Ap Lit Long Fiction Flashcards
An imarinary person that is habits a literary work. They allow readers to study
and explore a range of values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms.
Character
reasons behind a characters actions or inactions.
Motives
character changes and makes choices that affect the climax or resolution of the narrative.
dynamic character
psychological or emotional change
internal change
health or wealth change
external change
character remains unchanged over the course of a narrative.
flat character
Character serves to illuminate, through contrast, the traits, attributes, or values of another character
foil
Inconsistencies between the private thoughts of characters and their
actual behavior reveal tension between private and professed values. A character’s competing, conflicting, or inconsistent choices or actions contribute to this in a text.
complexity
lesser characters that do not change in a narrative but reflect the values
of the main characters.
minor character
includes the social, cultural, and historical situation in the events of the text.
setting
the atmosphere surrounding a story and the emotions that the story
evokes in the reader. Any adjective can describe a mood, such as playful, tense, hopeful, dejected , creepy , lonely, amusing, or suspenseful. Every text will have a predominant mood that represents the entire piece. However, longer pieces such as novels can have different moods throughout the piece depending on what is happening in the plot.
mood
the place a character inhabits provides information about that character.
environment
The arrangement of the parts and sections of a text, the relationship of the
parts to each other, and the sequence in which the text reveals information. These are structural choices made by a writer that contribute to the readers interpretation of a text.
structure
highest turning point of the action of a plot in a novel, story, or play;
the point of greatest tension.
climax
the sorting out or unraveling of the plot at the end of a novel, story, or play
resolution
a moment, encounter, or episode that develops plot or reveals character.
significant scene
tension that prevents character from getting what they want.
conflict
inner psychological forces
inner conflict
outside forces that obstruct a character
external conflict
heighten and reflect different sides of primary conflict
secondary conflict
Interruption of a work’s chronology to describe or present an incident that
occurred prior to the main time frame of the action.
flashback
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or story.
forshadowing
Latin phrase meaning “in the midst of things;” when a story or scene starts
with a character in the middle of the action. It is more than skipping unnecessary backstory. It starts somewhere other than the natural starting point in the story.
in medias res
a method of narration that describes happenings in the flow of thoughts in
the minds of the characters. This style of writing is marked by the sudden rise of thoughts and lack of punctuation. This narration style is associated with the modern novelist and short story writers of the 20th
stream of consciousness
Represent contradictions or inconsistencies that introduce nuanced,
ambiguity, or contradiction in a text. This element makes texts more complex.
contrasts
can illustrate competing value systems that are in conflict; can create a sense of anticipation and suspense.
significant event
Emotional release usually at resolution of conflict.
Unseen characters/events affecting the main character. Unresolved ending that leads to interpretation.
function of conflict
the process of recounting a sequence of events; storytelling.
narration
a narrator who cannot be trusted: the reader detects biases by noting
which details the narrator chooses to include in the narrative in which they choose to omit. This may influence the reader’s understanding of a character’s motives.
unreliable narrator
Comparisons, representations, and associations shift meaning from the literal to
the figurative and invite readers to interpret a text.
figurative language
when a material object comes to represent, or stand for, an idea or a
concept. It can represent different things depending on the experiences of a reader or the context of its use in a text, yet some are common and universal.
symbol
