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Short Stories - Literary Elements
English 9
You are responsible for knowing the following terms and their definitions. Understanding these words will directly affect your learning during this unit and your achievement on the final test.
1. Author’s Purpose - A writer usually writes for one or more of these purposes: to express thoughts or feelings, to inform or explain, to persuade, to entertain.
2. Characterization - The way a writer creates and develops characters’ personalities.
§ Direct characterization - When the author makes direct comments about a character’s personality or nature through the voice of the narrator.
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§ Indirect characterization - When readers must use their own judgment to decide what a character is like based on the evidence the writer gives us (The writer may present the character’s physical appearance, thoughts, speech, and actions. The writer may also include the pertinent thoughts, speech, and actions of other characters)
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§ Static character – A character who remains the same throughout a story. The character may experience events and have interactions with other characters, but he or she is not changed because of them.
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§ Dynamic character – A character who undergoes important changes as a plot unfolds. The changes occur because of his or her actions and experiences in the story. The change is usually internal and may be good or bad. Main characters are usually, though not always, dynamic.
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3. Conflict- A struggle between opposing forces.
§ Internal conflict - When a character’s struggles take place within his/her own mind
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§ External conflict – Involves a character pitted against an outside force, such as nature, a physical obstacle, or another character.
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4. Foreshadowing - The writer’s use of hints and clues to suggest events that will occur later in a story. The hints and clues might be included in a character’s dialogue or behavior, or they might be included in details of description.
5. Idiom- A common figure of speech whose meaning is different from the literal meaning of its words. (“Raining cats and dogs” = raining heavily)
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6. Irony
§ Verbal irony – When someone knowingly exaggerates or says one thing and means another (sarcasm).
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§ Situational irony – A contrast between what a reader or character expects and what actually exists or happens (the unexpected twist).
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§ Dramatic irony – When the audience/reader knows something important that a character does not
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7. Point of View - The method of narration used in a short story, novel, narrative poem, or work of nonfiction.
§ First-person - The point of view where one character, using the personal pronoun I, tells the story.
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§ Third-person limited - The point of view where the narrator tells what only one character thinks, feels, and observes.
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§ Third-person omniscient - The all-knowing point of view, in which the narrator sees into the minds of all the characters.
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8. Protagonist - The main character in a work of literature—the character who is involved in the central conflict of the story. Usually, the protagonist changes after the central conflict reaches a climax. He or she may be a hero and is usually the one with whom the audience tends to identify.
9. Antagonist – The principle character or force in opposition to a protagonist. The antagonist is usually another character but sometimes can be a force of nature, a set of circumstances, some aspect of society, or a force within the protagonist.
10. Setting - The time and place of the action of a story.
11. Suspense - The excitement or tension that readers feel as they wait to find out how a story ends or a conflict is resolved.
12. Symbol - A person, a place, an object, or an activity that stands for something beyond itself.
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13. Theme – An underlying message about life or human nature that a writer wants the reader to understand.
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