Explicit and Implicit Main Ideas in Narrative Essays

The Essay
The words “explicit” and “implicit” are antonyms, or words that express directly opposite meanings. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an idea that is explicit is “fully and completely expressed.” It does not require the reader to guess or to infer meaning. For example, imperative statements are explicit. “Shut the window” is an explicit statement since there is no doubt as to the meaning. In contrast, if someone sitting in a room with an open window says, “It is chilly in here,” the implied meaning is that the window should be shut. If a husband reaches for his car keys wearing a dirty tee shirt and his wife says, “Are you ready to go to dinner?” she may be implying that he needs to change his clothes. However, he may infer that she is anxious to leave because it is past the dinner hour or because it has been a long time since they have been to a restaurant and not think about his casual dress. Thus, we see that “A statement can have various implications, which may lead to inferences on the part of the reader” (Guth 626).

Explicit statements are necessary in scientific and legal writing because their purpose is to convey facts and explain events unambiguously. A writer does not want to leave room for misinterpretation. But even when the writing is less formal, it needs explicit statements to convey information clearly. Giving directions, comparing and contrasting, explaining the parts of a device, giving the definition of a term, explaining causes and effects, or telling how to solve a problem, all require explicit language.

Where, then, is there a place for implicit meaning? Informal essays and works of fiction often leave the writer's meaning implicit, allowing readers to make their own interpretations. An example is a fable, which is a story with a moral at the end. The idea is not expressed explicitly within the story but is appended, made explicit for the purposes of instruction. But writers of fiction usually choose to tell their stories and let the readers draw their own conclusions, understanding that the intended point may be missed or misinterpreted. The enterprise of literary criticism is based on the idea that literary works are inherently ambiguous and that because each reader is unique, he or she may infer a different meaning. Of course, it is also possible for writers to explicitly state their main ideas in stories or essays, but such literary works are less common and are often disparaged as being didactic or polemic. The essays in this week's assignment illustrate both explicit and implicit main ideas.

The paragraphs above constitute the introduction to the paper. The writer uses two sources in helping to explain the relevant terms, explicit and implicit. Look at the works cited at the end of the paper to see how these sources are documented. The second point to notice is that the introduction ends with a sentence that organizes the rest of the discussion: "The essays in this week's assignment illustrate both explicit and implicit main ideas."

In the first of these, “Faith of the Farther” by Sam Pickering, the main idea is explicit. Although it is not stated in any one sentence, it emerges from the accretion of ideas in several sentences.

The sentence above is a topic sentence that identifies the essay and its author and states the writer's opinion that the main idea in the essay is implicit.

In the opening paragraphs, Pickering sets the scene, narrowing his focus from the small Virginia town to the church and its religious observances, and finally to the people. He remembers his experiences with the church and its people in a kindly way as demonstrated when he tells the story of Miss Ida and her Easter Bonnet. He recalls that when Miss Ida did not show up at the opening of Easter services the year after a startled pigeon had spoiled her hat, and consequently “Easter seemed sadly ordinary” (134). However, when she finally appeared with her bonnet cleaned and newly embellished, he says “Our hearts leaped up, and at the end of the service people in Richmond must have heard us singing “'Christ the Lord Is Risen Today'' (134). The simple people and close community are warmly remembered.

In the paragraph above, the writer gives necessary information about the content of Pickering's essay. However, he does not retell the story of Miss Ida and her hat, but summarizes, quoting only a couple of key sentences that support his contention that Pickering has warm feelings about his youthful church experiences.

Following the story of Miss Ida, Pickering reflects on his early religious feelings and somewhat sadly acknowledges that he no longer enjoys the comfort that they once provided. He ends his reflections with a rhetorical question: “Why if it [the faith of our fathers] endured dungeon, fire, and sword in others, did it weaken so within me?” (134). His answer to this question constitutes the main idea of the essay that he gives in the following paragraph.

This paragraph makes a transition between the summary of the story of Miss Ida and his church experiences and the writer's discussion of Pickering's main idea.

He concludes that his faith has not remained vital because the environment in which he lives is antithetical to religious feeling. He notes that “For me religion ought to be more concerned with people than ideas, creating soft feeling rather than sharp thought” (134). And it was experiences such as the Christmas Eve and Easter celebrations of his childhood, that had the warmth, caring, and loving kindness that created and sustained his religious feeling.

The university where he now lives and works provides the contrast. At the university, “people are separated by idea rather than linked by story” and “religion doesn't have a natural place. In the absence of community, ceremony becomes important” (134). But ceremony is changeable and controversial and “subject to dispassionate analysis” (134). Consequently, “ceremony doesn't tie people together like accounts of Pigeons and peonies and thus doesn't promote good feelings and finally love for this world, and hope for the next” (134-5).

