Literary Terms

We will be using these literary terms

throughout the school year.
There WILL be literary terms used on
your FINAL EXAMS in JUNE!!
You need to keep up with your notes.
Don’t lose your terms! You might be
able to use them –
be RESPONSIBLE!!
 We will use the following terms:

Character Antagonist Protagonist

Diction Denotation Connotation
Imagery Mood Plot
ExpositionRising Action Climax
Falling Action Resolution Conflict
Flashback Foreshadowing Suspense
Point of View Setting Style
Theme Tone Figures of Speech
Metaphor Simile Oxymoron
Personification Alliteration
 Imagery
Imagery is words or phrases
that appeal to one or more of
the five senses. Writers use
imagery to describe how their
subjects look, sound, feel,
taste, and smell.
 MOOD
Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling
created in the reader by a literary
work or passage. Writer’s use many
devices to create mood, including
images, dialogue, setting, and plot.
Often, a writer creates a mood at the
beginning of a work and then
sustains the mood throughout.
Sometimes, however, the mood of
the work changes dramatically.
 Plot
Plot is the sequence of events. The first event
causes the second, the second causes the third,
and so forth.
In most novels, dramas, short stories, and narrative
poems, the plot involves both characters and a
central conflict.
The plot usually begins with an exposition that
introduces the setting, the characters, and the
basic situation. This is introduced and developed.
The conflict then increases until it reaches a high
point of interest or suspense, the climax. The
climax is followed by the falling action, or end, of
the central conflict. Any events that occur during
the falling action make up the resolution.
 PLOTLINE
Climax

Fa
ion

ll
ing
Act

Ac
ng

tio
Risi

n
Resolution
Exposition

Conflict Introduced
 Exposition
The Exposition is the
introduction. It is the part
of the work that introduces
the characters, setting, and
basic situation.
 Rising Action
Rising Action is the part of the
plot that begins to occur as soon
as the conflict is introduced.
The rising action adds
complications to the conflict and
increases reader interest.
 Climax
The Climax is the point of
greatest emotional intensity,
interest, or suspense in the
plot of a narrative. The climax
typically comes at the turning
point in a story or drama.
 Falling Action

Falling Action is the action that

typically follows the climax and
reveals its results.
 Resolution

The Resolution is the part of

the plot that concludes the
falling action by revealing or
suggesting the outcome of
the conflict.
 Conflict

Conflict is the struggle

between opposing forces in
a story or play. There are
two types of conflict that
exist in literature.
 External Conflict

External conflict exists when a character

struggles against some outside force, such
as another character, nature, society, or
fate.

Man vs. Man

Man vs. Nature
 Internal Conflict
Internal conflict exists within the mind of a
character who is torn between different
courses of action.

Man vs. Himself

 Flashback
A flashback is a literary device in
which an earlier episode,
conversation, or event is inserted
into the sequence of events. Often
flashbacks are presented as a
memory of the narrator or of
another character.
 Flashback continued…

The movie Titanic is told almost entirely in a

flashback.

What are some other films that contain

flashback to help tell stories?

Holes
Willy Wonka
Think of some more…
 Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is the author’s use of clues
to hint at what might happen later in the
story. Writers use foreshadowing to build
their readers’ expectations and to create
suspense. This is used to help readers
prepare for what is to come.
Can you think of an
element of
foreshadowing?
 Suspense
Suspense is the growing interest and
excitement readers experience while
awaiting a climax or resolution in a work
of literature. It is a feeling of anxious
uncertainty about the outcome of events.
Writers create suspense by raising
questions in the minds of their readers.
 Point of View
Point of View is the perspective, or vantage
point, from which a story is told. It is the
relationship of the narrator to the story.
First-person is told by a character who uses
the first-person pronoun “I”.
Third-person limited point of view is the
point of view where the narrator uses
third-person pronouns such as “he” and
“she” to refer to the characters.
 Setting
The setting of a literary work is the time and
place of the action.
The setting includes all the details of a place and
time – the year, the time of day, even the
weather. The place may be a specific country,
state, region, community, neighborhood,
building, institution, or home.
Details such as dialect, clothing, customs, and
modes of transportation are often used to
establish setting.
In most stories, the setting serves as a backdrop
– a context in which the characters interact.
The setting of a story often helps to create a
particular mood, or feeling.
 Style
Style is the distinctive way in which
an author uses language.
Word choice, phrasing, sentence
length, tone, dialogue, purpose,
and attitude toward the audience
and subject can all contribute to
an author’s writing style.
 Theme
The theme of a literary work is its central
message, concern, or purpose. A theme can
usually be expressed as a generalization, or
general statement, about people or life. The
theme may be stated directly by the writer
although it is more often presented indirectly.
When the theme is stated indirectly, the reader
must figure out the theme by looking carefully at
what the work reveals about the people or about
life.
 Tone
Tone is a reflection of a writer’s or speaker’s
attitude toward a subject of a poem, story, or
other literary work. Tone may be communicated
through words and details that express
particular emotions and that evoke and
emotional response from the reader.
For example, word choice or phrasing may seem
to convey respect, anger, lightheartedness, or
sarcasm.
 Figures of Speech
A figure of speech is a specific device or kind of
figurative language, such as hyperbole,
metaphor, personification, simile, or
understatement.
Figurative language is used for descriptive effect,
often to imply ideas indirectly. It is not meant to
be taken literally. Figurative language is used to
state ideas in vivid and imaginative ways.
 Metaphor
A Metaphor is a type of speech that
compares or equates two or more things
that have something in common. A
metaphor does NOT use like or as.

Example: Life is a bowl

of cherries.
 Simile
A Simile is another figure of speech that
compares seemingly unlike things.
Simile’s DO use the words like or as.

Example: Her voice was like nails on a

chalkboard.
 Oxymoron
An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that is a
combination of seemingly contradictory
words.

Examples: Same difference

Pretty ugly
Roaring silence
Personification
Personification is a
figure of speech in
which an animal,
object, force of
nature, or idea is
given human qualities
or characteristics.

Example: Tears began

to fall from the dark
clouds.
 Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of sounds, most
often consonant sounds, at the beginning
of words. Alliteration gives emphasis to
words.
Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of
pickled peppers