Literary Terms (Section 4)
Terms
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- foil
- a character in a work whose behavior and values contrast with those of another character in order to highlight the distinctive temperament of that character (usually the protagonist)
- context
- conditions, including facts, social/historical background, time, place, etc., surrounding a given situation
- irony
- a literal decive that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true
- antagonist
- the character, force, or collection of forces in fiction or drama that opposes the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story
- resolution
- the conclusion of a plot's conflicts and complications; follows the climax in the plot
- epiphany
- in fiction, when a character suddenly experiences a deep realization about himself or herself; a truth which is grasped in an ordinary rather than a melodramatic moment
- plot
- the plan of events in a story or play
- crisis
- a turning point in the action of a story that has a powerful effect on the protagonist
- in medias res
- describes the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action; we enter the story on the verge of some important moment
- archetype
- a term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader
- characterization
- how a writer will use language to build up and reveal characters
- round character
- often display the inconsistencies and internal conflicts found in most real people. They are more fully developed and complex, and therefore are harder to summarize.
- climax
- the text leading up to an event, phase, mood, or feeling of great importance
- dramatic irony
- creates a discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader or audience member knows to be true
- protagonist
- the main character of a narrative; its centeral character who engages the reader's interest and empathy
- flat character
- embodies one or two qualities, ideas, or traits. They are not psychologically complex characters and therefore are readily accessible to the readers
- limited omniscience
- narrator is restricted to the single perspective of either a major or minor character. The way people, places, and events appear to that character is the way they appear to the reader.
- omniscient narrator
- all-knowing narrator who is not a character in the story and who can move from place to place and pass back and forth through time, slipping into and out of characters as no human being possibly could in real life. They can report the thoughts and feelings of the characters, as well as their words and actions
- flashback
- a narrated scene that marks a break in the narrative in order to inform the reader or audience member about events that took place before the opening scene of a work
- verbal irony
- a figure of speech that occurs when a person says one thing but means the opposite
- conflict
- the struggle within the plot between opposing forces
- static character
- does not change throughout the work, and the reader's knowledge of that character does not grow
- dynamic character
- undergoes some kind of change because of the action
- stream-of-consciousness technique
- takes a reader inside a character's mind to reveal perceptions, thoughts, and feelings on a conscious or unconscious level. This suggests the flow of thought as well as its content; hence, complete sentences may give way to fragments as the character's mind makes rapid associations free of conventional logic or transitions
- antihero
- a protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. They may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic. Often what they learn is that the world isolates them in an existence devoid of God and absolute values.
- foreshadowing
- the introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later