Terms Used in the Study of Literature

Literary Terms

         

Author: the person who wrote what you're reading

Title: the name of the story or article you're reading

Fiction: a story that somebody has made up.

Article: something the author has written about something he knows from real life.  It may be to provide the reader with information, entertainment, insight or opinion, or to encourage the reader to do something about the thing he is describing.

Realistic Fiction: a story that may or may not have happened, but

it could have happened.  The words people say in the story are more than the author could have actually remembered, but (if it's based on a true story) the people on whom the story is based may have said something like those words.

Pre-reading: looking at the title, the name of the author, and the illustrations in order to figure out as much about the story as you can.

Introduction:  the beginning of the story, in which you find out such important aspects of the story as the setting, main characters and the story line.

Expository Passages (scenes):  the parts of the story in which important details are explained to the reader.

Plot (story line): what the story is about.

Motivation: the need or desire a character has that causes him/her to try to accomplish something.  For example, if hunger is the motivation, then trying to find food may be the struggle.

Conflict/struggle:  what a character, especially the main character, is trying to accomplish in the story.  If someone, or some animal, is trying to prevent someone from accomplish something, we use the term "conflict".

Setting: the time, place and the conditions in a story or article. 

In fiction, not all stories make it clear to the reader what all three elements are; nor are all three elements important to every story. 

To give a few examples, the story may present an imaginary world, so the reader may know the place (imaginary) and the conditions but not the time.  In a war story, the condition may reveal more than the place and time (e.g., "War-torn Italy" is clearer to the reader than "Italy, 1944.  You can have the same type of story set in "war-torn China", but not in "Italy, 1965" or "Switzerland, 1944" )

Main Characters: The people or animals that are most important

to the story.  Main Characters may include such agonists as the protagonist, antagonist, lone man, lion, and the relief character.

Agonist: Someone involved in a conflict or struggle.

Protagonist: The character who is struggling to achieve the major

action or goal of the story.

Antagonist: the character(s) who is/are trying to prevent the

protagonist from achieving his goal.

Lone Man: A character who is noticed because he/she/it doesn't seem to fit his/her/its surroundings.  Because the author has used this device to draw the reader's attention to this character, the reader should know that this character will be important to the conflict or struggle in the story.  He may help or hinder the protagonist (e.g., Captain Quint, in the movie Jaws, and "the cigarette-smoking man" in the TV series The X-Files).

Lion: A character who is vital to achieving the goal of the story's struggle, but he is killed or destroyed in doing so.  To give two examples: Captain Ahab succeeded in killing the great, white whale called Moby Dick, but the whale killed him.   Senator Edmund G. Ross saved President Andrew Johnson from getting removed from office, but he did this knowing it would destroy his own political career.  He loved his country more than he loved power, fame or popularity.

Relief Character: Someone whose function to the story is to provide the reader with a break from the main mood of the story.   In a serious story, he may be the one who says or does something to make the reader laugh.

Sidekick: a friend, partner or associate of the protagonist.  He helps the reader to see the protagonist in the way the author wants the reader to see him.  For example, Dr. Watson was Sherlock Holmes' sidekick.  The author (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) would never have gotten away with telling the reader that Holmes was brilliant, but he could have Watson say the same thing.  Holmes' thought processes were made clearer to the reader through Holmes' conversations with Watson. 

The next four characters described usually are not main characters, although they may be, especially in stories that are too short for the author to fully develop a character or situation.

Expendable Character: one whose purpose is to get killed or ruined.  If the character is likeable, his purpose is to generate sympathy.  If he's detestable, his purpose is to give the reader satisfaction of seeing him get killed or ruined.  In either case, he serves to show the reader that the protagonist is involved in a very serious struggle.  This is supposed to make us more concerned that this terrible thing also can happen to the protagonist.

Expository Character: a character whose purpose is to explain things to the reader.  He usually does this by explaining certain things to another character in the story.  In the movie Godzilla, the expository character was also the protagonist: a biologist who specialized in the effects of environmental damage on animals. 

Stock Character:  a character of such type that is familiar to the reader even before he begins reading the story.  By using stock characters, the author can spend more time describing the action of the story rather than fully describing a character who may not be vital to the story.  Stock characters may in include the "gruff sergeant with a heart of gold", the "streetwise youth", the "computer nerd" and the "wise, elderly man who lives a simple life apart from others".

Foil: one whose shortcomings show the reader just how superior the protagonist is.  For example, in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Inspector Lestrade was a bumbling police inspector, who was typical of London police inspectors in the 1880s.  Measured against Lestrade's bumbling, Sherlock Holmes looked even more brilliant.

Signal: anything the author or one of the characters says that is an indication of something that will happen later in the story.  For example, if the author begins the story by saying, "I don't think any two people could have been less alike than Billy Jack and me," the reader knows that Billy Jack and the person making that remark will find something in common with each other, and it will be important to the story.

Plant: something that is read but not noticed, which appears later in the story; is then noticed but isn't considered important.  The next time it appears, it draws the reader's attention.  The reader eventually sees that it's important to the outcome of the story.

Promise:  something a character says, or which is said about a character, that causes the reader to be know that a certain thing, or type of thing, will happen.  The promise may be positive or negative.  For example, if the antagonist is about to torture the protagonist, and he says, "No one has ever lasted for more than twenty minutes," the reader knows that the protagonist will gain the antagonist's respect by lasting much more than twenty minutes.

Voice of the story/voice of experience:  The story tells you that a certain thing will happen, but your experience as a reader will tell you that something other than that must happen.  This conflict of feeling helps to make the story more interesting.  For example, if the protagonist is a detective, and he says, "I'm completely baffled!  I don't see how I can solve this case," the reader knows that he must solve the case.  If he doesn't solve the case, then there's no story.  Suspense comes from knowing that the story must end a certain way but not knowing how this may be possible.

McGuffin: something that both the protagonist and the antagonist want, but they can't both have it.

Rising Action: the point in the story when the reader begins to sense something that will happen; and, each point in the story when the action becomes clearer or more exciting to the reader.

Relief: something that happens that gives the reader a break from the main action of the story.  Each time the action continues, the action picks up where it had left off, and the excitement builds from there.

False Climax: something happening near the end of the story that tells the reader that the struggle/conflict is over (thus, the story is ending).  Unknown to the reader, it isn't really over.

Surprise: something happening just after the climax that suddenly lets the reader know that the struggle/conflict is not yet over and the action will be even more intense.

Climax: the highest point in the action, near the end of the story.  The reader knows at this point that the protagonist either will succeed or fail in his struggle.

Resolution: the end of the struggle/conflict; thus, the end of the story.  Either the protagonist will succeed, or he will become more mature and learn to live with the results.

Affirmation: the lesson that the story is supposed to teach us about life or ourselves.  The reader is supposed to realize or become more certain that certain beliefs are worth believing.

The obvious: something you shouldn't overlook.

Guessing:  something that destroys your ability to think.

Thinking: something that spells the difference between education and mere training; or something that spells the difference between passing this course and flunking it.