This document provides an overview of key literary elements and terms, including:
- Prose as unstructured written language represented without line breaks, as opposed to poetry.
- Common story structures like plot, characters, setting, point of view, theme, and irony.
- Plot elements like exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
- Character types like protagonists and antagonists, and how they can change.
- The purposes of setting and types of conflicts within stories.
2. PROSE
• The form of written language that is not organized according to
formal patterns of verse . It may have some sort of rhythm and some
devices of repetition and balance, but these are not governed by
regularly sustained formal arrangement. The significant unit is the
sentence, not the line. Hence it is represented without line breaks in
writing
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5. PLOT
BASIC SITUATION
(EXPOTITION)
Tells the audience who the characters
are and introduce the conflict
Rising action
Complications that arise when the characters
take steps to resolve their conflicts
CLIMAX Most exciting or suspenseful moment when something
happens to determine the outcome of the conflict
Falling Action
The conflict is in the process of being resolved or
unreveled
Resolution
Denouement or“Untying the knot” • When the story’s problem/conflict
is resolved and the story ends • Endings may be happy or tragic
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6. Freytag’s Pyramid
Gustav Freytag was a Nineteenth Century German novelist who saw common patterns in the plots of stories
and novels and developed a diagram to analyze them. He diagrammed a story's plot using a pyramid like the
one shown here:
EXPOSITION
Climax
DENOUEMENT
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7. Characters
The process of revealing the personality of
a character in a story.
Type
Dynamic Character The character changes as a result of the action of the story.
The character does not change much in the course of the story.
The main character of the story. • Can be good or evil
The character or force that comes into conflict with the protagonist • Can be another person, an animal, a force of nature,
society, the character’s own conscience, etc.
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8. Setting
The time and location in
which the story takes place
Purpose of setting
1. Gives background information
2. Provides conflict
-Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society
3. Can reveal a lot about someone’s
character
4. Provides mood or atmosphere
- Mood- the feeling WE get when
we read a story
5. Can paint images for the reader
- Images – words that call forth the 5
senses
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9. Theme
The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.
The “golden thread” woven throughout the story
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10. The
direction
from which
the writer
has chosen
to tell the
story
“All-knowing” - An all-knowing narrator
who refers to all the characters as “he” and
“she.” Knows the thoughts and feelings of
ALL of the characters.
*The narrator is not necessarily the story’s
author*
Third Person
Limited
One of the characters tells the
story; talks directly to the reader
• Uses the pronoun “I,” “me,”
“we,” or “us”
The narrator will focus on the
thoughts & feelings of just one
character - Reader experiences
the events of the story through
the memory and senses of only
one character
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CONFLICT
It exists when a character is
struggling with something or
someone
Could be a number of things:
• Another person, an animal,
• an inanimate object- a rock, the
weather
• The character’s own personality
External Conflict- Caused by something OUTSIDE the character
Example: an another character, a river, weather, society
• Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society
Internal Conflict- Character struggles with some personal quality
that is causing trouble
Example: vanity, pride, selfishness, grief
• Man vs. Self
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IRONY
An “unexpected twist” in a story
Verbal: Someone says one thing but means another - also known as
sarcasm
Example: If a woman walks into a job interview and she is sloppily dressed
with only two teeth in her head and the interviewer says, “You have a
beautiful smile!”
Situational: When a reader expects one thing to happen and the opposite
occurs
• Example- Everyone knows the sad irony in “Richard Cory.” Why would
someone so successful and rich be so unhappy as to kill himself? In a
wonderfully ironic letter, George Bernard Shaw celebrates his mother’s death
and cremation. Charles Dickens’ character Mr. McChoakumchild is anything
but a teacher.
Dramatic: When the character in a play thinks one thing is true, but the audience
knows better. The audience has inside information that a character does not. - This
information usually comes in the form of an aside or a soliloquy.
Example: In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo says that his “grave is like to be his wedding
bed.” Little does he know that his marriage will be the cause of his untimely death. We
as an audience knows because we heard the prologue at the beginning of the play.