Fiction midterm Flashcards
Discourse level
The set of narrative strategies by which a story achieves its effect on a
reader; the authorial choices (in language, structure, content, etc.) that
communicate the imagined events of a story to the reader.
Story level
The perceived content or events of story, considered as though they were
“really” happening– for example, Darth Vader was Luke’s father.
Close reading/close textual observation
Interpreting a text by noticing how subtle details of the author’s language
choices contribute to the reader’s overall impression
Conflict
The essence of plot; the opposition between two forces, usually consisting of a person’s desire/ need/ intention and something that is blocking its
fulfillment.
Tension
A reader’s sense of anxious interest in the ongoing events of a story,
produced by a feeling of something amiss that needs to be resolved or some gap that must be filled.
Oxytocin
social bonding to that character
Finding tension
Character, wants/needs, conflict
Tension where in story?
Created early usually in the exposition
Tension is most likely generated by?
Conflict
In medias res
A Latin phrase meaning “in the midst of things”; refers to a narrative device
of omitting the traditional slow exposition and beginning a story right in the middle of the main action already in progress
Exposition
The opening portion of a narrative, where the scene is set, the protagonist
and conflict are introduced, and the author sets out any other background
Donnée
The “givens,” premises, stated or implied “ground rules” for a work; Henry James’s term for indicating that the reader must grant the writer a free
choice of subject and treatment: “We must grant the writer his donnee.”
Rising Action
The part of the play or narrative, including the exposition, in which events start moving toward a climax. Rising action is generally accompanied by a ramping-up of the reader’s sense of narrative tension.
Falling action
The part of a narrative that follow the climax and bring the story to its
denouement
Climax
The moment of greatest tension in a story; the point just before the central
conflict is decided, one way or another
Epiphany
Literally, a “manifestation”; a sudden moment of critical revelation (or, for
Christian thinkers, a particular manifestation of God’s presence in the
created world).
Crisis
A moment where a critical decision must be made by a main character. In
introspective stories, this often serves as the climax of the story; but not all
climaxes will involve a crisis.
Denouement
The resolution of a literary work as plot complications are unraveled after
the climax. In French, Denouement means “untying”
Unrelaiable narrorator
to scan the text for clues about how the storyworld really is, as
opposed to how the narrator says it is.
Nonlinear narrative
A narrative whose telling jumps backward and forward in time, producing a discourse-level sequence of episodes that is different from the order in which events occurred in the story level
Coming of age
Also known as plots of “initiation”: a plot structure centered around process of a young person moving from innocence to experience (or maturity) and recognizing some truth about the world. An initiation story often has a sense
Example of coming of age
Unprotected
Genre
A conventional category of literature, usually linked to a common
combination of literary form and/or subject matter (for example, “cookbook”; “revenge tragedy”; “coming-of-age novel”)
Folktalke
Timeless popular (i.e., of the people) stories, usually part of an oral tradition. May deal with the exploits of heroes, with anthropomorphized animals, or with extraordinary feats of cunning or ingenuity, etc. May contain magical or supernatural elements.