Literature techniques Flashcards
What is the function of names?
To signal:
- A moral dimension for the character
- A physical or emotional characteristic
- A cultural or racial dimension
- Status, power, or lack of power in a character
What does a beginning tell you?
- Theme
- Style
- Tone
Kathy H as a name
‘H’ - will always remain young, infantilizes, nickname you get from family
Soft ‘to’ - phonetic echo with carer
Lack of connection with history – subduing to higher power yet introduces herself through her name so we do not see her as a clone
Feminine ending ‘y’
No title – she is segregated from society
Why do we use a first-person narrator?
Sense of intimacy
Insight of thoughts and feelings
Introduces a particular voice
Allows the author to create an unreliable narrator – Kathy is naive
Question moral values with limited knowledge
Reader must work harder to piece the novel
Idiolect
an individual’s way of talking – particular words and/or phrases
Naive narrator
does not understand what is happening
Intrusive narrator
interrupts story with comments
Naive adoption of discourse
particular words without explanation
Direct address to reader, unreliable narrator and metafictional awareness of reader
as it says
Forcing reader to read against the grain
reader is told what they are (when not)
Analeptic reference
flashbacks
Proleptic reference
foreshadowing
Non-linear narrative
goes back and forwards in time
Retrospective narrative
looking back/nostalgia
Referential settings
Referential – A fictional place where fictional characters could exist, illusion of reality
Genre
a style or category of painting, novel, film, etc, characterized by a particular form/purpose.
Veresimilitudinal
To ‘imitate’ the real world with place names – not escapist fiction
Symbolic
To build an atmosphere or to suggest a message (using repitition, contrasts) (2 settings could contrast dramatically based of the people or different actions)
Analogical
To suggest or reveal a character’s state of mind as a parallel becomes obvious between the setting and character (pathetic fallacy, etc)
Protagonist
Generates the action, often engaging the reader’s interest/empathy (EG Kathy)
Antagonist
Opposes the protagonist (EG wider society)
The foil
Contrasts with another character to highlight features of that character (Kathy’s passiveness, Tommy’s volatility)
The archetype
a stereotype – hero, rebel, lover, creator, ruler, orphan
The static
Has a singular function (Elizabeth, Justine, Miss Lucy)
The dynamic
Changes and develops throughout the novel (Ruth, Victor and the creature as the gothic double)
Framed narrative
‘a story within a story’ - multiple perspectives, main narrative forms a second narrative
Imbedded narratives
in a frame narrative, hinges contextually on it, whilst typically becoming the bulk story itself
Chinese box structure
a narrative in a narrative…….. - Saffies story in the creature’s story in Victor’s story in Walton’s story
Grammar revision - the simple, compound and complex
Simple sentence – 1 clause, one idea, childlike
Compound – 2 clauses conjoined by a conjunction, typical of spoken discourse
Complex – Pompous, communicates more than one idea, ideas are not equal, dependent on another clause, more common written than spoken discourse, interior monologues
Sentence moods:
Declarative: statement of fact, certainty
Interrogative: question, uncertainty
Exclamative: exclamation, agitation
