Literary Terms

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Literary Terms

• We will be using these literary terms throughout
  the school year.
• There WILL be literary terms used on your FINAL
  EXAMS in May!!
• You need to keep up with your notes. Dont lose
  your terms! You might be able to use them
• be RESPONSIBLE!!

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We will use the following terms

• Character Antagonist Protagonist
• Diction Denotation Connotation
• Imagery Mood Plot
• Exposition Rising Action Climax
• Falling Action Resolution Conflict
• Flashback Foreshadowing Suspense
• Point of View Setting Style
• Theme Tone Figures of Speech
• Metaphor Simile Oxymoron
• Personification Alliteration

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Character

• A character is a person or an animal that takes
  part in the action of a literary work.

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Antagonist

• The Antagonist is a character or force in
  conflict with a main character, or protagonist.

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Do you know your Antagonists???

• On your paper take a few minutes to write down
  some Antagonists that you can recall from movies,
  television shows, and video games
• Remember the Antagonist is in conflict with the
  Protagonist or, main character!
• Helpful hint you should now know why people use
  the saying Dont antagonize me!

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Protagonist

• The Protagonist is the main character in a
  literary work
• Can you name some famous Protagonists that are
  found in literature?

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Diction

• Diction is the manner in which we express words
  the wording used.
• Diction enunciation
• Some easy examples are
• Dont say goin say going, Dont
  say wanna say want to

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Denotation

• The denotation of a word is its dictionary
  meaning, independent of other associations that
  the word may have.

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Connotation

• The connotation of a word is the set of ideas
  associated with it in addition to its explicit
  meaning. The connotation of a word can be
  personal, based on individual experiences. More
  often, cultural connotations those recognizable
  by most people in a group determine a writers
  word choices.

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Denotation versus Connotation

• Some examples
• Cheap is low in cost (denotation) but stingy
  or poorly made are the connotations of cheap

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• Lets use the word HOT
• The denotation (or dictionary definition
  remember d in denotation dictionary) of HOT
  is having a temperature higher than that of a
  human body.
• However, when you say Man! He/She is hot!, are
  you saying Man! He is having a temperature
  higher than that of a human body!? No!!
• You are saying the CONNOTATION of HOT which
  could mean a variety of things man he/she is
  cute, attractive, beautiful, and many other
  meanings those come from personal experiences
  and cultural meanings, etc.

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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.

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MOOD

• Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in
  the reader by a literary work or passage.
  Writers 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.

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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.

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PLOTLINE
Climax
Rising Action
Falling Action
Resolution
Exposition
Conflict Introduced
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Exposition

• The Exposition is the introduction. It is the
  part of the work that introduces the characters,
  setting, and basic situation.

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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.

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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.

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Falling Action

• Falling Action is the action that typically
  follows the climax and reveals its results.

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Resolution

• The Resolution is the part of the plot that
  concludes the falling action by revealing or
  suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

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Conflict

• Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces
  in a story or play. There are two types of
  conflict that exist in literature.

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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

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Internal Conflict

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

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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.

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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

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Foreshadowing

• Foreshadowing is the authors 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.

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Can you think of an element of foreshadowing?
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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
  authors writing style.

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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.

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Tone

• Tone is a reflection of a writers or speakers
  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.

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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.

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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.

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Simile

• A Simile is another figure of speech that
  compares seemingly unlike things. Similes DO
  use the words like or as.
• Example Her voice was like nails on a
  chalkboard.

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Oxymoron

• An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that is a
  combination of seemingly contradictory words.
• Examples Same difference
• Pretty ugly
• Roaring silence

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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.

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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