereas Heming way would could do that in like three or four sentences so style of the author um differs so you should think about the style of the author and what you like and what you don't like if you don't like very wordy um descriptive passages um some St authors who re rely on that um can spend many many hours just describing one little thing while other authors could use three or four words to describe that same thing and so uh it's it's it's it all depends on the author and the way the author uses language so style is very personal to the author and it's something you should look at um mostly for you if you like it or you don't like it or how you feel about it um it's a really important aspect the tone refers to the attitude or the mood of the work and that's not necessarily the attitude and the mood of the author but it's the story that's being told or um the work that's being presented to you so I use the example of Edgar Allen's toe was very dark and gruesome so some authors are serious and some authors are funny and some authors are sentimental in Po's work um there was always death um there was always murder um there was always a sneaky person behind it um the tone was always really dark um very mysterious and some people love that um and some people don't like that some authors are really funny to read and everything is just funny from beginning middle and end some authors are sentimental some authors are serious so the best way to figure out the tone of the work work is to check out how it made you feel if you were laughing then the tone was humorous if you were in suspense then the tone was mysterious and what you like to read will definitely decide on what kind of tone you like to take on so um I know in college you're assigned books and things to read with the tone um of whatever the teacher makes you read but later in life you'll be able to read whatever you want to read and so you can start choosing authors that you prefer now and read them later on in more details irony is when something happens or when someone says something and the opposite happens or it's an expect we IR is like we expect one thing and some the another result the opp Opposite result occurs as a result and so it becomes very ironic um and and it's not something that we expect a good story will always have an ironic twist so the really famous um story that is ironic is The Gift of the Magi by Oh Henry which is a Christmas story about a married couple who have very little money to buy gifts for each other and so the woman sells her hair to get money to buy her husband a chain for his watch this is a very old Story by the way it's told in the early 1900s so that's why the man wears a watch with a chain but of course he doesn't have a chain for his watch to hang it on his vest so she sells her hair to get money to buy the chain and he sells his watch to be able to buy combs for her beautiful long hair and so what's ironic is that she doesn't have hair um to use the Combs and he doesn't have a watch to put the chain on so that's called irony and that's one of the famous ironic twist stories of all time so irony occurs when you know we expect expect something and uh and the opposite happens and that's what irony means irony can be seen in language and words sometimes titles of stories I are are ironic this happens when the title is opposite of what happens in the story some characters also use ironic language in a story irony creates tension and also helps readers get the message of the story so we actually as a society like irony we're constantly looking for irony in our leaders um in our stories um so it creates some sort of tension for us and it keeps us hanging in our seats it's a good idea to reread a story several times to get the message of the be beyond the literal meaning by looking at the symbol thing symbol theme tone style and irony you can get a better understanding of the story and the point the the author is making when analyzing a story you should consider not only the literal meaning of the story but the Imp interpretive meaning as well so you in your writing and in your essays what you always want to do is you always want to talk about the interpretations that you make in the stories and this takes some critical thinking so you have to reread the stories and you have to start making connections of what's going on in the story so I hope this helped explain um some um reading beyond the between the lines and I hope this helps you in um reading the stories for this week