Literary Elements

1. Literary Elements What parts make up a story?

2. Story Grammar • Setting • Characters • Plot • Conflict • Climax • Theme • Resolution • Symbolism

3. What is setting? • Time and place where the action occurs • Furniture • Scenery • Customs • Transportation • Clothing • Dialects • Weather • Time of day • Time of year What are details that describe setting?

4. Elements of a Setting

5. What are the functions of a setting? • To create a mood or atmosphere • To show a reader a different way of life • To make action seem more real • To be the source of conflict or struggle • To symbolize an idea

6. We left the home place behind, mile by slow mile, heading for the mountains, across the prairie where the wind blew forever. At first there were four of us with one horse wagon and its skimpy load. Pa and I walked, because I was a big boy of eleven. My two little sisters romped and trotted until they got tired and had to be boosted up to the wagon bed. That was no covered Conestoga, like Pa’s folks came West in, but just an old farm wagon, drawn by one weary horse, creaking and rumbling westward to the mountains, toward the little woods town where Pa thought he had an old uncle who owned a little two-bit sawmill. Taken from “The Day the Sun Came Out” by D. Johnson

7. People or animals • Major characters • Minor characters • Round characters • Flat characters What types of characters are there?

8. What is characterization? • When a writer reveals what a character is like and how the character changes throughout the story • Direct- writer tells what the character is like • Indirect- writer shows what a character is like by describing what the character looks like, by telling what the character says and does, and by what other characters say about and do in response to the character. What are the two methods of characterization?

9. Direct Characterization …And I don’t play the dozens or believe in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I’m a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name Squeaky. From “Raymond’s Run” by T. Bambara

10. Indirect Characterization The old man bowed to all of us in the room. Then he removed his hat and gloves, slowly and carefully. Chaplin once did that in a picture, in a bank--he was the janitor. From “Gentleman of Rio en Medio” by J. Sedillo

11. Elements of Character

12. Encounters conflict and is changed by it • More fully developed • Minor character who does not experience dramatic change • Like an “extra” in a movie What is a round character? What is a flat character?

13. Physical appearance of character • Personality • Background/personal history • Motivation • Relationships • Conflict • Does character change? What are the factors in analyzing characters?

14. What is Plot? • Plot is what happens and how it happens in a narrative. A narrative is any work that tells a story, such as a short story, a novel, a drama, or a narrative poem.

15. What are the Parts of a Plot? • Inciting incident – event that gives rise to conflict (opening situation) • Development- events that occur as result of central conflict (rising action) • Climax- highest point of interest or suspense of story • Resolution- when conflict ends (falling action) • Denouement- when characters go back to their life before the conflict

16. Diagram of Plot Climax Development/Rising Action Falling Action Introduction (Exposition) Resolution Inciting incident/Opening situation Denoument

17. Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces • Every plot must contain some kind of conflict • Stories can have more than one conflict • Conflicts can be external or internal What is conflict?

18. External conflict- outside force may be person, group, animal, nature, or a nonhuman obstacle • Internal conflict- takes place in a character’s mind What is external conflict? What is internal conflict?

19. What are the 4 Types of Conflict? • Man vs. Man (external) • Man vs. Nature (external) • Man vs. Self (internal) • Man vs. Society (external)

20. A central message, concern, or insight into life expressed through a literary work • Can be expressed by one or two sentence statement about human beings or about life • May be stated directly or implied • Interpretation uncovers the theme What is theme?

21. Example of Theme “Every man needs to feel allegiance to his native country, whether he always appreciates that country or not.” From “A Man Without a Country” by Edward Hale pg. 185 in Prentice Hall Literature book

22. The part of the story's plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out. • This occurs after the falling action and is typically where the story ends. What is Resolution (Falling Action)?

23. What is Symbolism? • The use of a word, a phrase, or a description, which represents a deeper meaning than the words themselves.

24. a sudden twist, a ‘switcheroo,’ or a surprise ending • when you say one thing, but mean another. When it is done to hurt, it is called sarcasm. What is irony? What is verbal irony?

25. when you expect one thing, but another happens. • when the audience knows something that the characters do not. What is situational irony? What is dramatic irony?

26. Foreshadowing is when the author gives clues or hints about what might happen later on in a story. • Example: Nothing could go wrong on such a perfect day. Or so I, in my childlike innocence thought. What is foreshadowing?

27. Flashback is an interruption in the present action of a story to tell about something that happened in the past—a jump back in time. • Example: I couldn’t believe I had been tricked! All of a sudden I remembered back to a summer long ago when My brother and I had gone to stay with our grandparents in the country . . . What is a flashback?

28. the feeling the vocabulary used conveys to the reader. • the writer’s attitude toward his/her subject. What is mood? What is tone?

29. the perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told. • told by a character who uses the first-person pronoun “I”. • the narrator uses third-person pronouns such as “he” and “she” to refer to the characters. What is point of view? What first person point of view? What is third person limited point of view?

30. The reader is all-knowing. They know all the thought and feelings of all characters What is third person omniscient point of view?

31. The inner thoughts of a character. When a character is thinking to himself, it is called interior monologue • Gives the character to reflect • TIPS • Interior = inside • Monologue = one What is interior monologue?