literary+devices

Plot The plot is the organization of [|character] and action in a work of narrative or [|drama] in order to achieve particular effects. Plot is distinguished from story, which is the summary of the plot's incidents without considering how they are interrelated.

Introduction

Rising Action

Climax

Conclusion

Setting

Antagonist

Protagonist The **protagonist** in a work of fiction is the character with whom the reader is meant to be chiefly concerned; she or he is the main character, who, whether sympathetic or not, is the focus of the [|plot.] A work of narrative or [|drama] may have more than one protagonist.

Round Character

Flat Character

Dynamic Character

Static Character

Conflict Types

Metaphor is a type of [|paradox] that combines two terms ordinarily seen as opposites, such as Milton's description of God in //Paradise Lost// as "Dark with excessive bright." The oxymoron was a common form of Petrarchan [|conceit.]

Personification is a type of [|paradox] that combines two terms ordinarily seen as opposites, such as Milton's description of God in //Paradise Lost// as "Dark with excessive bright." The oxymoron was a common form of Petrarchan [|conceit.]

Simile

Allusion

Oxymoron is a type of [|paradox] that combines two terms ordinarily seen as opposites, such as Milton's description of God in //Paradise Lost// as "Dark with excessive bright." The oxymoron was a common form of Petrarchan [|conceit.]

Euphemism is the use of roundabout language to replace colloquial terms that are considered too blunt or unpleasant.

Foreshadowing

Point of View is the perspective from which a narrative is presented; it is analogous to the point from which the camera sees the action in cinema. (See also [|persona,] [|tone,] [|voice].) The two main points of view are those of the **third-person** (**omniscient**) narrator, who stands outside the story itself, and the **first-person narrator**, who participates in the story. The first type always uses third-person pronouns ("he," "she," "they"), while the latter narrator also uses the first-person ("I").

Omniscient

Satire Satire arouses laughter or scorn as a means of ridicule and derision, with the avowed intention of correcting human faults. Common targets of satire include individuals ("personal satire"), types of people, social groups, institutions, and human nature. Like [|tragedy] and [|comedy], satire is often a //mode// of writing introduced into various literary forms; it is only a genre when it is the governing principle of a work. (See also [|Irony].)

Symbol is a [|sign] representing something other than itself.

Theme is sometimes used in the same sense as [|motif] to signify recurring concepts in literature, the term mainly refers to the argument or general idea expressed by a literary work, whether implied or explicitly stated.

Irony: a. Dramatic is a situation in which the reader or audience knows more about the immediate circumstances or future events of a story than a character within it; thus the audience is able to see a discrepancy between characters' perceptions and the reality they face. Characters' beliefs become ironic because they are very different or opposite from the reality of their immediate situation, and their intentions are likewise different from the outcome their actions will have.

b. Verbal occurs when the words of a character or narrator have an implicit meaning as well as an ostensible one. The surface meaning may be false, or it may be a level of meaning that is just very different from the underlying one (which is usually more significant). One can guess when words should not be taken at face value by the context in which they occur--which includes the speaker's character, the situation, particular word associations, and a common ground of assumptions shared by the speaker and the reader.

c. Situational occurs when a double level of meaning is continued throughout a work by means of some inherent feature such as a hero, [|narrator,] or [|persona] who is either naive or fallible (a participant in the story whose judgment is impaired by prejudice, personal interests or limited knowledge).

Imagery

The term **imagery** has various applications. Generally, imagery includes all kinds of sense perception (not just visual pictures). In a more limited application, the term describes visible objects only (especially ones that are vivid). But the term is perhaps most commonly used to describe figurative language, which is treated in modern criticism as a central indicator of meaning or theme in literature.