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 Pas 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 dont 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 Im a little girl
with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is
how I got the name Squeaky. From Raymonds
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 characters
  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 pasta jump back in time.
• Example I couldnt 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 writers 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?