Spoiler Alerts And The Teaching Of Literature

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My American Literature students and I were reading The Scarlet Letter, and I asked how many of them had read it before or who at least knew the story.  Most had, but two students did not.  I find it difficult to discuss a novel in discrete sections without reference to the whole work, so I find myself giving away the endings.  One year, my students bought me a t-shirt with WARNING:  SPOILER ALERT emblazoned across the chest.  Since then I’ve tried to be more sensitive about ruining the endings of books.

So when two of my current students had no idea who Hester’s husband was or who the father of Pearl was, I said, “OK, I’m going to lead you through the process of figuring out the identities so I can talk about the novel as a whole without spoiling the ending, and you can still feel you figured it out yourselves.” 

First of all, I said, “Think of the beginning of any story and the way the characters are introduced.  Every narrative is going to introduce the main characters within the first few pages or scenes.  Within minutes you meet the protagonist, the love interest, or the murderer, whatever the case may be.  In fact, if you meet an important character late in a work, that’s usually the mark of inferior literature.  Therefore, you know you have already met the husband and father.”  Then I asked the students to list the important characters, and they listed Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, along with Bellingham and Reverend Wilson, who will not be so prominent as the novel proceeds, but who are seemingly important male characters in the first few chapters if you’re looking for candidates for a husband or a father.

Next, I pointed out that a conflict among characters requires triangulation.  â€œBoy meets girl may be interesting, but boy meets girl who then meets another boy holds far more plot potential,” I said.  “All effective stories involve some form of triangulation of desire.  Which three characters present the most interesting triangulation?”  Immediately the students realized that one of the important men—Dimmesdale, Bellingham, or Wilson—would have to be the father because, first of all, it’s impossible for any of them to be the lost husband, and having the governor or a minister violate the ethical mandates of his office would make for good theater.

From there it’s just a matter of close reading a few key passages and the students were able to put together the pieces of the literary puzzle and declare Dimmesdale the father and Chillingworth the husband.

So that was a fun exercise in and of itself, but I realized in the middle of the process that I was demonstrating for the students, even those who already knew the answers, how to recognize and apply certain literary patterns to comprehend and make predictions about a text.  Good readers do these things automatically.  But like a native speaker who knows how and when to say things but who cannot explain why, “native” readers do these things without knowing what or how or why. I thought to seize the momentum of the moment and roll out a couple other useful nuggets—like, “If there’s a gun in the first chapter it must be fired by the last,” or “Comedies begin with death and end with birth or marriage, and tragedies begin with birth or marriage and end with death.”

A few weeks later, my son was reading The Outsiders.  He put the book down about midway through, when Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally are hiding out in the church, and Cormac said to me, “You know, this is funny because heroes usually have to descend into the underworld, except in this story they’re in a church, so it’s ironic.”  I said, “That’s a good observation.  What do you think has to happen next?”  Cormac said, “Well, if Ponyboy’s the hero, he has to be reborn somehow, or purified.”  I said, “What can purify?”  Cormac said, “Water …”  “Or …?” I asked.  “Or fire,” Cormac said, and then he got all excited and yelled, “Oh my god, they’re going to burn the church down by accident because they’re smoking, and then Pony and Johnny will have to save people’s lives and prove to everybody that they’re actually good people!”

And I smiled and thought, Yes, I have trained you well!

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