Fiction can be defined as the art or craft of devising, through the written word, representations of human life that are instructive or amusing, or both. Just one of the Characteristics of the novel it is to enter the fictitious universe devised in part or totally by the author.
Characteristics of the novel
The novel is a relatively long literary work of narrative fiction, usually written in prose form, although there are a few instances of novels in verse. The novel recounts human events with real or fictional characters and situations, and may be inspired by real or fake events, but being the work of an author, they are always framed in the field of fiction.
The novel differs from the short story in that it is generally larger, has a more complex narrative universe and greater depth in the characterization of the characters. Novels are usually, because they are longer, divided into chapters or parts that allow a better understanding. Generally, in novels there is, in addition to the main plot, one or more subplots that enrich and give more color to the main plot. .
Brief history
In the Middle Ages, novels of chivalric life were widespread (about King Arthur, poetic versions about Tristan and Isolde, and a prose version "The Romance of Tristan and Isolde", about Lancelot and Amadis of Gaula). They were followed by picaresque novels, which were added as a current of realism. The satirical element was introduced by Cervantes and François Rabelais.
Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, an early 1368th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world's first novel, but there is considerable debate about this; certainly there were long works of fiction much earlier. The spread of printed books in China gave rise to the appearance of classical Chinese novels from the Ming dynasty (1644-XNUMX).
Further developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era.
In England the moralizing and sentimental novel arose (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith), the historical novel (Walter Scott) and the moral-descriptive and psychological novel also developed widely there for the first time (Dickens and Thackeray).
France became the cradle of a royal and naturalistic novel (Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Goncourt, Maupassant). France has provided brilliant representatives of the idealistic, romantic, and psychological schools of the novel (Georges Sand, Victor Hugo, P. Bourget, and others). German and Italian novels followed English and French patterns. In the second half of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth, the Scandinavian novel (Björnson, Jonas Lee, Kjelland, Strindberg) and the Russian novel (Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy) exerted a powerful influence on European literature.
elements of the novel
The novel has become the most widely used literary genre today, occupying the vast majority of editorial production and consumption. Such popularity has promoted the emergence of a large number of subgenres, styles and thematic variety that makes it difficult to specify characteristics of the novel that encompasses the multiplicity of variants that currently exist. However, many of the characteristics of the novel that remain more or less constant are the following:
Narrator
The narrator is the one who reveals the events that occur in the plot of the novel. The narrator is not necessarily the same person as the author of the novel. In the same novel there can be several narrators. The narration can be in first, second and third person giving different points of view of the narrated facts. Depending from the point of view where he makes the reference to the events, the narrator can be external (objective) or internal (subjective).
External
The external narrator narrates the events without taking part in them. The narrator narrates in the third person impartially, like a witness. The objective narrator can be:
Omniscient
The omniscient narrator knows everything and is aware of everything that happens in the novel without participating in it, being able to give his personal opinions and address the reader directly. He generally writes in the third person, making comments about the events and characters that parade in the narrative. He knows the most intimate thoughts of the characters and makes them known to the reader. He knows the past and future events of the narrative without justifying where he got this knowledge from.
Observer
The observer narrator only narrates the facts that can be seen or heard from the outside, as a witness, only counts the words, actions and physical characteristics of the characters.
Internal
The internal narrator has some degree of participation in the events he narrates, so his narration could be biased. The internal narrator can be:
Protagonist
He is the central character of the narrative, around whom all the events take place. His narration is in the first person. He interprets the other characters' actions and thoughts from his point of view without being impartial.
Witness
It has a secondary role in the events narrated, having some degree of participation in them, so it may not be impartial. He only tells the facts that he witnesses or observes, usually in the first or third person. The witness narrator, in turn, can be subdivided into a chronicler: he has little or no relationship with the narrated events that are the product of an investigation, whether real or feigned; and editor: he says that knowledge of the facts came to him through other documents and he only makes them public.