The two preceding paragraphs explain the contrast between Pickering's early church experiences and his present life in a university setting. It also highlights Pickering's answer to the rhetorical question about why his faith has diminished.

The main idea, although not contained within one individual sentence, emerges clearly: A community where people share religious observes and love and support one another in their everyday lives is necessary to sustain the religious feelings which wither in an environment of dispassionate analysis and soulless ceremony.

Based on an analysis of Pickering's essay and supported by evidence quoted from the essay, the writer now identifies what he sees as Pickering's main idea.

The next essay to consider is “Traveling South” by James Weldon Johnson. The editor's note tells us that The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, from which this chapter is taken, is in fact of work of fiction and not the real story of the author's life. The main idea in this chapter is not explicit but implied.

This is a transitional paragraph. It identifies the next essay that will be discussed and asserts that the main idea in the essay is implied rather than explicit.

Johnson tells of his first-time journey into the south to attend college in Atlanta and the theft of his money, which radically altered his plans. After discovering the theft, his first impulse was to return to the college where he had been cordially received and to tell the president what had happened. However, at the gate, he reconsiders, fearing that his story sounds contrived and feeling that he should not burden the college with the consequences of his own carelessness. Thus, he says: “I paused, undecided, for a moment; then turned and slowly retraced my steps, and so changed the whole course of my life” (35).

The preceding paragraph summarizes the essential points of the narrative and quotes an important sentence that some might point to as the main idea.

Could this be the main idea? His decision constitutes the climatic moment in the narrative and leads to an ignominious and unpleasant departure from Atlanta, in sharp contrast to the dignified and comfortable life he had anticipated. However, the sentence describes a dramatic incident in this particular story rather than stating the meaning of what has happened. One characteristic of a main idea sentence is that it applies to events in the particular story, and it provides understanding of similar events in different times and places involving different people. Therefore, the sentence quoted above is not the main idea sentence in the narrative.

This paragraph explains why the sentence quoted above is not a good candidate for the main idea sentence. A common tactic in writing is to anticipate arguments that others might offer and then to address them. Having done this, the writer can now offer his own interpretation of the meaning in Johnson's essay.

The reader must infer the main idea. This story illustrates how unscrupulous people can victimize a young person, inexperienced in the ways of the world. It is an example of a common literary genre called "stories of initiation." So the main idea might be stated in such general terms as these: People who come from a sheltered existence into the larger world must be cautious or they will become victims. Readers with different perspectives may discover other valid interpretations.

The paragraph above states the writer's interpretation of Johnson's meaning.

In the third essay by Scott Russell Sanders, “The Men We Carry in Our Minds,” the main idea is also implicit. This is not a simple narrative relating a sequence of actions. Rather, the author provides vignettes and reflects on the images of men he has observed. He shows how the impressions forged in childhood create a perspective and attitude from which we view the world as adults.

This paragraph also begins with a topic sentence that identifies the next essay, characterizes it, and asserts that the main idea is implicit. It gives the reader the basic information necessary to understand what follows.

Sanders relates several early impressions of men that helped to form his idea of what it meant to be a man. His memory of the convicts and guards came to stand “for the twin poles of [his] early vision of manhood – the brute toiling animal and the boss” (244). The men in the neighborhood and the fathers of his friends reinforced the image of the toiling animal. Working all day in all kinds of weather, these men “came home at night looking as though somebody had been whipping them” (245). The physical toll of hard labor aggravated by drinking and smoking made the men wear out quickly. “Only women lived into old age” (245).

This paragraph summarizes the main impressions of some of the men that Sanders observed early in life. It has an explicit topic sentence and the body gives quotations to illustrate the idea.

Living on a military base provided the other image of what it meant to be a man. The soldiers he saw “did not sweat and break down like mules” (245). But their existence was one of “souls in limbo” (245). Ceaselessly “waiting -- for wars, for transfers, for leaves, for promotions, for the end of their hitch,” the lives of soldiers seemed fixed in futility and resignation, the men realized that “When the real shooting started, many of them would die. This is what soldiers were for, just as a hammer was for driving nails” (245).

The paragraph above also has an explicit topic sentence and summarizes what Sanders says about the second type of man he observed as a child. The writer selects a few words and sentences that illustrate the characteristics of this group.

