Literary Terms

Question 0

Unified plot

Answer 0

A plot in which the action is more or less continuos within a single day

Question 1

Plot

Answer 1

A stories sequence of incidents, arranged in dramatic order

Question 2

Episodic plot

Answer 2

A plot in which the action stretches over weeks or even longer

Question 3

Dramatic structure

Answer 3

Refers to the exact way in which emotional involvement in its plot is increased and relaxed

Question 4

Exposition

Answer 4

Provides readers essential information

Question 5

Complication

Answer 5

The appearance of some circumstance that begins the rising action

Question 6

Rising action

Answer 6

When an event shakes up the stable situation

Question 7

Moments of crisis

Answer 7

Points in the story where resolution of the complication momentarily seems at hand but quickly disappears

Question 8

Peripety

Answer 8

When characters hopes rise and fall

Question 9

Climax

Answer 9

Moment of greatest tension

Question 10

Falling action

Answer 10

When built up tension is released

Question 11

Epiphany

Answer 11

A moment spiritual insight or revelation

Question 12

Resolution/ dénouement

Answer 12

Returns a character to a stable situation

Question 13

Closed dénouement

Answer 13

Ties up everything neatly and explains unanswered questions

Question 14

Open dénouement

Answer 14

Leaves us with a few questions

Question 15

Archetypes

Answer 15

Universal types of characters and situations that all human beings carry in their unconscious minds

Question 16

Initiation story

Answer 16

When a character undergoes a rite of passage to prepare him for adulthood

Question 17

Protagonist

Answer 17

Main character

Question 18

Anti-hero

Answer 18

To designate one who occupies center stage but otherwise seems incapable of fitting the traditional heroic mold

Question 19

Flat character

Answer 19

Usually given one trait, some which may seem contradictory, and explored in depth as the author delves into the characters unconscious mind

Question 20

Stock characters

Answer 20

Stereotypes who may be necessary to advance the plot

Question 21

Static character

Answer 21

Stays the same

Question 22

Interior monologue

Answer 22

A direct presentation of thought that is somewhat like a soliloquy in drama

Question 23

Stream-of-consciousness

Answer 23

An attempt to duplicate raw sensory data in the same disordered state the mind receives it

Question 24

Description

Answer 24

Helps us understand the authors intent

Question 25

Characterynm

Answer 25

Naming characters to draw attention to aspects of their personality

Question 26

Point of view

Answer 26

Referring to the question of authority in a story

Question 27

Narrator

Answer 27

A voice of character that provides the reader information about and insight into characters and incidents

Question 28

Narrative conventions

Answer 28

When a narrator may suddenly jump from simply recording a conversation to telling us what one of its participants is thinking

Question 29

First person narration

Answer 29

Where the narrator is participant in action

Question 30

Unreliable narrator

Answer 30

Relating events in a distorted manner

Question 31

Third person narration

Answer 31

Nonparticipant narrative and a voice of authority that never reveals its sources

Question 32

Omniscience

Answer 32

The degree to which the "all-knowing" narrator can reveal the thoughts of characters

Question 33

Total omniscience

Answer 33

The narrator knows everything about the characters lives, their past, presents, and futures

Question 34

Authorial intrusion

Answer 34

Allowing the God-like author to comment directly on the action

Question 35

Limited omniscience

Answer 35

Limiting themselves to the thoughts perceptions of a single character

Question 36

Dramatic point of view

Answer 36

Where the narrator simply reports dialogue and action with minimal interpretation and no delving into characters minds

Question 37

Theme

Answer 37

The overall meaning the reader derives from the story

Question 38

Allegorical tales

Answer 38

Where literal events point to a parallel sequence of symbolic ideas

Question 39

Microcosm

Answer 39

A "small world" that reflects the tensions of the larger world outside

Question 40

Atmosphere

Answer 40

The emotional aura surrounding a certain setting

Question 41

Setting

Answer 41

Time and place of a story

Question 42

Locale

Answer 42

Time setting

Question 43

Local color fiction

Answer 43

Depends on the unique characteristics of area,p

Question 44

Regionalism

Answer 44

Setting most of their(authors) work in one particular area or country.

Question 45

Magic realism

Answer 45

When a story draws us into places where past, and present, history and folklore, natural and supernatural seamlessly join

Question 46

Enveloping action

Answer 46

The general setting of a story and its sense of the "times"

Question 47

Style

Answer 47

Refers equally to the characteristics of language in a story and to the same characteristics in a writers complete works

Question 48

Parody

Answer 48

Satirical imitation

Question 49

Tone

Answer 49

What we can indirectly determine about the authors own feelings

Question 50

Allegory

Answer 50

If details of a plot seem consistently symbolic

Question 51

Traditional symbol

Answer 51

A thing that most members of a culture instantly recognize as possessing a shared symbolic meaning

Question 52

Private symbol

Answer 52

A symbol an author has made his or her own by repeated use

Question 53

Doppelgänger

Answer 53

Character "doubles" who mirror each other in significant ways

Question 54

Incidental symbol

Answer 54

A thing of action that ordinarily would have no deeper meaning but acquires one in a story

Question 55

Dynamic character

Answer 55

Changes