Literary Terms and Theories
The central idea or message of a text that authors try to convey.
What is a Theme?
A poet who frequently criticized the patriarchy.
Who is Sylvia Plath?
A story about loving someone more than loving yourself.
What is The Little Mermaid?
The main character from the story turned into a cockroach, or a dung beetle depending on who translated the story.
Who is Gregor from The Metamorphosis?
The sport Troy Maxson played before becoming a garbage man.
What is Baseball?
Attributing meaning to objects, places, people, or actions. For example, the act of wearing a mask or the act of building a fence has a special meaning.
What is symbolism?
This object symbolized the oppression of black people during the Jim Crow era.
What is a mask?
The main character of this story experienced a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Who is Beauty from Beauty and The Beast?
A story about two brothers from Harlem and their complicated relationship.
What is Sonny's Blues?
An idea (or character) that Troy often challenges and wants to protect his family from.
Who is Death?
"...individual trauma can be passed to others of the same ethnic, racial, or gender group who did not experience the actual event, but because they share social or biologic similarities, the traumatic experience of the individual and group become one."
What is intergenerational trauma?
A genre of poetry that is often personal and autobiographical.
What is confessional poetry?
A cycle that involves a call to action, followed by many trials and tribulations that the main character must overcome, and ends with some kind of reward in the end.
What is the Hero Cycle?
A writer and activist; however, he did not publicly ever label himself an activist.
Who is James Baldwin?
A term used to describe August Wilson's racial background.
What is biracial?
A theory that analyzes the role of women and men in literature. Readers tend to examine how women are represented in literature as oppressed. It also analyzes traits of toxic masculinity that pervades literature.
What is feminist and/or gender criticism/theory?
This term describes Sylvia Plath's use of holocaust imagery to represent her own traumas.
What is cultural appropriation?
A term used to describe a kind of love where you are not loved back.
What is unrequited love?
A biblical reference in Sonny's Blues.
What is the cup or "The Cup of Trembling"?
A racist metaphor indicated that African American slaves were "not ready for freedom" and southern white slave owners used it to imply that slaves were unclean. It explains why Brownie tried to hide this particular object from his boss.
What is the watermelon trope or stereotype?
A theory where literature is seen as a material product and discusses the aspects related to its production and consumption. It's also a lens that interprets power struggles based on socioeconomic status and social class. It often analyzes and distinguishes who are the victims and oppressors in literature.
What Marxist Criticism or Theory?
Amanda Gormon uses this poetic/literary device in the following lines:
"...we will raise this
wounded world into a wondrous one."
What is alliteration?
This stock character is frequently featured in 18th-century literature, where the main female lead is expected to reform him into a better man.
What is a rake?
Kafka is known for this; a term that describes the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.
Hint: It is not personification.
What is anthropomorphism?
It has many representations, from social and economic segregation to protection from society's harsh realities.
What is the fence?