Easy
The ways individual characters are represented by the narrator or author of a text. This includes descriptions of the characters’ physical appearances, personalities, actions, interactions, and dialogue.
Characterization
The perspective (visual, interpretive, bias, etc.) a text takes when presenting its plot and narrative.
Point of View
Describes a narrative told from the perspective of an outside figure who does not participate directly in the events of a story. This mode uses “he,” “she,” and “it” to describe events and characters.
Third person
A mode of writing in which the author traces his or her thoughts verbatim into the text. Typically, this style offers a representation of the author’s exact thoughts throughout the writing process and can be used to convey a variety of different emotions or as a form of pre-writing
Stream of consciousness
According to Baldick, “The repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllabus—in any sequence of neighboring words” (Baldick 6). ______________is typically used to convey a specific tone or message.
Alliteration
Spoken exchanges between characters in a dramatic or literary work, usually between two or more speakers.
Dialogue
Comprising an author’s diction, syntax, tone, characters, and other narrative techniques, _____is used to describe the way an author uses language to convey his or her ideas and purpose in writing.
Style
A narrative perspective that typically addresses that audience using “you.” This mode can help authors address readers and invest them in the story.
Second person
A character in a text who the protagonist opposes. The antagonist is often (though not always) the villain of a story
Antagonist
A literary mode that attempts to convert abstract concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into characters or other tangible elements in a narrative.
Allegory
A kind of literature. For instance, comedy, mystery, tragedy, satire, elegy, romance, and epic are all genres. Texts frequently draw elements from multiple genres to create dynamic narratives.
Genre
An object or element incorporated into a narrative to represent another concept or concern. Broadly, representing one thing with another.
Symbol(ism)
A story told from the perspective of one or several characters, each of whom typically uses the word “I.” This means that readers “see” or experience events in the story through the narrator’s eyes.
First person
A protagonist of a story who embodies none of the qualities typically assigned to traditional heroes and heroines. Not to be confused with the antagonist of a story, the _______ is a protagonist whose failings are typically used to humanize him or her and convey a message about the reality of human existence
Anti-hero
When a text references, incorporates, or responds to an earlier piece
Allusion
A term used to describe an author’s use of vivid descriptions. It can refer to the literal landscape or characters described in a narrative or the theoretical concepts an author employs.
Imagery
“a salient abstract idea [or lesson] that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number or literary works” (Baldick 258).
Theme
Typically refers to saying one thing and meaning the opposite, often to shock audiences and emphasize the importance of the truth.
Irony
The artistic representation of a concept, quality, or idea in the form of a person. ___________can also refer to “a person who is considered a representative type of a particular quality or concept” (Taafe 120)
Personification
a figure of speech that refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another).
Metaphor
The sequence of events that occur through a work to produce a coherent narrative or story.
Plot
A way of communicating information (in writing, images, or sound) that conveys an attitude of the author.
A style of writing that mocks, ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or group of people in order to challenge them. Often, texts employing satire use sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration to assert their perspective.
Satire
The primary character in a text, often positioned as “good” or the character with whom readers are expected to identify. ____________usually oppose an antagonist.
Protagonist
a figure of speech that compares two people, objects, elements, or concepts using “like” or “as.”
Simile