1. Definitions and Examples
Literary Elements
Definitions and Examples

2. Key difference between short stories and novels:
Novels usually contain more characters (longer time and space to develop)
Novels contain several sub-plots, while short stories usually focus on one plot line.

3. Characterization
Process by which writer reveals the personality of a character
Telling the reader directly
Describing looks and dress
Hear character speak
Revealing character’s thoughts

4. Types of Characterization
DIRECT: The author tells the reader exactly what a character is like or what they want you to think about a character.
INDIRECT: The author gives hints or clues (through actions or thoughts) that lead you to form opinions about the character.

5. Dynamic Characters
Changes in some way as a result of the story’s action

6. Static Characters
Does not change in course of story

7. Flat Characters
A character with only 1 or 2 personality traits

8. Round Characters
Have more dimensions to their personalities-complex, solid, and multifaceted

9. Protagonist
The main character, sets plot in motion
Example:

10. Antagonist
Character or force that opposes/blocks the protagonist (main character)
Does not always have to be a character!
Example: war, racism, society…

11. Point of View The vantage point from which a writer tells a story.
Three types:
Omniscient
First person
Third person

12. Omniscient Point of View
The person telling the story knows everything that’s going to happen.
Outside of story
Can tell us what is happening and what characters are feeling

13. 1st person narrator The narrator is a character in the story.
Uses “I” to tell of his experiences
Can only hear and see what narrator sees

14. 3rd person narrator
The person telling the story is not a character in the story, but can only tell the story from one character’s point of view.
Uses “he, she, they” etc, throughout the story.

15. Plot: Rising Action
All action leading up to the climax of the story.

16. Climax
Point of greatest emotional intensity, or suspense in a plot when the outcome of the conflict becomes known

17. Falling Action
Action following the climax

18. Resolution
When all the problems, mysteries and conflicts unravel and are explained

19. Themes Central idea or insight of a work of literature
Not the subject of the work
Sometimes a lesson
Can be reoccurring

20. Mood A story’s atmosphere or the feeling it evokes
Usually created through diction, dialogue and setting
*wild forest, at night, with wolves howling (terror)
*cozy cottage in a garden full of sunlight (peace)

21. Setting Time and place of a story Often linked to mood
Often changes throughout story
Time refers to period, year, time of day, etc.
Usually established in beginning of story

22. Irony A contrast between: what is said and what is meant
what is expected and what really happens
what appears to be true and what really is true

23. Verbal Irony Says one thing, means another
Often in the form of wit or sarcasm
Example: calling a clumsy basketball player the new Lebron James

24. Situational Irony
Contrast between what would seem appropriate and what really happens.
Contradiction between what we expect to happen and what really takes place.

25. Dramatic Irony
Occurs when the audience or reader knows something important that a character in the play/story does not know.

26. Diction Writer’s/Speaker’s choice of words Influenced by audience
Determines effect writer is trying to produce
Example: home vs crib,
Example: How are you? Vs. Howdy y’all.

27. Imagery Language that appeals to the senses:
Sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing
Example:
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match
Robert Browning, “Meeting at Night”

28. Allegory
A story in which characters, settings and events stand for abstract or moral concepts
Example: Let’s talk about the man. The man tries to keep you down. The man is out to get you. The man will steal all you have, then crush you when you are down…
(The man is society)

29. Symbolism
The use of symbols to suggest ideas, emotions, moods and meaning
Common Symbols: heart (love), dove (peace), skull and cross bones (danger)
Can be story specific

30. Allusion
A reference to a statement person, place or event known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics or another field of knowledge
Example: Hamlet describing his father (A3):
the curls of the sun god Hyperion; the forehead of kingly Jove, an eye like that of Mars, a bearing like the herald Mercury.

31. Motif
A word, character, object, image, metaphor, or idea that recurs in a work, or several works.

32. Hyperbole
Uses extreme exaggeration to express a strong sentiment or create comic effect.
Example: sweating to death!
I’ve told you a million times!
If I had a dollar every time you said that, I would be a billionaire.

33. Conflict: Internal Struggle or clash between opposing ideas.
Takes place entirely within a character’s own mind.
Struggle between opposing needs or desires.

34. Conflict: External
Struggle or clash between opposing characters or forces.
Can be against another character or society as a whole, or force of nature

35. Genre The category that a work of literature is classified under.
5 Major Categories:
1. fiction
2. nonfiction
3. poetry
4. drama
5. myth

36. Archetype
An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often, archetypes include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race.

37. Style The particular way in which a writer uses language
Created through diction, sentence patterns, and use of figurative language

38. Figurative Language
Words or phrases that describes one thing in terms of another and is not meant to be understood on a literal level.
Most common: simile, metaphor, personification
Example: My mind is racing, everything has become blurred, I feel like I am drowning in my own thoughts.

39. Ambiguity
An element of uncertainty in a text, in which something can be interpreted in a number of different ways.
Can you trust the narrator’s opinion as valid?

40. Tone
Attitude a writer takes toward a subject, character or the audience.
Conveyed through the writer’s choice of words and details.
Affection, nostalgic, humorous, mocking…