Dramatic Devices

Question 1

Act

Answer 1

A major division in a play.

Question 2

Antagonist

Answer 2

A character or force against which another character struggles.

Question 3

Apron

Answer 3

The part of a proscenium stage that sticks out into the audience in front of the proscenium arch.

Question 4

Aside

Answer 4

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, but not “heard” by the other characters on stage during a play.

Question 5

Blocking

Answer 5

Movement patterns of actors on the stage. Usually planned by the director to create meaningful stage pictures.

Question 6

Box set

Answer 6

A set built behind a proscenium arch to represent three walls of a room

Question 7

Catharsis

Answer 7

The purging of the feelings of pity and fear.

Question 8

Character

Answer 8

An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work.

Question 9

Chorus

Answer 9

A traditional chorus in Greek tragedy is a group of characters who comment on the action of a play without participating in it

Question 10

Climax

Answer 10

The turning point of the action in the plot of a play and the point of greatest tension in the work.

Question 11

Comedy

Answer 11

A dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion

Question 12

Comic Relief

Answer 12

Comic relief serves a specific purpose: it gives the spectator a moment of “relief” with a light-hearted scene, after a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments.

Question 13

Conflict

Answer 13

The conflict between opposing forces in a play can be external (between characters) or internal (within a character) and is usually resolved by the end of the play.

Question 14

Complication

Answer 14

An intensification of the conflict in a play

Question 15

Convention

Answer 15

Literary conventions are defining features or common agreement upon strategies and/or attributes of a particular literary genres.

Question 16

Denouement / Resolution

Answer 16

A denouement (or resolution) is the final outcome of the main complication in a play.

Question 17

Deus Ex Machina

Answer 17

When an external source resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention.

Question 18

Dialogue

Answer 18

The conversation of characters in a literary work

Question 19

Diction

Answer 19

In drama diction can (1) reveal character, (2) imply attitudes, (3) convey action, (4) identify themes, and (5) suggest values.

Question 20

Dramatic Irony

Answer 20

A device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation reversed or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that the audience or readers have anticipated because their knowledge of events or individuals is more complete than the character’s

Question 21

Dynamic Character

Answer 21

Undergoes an important change in the course of the play- not changes in circumstances, but changes in some sense within the character in question – changes in insight or understanding or changes in commitment, or values.

Question 22

Exodos

Answer 22

The final scene and exit of the characters and chorus in a classical Greek play

Question 23

Exposition

Answer 23

The characters have to expose the background to the action indirectly while talking in the most natural way

Question 24

Falling Action

Answer 24

This is when the events and complications begin to resolve themselves and tension is released. We learn whether the conflict has or been resolved or not

Question 25

Flashback

Answer 25

An interruption of a play’s chronology (timeline) to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time-frame of the play’s action

Question 26

Flat Characters

Answer 26

Flat characters in a play are often, but not always, relatively simple minor characters

Question 27

Foil

Answer 27

A secondary character whose situation often parallels that of the main character while his behavior or response or character contrasts with that of the main character, throwing light on that particular character’s specific temperament

Question 28

Foreshadowing

Answer 28

Foreshadowing is a literary technique that introduces an apparently irrelevant element is introduced early in the story; its significance becomes clear later in the play

Question 29

Fourth Wall

Answer 29

The imaginary wall that separates the spectator/audience from the action taking place on stage

Question 30

Gesture

Answer 30

The physical movement of a character during a play

Question 31

Hubris

Answer 31

This negative term implies both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one’s abilities. This overwhelming pride inevitably leads to a downfall

Question 32

Linear Plot

Answer 32

A traditional plot sequence in which the incidents in the drama progress chronologically; in other words, all of the events build upon one another and there are no flashbacks

Question 33

Monologue

Answer 33

A speech by a single character without another character’s response

Question 34

Motivation

Answer 34

The thought(s) or desire(s) that drives a character to actively pursue a want or need

Question 35

Point of attack

Answer 35

The point in the story at which the playwright chooses to start dramatizing the action

Question 36

Plot

Answer 36

The sequence of events that make up a story

Question 37

Proscenium Arch

Answer 37

An architectural element separating the performance area from the auditorium in a theater

Question 38

Prologue

Answer 38

The prologue is either the action or a set of introductory speeches before the first entry of the chorus

Question 39

Props

Answer 39

Articles or objects that appear on stage during a play

Question 40

Protagonist

Answer 40

The main character of a literary work

Question 41

Repertory

Answer 41

A system of producing plays in which a company of actors is assembled to stage a number of plays during a specific period of time

Question 42

Resolution

Answer 42

The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story

Question 43

Reversal or Peripeteia

Answer 43

The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist- from failure to success or success to failure

Question 44

Rising Action

Answer 44

An event, conflict or crisis or set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play’s plot leading up to the climax

Question 45

Round Characters

Answer 45

A round character is depicted with such psychological depth and detail that he or she seems like a “real” person

Question 46

Satire

Answer 46

A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies

Question 47

Scene

Answer 47

A traditional segment in a play

Question 48

Scenery

Answer 48

The physical representation of the play’s setting (location and time period)

Question 49

Strophe (& Antistrophe)

Answer 49

A portion of a choral ode in Greek tragedy followed by a metrically similar portion, the antistrophe

Question 50

Soliloquy

Answer 50

A speech meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage (as opposed to a monologue which addresses someone who does not respond).

Question 51

Stage Direction

Answer 51

A playwright’s descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (as well as actors and directors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play

Question 52

Staging

Answer 52

The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects

Question 53

Static Character

Answer 53

A literary or dramatic character who undergoes little or no inner change; a character who does not grow or develop

Question 54

Suspension of Disbelief

Answer 54

You accept something as real or representing the real when it obviously is not real

Question 55

Stock Character

Answer 55

A recognizable character type found in many plays

Question 56

Subplot

Answer 56

A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot that coexists with the main plot

Question 57

Theatre of the Absurd

Answer 57

A type of drama and performance that conveys a sense of life as devoid of meaning and purpose

Question 58

Tragedy

Answer 58

A type of drama in which the characters experience reversal of fortune, usually for the worse

Question 59

Tragic flaw

Answer 59

A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero

Question 60

Tragic hero

Answer 60

A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and/or fate, suffers a fall from a higher station in life into suffering

Question 61

Unity of time, place, and action (“the unities”)

Answer 61

Limiting the time, place, and action of a play to a single spot and a single action over the period of 24 hours.