English · Chapter 4
Study notes aligned to the official NEB syllabus.
A large part of the Grade 11 English paper is based on set texts: the stories, poems and plays prescribed in the course. These questions carry the most marks, usually as long answers such as "describe the central idea", "draw a character sketch", "summarise the poem" or "discuss the story". To answer them well you do not need to memorise the whole text word for word. You need to understand what each text is about and to control a small set of literary tools that examiners expect you to use: plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, tone and figurative language. This chapter explains those tools and shows how to shape an answer to any set-text question, whatever the actual text.
A story is built from a few working parts, and naming them helps you organise an answer.
The plot is the sequence of events, usually moving through an opening situation, a rising complication, a climax or turning point, and a resolution. When a question asks you to "rewrite" or "summarise" the story, you are being asked to retell the plot in your own words, in order, keeping only the important events and leaving out small detail.
The characters are the people in the story. The main character is the protagonist, and any character who opposes the protagonist is the antagonist. Characters are revealed by what they say, what they do, and what others say about them.
The setting is the time and place in which the story happens, and it often shapes the mood. The conflict is the struggle that drives the story, whether between two characters, between a character and society or nature, or within a single character's mind.
The point of view is the position from which the story is told: by a character using "I" (first person) or by an outside narrator (third person). Some questions ask you to retell an event from another character's point of view, which means rewriting it as that person would see and feel it, using "I" for them.