Questions to analyze narrative texts

The form

  1. Give a plot summary (What is this novel or short story about?)
  2. It might not, but if so, how does the biographical author appear in the text?
  3. Is the chronology linear or fragmented? If fragmented, what particular sequence does the author follow?
  4. Whose story is it? OR Who is the main character?
    Why do you choose one character over another?
  5. What is the basic conflict? (Give your answer as a minimum pair, i.e. life vs death, hate vs. love, rich vs. poor)
  6. Who is telling the story? OR Who is the narrator? (Is it a woman or a man? a child or an older person remembering her childhood? a foreign person remenbering his visit to a place, a person well versed in the topic; a person who lived the story it narrates; Does it raise issues of reliability? and so forth)
  7. Through whose eyes do we see the action? (The person who narrates? A character in the text who doesn't tell the story? and so forth)?

The Content

  1. Why, in your opinion, did the author write the novel or short story?
  2. What is the social-cultural-political or historical context of the novel or short story?
  3. How are sexual/gender roles assigned?
  4. How does the novel or short story deal with issues of nationalism and identity?
  5. Does the novel or short story subvert, revise questions or validate the official historical versions?
  6. What is the ideology of the text you read (radical, anarchist. liberal, conservative?)?
  7. What did you learn about Latin American society by reading this text?
  8. Compare or contrast the people and world portrayed in the reading with life in your own society
  9. Who is the "Other"?
  10. Why do we keep on reading the story?

Prof. John S. Brushwood designed this list. I have modified to fit this course goals and objectives. MM