Literary Terms

Genre

Genre is an important word in the English class. We teach different genres of literature such as poetry, short stories, myths, plays, non-fiction, novels, mysteries, and so on. When we speak about a kind of literature we are really speaking about a genre of literature. So when someone asks you what genre of literature you like, you might answer, poetry, novels, comics, and so on.

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 “Don’t antagonize me!”

Protagonist

• The Protagonist is the main character in a literary work

• Can you name some famous Protagonists that are found in literature?

CHARACTERIZATION

• Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character. Characterization is revealed through direct characterization and indirect characterization.

DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION

Direct Characterization tells the audience what the personality of the character is.

Example: “The patient boy and quiet girl were both well mannered and did not disobey their mother.”

Explanation: The author is directly telling the audience the personality of these two children. The boy is “patient” and the girl is “quiet.”

INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION

Indirect Characterization shows things that reveal the personality of a character. There are five different methods of indirect characterization:

SPEECH What does the character say? How does the character speak?

THOUGHTS What is revealed through the character’s private thoughts and feelings?

EFFECT ON OTHERS How do other characters feel or behave in reaction to the character?

ACTIONS What does the character do? How does the character behave?

LOOKS What does the character look like? How does the character dress?

Plot

Plot is the sequence of events. The first event causes the second, the second causes the third, and so forth.

PLOT TRIANGLE

ExpositionResolution

Ris

ing A

ctio

n

Climax

Falling Action

Conflict Introduced

Exposition

Introduction• Introduces the characters,

setting, and basic situation.

SettingThe 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.

.

Rising Action

Events that lead to the climax of the story.

Climax

Point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense.

Typically comes at the turning point in a story or drama.

Falling Action

Action that follows the climax and reveals its results.

Resolution

Part of the plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

POINT OF VIEW

• There are 3 ways of telling a story:

• 1st person - "I" tells the story and is a character in the story; this can be present tense or past tense.

• 2nd person - "You" is used to tell the story; these tend to be like Choose Your Own Adventure stories or computer games and are usually in the present tense.

• 3rd person - "He, she, it, they" - the story is told by someone, usually not identified by name, who knows it. Usually in the past tense.

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.

CINDERELLA

CINDERELLA

• Setting: long ago, the palace, the ball, a far away kingdom, the home of Cinderella's step-mother.

• Characterization: • Cinderella: loving, kind, works hard, pretty, innocent, hero,

cheerful, smart, happy.

• Step-mother & step-sisters: jealous, mean, ugly, self-absorbed, villain, lazy, nasty.

CINDERELLA

• Theme: Work hard and good things come. What goes around comes around.

• Plot:• Exposition:• As a child, Cinderella was happy. After her mother died, her

father re-married a mean woman with two daughters. The step-mother gave her daughters everything and Cinderella nothing.

• Rising Action: • A messenger delivers an invitation to the ball. The step-mother tells

Cinderella she can go if she finishes her chores. The Fairy Godmother gives Cinderella a dress and coach. Cinderella arrives at the ball and dances with the Prince. On the way out she drops her shoe.

• Climax: • The Prince finds Cinderella and puts the glass slipper on her foot. It

fits!

• Resolution: • Cinderella and the Prince get married.

CINDERELLA

• Conflict: • Man vs. Man (Cinderella vs. step-mother and step-sisters).

• Man vs. Nature (Cinderella vs. the stroke of midnight).

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. Society (The Monsters are Due on Maple Street)

Man vs. Man (Cinderella vs. step-mother and step-sisters)

Man vs. Nature (Cinderella vs. the stroke of midnight)

Internal Conflict

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

Man vs. Himself (A Christmas Carol)

MOODMood, or atmosphere, is the feeling

created in the reader by a literary work or passage.

Writer’s 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.

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.

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.

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…

Flashback continued…

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is the author’s 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.

Foreshadowing in Literature

Example:

Scrooge wished he could rid himself of the sick feeling in his gut that told him something terrible was going to happen.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

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 to state ideas in vivid and imaginative ways.

Simile

A Simile is another figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things. Similes use the words like or as.

Examples: Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

The metal twisted like a ribbon.

She is as sweet as candy.

Important!

Using “like” or “as” doesn’t always make a simile.

A comparison must be made.

Not a Simile: I like pizza.

Simile: The moon is like a pizza.

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.

Examples: Life is a bowl of cherries.

All the world is a stage.

Her heart is stone.

PersonificationPersonification is a figure of speech in

which an animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given human qualities or characteristics.

Examples: Tears began to fall from the

dark clouds.

The sunlight danced.

Water on the lake shivers.

The streets are calling me.

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

Onomatopoeia

• A word that “makes” a sound

• SPLAT

• PING

• SLAM

• POP

• POW

Juxtaposition

• Juxtaposition is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts

“What two images are juxtaposed here?” “What is the same about these images? What is different?”

“Why did the artist want you to compare these two images?”

“How did the author of A Long Walk to Water juxtapose Nya and Salva?”

Juxtaposition in A Long Walk to Water

Quiz

On a separate sheet of paper…

1. I will put an example of figurative language on the board.

2. You will write whether it is an simile, metaphor, personification, juxtaposition, or onomatopoeia.

3. You can use your notes.

1

He drew a line as straight as an arrow.

2

Knowledge is a kingdom and all who learn are kings and queens.

3

The sun was beating down on me.

4

A flag wags like a fishhook there in the sky.

5

Ravenous and savagefrom its longpolar journey,

the North Wind

is searchingfor food—

6.

• The clouds smiled down at me.

7.

• SPLAT!

8.

• She is as sweet as candy

9.

• The wheat field was a sea of gold.

10.

• The streets called to him.

11.

• POP!

12.

• She was dressed to the nines.

13.

• Your face is killing me!

14.

• She was as white as a ghost.

15.

Figurative Language YouTube!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPiVfdwAsUg