Lit Terms

Question 1

Personification

Answer 1

A metaphor in which you describe an inanimate object, abstract thing, or non-human animal in human terms.

Ex: “The front door recognized the dog voice and opened…”

Question 2

Allusion

Answer 2

A reference to something else.

Ex: “‘Who is gentle bear’”

Question 3

Auditory imagery

Answer 3

A form of mental imagery that is used to organize and analyze sounds when there is no external auditory stimulus present.

Ex: “In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh…”

Question 4

Hyperbole

Answer 4

A figure of speech in which an author or speaker purposely and obviously exaggerates to an extreme.

Ex: “It’s maybe a thousand years old…”

Question 5

Metaphor

Answer 5

A common figure of speech that makes a comparison by directly relating one thing to another unrelated thing.

Ex: “’Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,…’”

Question 6

Motif

Answer 6

A symbolic image or idea that appears frequently in a story.

Ex: “Five o’clock…Six, seven, eight o’clock…Nine o’clock…Nine-five”

Question 7

Parallel structure

Answer 7

The repetition of a chosen grammatical pattern within a sentence.

Ex: “Animals took shape: yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink antelopes, lilac panthers cavorting in crystal
Substance”

Question 8

Repetition

Answer 8

The repeating of a word or phrase.

Ex: “’Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…’”

Question 9

Simile

Answer 9

A literary term where you use “like” or “as” to compare two different things and show a shared quality between them.

Ex: “When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor…”

Question 10

Symbol

Answer 10

Any image or thing that stands for something else.

Ex: “After a few weeks of what she called “endless pestering” and what I called “repeated
badgering,” my mother bought me a pocket thesaurus, which provided me with s-free alternatives to
just about everything”

Question 11

Tactile imagery

Answer 11

A mental image of how an object feels.

Ex: “In my crisp pink-and-white dress with scratchy lace at the neck…”

Question 12

Visual imagery

Answer 12

Description that stimulates the eyes.

Ex: “As our mother sprinkled flour and rolled out small doughy circles for the steamed dumplings that would be our dinner that night…”

Question 13

External conflict

Answer 13

A character struggling against another character, the natural world, or society.

Ex: David struggles against not conforming to the expectations society has for males of his age.

Question 14

Internal conflict

Answer 14

The struggles occur within a character’s mind.

Ex: David struggles to win his ever-uphill battle against the letter s.

Question 15

Protagonist

Answer 15

Another word for “main character.”

Ex: David is the individual recounting his own experience.

Question 16

Antagonist

Answer 16

The opposite of the protagonist, or main character.

Ex: Waverly’s mother creates conflict with Waverly by endlessly showing her off and pressuring her to rapidly improve at a continuous rate.

Question 17

Narrator

Answer 17

The voice of the person telling the story; not to be confused with the author’s voice.

Question 18

Exposition

Answer 18

The part of a narrative that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances. Includes what has gone on before, the relationships between characters, the development of a theme, and the introduction of a conflict.

Question 19

Rising action

Answer 19

The part of the narrative plot where complications arise and create conflict for the protagonist.

Question 20

Climax

Answer 20

The moment of greatest emotional tension in a narrative; usually the marking of the turning point.

Question 21

Falling action

Answer 21

The part of the plot where the tensions diminish and the conflict begins to resolve.

Question 22

Denouement

Answer 22

The conclusion of the plot’s conflicts and complications. Also known as the resolution. It means the loose ends are tied up.

Question 23

Setting

Answer 23

The physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs. The major elements of the setting are the time, the place, and the social environment that frames the characters.

Question 24

Theme

Answer 24

A literary work’s central meaning or dominant idea. A theme provides a unifying point but is NOT the actual subject of the story. A theme is not a topic or a message. A theme is the author’s commentary on a subject.

Question 25

Tone

Answer 25

The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a narrative.

Question 26

Mood

Answer 26

The way the narrative makes the reader feel.