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2017-2018 Educational Programs page 1 of 13
Language Arts: Story Analysis and Theme
Students Will
Read the "Synopsis" and "The Librettist"
Read and discuss "Literary Elements Review"
Complete the Activity Worksheet(s) and Plot Diagram
Copies for Students
"Synopsis"
"The Librettist"
"Literary Elements Review"
Activity Worksheets
Copies for the Teacher
"Synopsis"
"The Librettist"
"Literary Elements Review"
Activity Worksheets
ANSWER KEYS for Activity Worksheets
Getting Ready
Review the lesson. Gather pens, pencils, and additional writing paper as needed for your group.
Introduction
Read the "Synopsis" as a class. Continue reading through the Literary Elements Review, discussing concepts
as you go.
Guided Practice
You may want to use a story your students are familiar with to complete an example linear plot diagram or
review conflict types, etc. as a class before moving on to the Activity Worksheets.
Independent Practice
Depending on your student's grade level, the ability of your students, and time constraints, you may choose
to have students work as a whole class, in small groups, with a partner, or individually. Read the directions
on the activity worksheets. Provide instruction and model the activity as needed. Have students complete
the activity worksheets with opportunity for questions.
Evaluation Have students share their answers individually or by groups and explain why they gave their answers. The
teacher may want to guide the discussion with the sample answers provided.
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TEKS
(5) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Fiction. Students understand, make inferences and draw
conclusions about the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support their
understanding. (A. B. C.)
Correlates: Music
Gardner’s Intelligences: Verbal-Linguistic, Musical, Interpersonal
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis
Sources:
Sunken Garden Libretto
https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/how-read-and-analyze-short-story-english-iii-reading
"About David Mitchell." http://www.davidmitchellbooks.com/about-david-mitchell/ (Accessed August 31,
2017)
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Synopsis
A parachutist falls to earth. Toby Kramer, a wannabe video-artist, is visited by one Zenna Briggs in his
basement flat. Zenna represents the James and Zenna Briggs Arts Foundation, and wishes to see Toby’s
work in progress: a film about a vanished IT contractor named Simon Vines. It mixes short interviews with
Simon’s ex-wife Ally, his landlady Mrs. Wales, and friend Sadaqat who lives in a psychiatric ward and
believes that a staff-member, Doctor Marinus, is an incorporeal being. Zenna is captivated by Toby’s
‘Portrait of a Missing Man’ and gives Toby a fat banker’s draft.
Three months later. Zenna visits Toby for an update. Toby confesses he hasn’t found Simon Vines; but has
identified a girl, Amber Jacquemain, whom Simon Vines met while visiting Sadaqat. Unfortunately, Amber
has also vanished into thin air. Toby plays excerpts from an interview with Amber’s mother, Portia, who
assumes her daughter is having (another) fling with an inappropriate man and will reappear when ‘the
wonga’s running low’. Zenna guesses Simon and Amber eloped, but then Toby shows her video clips from
Amber’s iPhone: this hedonistic montage includes Amber describing a dream of a sunken garden, where
she’s innocent of certain crimes. Zenna hands over more money and leaves. Toby interacts with Amber’s
image like a man losing his heart and his sanity.
March. Zenna now wants to see a return on the Foundation’s investment. Toby claims that Simon and Amber
were abducted. Sceptically, Zenna asks for proof. Toby shows new footage of Sadaqat, who now asserts that
the missing man and woman were the victims of a hunter who uses the dream of a peaceful garden to entrap
the tormented. Sadaqat repeats his assertion that Doctor Marinus is involved, and infers that Toby, too,
dreams this dream. Zenna now tells Toby that the Foundation wants nothing more to do with these paranoid
delusions.
His mind unspooling, Toby Kramer wanders the city’s edges until he comes upon a bright door in the pillar
of a flyover. Toby goes through, and finds a sunken garden – and Simon Vines, or at least a frozen image of
him which, when touched, bursts into brief, staticky, verbal life. The mysterious Marinus enters. Toby
accuses her of somehow incarcerating Simon in this place. Marinus denies the charge. A living hologram of
Amber appears and gives an equally cryptic account of herself before freezing. Toby asks what Marinus
gains from this: Marinus demands that the garden’s maker step forward…
Through a vertical pond, Zenna appears: she and Marinus circle one another like mongoose and cobra. The
garden, we learn, is an occult engine built by Zenna in the dusk between life and death. The garden converts
the visitors’ souls and memories into immortality for its creator. After half a year in world-time, nothing is
left of the visitors but undying moths. Zenna reveals her back-story from an orphaned half-caste girlhood in
the British Raj to an undying architect of the occult in the twenty-first century. Marinus threatens to detonate
her own powers, thereby destroying the sunken garden and everyone in it, unless Zenna agrees to this deal:
allow Toby free passage back to the world; award Simon and Amber a ‘retrial’; and allow Marinus to
dismantle the garden. With icy illgrace, Zenna agrees to the deal.
