Fiction Lit Part 1

Front 1

Provide protection, as in the skin surface

Back 1

coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood and in which character change is thus extremely important

Front 2

Plot

Back 2

For the purposes of this class, "plot" means simply the sequence of events which takes place in a narrative. First one thing happens, and then the next, and so on. That is the "plot."

Front 3

Character

Back 3

Any person within a story. In more daring or experimental work, one can argue that some non-human element in the story serves as a "character," but this is relatively rare.

Front 4

Protagonist:

Back 4

The main character of a narrative. Sometimes, it may be hard to determine who the protagonist of a narrative truly is, but it is generally the character most prominent in the narrative’s climax and resolution, often the character presented with the possibility of change.

Front 5

Theme:

Back 5

The underlying idea, or perspective, that informs a work of fiction and imbues its patterns of detail with extra significance. Theme is often associated with a protagonist's Internal Conflict.

Front 6

Symbol:

Back 6

A symbol is specifically when an object stands in for some abstract value, as a heart may stand in for "love."

Front 7

Epiphany

Back 7

A moment of honest perception or reflection in the resolution of a narrative.

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Resolution

Back 8

The ending of a story. It was said of the Victorian Novels that the resolutions were when characters were "married and buried." Often in literary short stories, the resolution takes the form of an epiphany.

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Climax:

Back 9

Most narratives consist of rising tension leading to a climactic event, which typically takes place near the end.

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Setting:

Back 10

The time and place in which a narrative takes place.

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Internal Conflict

Back 11

This is the conflict within the protagonist. The protagonists of literary fiction usually find themselves pulled in separate directions by conflicting desires/impulses. While the Internal Conflict is also dramatized though plot, it is often resolved by epiphany.

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External Conflict

Back 12

This is the exterior conflict between the protagonist and his environment. His conflicts with other people are included. External conflict is generally worked out through plot.

Front 13

Conflict:

Back 13

You can't have a story without conflict. Conflict can be divided into two types, External Conflict and Internal Conflict. All fiction employs both types, but while genre fiction generally relies more on External Conflict to create and resolve dramatic tension, literary fiction relies more on Internal Conflict.

Front 14

1st Person Major
1st Person Minor

Back 14

The protagonist is telling the story.
- A secondary character is telling the story.

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2nd Person

Back 15

This point of view pretends that the narrative is the reader's story, and is characterized by the pronoun "you." The most common examples would be those Choose Your Own Adventure books you might have read as a child.

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3rd Person

Back 16

With this point of view, someone outside the narrative is telling it, rather than someone within the story. There are three types of 3rd Person points of view

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3rd Person Omniscient

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This narrator is God-like, all-knowing, and able to dip into the thoughts and feelings of any character in the narrative and report them directly to the reader.

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3rd Person Limited

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With this point of view, the "Limited" is short for "Limited Omniscient." This narrator only truly dips into the thoughts and feelings of a single character; although, he may, of course, communicate the thoughts and feelings of other characters indirectly.

Front 19

3rd Person Objective

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This is the "fly on the wall" point of view, the point of view of a video camera. It reports what can be seen and heard, but it never directly reports the thoughts and feelings of any character.

Front 20

This is the "fly on the wall" point of view, the point of view of a video camera. It reports what can be seen and heard, but it never directly reports the thoughts and feelings of any character.

Back 20

In talking about making roads because man is compelled to, regardless of where they might lead, he is talking about the role of desire in man’s life. Just a little later, he says, “He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained.” This is consistent with the notion that desire seeks only to propagate or continue itself, to create more desire, and that it is never really satisfied with the supposed object of its interest. As soon as we get what we have strived for, we are dissatisfied with and look for something else.

Front 21

The Underground Man believes that the only benefit of our advancing civilization is . . . ?

Back 21

The Underground Man points out that as our society advances, rather than defeating our impulses to wage war against one another, we do so more effectively and with greater awareness that we are doing wrong. Yet we do it anyway. Even during times of peace and prosperity, it is not unusual for men to act savagely, if simply out of boredom. In other words, given increasing opportunity to tame our worst instincts, to perfect ourselves, we continue to participate of barbarous behavior. Is he wrong?

Front 22

The only real comfort for the Underground Man rests in the “Sublime and Beautiful,” true or false?

Back 22

If for most of the early part of the book the Underground Man spends his time debunking the usefulness of reason, he doesn’t give art a free pass. In fact, he is more personally concerned with art than he is with reason, since he describes finding temporary relief in fiction before he finds it necessary to ruin it for himself. When he speaks of the “sublime and beautiful,” he is talking about art, about dreams, about works of the imagination.

Front 23

Which of these does the Underground confront first?

Back 23

The events are presented in ascending order of importance. Each one is more dangerous to the Underground Man’s sense of himself, and as a result, there is rising tension. The Underground Man doesn’t know the officer, while Simonov he knows, and Eliza offers him a possibility of companionship.

Front 24

1) What word did John Jacob Astor use to compliment the story's narrator?

Back 24

Well, he certainly isn't reckless. The narrator is a "prudent" man, a cautious man who is mindful of the opinion of other people. And this is what makes him a great contrast to Bartleby.

Front 25

Nippers is rowdy and impassioned after lunch, true or false?

Back 25

Actually, it is Turkey who is rowdy and impassioned after lunch, while Nippers is irritated and impassioned before lunch. Together, they almost make one complete scrivener. Both are struggling with their roles as human copy machines, and while Nippers comes to work, more resistant than resigned, Turkey comes to work resigned, and at lunch, consoles himself by drinking too much alcohol.

Front 26

What word does everyone in the office begin using?

Back 26

"Submission" is a word repeated, but only by Turkey, who is a person who has truly submitted. He has given up. But Bartleby still insists on having a choice, and so he uses the word "prefer," and the others soon take it up.

Front 27

Where does Bartleby end up at the novel's end?

Back 27

Bartleby ends up in jail, but in a sense, he starts there as well, because if you read the description of the narrator's office at the story's beginning, it's clear that Melville is drawing parallels between the office and the jail. Bartleby begins and ends surrounded by walls.

Front 28

According to the article, "Melville's Parable of Walls," Bartleby stand in for whom?

Back 28

Leo Marx takes a biographical approach to this story, and argues that among other things, Bartleby reflects Melville's own struggles to write his way and not in the more popular mode in which he'd written in the past.