The Elements of Literature

EECE 441

Spring 2003

P. Werre

  1. Plot – The arrangement of a story’s events to achieve an artistic effect.
  2. Typically will have a beginning, middle, and end.
  3. Two basic plot patterns are episodic or progressive. Episodic plots move from one incident to another, never building to a major turning point (crisis or climax). Progressive plots move from a beginning through complications and conflict to a climax or crisis and then to resolution.
  4. Conflict is the usual source of plot in literature.
  5. Person against person
  6. Person against society
  7. Person against nature
  8. Person against self
  1. Characterization – The artistic representation of the appearance and personality of characters in a literary work.
  2. Characters are revealed through dialogue (what they say and what others say about them), their actions, their appearance, their interior feelings and motivations, and through explicit narrative description.
  1. Setting – In literature, the time and place of a story.
  2. Setting may serve several purposes.
  3. Setting as mood.
  4. Setting as antagonist.
  5. Setting as historical background.
  6. Setting as symbolism.
  1. Theme – The basic meaning or underlying idea of a story.
  2. Theme may be stated by characters or transmitted through author’s narrative.
  3. Themes for younger children develop around experience and emotions that are important for young readers.
  4. Themes for older children focus on human development and consequences that result from choices.
  1. Style – Use of language to create plots, characters and settings and to express themes.
  2. Devices of style include figurative language (e.g. similes and metaphors), symbols, allusions, wordplay, understatement, hyperbole, imagery, rhythm and repetition.
  1. Point of View – Who is telling the story and how much the narrator will know about the thoughts of others.
  2. First-person point of view – speaks through the “I” of one of the characters and records his/her own thoughts and actions but cannot retell the thoughts of others unless those characters reveal themselves in conversation.
  3. Omniscient point of view – tells story in third person (they, he, or she) and is not limited in reporting details of the thoughts, actions and conversations of all characters.
  4. Limited omniscient point of view – tells story in third person and is limited to reporting the thoughts and feelings of only one or a few characters.
  5. Objective point of view – author does not reveal the thoughts of the characters, instead the reader’s interpretation results from presentation of action and conversation.

Latrobe, Kathy H., Carolyn S. Brodie, and Maureen White. The Children’s Literature Dictionary. New York: Neal Schuman, 2002.

Norton, Donna E. and Saundra E. Norton. Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children’s Literature. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall, 2003.

4/22/03

Elements of Literature

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