Figurative Language

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Figurative language

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A type of language that varies from the norms of literal language. It forces the reader to make an imaginative leap in order to comprehend the authors point.

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Diction

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Ones word choice

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Explication

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A careful examination of a work, line by line paying careful attention to every detail.

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Genre

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A literary species or form.

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Objective

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Factual and rational viewpoint without personal feelings.

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Subjective

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Your opinion/personal feelings.

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Point of view

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The perspective the author uses to tell the story.

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First person POV

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Writing from the "I" point of view. Limited knowledge of outside forces.

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Third person POV

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Writing from the "he/she/they" point of view.

Can be omniscient or limited.

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Second person POV

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The protagonist is referred to by using second-person pronouns(you/your, etc).

Not very common.

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Setting

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The time, place, physical details, and circumstances on which a story/poem/writing takes place.

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Tone

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The writers attitude toward material and/or readers.

Eg. Playful, formal, intimate, angry, etc.

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Empathy

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A sense of being able to put "yourself in someone else's shoes".

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Protagonist

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The central character of the movie/play.

Often has a tragic flaw that fuels our sympathy.

Does not equal a "good character".

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Antagonist

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Any force in a story that is in conflict with the protagonist.

May be a person, destructive element, etc.

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Foil

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A character in a play that offsets the main characters by comparison. The foil enhances the characteristics of the protagonist for the reader. Often "sidekick".

Eg. Batman and robin, Jack Sparrow and Will Turner.

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Conflict

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Occurs when the main character is opposed by some other character or force in a work of literature.

Or, the main characters inner psychological struggle.

Eg. Frodo in conflict with Sauron, and his desire to wield the power of the ring.

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Freytags pyramid

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A list of the five main stages of most stories:

Exposition

Rising action

Climax

Falling action/resolution

Denouement/conclusion.

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Exposition

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Introductory material that gives the background of the play.

Eg. The wedding scene at the beginning of the the Godfather.

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Rising action

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The part of a plot in which the entanglement caused by the conflict of opposing forces is developed.

Eg. Iago begins to manipulate Othello.

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Climax

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The turning point in the action, the crisis at which the rising action turns and becomes the falling action.

The most exciting part of the story.

Eg. The narrator overcomes his stereotypes a out blind people and accepts a willingness to change(Cathedral).

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Falling action/resolution.

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The complications of the rising action are untangled.

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Denouement/conclusion

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The final outcome of main characters in a drama or novel that is based on logical events from the story.

It ties up the loose ends of the plot lines of the major character together.

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Foreshadowing

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The author plays on common beliefs or casual connections that most viewers or readers will have some direct experience with, thereby causing them to anticipate a specific chain of events.

Eg. Early on in Romeo and Juiet, they both state that they would rather die than live apart.

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Irony

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Using contradictory statements/situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true. The gap between what is expected and what actually happens in reality.

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Verbal irony

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When a character seats be thing and intentionally means another.

Eg. "Way to go, Einstein".

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Dramatic irony

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When a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters.

Highly effective in comedy.

Eg. In smasher movies the characters often make jokes about being murder/violence/etc before they're killed.

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Irony of situation

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When an entire scenario is not what it seems to be, or of expectations that turn out to be the opposite of what the expectations were.

Eg. Macbeth murders his king hoping that in becoming king he will achieve great happiness. After, he never gets any peace and is beheaded.

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Simile

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A comparison between two uhngs essentially unlike, and uses the words: like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.

Eg. I'm as poor as dirt.

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Metaphor

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A comparison between two unlike things that does NOT use the words "like/as".

Eg. To be a couch potato.

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Denotation

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The basic definition of a word.

The dictionary meaning.

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Connotation

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What a word suggests beyond it's basic definition.

Eg. The United States(military, Hollywood, Donald Trump, etc).

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Symbol

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Something that on the surface is its literal self, but also serves for another meaning.

Eg. A sword may also symbolize justice.

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Universal symbol

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A symbol that is universally recognizable.

Eg. Skull = death.

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Constructed symbols

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Something that is given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work.

Eg. White whale in moby dick = evil.

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Motif

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A recurring object/concept with symbolic meaning.

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Eg. The colour green in the Matrix = evil influence.

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Allegory

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A narrative story using symbolic names or characters that carry underlying meaning other than the one most apparent.

Meant to explain or teach a moral idea/lesson.

Eg. In Gulliver's Travels, the Lilliputians symbolize British government and Bureaucracy.

In Aesops Fables, there is a story about the hate and the tortoise(slow and steady wins the race).

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Allusion

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An indirect or brief reference to well-known characters or events.

They summarize broad, complex ideas in one quick, powerful image.

Eg. Napoleon the pig in Animal Farm alludes to the Bolshevik Revolution during World War I, allowing for the reader to better see the level of power a single ruler can reach.

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Catastrophe

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The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouement or falling action of a play.

Eg. In act V of Hamlet, Hamlet dies, along with Laertes, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude.

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Cliché

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An over-used phrase or movement that has lost its original power.

Eg. A man and woman are angry at each other and then embrace suddenly and passionately in a romance movie.

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Parallel structure

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Expressing two or more linked ideas, actions, or sentences in the same grammatical structure.

The parallel words must match grammatically with their counterparts.

Eg. I wake up in the morning and nod off in the evening.

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Paraphrase

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To restate someone else's ideas in your own words.

Eg. Original: many writers acknowledge that Dr. Seuss has had an enormous impact on the minds of millions of children and adults alike.

Paraphrased: A lot of people know that Dr. Seuss has been very influential.

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Stereotype

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A conventional and over simplified opinion or image of a person or group of people.

This is most often used in a negative, and sometimes derogatory fashion.

Eg. Canadian: living in an igloo.

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Unreliable narrator

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A narrator who gives his or her own understanding of a story, instead of the explanation and interpretation the author wishes the audience to obtain.

This tends to alter the audiences opinion of the conclusion.

Eg. Holden Caulfield in the Catcher and the Rye.

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Epic

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The epic precedes the novel as the most common form of story telling and has existed a much longer time.

They have serious themes and have a larger than life hero that embodies the values of the particular society who under takes a quest to achieve something of great value for the people and for himself.

Eg. Lord of the rings, The Iliad.

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Hamartia

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A tragic flaw in the protagonist.

Eg. Willful stubborness, disobedience, etc.

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Hubris

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Overweening pride or insolence that results in the misfortune of the protagonist of a tragedy.

Hubris leads the protagonist to break a moral law, attempt vainly to transcend normal limitations, or ignore a divine warning with calamitous results.

Eg. By ignoring global warming, we may be hubristic.

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Hyperbole

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An extreme overstatement.

Eg. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.

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Onomatopeia

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When the sound of a word imitated the sound it represents.

Eg. Bang! Smash!

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Oxymoron

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The juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas is an oxymoron.

Comes from the Greek words for 'sharp' and 'foolish'.

Eg. Act naturally, bittersweet, etc.

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Paradox

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Contradictory logic.

Eg. Emily Dickinsons "much madness is divinest sense".

The more I learn the less I understand.

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Satire

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The use of mockery, irony, or wit to attack or ridicule something. Could be a habit, an idea, or a custom that is considered to be foolish or wrong.

Eg. In gullivers travels, Jonathan Swift ridicules the absurd manners and traditions of the British Empire.