Ask a Teacher

A novel is a long prose narrative that describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. The genre has historical roots in antiquity and the fields of medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century.The importance of novel are

a.The novels became part of the lives of different sections of people.

b.Development in print technology allowed the novel to break out of its small circle of readers and introduced fresh ways of reading.

c.Through stories, novels have also shown a lives of those who were not often known to literate and middle class circles.

d.Bringing together people from varied background produces a sense of shared community.

e.By bringing in both the powerful and the marginal people and cultures, the novel throws up many questions about the nature of these communities.

f.Novels produce a sense of sharing and promotes an understanding of different people, different communities.