Action or Plot
These are the events that unfold as the novel is read. The plot is usually structured as follows:
- Approach The characters are made known to the reader physically and/or mentally, describing the place, the environment and the time where the narration takes place.
- Knot or development These are the events that evolve over the course of the novel. In general, the novel usually presents a main fact and one or more secondary events.
- Outcome It is the resolution that the author gives to the conflict or conflicts raised and the end of the narrative.
This structure is not definitive or mandatory and may vary depending on the interest of the author in the relevance that he wants to give to some aspects of his work, and the structure may vary as follows:
- abrupt beginning The narration begins with the events in full development, without description of the characters, time or places
- reverse structure The outcome of the novel is raised at the beginning of it and the events that led to that end are narrated later.
- Open end There is no final resolution to the conflict raised, neither positive nor negative. The reader feels that the events transcend the narrative.
Time
It is the temporary space where the action of the novel takes place. Not necessarily the time of the novel should be narrated chronologically. Depending on the chronological order that the author gives to his story, it can be:
- Linear chronological narrative The events of the novel are narrated chronologically in the order in which they occur.
- Flashback or flashback Starting from the present, events from the past of history are narrated.
- Prolepsis or anticipation The narration of one or several events that will occur in the future is made. A very clear example of prolepsis is the novel by Gabriel García Márquez Chronicle of a Death Foretold, also, by the same author, the opening sentence of the work One Hundred Years of Solitude:
"Many years later, before the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that remote afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
- fragmentary or chaotic The story has an apparent chronological disorder, all intentional by the author, often following the memories of one of the characters.
Virtual
It corresponds to the place where the action takes place and where the characters unfold. This could be one place throughout the action of the novel or it could be many places, indoors or outdoors, real or fictional places. The environment and the time in which the action occurs can also be included within the space, which can be real, historical or imaginary.
Characters
The characters are real people or created from the author's imagination, who perform the actions that the narrator tells. They are usually human although they could be animals or even objects. According to their participation in the events narrated, these could be:
- Main character He is usually the protagonist or protagonists of the story. Usually the narrator makes a description, mainly psychological, of the main character. The narrated events take place around the main character.
- Secondary character They are characters who, although they have a relevant role in the narrative, this is less than that of the main characters.
- environmental characters They are characters that appear and disappear in the story without their intervention being relevant.
types of novels
Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed a wide range of types and styles: picaresque, epistolary, gothic, romantic, realist, historical, to name just a few of the most important. Any classification that is intended to be made of the novels, especially in the current narrative, is still arbitrary, since there are novels that do not adhere to a specific criterion.
However, a general classification can be made without these being definitive. One of these criteria that can be used for a rating could be plot or plot:
chivalrous
They were very popular between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. They narrate the mostly fantastic adventures and misadventures of knights-errant who traveled the world doing justice.
One of the characteristics of the chivalric novel is full of giants, fantastic beings, wizards and sorceresses, magic potions and other unlikely elements drawn from the imagination of men. The most representative novel of this type is Amadís de Gaula, to which various authors are attributed.
Science fiction
The characteristics of the science fiction novel are the scientific and technical speculations, the themes of space travel, the distant future, extraterrestrial civilizations and, above all, future developments. HG Wells with works like The War of the Worlds, is an emblematic writer of this genre.
Adventures
The basic principle of an adventure novel is that a hero leaves his everyday world into a strange and dangerous world where he has to master all kinds of life-threatening problems and tasks. The goal of his journey is usually to save a person or his own world that he departed from.
It is distinguished by a marked division of the characters between heroes and villains, the speed of action, exaggeration of feelings, full of kidnappings, chases, secrets and puzzles. One of the characteristics of the adventure novel is that its task is not so much to teach, analyze or describe reality, but rather to entertain the reader.
