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1、summing up the plot. A theme is usually stated in general words. Another try sounds like this: “Solitary people need a orderly place where they can drink with dignity.” That is a little better. We have indicated that Hemingways story is more than merely about an old man and two waiters. We remember
2、that at the end the story is entirely confined to the older waiters thoughts and perceptions. How do we understand his mediation on “nada,” nothingness, which bears so much emphasis? No good statement of the theme of the story can leave it out. Then we have still another try: “Solitary people need a
3、 place of refuge from their terrible awareness that their life (or perhaps, human life) is essentially meaningless.” Neither this nor any other statement of the storys theme is unarguably appropriate, but the statement at least touches one primary idea that Hemingway seems to be driving at. After we
4、 read “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” we feel that there is such a theme, a unifying vision, even though we cannot reduce it to a tag and we may still vary in our opinion about, and statement of, the theme. Moral inferences drawn from most stories: Moral inferences may be drawn from most stories, no
5、doubt, even when an author does not intend his/her story to be read this way. In “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, we feel that Hemingway is indirectly giving us advice for properly regarding and sympathizing the lonely, the uncertain, and the old. But obviously the story does not set forth a lesson th
6、at we are supposed to put into practice. We can say for sure that “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” contains several themes and other statements could be made to take in Hemingways view of love, of communication between people, of dignity. Great stories, like great symphonies, frequently have more than
7、one theme. When we say that the title of Pride and Prejudice conveys the theme of the novel or that Uncle Toms Cabin and The Grapes of Wrath treat the themes of slavery and migratory labor respectively, this is to use theme in a larger and more abstract sense than it is in our discussion of Hemingwa
8、ys “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.” In this larger sense it is relatively easy to say that Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn, Updikes A & P, and Faulkners Barn Burning concern the theme of “initiation into maturity.” Such general descriptions of theme can be useful, especially if we want to sort a large nu
9、mber of stories and novels into rough categories, but the fact that they are similar in theme does not mean that they mean the same thing. The attitude towards the theme may be very different: the tone of treatment may be, for example, either comic or tragic, straightforward or ironic. The writers v
10、ision of life is the special underlying fact of a story, and a theme, abstractly stated, is not the same thing as a vision of life. And we suggest anyway that, in the beginning, you look for whatever truth or insight you think the writer of a story intends to reveal. Try to state a theme in a senten
11、ce. By doing so, we will find ourselves looking closely at the story. Kennedy and Gioia make a helpful suggestion to consider the following points when we think about the theme of a story:Look back once more at the title of the story. What does it indicate in relation to the whole story?Does the mai
12、n character in any way change in the story? Does this character arrive at any eventual realization or understanding? Are you left with any realization or understanding after finishing reading the story?Does the author (through the narrator) make any general observations about life or human nature? D
13、o the characters make any (Caution: Characters now and again will utter opinions with which the reader is not necessarily supposed to agree.)Does the story contain any especially curious objects, mysterious flat characters, significant animals, repeated names, special allusions, or whatever, that hi
14、nt towards meanings larger than such things ordinarily have? In literary stories, such symbols or metaphors may point to central themes.When we have worked our statement of theme, have we cast our statement into general language, not just given a plot summary? Does our statement hold true for the st
15、ory as a whole, not just part of it?Chapter Four Setting“Once upon a time there lived a king named Midas in Phrygia. He loved gold more than anything else but his little daughter.” This is the opening sentences of “Golden Touch”, which introduces the time, place, and the usual mentality of the chara
16、cter. What is setting?An event occurs and a character exists in a particular time and place. This particular time and place is referred to as setting. A setting is the background against which a character is depicted or an event narrated. Its purpose is to provide an imaginary link between what happens in the novel and what the reader takes to be reality. Like some other elements, setting is not peculiar to the novel. The reader finds it serving the same
