We classify texts into similar categories using three different methods: genre, structure, and fictive character. Genre is a classification of texts with similar tropes, plot patterns, and character conflicts. Structure is a classification based on formal strictures or textual syntax and text delivery. Fictive character is classified on how true a text is.
CONFUSED? Let's talk ice cream
Pretend that instead of talking about texts, were talking about ice cream. Here is how we would look at genre, structure, and fictive character if instead of stories, we were talking ice cream:
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GENRE would be the flavor of ice cream. Strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla all taste different, and when we're about to eat rocky road ice cream, we prepare our mouths for a different experience than if we were about to eat mint ice cream. Just as different people prefer different flavors, different readers prefer different genres. A text can be a blend of genres (like a double flavor swirl of ice cream) or narrow into subgenres (like how vanilla bean is a more specific type of vanilla).
STRUCTURE would be how the ice cream is served to the eater. Ice cream could be in a bowl, inside a cone, atop a pie, fried, between two cookies, within a bar or cake, mixed in a shake or float, or even eaten straight out of the carton. Each different kind of serving changes the eating experience: a banana split is not eaten in the same manner as root beer float. Text structure works the same way: a reader's experience changes if the story changes from a novel to an epistolary novella to a children's book to a film adaptation to a Broadway musical. FICTIVE CHARACTER would be how real the ice cream is. Is it true ice cream, handmade with natural flavors? Is it factory made with artificial flavors? Is it even ice cream at all, or is it a "wannabe" like frozen yogurt or sherbet? When examining texts, these categories are usually just "fiction" or "nonfiction," though there are some categories like "historical fiction" that straddle both designations. |
With that out of the way, let's focus on genre
What make genres popular and easy for readers of a text to remember is that they employ tropes. A trope is a literary device that reappears in similar literary texts. A trope can be a character type, a motif, a setting, a plot event, or a cliche. Different genres are defined by their use of different tropes. After all, what kind of romance would leave out true love's kiss and what would a horror movie be without the masked killer chasing the hopeless victim down the stairs into the cellar?
Note that archetypes are not the same as tropes. An archetype can appear across genres--for example, comedies, tragedies, horror stories, and westerns all use heroes, but each trope treats the hero differently. In comedies, the hero succeeds by accident, while the tragic hero is the cause of his own undoing. The horror hero must be virginal and pure, while the western hero must be willing to break the law. Texts that are considered a blend of genres use tropes from both genres together. Works that are considered "genre defying" play against some of their own tropes, while parodies make fun of a genre by pointing out the absurdity of the tropes. Below are the most common genres in literature.
Note that archetypes are not the same as tropes. An archetype can appear across genres--for example, comedies, tragedies, horror stories, and westerns all use heroes, but each trope treats the hero differently. In comedies, the hero succeeds by accident, while the tragic hero is the cause of his own undoing. The horror hero must be virginal and pure, while the western hero must be willing to break the law. Texts that are considered a blend of genres use tropes from both genres together. Works that are considered "genre defying" play against some of their own tropes, while parodies make fun of a genre by pointing out the absurdity of the tropes. Below are the most common genres in literature.
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
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Comedy: appeals to joyComedies appeal to the emotion of joy and try to invoke laughter. Characters are usually foolish with selfish motivations and desires. Conflicts in a comedy are based on hate or dislike for another character or situation, and while most conflicts are unrealistic, they are all ultimately solvable. The classic comedy begins with a death or some sort of tragic event that propels characters to leave regular life and enter "the green world," a place where rules and roles are reversed. If the wealthy and wise hold power in the real world, the poor and foolish thrive in the green world. Comedy depends on this reversal of expectation in the form of irony-- verbal irony (clever wordplay) and dramatic irony (when the audience knows something the characters don't). The reversals of fortune bring about joy, and the classic comedy ends with a marriage and happy endings. Comedies ultimately are examinations of life, how a good life is lived, and why life is worth living.
