fiction test

Question 1

Fiction

Answer 1

any narrative, especially in prose, about invented or imagined characters and action.

Question 2

Theme

Answer 2

the insight about a topic communicated in a work. Theme is the central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work; the abstract concept that is made concrete through the images, characterization, and action of the text.

Question 3

Character

Answer 3

an imagined person who acts, appears, or is referred to in a literary work.

Question 4

Round character

Answer 4

complex and multi-faceted, acting in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible.

Question 5

Flat character

Answer 5

relatively simple, having a few dominant traits and tending to be predictable.

Question 6

protag

Answer 6

main character

Question 7

antag

Answer 7

a character or nonhuman force that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist.

Question 8

plot

Answer 8

the selection and arrangement of the action.

Question 9

exposition

Answer 9

the first phase or part of a plot, which sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play.

Question 10

conflict

Answer 10

the struggle within the plot between opposing forces; for example, the protagonist engages in conflict with the antagonist.

Question 11

complication

Answer 11

a character or event that introduces a new conflict or intensifies the existing one, especially during the rising action.

Question 12

crisis

Answer 12

the moment when the conflict comes to a head, often requiring the character to make a decision.

Question 13

climax

Answer 13

the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing.

Question 14

denoeument

Answer 14

literally “unraveling” or “unknotting,” a phase following the conclusion when any loose ends are tied up.

Question 15

in media res

Answer 15

literally “in the midst of things,” the technique of opening a plot in the middle of the action and filling in past details by means of exposition and flashback.

Question 16

flashback

Answer 16

a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order.

Question 17

foreshadowing

Answer 17

a hint or a clue about what will happen at a later moment in the plot; the early introduction of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later.

Question 18

epiphany

Answer 18

a sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or commonplace event; a character suddenly experiences a deep realization.

Question 19

narrator

Answer 19

someone who recounts a narrative or tells a story; the voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author’s voice.

Question 20

first person narration

Answer 20

an internal narrator who consistently refers to himself or herself using the first-person pronouns such as “I” or “we.”

Question 21

omniscient narrator

Answer 21

an all-knowing narrator who can describe the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters.

Question 22

limited omniscient narrator

Answer 22

an all-knowing narrator who can only describe the inner thoughts and feelings of one character.

Question 23

unreliable narrator

Answer 23

a narrator who reveals an interpretation of events that is somehow different from the author’s own interpretation of the those events; a narrator who may be in error in his or her understanding or report of things and who thus leaves readers without the guidance needed for making judgments.

Question 24

naive narrator

Answer 24

usually characterized by youthful innocence, this narrator is the ostensible author of a narrative, the implications of which are often plainer to the reader than they are to the narrator.

Question 25

setting

Answer 25

the time, place, and social context of the action in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama.

Question 26

tone

Answer 26

the attitude a literary works takes toward its subject, especially the way this attitude is revealed through diction. The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author’s style; tone may be serious or ironic, sad or happy, private or public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic, and so forth.

Question 27

irony

Answer 27

a situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant; it is ironic for a firehouse to burn down or for a police station to be burglarized

Question 28

verbal irony

Answer 28

when a word or expression in context means something different from, and usually opposite, what it appears to mean. When the intended meaning is harshly critical or satiric, the verbal irony becomes sarcasm.

Question 29

dramatic irony

Answer 29

when there is a gap between what an audience knows and what a character believes or expects; the words or acts of a character that carry meaning unperceived by the character but understood by the reader or audience.

Question 30

symbol

Answer 30

a person, place, thing, or event that figuratively represents or stands for something else; often the thing or idea represented is more abstract and general, and the symbol is more concrete and particular. Symbols are educational devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to painstaking explanations that would make a story more like an essay than an experience.