Literary Terms

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We will use the following terms:

Character Diction Imagery Exposition Falling Action Flashback Point of View Theme Metaphor Personification Antagonist Denotation Mood Rising Action Resolution Foreshadowing Setting Tone Simile Alliteration Protagonist Connotation Plot Climax Conflict Suspense Style Figures of Speech Oxymoron

Character
A character is a person or an animal that takes part in the action of a literary work.

Antagonist
The Antagonist is a
character or force in conflict with a main character, or protagonist.

Do you know your Antagonists???

On your paper take a few minutes to write
down some Antagonists that you can recall from movies, television shows, and video games Remember the Antagonist is in conflict with the Protagonist or, main character! Helpful hint you should now know why people use the saying Dont antagonize me!

Protagonist
The Protagonist is the main
character in a literary work Can you name some famous Protagonists that are found in literature?

Diction
Diction is the manner in which

we express words; the wording used. Diction = enunciation Some easy examples are:
Dont say goin say going, Dont say wanna say want to

Denotation
The denotation of a word is its dictionary meaning, independent of other associations that the word may have.

Connotation
The connotation of a word is the set of ideas associated with it in addition to its explicit meaning. The connotation of a word can be personal, based on individual experiences. More often, cultural connotations those recognizable by most people in a group determine a writers word choices.

Denotation versus Connotation

Some examples Cheap is low in cost (denotation) but stingy or poorly made are the connotations of cheap

Lets use the word HOT The denotation (or dictionary definition remember d in denotation = dictionary) of HOT is: having a temperature higher than that of a human body. However, when you say Man! He/She is hot!, are you saying Man! He is having a temperature higher than that of a human body!? No!! You are saying the CONNOTATION of HOT which could mean a variety of things man he/she is cute, attractive, beautiful, and many other meanings those come from personal experiences and cultural meanings, etc.

Imagery
Imagery is words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses. Writers use imagery to describe how their subjects look, sound, feel, taste, and smell.

Examples: Imagery
He fumed and charged like an angry bull. He fell down like an old tree falling down

in a storm. The taste of that first defeat was bitter indeed. He felt like the flowers were waving him a hello.

Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage. Writers use many devices to create mood, including images, dialogue, setting, and plot. Often, a writer creates a mood at the beginning of a work and then sustains the mood throughout. Sometimes, however, the mood of the work changes dramatically.

MOOD

Plot
Plot is the sequence of events. The first event causes the second, the second causes the third, and so forth. In most novels, dramas, short stories, and narrative poems, the plot involves both characters and a central conflict. The plot usually begins with an exposition that introduces the setting, the characters, and the basic situation. This is introduced and developed. The conflict then increases until it reaches a high point of interest or suspense, the climax. The climax is followed by the falling action, or end, of the central conflict. Any events that occur during the falling action make up the resolution.

PLOTLINE
Climax

Exposition Conflict Introduced

Resolution

Exposition
The Exposition is the introduction. It is the part of the work that introduces the characters, setting, and basic situation.

Rising Action
Rising Action is the part of the plot that begins to occur as soon as the conflict is introduced. The rising action adds complications to the conflict and increases reader interest.

Climax
The Climax is the point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in the plot of a narrative. The climax typically comes at the turning point in a story or drama.

Falling Action
Falling Action is the action that typically follows the climax and reveals its results.

Resolution
The Resolution is the part of the plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

Conflict
Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces in a story or play. There are two types of conflict that exist in literature.

External Conflict
External conflict exists when a character struggles against some outside force, such as another character, nature, society, or fate.

Man vs. Man Man vs. Nature

Internal Conflict
Internal conflict exists within the mind of a character who is torn between different courses of action. Man vs. Himself

Flashback
A flashback is a literary device in which an earlier episode, conversation, or event is inserted into the sequence of events. Often flashbacks are presented as a memory of the narrator or of another character.

Flashback continued

The movie Titanic is told almost entirely in a flashback. What are some other films that contain flashback to help tell stories?

Holes Willy Wonka

Think of some more

Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is the authors use of clues to hint at what might happen later in the story. Writers use foreshadowing to build their readers expectations and to create suspense. This is used to help readers prepare for what is to come.

Can you think of an element of foreshadowing?

Suspense
Suspense is the growing interest and excitement readers experience while awaiting a climax or resolution in a work of literature. It is a feeling of anxious uncertainty about the outcome of events. Writers create suspense by raising questions in the minds of their readers.

Point of View
Point of View is the perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told. It is the relationship of the narrator to the story. First-person is told by a character who uses the first-person pronoun I. Third-person limited point of view is the point of view where the narrator uses third-person pronouns such as he and she to refer to the characters.

