Literary Terms

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Literary Terms
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Characters

• Round
• Well developed
• Many traits, both good and bad
• Realistic and life-like
• Usually main characters
• Flat
• Not well developed
• Not many traits
• Sometimes stereotyped
• Usually minor characters

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Characters

• Dynamic
• Undergoes important personality changes
  throughout the story
• A change occurs in the character because of the
  events of the story
• Static
• Remains the same throughout the story
• Although something may happen to the character in
  the story, it does not change the character

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Characters

• Protagonist
• Central character
• Pushes action forward and attempts to accomplish
  something
• Usually a good person or the hero
• Usually round and dynamic
• Antagonist
• Character that holds the action back
• Character who is usually against the protagonist
• Foil
• Secondary or minor character
• Opposite of the protagonist but usually
  highlights the traits of the protagonist

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Setting

• Time
• Place
• Environment
• Mood

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Theme

• Lesson or Moral
• What lesson does the author want you to learn
  from it?
• Raises a question about human nature
• Central Idea
• What does it communicate about life?
• Expresses the authors opinion

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Conflict

• External
• Person vs. Nature
• Person vs. Person
• Person vs. Society
• Internal
• Person vs. Self

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Plot

• A series of related events, each event connected
  to the next, like links in a chain.

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Flashback

• A scene that interrupts the story to introduce an
  event that took place in the past.

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Flash-forward

• A scene that jumps ahead of the story to narrate
  and event that happens in the future.

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Foreshadowing

• Hints in the story that certain events are going
  to happen later.

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Suspense

• The excitement and tension that builds up in a
  story, which makes readers curious to find out
  how the story ends.

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Climax

• The most exciting part of the story - the moment
  when the outcome of the conflict is determined.
  The climax usually occurs near the end of a short
  story.

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Allegory

• A work of literature in which characters and
  places stand for abstract qualities, usually
  virtues and vices.
• Sometimes the characters and places in an
  allegory have names that describe what they
  symbolize, such as a character called Mr. Mean
  and a place called Sea of Troubles.