Sanders contrasts these images of men with his impressions of the lives of women. Like the men “they fretted about money, they scrimped and made-do. But when the pay stopped coming in, they were not the ones who had failed. Nor did they have to go to war . . . “(246). On the whole, the lives of women appeared freer and less oppressive than the lives of men since the houses where they spent their lives “seemed to [him] brighter, handsomer places than any factory” (246). This impression makes Saunders “slow to understand the grievances of women” when he goes to college and meets the daughters of doctors and bankers and politicians. These women “did not carry in their minds the sort of men” he had known. The men they knew were the ones who were waited on my by women, drove cars that cost more than the houses he had lived in and “ran the world” (247).

After Sanders deals with men who toil manually and those who wait for war, he then writes about his impression of the lives of women. The paragraph above summarizes this part of Sanders' essay. It too begins with an topic sentence that states what the paragraph will be about.

What is Saunders main idea? His essay describes the lives of men he observed in growing up and contrasts these with the lives of women. He explains his confusion in finding that the women of privileged backgrounds looked at men as oppressors who used women and thwarted their aspirations for self-fulfillment. But there is no one sentence which states his overall point.

The topic sentence for this paragraph is a rhetorical question. This first paragraph summarizes what Sanders has covered in his essay and concludes that the essay does not have an explicit main idea.

Saunders finds a commonality among the groups he describes. The men and women of his childhood and the privileged women of his college years, as well as all “who grew up in dirt-poor farm country, in mining country, in black ghettoes, in Hispanic barrios, in the shadows of factories, in Third World nations” are alike because they all long for a chance to be more than toiling animals or souls in limbo. This is the main idea of the essay. It is an inference based on Sanders' descriptive examples and the comments he makes about them.

The paragraph above begins with a topic sentence and poses an answer to the rhetorical question in the preceding paragraph. It states what the writer sees as Saunders' meaning.

The two preceding paragraphs were originally one, but when combined, the resulting paragraph appeared too long. Paragraphs are used to put together ideas that belong together (paragraph unity), but they are also used to make the task of reading psychologically easier. Short paragraphs make the reader think, “Oh, I can handle this.” Notice that the paragraph has been split at a logical point where the second paragraph also begins with a sentence that makes a good topic sentence.

In contrast to the preceding essays, the last one, “A Hanging” by George Orwell, has an explicitly stated main idea. In this essay, Orwell tells the story of a man being hanged. As is usual in narratives, the author begins by orientating his readers. He establishes the time and place of his story and describes the surroundings in vivid detail, narrowing his focus from the prison and its inmates to the one prisoner who is to be executed.

This paragraph introduces the final essay to be discussed. The topic sentence asserts that Orwell's essay has an explicit main idea. The last sentence summarizes the first part of the essay and provides information necessary to understand the next paragraph in the essay.

As the condemned man is being lead toward the gallows, a large dog intrudes on the party with mindless ebullience. Orwell says, “It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human being together” (3). The exuberance of the dog contrasts with the solemnity of the hanging party and serves as an implied condemnation of what is about to happen. But Orwell uses a detail in the walk to the gallows as occasion to explicitly express his opposition to the hanging. As the party proceeds, the condemned man “walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily. . . . And, once in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path” (4). This slight, natural act then makes Orwell see “the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide” (4).

The paragraph above summarizes the important parts of Orwell's story and concludes with quoting the main idea sentence.

This is Orwell's main idea. He believes that it is wrong to deliberately take the life of another human being. All aspects of the essay support this including his description of the cells and the condemned prisoners, the antics of the dog symbolizing the simple joy of being alive, and the guilty relief of the prison officials after the disagreeable job is over. The editors of the anthology maintain that Orwell “never states his opposition explicitly in an identifiable thesis” (2). However, the meaning of Orwell's narrative is stated in the one sentence quoted above.

Here the writer states his interpretation of Orwell's essay and summarizes his reasons for it, at the same time noting that others do not identify an explicitly stated main idea.

The fact that experienced readers can draw different conclusions demonstrates that the text is open to interpretation. However, any assertion a reader makes must be supported by evidence. If a reader claims that the main idea of a text is explicit, then he must be able to point to a particular sentence and to say why he thinks this is the main idea. In texts where the main idea is not made explicit in one sentence, it may be inferred from a number of related sentences. In fictional writing, the main idea may not be stated at all. The story simply stands as an illustration of a general idea, and the reader is left to infer the meaning.

This is the conclusion. Every essay needs a conclusion. The conclusion summarizes the three cases illustrated: Some essays have a main idea made explicit in one sentence, in some the main idea is implicit, and in others the main idea can be constructed from several contiguous sentences.