Setting
The setting of a literary work is the time and place of the action. The setting includes all the details of a place and time the year, the time of day, even the weather. The place may be a specific country, state, region, community, neighborhood, building, institution, or home. Details such as dialect, clothing, customs, and modes of transportation are often used to establish setting. In most stories, the setting serves as a backdrop a context in which the characters interact. The setting of a story often helps to create a particular mood, or feeling.

Style
Style is the distinctive way in which an author uses language. Word choice, phrasing, sentence length, tone, dialogue, purpose, and attitude toward the audience and subject can all contribute to an authors writing style.

Theme
The theme of a literary work is its central message, concern, or purpose. A theme can usually be expressed as a generalization, or general statement, about people or life. The theme may be stated directly by the writer although it is more often presented indirectly. When the theme is stated indirectly, the reader must figure out the theme by looking carefully at what the work reveals about the people or about life.

Tone
Tone is a reflection of a writers or speakers attitude toward a subject of a poem, story, or other literary work. Tone may be communicated through words and details that express particular emotions and that evoke and emotional response from the reader. For example, word choice or phrasing may seem to convey respect, anger, lightheartedness, or sarcasm.

Figures of Speech
A figure of speech is a specific device or kind of figurative language, such as hyperbole, metaphor, personification, simile, or understatement. Figurative language is used for descriptive effect, often to imply ideas indirectly. It is not meant to be taken literally. Figurative language is used to state ideas in vivid and imaginative ways.

Types of Figures of Speech

Alliteration Anastrophe Anaphora Antonomasia Euphemism Hyperbole Irony Litotes Metaphor

Metonymy Oxymoron Onomatopoeia Paralipsis Personification Pun Rhetoric Simile Zeugma

Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of sounds, most often consonant sounds, at the beginning of words. Alliteration gives emphasis to words. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

Euphemism
A euphemism is the use of neutral language to
remark something that may be offensive to the receiver. Euphemism is often used by people who are diplomatic, and who wish to be politically correct. Some examples of this figure of speech are: We have to let you go. Read: You're fired. You're well fed. Read: You're fat.

Hyperbole
A hyperbole is a figure of speech used for the purpose of
exaggeration. It mainly forms the basis of several jokes, is used as a way of insults, or could simply be used to dramatize a situation, where in reality, the situation may not be that bad.

This can be understood with the help of these hyperbole examples:

I'm so busy trying to accomplish ten million things at once. - I'm
trying to accomplish several things at one time.

Your dog is so ugly, we had to pay the fleas to live on him. - Here
the hyperbole has been used as an insult.

Irony
Irony refers to the use of certain words that actually
intend to convey the opposite. Irony forms the basis of sarcasm, and of humor. It is also a way of expressing the ugly truth in a slightly gentle manner. Some irony examples are: Bill Gates winning a computer. - Situational Irony (He is the owner of the world's largest software company.)

Having a fight with your best friend just before your

that could happen before your birthday.)

birthday, and commenting -"Great, this is just what I needed". - Verbal Irony (It is probably the worst thing

Metaphor
A Metaphor is a type of speech that compares or equates two or more things that have something in common. A metaphor does NOT use like or as.
Example: Life is a bowl of cherries.

Onomatopoeia
Such words imitate the sounds made by
clatter of utensils. The flutter of birds.
certain objects or actions. Some examples of onomatopoeia are: The

Oxymoron
An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that is a combination of seemingly contradictory words.
Examples: Same difference Pretty ugly Roaring silence

Oxymoron
An oxymoron uses a contradictory
adjective to define an object, situation or event. Oxymoron examples are:

Loners club A stripper's dressing room I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous!

Personification
Personification is a figure of speech in which an animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given human qualities or characteristics. Example: Tears began to fall from the dark clouds.

Pun
Puns refer to the deliberate substitution of
similar sounding words, to create a humorous effect. For example:

I bet the butcher the other day that he couldnt

reach the meat that was on the top shelf. He refused to take the bet, saying that the steaks were too high. Santas helpers are subordinate Clauses.

Rhetoric
Rhetoric refers to the art of persuasion through effective
speech. Questions that have an obvious answer are known as rhetorical questions. Such questions are not expected to be answered, as the answer is already known. These are included in persuasive speech. Some examples include:

If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then

why practice? - Billy Corgan Why do you need a drivers license to buy liquor when you cannot drink and drive?

Simile
A Simile is another figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things. Similes DO use the words like or as.
Example: Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.