For many people,story-reading is probably one of the greatest paradoxes in life:it is the most familiar,yet the least known.Who has not read stories,or been engaged in watching its variant forms—TV series and movies?（The monthly magazine Stories published in Shanghai boasts subions of more than four million.）Yet,how many people can say for sure and with confidence that they can talk intelligently about their experience of reading except for emotional outbursts.
Worse yet,many people laugh at the idea that stories should or need to be analyzed systematically,and that the systematic analysis could result in better appreciation of what one reads.They believe that story-reading is best carried out with least intellectual interference.It's true that,for either common readers or professional critics,story-reading involves a great deal of emotion,but it is also true that intellect plays an important role in our reading experience,just as it does in any human activity.When you fall in love with someone,you do so with both heart and head,don't you?It becomes a blind pursuit when you charge ahead with nothing but emotion,and blind pursuits lead you anywhere and nowhere.Also,writers write stories with both emotion and intellectual considerations,and those who write following only their emotions don't write good stories.Good stories are the result of the combination of emotional involvement and intellectual planning.
How do we then read a story intelligently?Literary critics and university professors often present lists of methods that might intimidate or confuse ordinary readers,methods that involve abstruse and complex terms and ideas invented seemingly to discourage their comprehension.The most practical way to approach a story then is to identify the most important and prominent components of a story.The story is a structure,like a table,which consists of two parts,the top and the leg.The top can be of different sizes and shapes,with small or large number of legs.Some tables have additions like drawers or are covered with tablecloths,but the basic components remain the same.Similarly,the story can be long or short,of different subjects,but its structure remains stable with its basic components.To identify those components,let's first read the following story.
The Dinner Party——Mona Gardner
I first heard this story in India,where it is told as if true—though any naturalist would know it couldn't be.Later I learned that a magazine version of it appeared shortly before the First World War.This account,and its author,I have never been able to track down.
The country is India.A colonial official and his wife are giving a large dinner party.They are seated with their guests—army officers and government attaches and their wives,and a visiting American naturalist—in their spacious dining room,which has a bare marble floor,open rafters,and wide glass doors opening onto a veranda.
A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who insists that women have outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a colonel who says that they haven't.
"A woman's unfailing reaction in any crisis",the colonel says,"is to scream.And while a man may feel like it,he has that ounce more of nerve control than a woman has.And that last ounce is what counts".
The American does not join in the argument but watches the other guests.As he looks,he sees a strange expression come over the face of the hostess.She is staring straight ahead,her muscles contracting slightly.With a slight gesture she summons the native boy standing behind her chair and whispers to him.The boy's eyes widen:he quickly leaves the room.
Of the guests,none except the American notices this or sees the boy place a bowl of milk on the veranda just outside the open doors.
The American comes to with a start.In India milk in a bowl means only one thing—bait for a snake.He realizes there must be a cobra in the room.He looks up at the rafters—the likeliest place—but they are bare.Three corners of the room are empty,and in the forth the servants are waiting to serve the next course.There is only one place left—under the table.
His first impulse is to jump back and warn the others,but he knows the commotion would frighten the cobra into striking.He speaks quickly,the tone of his voice so arresting that it sobers everyone.
"I want to know just what control everyone at this table has.I will count three hundred—that's five minutes—and not one of you is to move a muscle.Those who move will forfeit 50 rupees.Ready!"
The 20 people sit like stone images while he counts.He is saying"...two hundred and eighty..."when,out of the corner of his eye,he sees the cobra emerge and make for the bowl of milk.Screams ring out as he jumps to slam the veranda doors safely shut.
"You were right,Colonel!"the host exclaims,"A man has just shown us an example of perfect control."
"Just a minute,"the American says,turning to his hostess."Mrs.Wynnes,how did you know that cobra was in the room?"
A faint smile lights up the woman's face as she replies:"Because it was crawling across my foot."