Simon and Amber reveal their back-stories, involving the cot-death of Simon’s daughter and an act of spite
that killed Amber’s rival in love. Their stories told, the two withdraw. Zenna tells Marinus that the deal is
off, so Marinus breaches the sunken garden and collapses, spent, as the dusk floods in. Mockingly, Zenna
makes a second announcement: she is here not in body but only in spirit. Her corporeal self is safe in Toby’s
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basement flat, through the vertical pond. She intends to build another sunken garden, rendering Marinus’
sacrifice futile. But Zenna pays dearly for her mockery, as Marinus manages to use her dying voltage to stun
her enemy. In the last possible moment, Toby exits the garden via the vertical pond, but there is one serious
catch…
Some weeks later. Toby ruminates on his awkward fate as a man trapped inside Zenna’s now-mortal body.
He replays a film, the last that he – or ‘she’ – will ever shoot: it shows Portia Jacquemain, describing how
she learnt that Amber’s body was found; and recalls a day, long ago, when she and her daughter shared a
moment of pure understanding. Next up is Simon, large as life, discussing his grief and self-blame over the
cot-death. He is dressed in parachuting gear, and Sadaqat and Mrs. Wales wave him onto a light aircraft. Up
it climbs. Out he jumps. Look at it, this… massive, unfair, beautiful, cruel, miraculous… World-Machine.
Look at it. And you think, ‘I’m a part of this, too.’
The Librettist
David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,
Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, Ghostwritten and The Bone Clocks. Twice shortlisted for
the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME
magazine in 2007. With KA Yoshida, Mitchell co-translated from the Japanese the international bestselling
memoir, The Reason I Jump. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children. Cloud Atlas and
Number9Dream have both been made into films and he has written the libretti for two operas, Sunken
Garden (2013) and Wake (2010).
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Literary Elements Review
Plot Analysis
A Linear Plot is one way to organize the plot of a story. The story moves continuously forward from point A
to point B and contains some specific elements:
Opening/Exposition: introduces the characters and sets the tone of the story
Inciting Incident: what happens to kick off the action of the story – the main conflict is introduced and
reveals the protagonist (good guy) and the antagonist (bad guy)
Rising Action: everything that happens in the story that adds conflict and builds suspense
Climax: the turning point of the story – the rising action builds to this most intense moment in the conflict
Falling Action: what happens after the climax to let us know how the resolution could be achieved
Resolution: how the conflict is resolved and all the loose ends of the story are tied up to finish the story
Conflict is always what keeps the story moving forward and keeps the reader interested. Events and actions
build to increase the conflict until it is resolved and the story ends.
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Setting
The setting is when and where a story takes place. It can also convey the mood and tone. Every story needs a
location – a time and a place. If you were to take the plot of any story and change the setting, it Could change
the entire story, and in some cases, even the theme of the work. To help analyze the setting, ask the
following questions:
What does it look like, sound like, feel like?
How long does it take for the action to occur? What clues does the author give to indicate how much
time is passing?
What is the social environment portrayed in the work – the manners, customs, codes of conduct of a
society? What does the author seem to think about them?
Characters
Literary characters can be simple or complex. Complex characters undergo a change sometime during the
story, so they are also dynamic. Simple characters are often static – they do not change or grow in any way.
Complex characters tend to not always take heroic action during the plot. In any story there are always
characters defined as the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist is the character whose interests the
reader is most concerned with, and sympathetic toward. The antagonist is the character who opposes what
readers want for the protagonist. Out of this opposition comes the conflict in the story.
We learn about characters through what they do or say directly, the way the narrator or another character
describes them, through their thoughts and interactions with other characters, and through the author’s
descriptions. They can be developed directly (by telling the reader what they are like) or indirectly (showing
the reader what they are like).
Conflict
Conflict is the key to every good story. It’s what keeps us interested, leaves us wondering what’s going to
happen to the characters so we’ll finish the story to see how everything works out. Will the superhero defeat
the villain at last? Will the dog find his way back home? Will everything be ok again? When you ask these
kinds of questions during a story, it’s a signal you’re in the middle of a conflict.
There are two main types of conflict: external and internal. External conflict exists when there is a problem
between the character and an outside source, like another character, society as a whole, or nature. These are
usually labeled as character vs. character, character vs. society, or character vs. nature. Internal conflict is the
opposite. It describes a conflict within a character, usually centered around values or feelings about an event.
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Point of View
The point of view is the perspective from which events in a story are told. See the chart below for a few
commonly used points of view.
