After reading several short stories, freshman students should be ready to tackle a novel. I tell them the word means “new” since the novel is a relatively new genre that emerged as recently as the eighteenth century as opposed to poetry, an ancient literary genre that predates Homer. Literary scholars consider Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to be the first novel. The novel is obviously longer than the short story and involves more people and events. The first novels that were written several centuries ago catered to the desire of the rising middle class to read something that suited their taste, something less sophisticated than the poetry and essays that had been written up to that period in history, something that was a nice, long story about people living out their daily lives. Broadly speaking, a novel is a fictional representation of a specific group of human beings who interact with one another and who live in a specific locale.

The novelist uses the basic elements of the story story—plot, setting, characterization, theme—but these elements are usually more extended in scope. Whereas a short story usually includes one setting, one major conflict, one set of characters, and one theme, a novel often includes several of each element. Like the short story writer, the novelist has something important to say and conveys his or her insights about life, human nature, or human experience via story telling. A good novel, or for that matter a good short story, often deals with the motives, actions, and experiences of people to whom we can relate, although this may not the case with every novel. The resulting narrative of a novel is significant; it instructs us or it moves us, and it has stood the test of time.  Students should also know about the novella as a genre, which is too long to be considered a short story and too short to be considered a novel. Famous novellas include Dickens’s Christmas Carol, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, and Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.

I usually discuss two novels with a freshmen class. Popular choices include Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Both books are dystopian fiction, and both convey a significant cultural theme from which young people can benefit. Students usually read a substantial portion of an asssigned novel before class discussion begins.