Literary Elements – English II-R

  1. Character – a person or an animal who takes part in the action of a literary work.
  2. protagonist – main character
  3. antagonist – character or force in conflict with a main character or protagonist
  4. round character – shows many different traits – faults as well as virtues.
  5. flat character – shows only one trait
  6. dynamic character – develops and grows during course of story
  7. static character – does not change
  8. Conflict – struggle between opposing forces.
  9. external conflict – main character struggles against an outside force (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society)
  10. internal conflict – a character in conflict with himself or herself (man vs. self)
  11. Dialect – a special form of a language, spoken by people in a particular region or group. It may involve changes to the pronunciation, vocabulary, and sentence structure of the standard form of the language.
  12. Dialogue – a conversation between characters that may reveal their traits and advance the action of a story. Quotation marks indicate a speaker’s exact words, and a new paragraph usually indicates a change in speakers.
  13. Expository texts – a short nonfiction work about a particular subject. They give information, discuss ideas or explain a process.
  14. Fiction – prose writing that tells about imaginary characters and events. Term is usually used for novels and short stories, but may also apply to drama and narrative poetry.
  15. Figurative Language- is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation.
  16. hyperbole - ( hi – per – bo – lee) – an overstatement or exaggeration used for effect
  17. he weighs a ton
  18. imagery - representation through language of sense experience – mental pictures, something seen with the mind’s eye. Although visual imagery is most common, it can also represent sound, smell, taste, and touch.
  19. irony – any expression, situation or event whose apparent meaning or effect is contrary to the actual meaning or effect
  • Verbal: Writers speaks one thing, but means another: Montresor tells Fortunato that his
  • “…health is precious,” but M wants to kill him.
  • Situational: Contradiction between what we expect to happen and what actually happens
  • Dramatic: Occurs when the audience knows something that a character does not know.
  • metaphor – saying one thing IS another thing – a comparison (without using like or as)
  • he’s a zero
  • it is the moon and Juliet is the sun
  • onomatopoeia – words that sound like their meaning

swoosh, zip, click, zoom, pop, crackle

  1. personification – giving human qualities to non-human things
  2. Can it be that Death is amorous?
  3. The open book spoke to me of magical adventures.
  4. simile – a comparison between 2 unlike things using a words such as: like, as, similarto, or resemble
  5. my love is as boundless as the sea
  6. her eyes sparkled like diamonds
  7. understatement – saying less than you mean, e.g. Albert Einstein is perhaps fairly intelligent.
  1. Historical novels – fictional stories with real historical settings
  2. Idiomatic expression – an expression that is characteristic of a language, region, community, or class of people. These expressions mean something more than or different from the meaning of the words making them up.
  3. Informational text – include the following types of writing
  4. expository texts – those which present facts to increase the knowledge and understanding of an audience
  5. persuasive texts – those written to influence the opinions or actions of an audience (editorials, speeches, debates, reviews
  6. procedural texts – these explain a process (instructions, recipes, and manuals).]
  7. Literary nonfiction – combine personal examples and ideas with factual information
  8. personal essays – convey the writer’s thoughts and feelings about an experience or idea
  9. biographies – tell the story of someone’s life and are told by another writer’s perspective
  10. Novellas – intermediate works of fiction that are longer than short stories but are more concise and focused than novels.
  11. Perspective – the author’s point of view on the subject, including the opinions that the author expresses and the source of the author’s information – whether general research, for example, or personal experience.
  12. Plot – the sequence of events in a literary work.
  13. exposition – beginning of story that introduces the setting, characters, and basic situation
  14. inciting incident – part of the story that introduces the central conflict
  15. rising action – events that lead up to the climax
  16. climax – the high point of a story, novel, or play
  17. falling action - events that follow the climax
  18. denouement or resolution – conflict is resolved and a general insight may be conveyed
  19. point of view –the writer’s choice of narrator (character who tells the story
  20. first person – character in the story tells the story
  21. third person – character outside the story tells the story
  • an omniscient or all-knowing narrator can tell what character thinks and feels
  • a limited narrator can only reveal one character’s thoughts
  1. Purpose – the author’s reason for writing. It may be to persuade, to inform, to entertain, or to describe
  2. Setting – the time and place of the action of a story. This may include the historical period – past, present or future, or a specific year, season or time of day. It may include the geographical place – a region, country state, or town, as well as the social, economic, or cultural environment.
  3. Short story – a brief work of friction. In most short stories, one main character faces a conflict that is resolved in the plot of the story.
  4. Theme – a central message or insight into life reveled through a literary. The theme may be stated or implied.
  5. Tone – the writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject. The tone can often be described by a single adjective such as formal or informal, serious or playful, bitter or ironic.
  6. Universal theme – a message about life that can be understood by most cultures (the importance of courage, the effects of honesty, the danger of greed)