Theme
The theme of a work is an abstract idea or observation that addresses human motivation, the human
condition, or human ambition, and it rises from every element of the story. Choices make about the setting,
characters, conflict, plot, and point of view all influence the theme.
When discussing the theme of a story, make sure your observation:
is not too terse to express the complexity of the human experience
avoids moralizing words such as should and ought
avoids specific reference to plot and characters (difference between theme and plot summary)
avoids absolute words such as anyone, all, none, everything, and everyone
avoids clichés such as “love is blind”
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Name__________________________________________________Date_____________________________
Activity Worksheet 1: Literary Elements & Theme
Answer the questions below after you are familiar with the story of Sunken Garden. Your answers will help
guide your theme analysis in Activity Worksheet 2.
1. By way of exposition, we are told that
a. Simon and Amber are trapped in the sunken garden
b. Toby is a filmmaker researching Simon’s disappearance
c. Zenna built the sunken garden
2. The rising action in the story is made up of
a. Marinus defeating Zenna
b. Toby’s meetings with Zenna to go over what he’s discovered about Simon
3. The point of view in the story is that of
a. Third-person limited
b. Third-person omniscient
c. First person
4. The character of Simon is largely developed through
a. What another character says about him
b. Direct statements by the author describing his actions and thoughts
c. His own words and actions
5. Which character is the protagonist?
a. Zenna
b. Toby
c. Marinus
6. The main conflict in the story can best be described as:
a. Internal, character vs. self
b. External, taking the form of character vs. character or character vs. society
c. External, taking the form of character vs. nature or the supernatural
7. Which event could be considered part of the rising action?
a. Toby discovers the sunken garden
b. Toby is trapped in Zenna’s body
c. We learn of the death of Simon’s daughter
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8. The climax is the story’s high point which may take the shape of a decision, an action, an affirmation
or denial, or an illumination or realization. Given this definition, identify the climax of Sunken
Garden.
a. Marinus threatens to destroy the sunken garden if Zenna does not comply with her demands
b. Toby exits the garden but in doing so becomes trapped in Zenna’s body
c. Zenna appears to Toby and Marinus in the garden
9. Summarize the resolution of the story:
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Linear Plot Diagram
Complete a linear plot diagram of Sunken Garden in the space below:
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ANSWER KEY 1
Activity Worksheet 1: Literary Elements & Theme
Answer the questions below after you are familiar with the story of Sunken Garden. Your answers will help
guide your theme analysis in Activity Worksheet 2.
1. By way of exposition, we are told that
a. Simon and Amber are trapped in the sunken garden
b. Toby is a filmmaker researching Simon’s disappearance
c. Zenna built the sunken garden
2. The rising action in the story is made up of
a. Marinus defeating Zenna
b. Toby’s meetings with Zenna to go over what he’s discovered about Simon
3. The point of view in the story is that of
a. Third-person limited
b. Third-person omniscient
c. First person
4. The character of Simon is largely developed by
a. What another character says about him
b. Direct statements by the author describing his actions and thoughts
c. His own words and actions
5. Which character is the protagonist?
a. Zenna
b. Toby
c. Marinus
6. The main conflict in the story can best be described as:
a. Internal, character vs. self
b. External, taking the form of character vs. character or character vs. society
c. External, taking the form of character vs. nature or the supernatural
7. Which event could be considered part of the rising action?
a. Toby discovers the sunken garden
b. Toby is trapped in Zenna’s body
c. We learn of the death of Simon’s daughter
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8. The climax is the story’s high point which may take the shape of a decision, an action, an affirmation
or denial, or an illumination or realization. Given this definition, identify the climax of Sunken
Garden.
a. Marinus threatens to destroy the sunken garden if Zenna does not comply with her
demands
b. Toby exits the garden but in doing so becomes trapped in Zenna’s body
c. Zenna appears to Toby and Marinus in the garden
9. Summarize the resolution of the story:
Toby escapes the garden and makes it back to the real world but is trapped in Zenna’s body.
Simon survives, but Amber does not.
(sample, answers will vary slightly)
Linear Plot Diagram
Complete a linear plot diagram of Sunken Garden in the space below:
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Name__________________________________________________Date_____________________________
Activity Worksheet 2: Theme Analysis
In the space below state the theme of Sunken Garden. Then, write a three paragraph summary supporting
your theme with evidence from the story. Remember to include all the literary elements which support the
theme: plot, characters, point of view, etc.
THEME:___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
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ANSWER KEY 2
Activity Worksheet 2: Theme Analysis
In the space below state the theme of Sunken Garden. Then, write a three paragraph summary supporting
your theme with evidence from the story. Remember to include all the literary elements which support the
theme: plot, characters, point of view, etc.
* Answers will vary. It is left to the teacher to determine whether the student has a clearly stated
theme that is supported by literary evidence.
