Literary Term Targets:

Learning Target: I can identify, define, and use the various literary terms in order to better comprehend our future reading.

Become a Lit Jedi-Master

• Learn the stuff. (youngling)
• Quiz you again on the definitions. (Padawan)
• Test you on being able to recognize Lit. Terms in literature! (Jedi-Knight)

Only Miss Hardie is the true Jedi-Master.

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Literary Terms:

• Plot
• Point of View
• Irony
• Imagery
• Conflict
• Character
• Theme
• Tone
• Symbol
• Setting
• Style

Plot: Plot is the series of events in a story that explain to the reader what is happening.

Plot Parts

• Exposition: Introduction-introduces the characters, setting, and basic situation.
• Rising Action: the part of the plot that begins to occur as soon as the conflict is introduced. RA adds complications to the conflict and increases reader interest.
• Climax: the point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in the plot of a narrative. Climax typically comes at the turning point in the story.

More Plot Points…

• Falling Action: the action that typically follows the climax and reveals its results.
• Resolution: the part of the plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

Point of View

Different kinds of Point of View

• The eyes from which the story is told.
• 1^st person: the main character conveys the incidents he encounters, as well as giving the reader insight into himself as he reveals his thoughts, feelings, and intentions
• First person pronoun “I.”
• The reader is able to get inside the narrator’s head.

Point of View:

• 3^rd person Point of View: a “nonparticipant” serves as the narrator and has no insight into the characters' minds. The narrator presents the events using the pronouns he, she, they, and reveals no inner thoughts of the characters.
• How do I know?:

He, she, they, …

Irony:

• A literary term referring to how a person, situation, statement, or circumstance is not as it would actually seem. Many times it is the exact opposite of what it appears to be.
• Examples:
• "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.“
• One of the best irony examples in literature is in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. �

Imagery:

• Imagery is words/phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses. You should be able to imagine the scene in your head.

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Rollercoaster Writing

• Writing with Imagery is a lot like riding a rollercoaster:
• Think about a time when you were on a roller coaster… what did you taste? See? Feel? Hear? Smell?

Conflict:

• Every story has a conflict - a struggle between two opposing forces. The conflict may be between two people or it may be between a person and some other force, regardless, every story revolves around conflict and it's important for you to understand the various kinds of conflict.
• Internal Conflict is a struggle that occurs within the main character. This struggle happens within the character's own mind who is torn between two different options.
• External Conflict is a struggle that the main character has with another character, with society, or with a natural force.

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Internal Conflict:

Man vs. Himself

External Conflict:

Man vs. Man

Man vs. Nature

Character: A person/animal who is responsible for the thoughts and actions within a story, poem, or other literature.

Theme:

• A common or repeated idea that is incorporated throughout a book, short story, movie, poem, etc.
• A theme is a thought or idea the author presents to the reader that may be deep, difficult to understand, or even moralistic.
• The theme is usually something that the reader has to work to find.
• How do we find the theme?
• Characters, Plot, Historical Context, other Lit. Devices

What is the THEME of this comic???

Tone:

• Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.

Mood:

• The atmosphere which prevails in a work
• The attitude the READER gets from the work.
• What is the difference

between TONE and

MOOD?

Symbol:

• In general, a symbol is something that stands for something else.
• In literature, a symbol not only stands for something else, but has significance.

Setting: �Why is the setting of a story important?

The time and place of the action.

The setting serves as a backdrop to create a particular mood.

Style

• Style: manner of expression; how a speaker or writer says what he says.

Ernest Hemmingway

• In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.�

A Farewell to Arms

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Mark Twain

• You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.�

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Characterization: �The way the author represents the characters.

• Direct: a character is described by the author, the narrator or the other characters.
• Indirect: a character's traits are revealed by action and speech.

Direct vs. Indirect:

• Larry was not very popular in school.

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• Larry could burst into flames in the middle of the classroom, and he still would not be noticed.

Foreshadowing:

The author’s use of clues to hint at what might happen later in the story. Foreshadowing builds readers’ expectations and creates suspense.

Diction:

• DICTION: The manner in which we express words; the wording used
• Diction=enunciation
• Easy Examples:

goin=going

wanna=want to

Hyperbole: �an extravagant exaggeration.

Metaphors

• A metaphor is a type of speech that compares or equates two or more things that do not have something in common. A metaphor does NOT use like or as.

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• Example: my brother was

boiling mad

Similes

• A simile is another figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things. Similes DO use the words like or as.

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• Example: Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

�Flashback: Flashback is a narrative technique that allows a writer to present past events during current events, in order to provide background for the current narration. Often presented as a memory of the narrator or another character.

Examples: Titanic, Holes, Willy Wonka

Empathy:

• Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

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• FEELING WITH THE CHARACTER!

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• Ex: Your parents got divorced last year. Now, your best friend’s parents are going through a divorce. You can RELATE.

Types of Characters:

• Antagonist:

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• Protagonist:

A character or force in conflict with a main character, or protagonist.

The main character in a literary work. (not always perfect!)

Sympathy:

• Emotional identification with a

character's experiences and feelings.

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• FEELING FOR THE CHARACTER!

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• Ex: Your best friend’s parents are

going through a divorce. Even though your parents are happily married, you feel sympathetic to the sadness your friend is feeling.

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