Cabe's summary of Levels of Meaning

To talk about meaning here, we use levels.  These are arbitrary, we know, but they work.  We picked 5 as a viable number of levels for introductory analysis.  In brief, they are:

• Mythic
• Romantic
• Heroic
• Realistic
• Ironic

Short definitions:

• Mythic level is the level of archetypal psychology, universal events and rites of passage.
• Romantic level is the level of personal psychology, personal dreams.
• Heroic level is the level of of focused adrenaline, of people at their very best, most perceptive, most heroic.
• Realistic level is the level of of everyday problems, everyday life.
• Ironic level is the level of people at their least perceptive, least able.

There's a lot of info about these levels on this web site. We've all agreed there's probably too much.  But they are a simple, really effective tool in trying to read more clearly and understand more deeply.  So you can start at the beginning, if you want to. But you can figure them out as you go along. Read a few more comments before you begin the level-trip.

For example, you probably read Alice's idea that the boy in the story misunderstands the priest's comment about not being long for this world.  That the boy trivializes it, hears it on the least perceptive (i.e. Ironic level.  But we, the readers, are free to see it as containing psychological (i.e. Romantic) information, or even Mythic info. Well, more about that later!.