Customary
It is generally accepted that most of the novels that belong to the realist genre paint a picture of the existence and, therefore, of the individual or social behavior of human beings. But when this becomes the guideline for the author, the main object of the creative process, these novels in fact belong to the genre of costumbrista novels.
Sometimes the novelist strives to bring out the anecdotal and picturesque aspect of the situation, sometimes he goes below the surface of things to show men in contact with the social order and its limitations, its norms, its uses and its tacit or written violence. From then on, the writer chooses to be an impartial and objective observer taking his distance.
warlike
One of the characteristics of the war novel is a special form of literature that focuses on the description of combat operations, or the war forms the backdrop and, as an ominous event, influences the development story of the protagonist. Some works in this genre can also be seen as a form of the adventure novel. A special form of the war novel is the anti-war novel, which focuses on the meaninglessness and cruelty of war. Most war novels are historical novels.
espionage novels
The spy novel is a genre of literature where espionage is an important part of the context or plot. It arose at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, largely under the influence of the rivalry and intrigue of the main world powers, which was accompanied by the creation of modern intelligence services.
The spy novel developed during the period of the struggle against fascism and communism before and during World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War and, after its end, was given a new impetus by the rise of rebellious countries, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy, technological sabotage and industrial espionage as powerful threats to Western society.
Fantastic
The characteristics of the fantastic novel are to present supernatural situations, fairy tales and magic as the main theme. It generally uses elements of ancient mythology, traditional tales or legendary events. Figures from legends appear, such as dwarfs or sorcerers, but also beings that are products of fantasy or animals in human form. Often the plot moves to a fictional world that is clearly different from earthly reality. The fictional is considered real within the imaginary background.
Gothic
The gothic novel is a work based on the reader's pleasant feeling of horror, a prose romantic "noir novel" with elements of supernatural horror, mysterious adventures, fantasy, and mysticism (family curses and ghosts). It developed mainly in English-language literature. This is the forerunner of modern horror novels.
The name comes from the Gothic architectural style (novels are often set in old Gothic castles). However, at the suggestion of writer Margaret Drabble, the term Gothic was originally used in the sense of "medieval", as in the novel's subtitle "Castle of Otranto", which takes place in the Middle Ages (Castle of Otranto , a gothic tale).
Historical
The historical novel is built on a historical plot that artistically reproduces an era, a certain period of history. In a historical novel, historical truth is combined with fictional truth, historical fact with fiction, and real historical figures with fictional facts, the narrative being placed within the confines of the represented era. The entire narrative of a historical novel takes place in the context of historical events.
Black novel
The crime novel seems difficult to define due to its unstable structure and its various variations over time. However, certain recurring elements can be noted that are characteristic of the crime novel: a violent universe, a tragic and pessimistic view of society, a strong referential anchor and a political or social commitment.
Other criteria can be added to this definition due to its repeated presence in the noir novel: the use of street slang, being as close as possible to the social environment described, an essentially urban landscape like the one found in film noir. It is a detective novel that offers a realistic view of social conditions and crime. It was booming in the United States in the 1950s.
Picaresque novel
The picaresque novel has its origin in XNUMXth century Spain, it describes from the perspective of its hero, how he makes his way through life in a series of adventures. The rogue comes from the lower social classes, therefore he is uneducated, but cunning.
With the intention of overcoming the social stigmatization due to his low origin, he constantly seeks opportunities for advancement and often resorts to criminal means. The picaresque novel walks through all social classes and becomes its mirror. The hero has no influence on what happens around him, but he always manages to save himself from all difficult situations.
Traditionally, within the characteristics of the picaresque novel, it is a (fictional) autobiography with satirical features that addresses certain grievances of society. It often begins with a disillusionment with the hero, who only realizes the evil in the world here. He travels, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
The adventures lived are episodic, in other words, they are not interdependent and can be extended as necessary. The ending is usually a "conversion" of the rogue, after which he finds a normal life. There is also the possibility of escaping from the world, that is, from reality.
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