LITERARY ELEMENTS

CHARACTER
- A real or imaginary person who inhabits and gives meaning to the story.

CHARACTER ROLES

1. PROTAGONIST - The hero and the main character of the story.

2. ANTAGONIST - The villain, he or she is considered an enemy, a rival, or an opponent.
3. CONFIDANT - The close friend to the main character.
4. LOVE INTEREST - The character for whom the main character develops romantic
feelings.
5. TERTIARY CHARACTERS - The characters that are not directly connected to the main
storyline. However, they are important to make a plot more realistic.
6. FOIL - The traits or characteristics that contrast with the main character in order to
highlight main character’s personality.

TYPES OF CHARACTER

1. FLAT / STATIC - Someone whose personality does not change throughout the events in
the story’s plot.
2. ROUND / DYNAMIC - Who changes his or her personality or worldview as the story
goes.

SETTING
- The place and time where and when an event happens.
- Where a story takes place is also called its locale.

DIMENSIONS OF SETTING

1. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT - Refers to all things or characteristics that are

discernible, such as shapes, colors and textures, natural features, and landscapes.

Ex. Everywhere was green. It was summer, the sun is shining all over the place. Swings,
slides, play horses was there. The grass is cut and layout stunningly amazing. You can find
different kinds of colorful birds such as: green parrots, white doves, etc.

2. TIME - This refers to a specific point in a day, week, month or year, and the amount of
time elapsed from the start of an event until the end.
3. SOCIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT - Places can be characterized by how their people
collectively decide on the ideas that govern their behavior.
4. PSYCHOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT - Refers to the “personality” of a place used as
the setting. For example, the old mansion is dreary; the neighborhood is cheerful; the one
across town is sleepy. (adjective)

POINT OF VIEW - refers to the source and scope of the narrative voice.

- The position, standpoint or perspective from which the events of the story are seen
or observed.
VARIOUS POINT OF VIEW

1. FIRST PERSON POINT OF VIEW - Identifiable by the use of the pronoun “I, me, my,
we, our” A character in the story does the narration.

EXAMPLE. “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely –
having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I
thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.” - Moby Dick by
Herman Melville

2. SECOND PERSON POINT OF VIEW - The narrator refers to the reader as “you, your,
yours.” Making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story.

EXAMPLE. “You have friends who actually care about you and speak the language of
the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as dishevelled as your
apartment, and until you can clean it up a little you don’t want to invite anyone inside.” -
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay

3. THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW - “She, he, they, them, names of people.” The
narrator is outside the story and relating the experiences of a character.

EXAMPLE. “Do you want to eat? If you do, then you need to get cilantro instead of
acting like a lazy pig,” Tin said, thinking, I can’t believe I married this jerk. At least back
then he had a six pack, not his hairy potbelly. “Figure it out, Tina. I’m sick of rushing to
the store every time you forget something.” said Fred. He felt the anger pulsing through
his large belly.

PLOT - the sequence of events that make up a story, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in
time.

KINDS OF PLOT

ELEMENTS OF PLOT

1. EXPOSITION / INTRODUCTION - Where the story begins in which characters, settings

and atmosphere of the story are established.
 2. RISING ACTION - The incident or the set of incidents that lead to a crisis and/or
complication. This is where the conflict develops.
3. CLIMAX - This is also known as the highest point of tension in the story because this is
where the conflict comes to a head.
4. FALLING ACTION - This includes the section where the story’s tension decreases
because complications begin to resolve.
5. RESOLUTION - This is also known as DENOUEMENT.
- The part of story where the main problem is resolved or worked out and where the story
ends.
CLIFFHANGER - when writer wants the readers to make their own conclusion of the
narrative.

TYPES OF PLOT

1. LINEAR PLOT - consist of events that have a clear beginning, middle and end. The story
unfolds in a chronological order.

2. EPISODIC PLOT - short events are linked to one another by common characters, places,
or a unified theme but are held apart by individual plot, purpose, and subtext.

4. CUMULATIVE PLOT - events are repeated with one new aspect added with each
repetition.

5. CIRCULAR PLOT - characters in the story end up in the same place that they were at the
beginning of the story.

6. in medias res - The plot starts at the middle of the story. It provides flashbacks for the
readers to determine what happened before a plot’s initial action.

7. in extrema res - The plot starts at the end of the story. Like in medias res, it contains a lot
of flashbacks.

CONFLICT - is the struggle that exists in the story.

TYPES OF CONFLICT

1. MAN VS. SELF TYPES OF CONFLICT - The struggle between the protagonist and his
or herself.

2. MAN VS. MAN - The struggle between the protagonist and another person.

3. MAN VS. NATURE - The struggle between the protagonist and natural forces (e.g., water,
earth, wind, fire, diseases, etc.)

4. MAN VS. SUPERNATURAL TYPES OF CONFLICT - The struggle between the

protagonist and someone who has an ability beyond human nature (e.g., gods and goddesses,
demigods, etc.)

5. MAN VS. SOCIETY - The struggle between the protagonist and a group of people who
belongs to a social institution (e.g., government, religion, etc.)

THEME - The central idea or message in a poem or in other work of literature.

- Moral / lesson of the story.

THEMES: “It causes damage to hang onto a hurt.”

“Expressing anger reduces/prevents the violent actions.”