The analysis of “The cop and the Anthem”
Conflict is the struggle which every story, novel develops around. It contains that two types of conflict are External conflict and Internal conflict. External conflict may take the form of a basic opposition, between man and nature, between man and society, between man and man. Internal conflict include between man and himself.
This short story’s conflict belongs to man and society of external conflict.
Plot is the deliberately arranged sequence of interrelated events that makes up its basic narrative structure.
The plot of the traditional short story is often conceived of as moving through five distinct stages. They are exposition, complication, climax and resolution.
In this short story, the exposition is from one paragraph to five paragraph, Soapy desired to spend the winter in prison; the complication is from six paragraph to thirty-one paragraph, Soapy sought many ways to make cop catch him, but in vain. The key stage of plot is climax is from thirty-two paragraph to thirty-six paragraph, Soapy come to an old church and began to reflect himself in the past. Resolution is from thirty-seven paragraph to forty-one paragraph, although Soapy decided to change himself, he was caught by the cop for nothing in the end.
Character is a vital and necessary element of short story, without character, there would be no plot an hence, no story when we speak of character in literary analysis. We are concerned essentially with three separate, but closely connected, activities.
In this short story, Soapy is protagonist. The cop and the whole society is antagonist. Methods of characterization include two methods, one method is telling, and the other method is the indirect.
Direct methods of revealing character-characterization by telling.
1.Characterization through the use of names.
2.Characterization through appearance.
3. Characterization by the author’s comment.
There are essentially two methods of indirect...