Last class, I tried to show how “character” – – per Fiske – – may be less about the representation of “real” people and more about the way that narratives try to imagine and work through cultural/social conflicts or tensions. I.e. might be most illuminating to look at Joyce’s Dubliners as trying to create a character system – – a matrix of traits (shared among characters) that actually represents Joyce’s efforts to think through the situation of middle-class life in Dublin, circa 1914.
Let’s keep this idea in mind as we move on to our next category of formal analysis: setting.
For the week ahead, look through this rubric for making sense of setting. (Sadly, I wish we had more class time to review it.) After you’ve reviewed it – – return to “A Little Cloud.” Identify as many different settings within the story as you can. For each setting you identify, use our annotation tool to code or analyze this setting in terms of scope, scale, and semiotics. Don’t worry if you’re not quite sure if or how this setting checks all the boxes of social, spatial, geographic scope or historical, duration scale, etc. Just give it a wing and we’ll sort things out on Tuesday.