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Schindler's List (1993)
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Tragedy (Drama): appeals to sadnessTragedy (also known as drama) is the antithesis of comedy. Tragedies appeal to the emotion of sadness and try to invoke tears. Characters are usually very serious or intelligent, with most characters having selfless motivations and desires. Yet no matter how noble a tragic character is, they always have a tragic flaw that brings about their ruin. The tragic flaw could be hubris (expressive pride), greed, gluttony, or trusting the wrong person. In fact, misplaced love often drives the central conflict, as opposed to the dislike that fuels comedies. Conflicts in a tragedy test or exploit this tragic flaw, and while most conflicts are realistic, there is no way to solve the conflict in a way that makes everyone happy. The classic tragedy begins with a joyous occasion that brings people with different agendas and motivations together. The joyous society continues to break down, as every attempt to fix what is wrong makes things worse (dramatic irony). To establish these ironies, tragedies employ a lot of foreshadowing that warn against further intervention but the characters ignore. Classic tragedies ultimately result in death, either physical death or metaphorical (like the death of a family or death of a city). Tragedies ultimately are examinations of death, how a life ends, and how survivors deal with the repercussions of death.
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The Notebook (2004)
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Romance: appeals to loveRomances obviously evoke the emotion of love. As love is a secondary emotion made of joy and trust, both are essential to romances: all romances portray two leads that are both unhappy in life. These characters are typically opposites in personality, and first dislike each other. Yet these two characters are put in situations where they must be around each other-- sometimes for personal gain, and other times because one lead is pursuing the other. Eventually, all romances build tension to the scene where the two kiss, yet this is not the climax of the story. Even when the two leads both feel love, there is a common element keeping the lovers apart, often a secret. There is a big reveal, and the lovers breakup. This breakup is the ultimate test of the relationship, and the climax occurs at the reunion when the two decide to either reunite or move on. While the ending isn't always happy, the goal of the romance is always to end with two characters who are changed by love.
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Scream (1996)
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Horror: appeals to fearBoth tragic thrillers and horror cater specifically to fear, but slightly different. These genres focus on characters in peril, yet thrillers portray a realistic situation and antagonist, while horror focuses on unnatural monsters. The idea of the unnatural or supernatural monster is the heart of horror stories, and the conflict in every horror story is a protagonist trying to survive a threat of death by the unnatural force at work. Horror monsters are abominable killing machines with no humanity, and horror texts often portray an innocent, virginal, or purehearted protagonist as a counterpoint. While many perish, it is the moral goodness of the protagonist that (usually) leaves them alive and the monster dead at the end, as these stories revolve around the concept of just retribution (the good survive, while the wicked are punished). Violence is excessively used in horror, as well as elements of mystery. Horror stories also require isolation--a monster must get characters secluded from help in order to attack. A good horror doesn't necessarily have to be scary to be effective in purifying fear (as not every member of the audience fears the exact same monster), but does have to leave the audience with a lingering anxiety about hidden monsters in our own world.
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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)
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The Western: appeals to individual courageWesterns are characterized by their setting more than anything else. Westerns are mostly set, naturally, in the American West between 1840 and 1920. "The Old West" is defined by environmental challenges, small isolated towns, and a constant struggle to survive. The characters that inhabit this world are diverse and do whatever they can to survive, often resorting to robbery and violence to secure what few resources can be had. Physical skills are valued in the Old West: one must know how to handle horses, guns, and dynamite. Yet intelligence and patience are valued as well-- hot-tempered characters don't last long in the West. Little separates good and bad in a Western, as characters routinely are motivated by greed or vengeance, are willing to take the law into their own hands, and engage in vices like drinking and gambling. Yet the West has moral antiheroes like the gun-slinging Stranger or the hardworking Cowboy to ensure that justice, however grim, is done. While Westerns generally take place in the Old West, all these same tropes apply to samurai stories in Japan, postcolonial tales in 20th century Africa, and even the Legend of Robin Hood.
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Saving Private Ryan (1998)
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War: appeals to collective courageLike the Western, War stories are also about survival and mastery of weapons and strategy, yet they forgo the lone hero. The isolation motifs of the Old West are instead replaced by brotherhood-- trusting others with one's life and mourning the loss of comrades are common occurrences in War. War also focuses on the character of The Soldier, who may or may not be willing to fight and who questions his humanity. Another common character is the General, the leader in battle who the men ironically both hate and love. War stories always have a theme that revolves around the purpose of conflict and if broken societies can ever be truly repaired.
