Aspects of the Novel

Forster draws a hard distinction between round and flat characters. Choose a novel that you have read and enjoyed and choose four characters to analyze. Focus on how the author makes the characters either flat or round, and explain how that affects the novel as a whole.

Point of view is important in any fictional work. However, in the novel, point of view can shift or change. Analyze the point of view in a novel you have read. Identify which point of view (or points of view) the author uses, and discuss how the point of view shapes the plot, themes, and characterizations in the novel.

Forster offers five elements of life (birth, death, food, sleep, and love) to illustrate how real people and novel characters differ. Emulate Forster by identifying three other elements of life that could be used the same way. Using a novel or novels you’re familiar with, explain how those elements of life are present or absent and what that says about the creation of characters by an author.

At the end of Aspects of the Novel, Forster turns to the future of the novel, which would contain all the novels from 1930 to the present. Discuss Forster’s predictions of future novelists in relation to recent novels with which you’re familiar. Analyze a novel or novelist who comes close to Forster’s predictions.

Forster names seven aspects of the novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. Although Aspects of the Novel is not a novel, Forster is a novelist, and he employs several of his aspects in the book. Identify where he uses three of these aspects and analyze what effect they have on this nonfiction work.

Pattern and Rhythm are the elements of the novel that connect it to other art genres, namely visual art and music. Build on Forster’s initial idea and write an essay in which you show how novelists employ elements of a non-literary art form in the novel.

Fantasy is defined as the depiction of the impossible, but not necessarily the supernatural. Forster hints at what this could mean in his discussion of Tristram Shandy. However, he leaves significant gaps. Write an essay in which you advance this idea of the impossible that is not necessarily supernatural. Use specific examples from any novels you have read to help illustrate your points.

Aspects of the Novel was considered, for decades, a seminal work of literary criticism. As such, it was essentially required reading for many English majors in college. Today, it is far less well known, and has received some harsh criticism from the literary scholarship community. Find an article that criticizes this book and write an essay discussing the accuracy or inaccuracy of the article’s points, using direct textual evidence from Forster’s work to support your points.