Literary TermsShort Story and Novel

AntagonistThe character directly opposed to the protagonist. A character or force that is in conflict with the protagonist.

Non-character entities can be antagonistic (settings or events) for example, Nature in Kon-Tiki.

AllegoryA form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.

Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

Mood/AtmosphereMood, 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.

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

Character TypesStatic character – a character who remains

the same.

Dynamic character – a character who changes.

Character TypesRound character -a major character in a

work of fiction who encounters conflict and is changed by it. Round characters tend to be more fully developed and described than flat, or minor characters.

Character TypesFlat Character - a literary character

whose personality can be defined by one or two traits and does not change in the course of the story .

Conflict

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

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

•Man vs. Man•Man vs. Nature•Man vs. Society•Man vs. Fate

Internal Conflict

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

•Man vs. Himself

CharacterizationThe method a writer uses to reveal the

personality of a character.

Direct characterization: the writer makes direct statements about a character’s personality.

Indirect characterization: the writer reveals a character’s personality through the character’s words and actions and through what other characters think and say about the character.

FantasyHighly imaginative writing with elements not found in real life.

FlashbackA flashback is a literary device in which an earlier episode, conversation, or event is inserted into the sequence of events. The flashback interrupts the present action of the plot to flash backward and tell what happened at an earlier time. Often flashbacks are presented as a memory of the narrator or of another character.

ForeshadowingForeshadowing 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.

GenreA distinctive class or category of literature.

Epic, tragedy, comedy, novel, short story, letter, essay, journal, creative nonfiction, poetry are a few of the types of genre.

IronyContrast or discrepancy between

expectation and reality—between what is said and what is really meant, between what is expected to happen and what really does happen, or between what appears to be true and what is really true.

There are three types of irony: •Verbal Irony•Situational Irony•Dramatic Irony

Three Types of IronyVerbal Irony, occurs when writer or speaker

says one thing, but really mans something completely different.

Situational Irony, occurs when there is a contrast between what would seem appropriate and what really happens or when there is a contradiction between what we expect to happen and what really does take place.

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

NarratorPerson telling the story.

PlotPlot is the sequence of events. The first event causes the second, the second causes the third, and so forth. Like the links of a chain the events are interconnected. 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 by the addition of complications, rising action, until it reaches a high point of interest or suspense, the climax. The climax is followed by the falling action, action that is a result of the climax, the resolution ends the falling action and reveals how the story is resolved in the end.

Plot Development

ExpositionResolution

Ris

ing A

ctio

n

Climax

Falling Action

Narrative Hook—point at which the reader becomes “hooked” and curious about what will happen next.

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

Rising ActionRising 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.

ClimaxThe 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.

ResolutionThe resolution is the part of the plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict. It is also called the “denouncement” a French word for “unraveling the knot.”

Point of ViewPoint 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.

Third-person omniscient point of view is the point of view where the narrator knows everything there is to know about the characters and their problems. This “all-knowing narrator can tell about the past, present and future. This narrator can also reveal what the characters are thinking. This narrator can also tell what is happening at other places.

ProtagonistThe protagonist is the main character in a literary work.

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.

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.

SuspenseSuspense 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.

SymbolPerson, place, thing, or event that stands for itself and for something beyond itself as well.

ThemeThe 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.