Story, Character, and Prose

I am not a professional English or Literature teacher. I am licensed as an elementary school teacher for kindergarten through grade 8. Currently I am not even doing that; I substitute. This means that everyday finds me in a different teaching situation. Yesterday I "taught" AP English.

I use the quotations because one would be hard pressed to demonstrate how what I did yesterday constituted teaching. I administered a vocab quiz and explained the day's assignments. Then I sat at the teacher's desk while the students got to work. Since it was an AP class, no one really even needed any one on one help. This meant that I got to spend large parts of the day just observing and thinking about what I was observing. (Of course, anyone worth their salt as a teacher should be doing as much thinking about teaching as they can.)

I spent a lot of time thinking about the assignment. The students were to use two stories, "A Worn Path" and "Where Does Voice Come From?" Both of these are by Eudora Welty, I believe. I could be wrong about that. They were to analyze how the point of view in these stories affected theme and characterization.

This assignment spurred a lot of thought of my own about how literature is taught, how it was taught to me, and how I believe it should be taught. As I said before, I am not an English or Literature teacher. I did not major in either of these two things in college. I am, however, a reader. I read voraciously. I love books more than almost anything in the world. (Not more than you, Abby.) One of the reasons I did not major in Literature was because of how I feel about what teachers of Literature do to literature. To put it bluntly, I believe that these people kill stories, and they kill stories for incredibly trite reasons.

For instance, let's say that your teacher wants you to know a thing or two about symbolism. They might choose to have you read Lord of the Flies. Then they might have you spend hours and hours of class time dissecting practically every line in order to find the symbols buried within. (I say might, but really this is almost a given.) By the time you are done, you know how to find a symbol like nobody's business (One of their favorites is the Christ figure.) but you are almost certain to dislike the book. Which is a tragedy, because Lord of the Flies is an amazing book. (This is why I recommend that students always read a book independently before they read it in a class. They will be allowed to simply enjoy the book for their own reasons; later, when the teacher tries to destroy it for them he will be unable to because the student will have already developed a love for it.)

The Scarlet Letter is the perfect example of a book that was ruined for most of my high school cohorts. I was fortunate enough not to have to read it for a class and I love it.

All of this brings me to the title of my note, "Story, Character, and Prose". These are the three elements of writing that I believe to be most important. An understanding of them can enhance enjoyment of a book or short story. Moreover, one can understand these elements without dissecting the book to the point that generates hatred of it. If one can write a compelling story filled with compelling characters, one will have done something quite wonderful. Many people are capable of this, though, which is why the third element is, I believe, more important. Case in point: The Twilight Series has a somewhat compelling story and characters, but the prose in it is dreck, which makes it difficult to enjoy. Prose can be bad, it can be competent, and it can be beautiful. Of course, there are levels in between.

Many classics are written with only competent prose. War and Peace is an example of this. It is, therefore, absolutely possible to write an amazing and timeless book without any exceptional talent for prose. A River Runs Through It is a book that is written with beautiful prose. This elevates the book to a level that is seldom attained by a writer.

The thing is, though, that too much time spent analyzing any of these things is akin to seeing a beautiful sunset and talking too much about how the light refracts, or the particles in the air, or anything of this nature. Discussions of this type have their place, mostly in science classes and labs, but to bring them up during the sunset is almost criminal. Just sit there and enjoy it, man. With books, the same is true. English teachers should save their discussions of things like symbolism, metaphor, hyperbole, and point of view for the times when they are hanging out with people whom they know get into this stuff. They certainly shouldn't talk about it in their English classes, if for no other reason than that it does not do what is intended. Instead of increasing the students' appreciation for the work, they lessen it.

Keep it simple, folks. Talk about the book in a casual manner that focuses on the story, the characters, and the beauty or lack thereof of the prose.