Literature's aim: educating and entertaining the audience
Literature's aim is to educate and entertain its audience. As a result, the various literary methods selected by the author of a text must enable the reader to get a clear sense of the narrative and immerse himself or herself in the plot of the story. The author's use of context, narration, and point of view is critical in defining the reader's interest in the novel. The third person is sometimes used as a point of view (Rabkin 61). However, the new texts have a preference for the first person which is then told from the perspective of the different characters and further in the future tense. Such is ten build up in the settings of place and time in which the various events have taken place. The multiple characterizations are meant to expand the plot of the story and make the story more intriguing. This paper discusses the impacts that setting, characterization and points of view may have on literature.
Setting
Setting impacts literature by determining the place and time of the story. The setting can either be integral to the backdrop. The backdrop setting is where a story could take place within any context, as such, the story is influenced by neither time nor place. However, the integral setting results when time and place both influence the theme, characters and the action that is taking place within the literary text. The setting, in an area, can enable one to know a character and the accompanying characteristics. In some contexts, the context creates the conflicts amongst the characters in any given text. The setting can also have an impact on the readers of the literature of the various literary cues that have been used in any given passage. For example, where the symbol is a forest, in children's literature, they may deduce that the forest either is symbolic of nature or evil based on the supportive arguments that can be drawn from the text. The setting can also be sued to establish the content within which a story is taking place.
Settings enable the readers to know where the story is taking place and influence the mood of the story. A notable example is a child who has lost his way in the forest that is inhabited by the wild animals. A sad and creepy feeling and the mood gets to get into the reader. Additionally, the atmosphere has an influence ion the place and time. The setting could enable the readers to have good knowledge of each character and their perception of life. For example, the characters depicted to live in the rural shacks are viewed to be less wealthy compared to those living in affluent buildings that are located in the cities.
The setting could further enable the learners to have a better understanding of the social pressures that the characters have to go through. For example, the characters living with the Victorian England era have the pressure to settle down earlier compared to those living in m modern Europe who do not feel the society's pressure to marry. Where different periods ate given within a literary text, changes that have taken place amongst the characters are well understood by the reader of such material of the book (Bennett and Nicholas 177). As such, the setting should ensure that the author has a good knowledge of the location and time in which one is writing. Such enables the author of the text to get an accurate description of the infrastructure and the standard of living of the characters in the book. The plot allows the readers to have ease of imagining the type of life that the characters are going through. A setting contributes to the course of the story and has a direct influence on the choices and actions that are undertaken by the characters in the text. When coming up with new literature, there is need to ensure that the writing used in the book lays into consideration the climate, locality time of the day and the season of the year to facilitate good reading and ease of reflection of the plot and the lives being led by the characters.
Characterization
Characters are the people within the story who contribute to its plot. The significant impact of a change is the ability to determine the changes that are taking place in the course of plot development. Characters tend to carry the plot of the text that is being read; characters can be categorized into a round, flat and anthropomorphic. The round characters are the characters whose role spans the entire length of the literature, and the readers get to know them better. The rounded characters could exist in the of protagonists and antagonists.
A character in literary can be in the form of an animal, human being or any figure that is used by the author in any given literary work. Character development is one significant impact that they tend to bring about. Characters who are developed in the course of the study can be used to define the timelines of the literary work (Curtius 43). The protagonists in any given story tend to enable the reader to have good knowledge of the plot of the story. The protagonist allows for the reader to be glued to the story and to feel empathy for such character. Notably, the characterization process contributes significantly to setting the mood of the story.
The momentum of the plot is often based on the characterization that is used in the literary text. As he literary text unfolds, the reader may like the text or tend to lose the interest of reading the literature. Characterization serves to make the story to be believable. The changes that are taking place regarding the plot of the story would be reasonable and further ensure that there reader and struck and immersed in the text being advanced by the reading (Widdowson 212). Characters are a creation of the author. The proper use of characterization in any given book enables the reader to have ease of discovery of the various character traits of the character and judge the literati8re of being effective or non-effective. A simple description of the charters without highlighting how the roles of a given character transitions to that of another character may hamper the interest of the reader to continue reading the text.
Point of View
The positions of view can either the first or the third person. It is the representation of the perspective that is given by the author of the text through a given character in the literary work. Majority of the literary works are often in the third person. When using the third person, a narrative voice needs to come out and enable the reader to mirror the context in which the story is being told and the circumstances that do surround the life of the protagonist and antagonists in the story. The point of view can be directly established through the specific pronoun that is used by the author of the text t refer to the different characters in the text. For example, the use of pronoun I am an affirmation of the first-person point of view. The impact that such may have is the ability of the audience to know a particular character who is telling the story. Each perspective that is granted by the author has a direct influence on how a given author may read the text.
Often, the points of view in different literature are either in the first or third person. In the first person, there is limited information that a reader may establish. However, the protagonist may describe him or herself better, thus, enabling the reader to have a better perception of the characterization. Additionally, the third person allows the reader to get more details about the story under analysis but may not discuss in detail the goings on of the protagonist.
A story that is developed from the first-person point of view tends to bring about intimacy into the reader. The readers get to immerse him or herself in the thoughts that are being advanced by the author of the story. In the situation where the third person is used, the points of view can be maintained through one character or may be shifted from one aspect to the other. However, it is important to note that the increased preference of the first person is based on the need to make the audience liken the plot and place themselves, directly in the shoes of the main character (Blanchot 89). The third person has also been advanced to ensure that the narration is shifted in different characters through a change in voices in various parts of the novel. Such facilitates the improvement of the imagination and mental perception that the reader may have the central theme. When using the first person, the sole purpose of the author is to give a narration of what happened. Such may have two impacts, first, intimacy or boredom from the concentration into the feelings and perceptions of one character.
Conclusion
The choice of the setting, points of view and characterization are solely dependent on the author. However, there is a preference for the first-person narration owing to the intimacy that is built with the reader. Telling a story in the future tense through different characters and in the first-person point of view is crucial in enhancing the approach that has been granted by the author regarding any given text. Additionally, the plot needs to shift to different location and advancement in time to show how the character develops based on the circumstances that are supporting him or her. However, the characters should be fewer and with the shift being fluid to affirm ease of flow of the plot in any literary text.
Works cited
Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. An introduction to literature, criticism and theory. Routledge, 2016.
Blanchot, Maurice. The space of literature. U of Nebraska Press, 2015.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European literature and the Latin middle ages. Princeton University Press, 2013.
Rabkin, Eric S. The fantastic in literature. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Widdowson, Henry George. Stylistics and the Teaching of Literature. Routledge, 2014.