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Spirited Away (2001)
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Fantasy: appeals to wonderWestern and War strive to be historically accurate and realistic most of the time, yet not all genres attempt a nonfictional feel. The furthest from realism is Fantasy. Fantasy always is built off a "What if?" question and dabbles in creatures and settings that do not exist. Often, Fantasy has a societal struggle, such as a war or uprising, and tries its best to create a mythology for its world. Since Fantasy apes myth, most characters embody archetypes. Fantasy stories typically feature a journey, and there are clear lines drawn between good and evil. Fantasy worlds also rely on magic and the use of deus ex machina. Often, Fantasy exists to explore worlds that are better than ours and deal in escapism.
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Forbidden Planet (1956)
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Science Fiction: appeals to shockScience Fiction is like Fantasy in that it offers a world different than our own, yet Science Fiction deals in possibilities over the impossible. Science Fiction always takes place in the future or an alternative past or present where history turned out differently thanks to the development of new technologies. Instead of magic driving the plot and creating fantastic creatures and situations, it is science and machinery that are front and center. Common tropes include space travel, aliens, robots, time travel, reanimation of the dead, and mind switching. While providing escapism like Fantasy, Science Fiction does not answer "What if?" or "If only..." questions; instead, Science Fiction warns "If this continues," meditating on the historical implications of a technology on a society. As such, Science Fiction is always a critique or reflection of a society's history or current politics.
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The Maltese Falcon (1941)
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Mystery: appeals to curiosityMystery stories always start the same way: with a crime (usually a murder or burglary). We, as the reader, are put in the position of the Detective trying to solve the crime. These stories always have a great number of characters to act as suspects, strange (sometimes supernatural) occurrences, and a sense of misdirection. Mysteries also contain a threat of death for the protagonist or detective, as there must be some risk involved with solving the mystery. The plot of a Mystery involves the Detective eliminating suspects one by one until there is a "parlor scene" where he or she confronts and exposes the true culprit. A stylized subgenre of Mystery is noir, which takes a male detective of dubious morals and tempts him with a femme fatal. Remember that while many stories have elements of mystery and unknowns, Mystery revolves around a single crime with an unknown culprit.
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Inside Man (2006)
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Crime: appeals to alarmCrime is the same plot as a mystery, yet told from the perspective of the Culprits instead of the Detective. Instead of the mystery surrounding "Who did it?," The mystery becomes "How will they do it?" or "Will they be caught?" There are four basic Crime plots: the Heist (where Culprits are trying to steal something valuable or rob someone with deceit), the Spree (where criminals commit a series of crimes), the Fugitive (where the Culprit is being pursued and is on the run), and the Gang War (where a gang of criminals or a Mafia is fighting the authorities or another gang). Some Crime stories alternate between the perspective of the Detective and the Culprit, especially those involving a Fugitive or a Spree. Often, Crime involves violence, an Inside Man, and a twist ending.
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Jurassic Park (1993)
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Quest for Adventure: appeals to optimismWhile every genre has its share of action, Quests for Adventure center on a protagonist searching for something and having to leave home to find it. The Hero may be going to find answers or a certain idem or even self satisfaction. The item the character is seeking is called a macguffin, and the character is often pitted against Competitors trying to also get the macguffin and Defenders who have the macguffin and want to keep it. The Hero enlists Companions to help him or her get the macguffin and encounters dangers along the way back. Occasionally, the macguffin is one's home; the quest to go home is called an odyssey, named after the oldest quest in Western literature. Almost every myth is a quest for adventure, as this is the oldest genre.
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Clerks (1994)
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Slice of Life: appeals to annoyanceA slice of life is a story revolving around everyday experiences. There is no deadly threat or amazing quest--rather, the plot revolves around a character's inner journey of understanding and personal change. Slice of Life attempts to capture the real world as accurately as possible: in art, this is photography; in film, this is the documentary; and in literature, this is the memoir. The most popular type of slice of life story is the bildungsroman, which is a story about the protagonist making the transition from childhood to adulthood. While the ancient Quest for Adventure is about saving society, the modern Slice of Life story is about saving one's self. The stories start with a protagonist stuck in the perfunctory routine of everyday life. Often, this character is satisfied with his or her dull lot in life until another character makes them realize that they're actually dissatisfied deep down. The protagonist debates the merits of making a life change and goes through struggles with personal growth. Typically, employment drives the conflict, as it takes up a bulk of everyday life; characters often want a new job or promotion, more money, or more job security. At the end of the story, the protagonist is once again satisfied with his or her lot in life, having gone through a personal change. Slice of Life stories focus on open-ended events, emphases on time and seasons passing, frustration, and unchanging stasis.
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