Literary Elements and Devices

Literary Elements

Characters:

• Characters can be:• Round: complicated and detailed characters that are vividly described; or,

• Flat: uncomplicated characters that are not well described or do not possess much depth.

• Dynamic: Characters that change (grow, develop, or mature) over the course of the story; or,

• Static: Characters that remain the same throughout a story and are very similar at the story’s end as they are at its beginning.

Read Some Days You’re the Puppy by Trudy Morgan-Cole (short story). (p. 19-25)

List and categorize all the characters in the story.

Elements of Character:

1) Appearance: How does a character look and dress – what does this reveal about the character?

2) Personality: Is the character emotional or rational – shy or outgoing – skillful or clumsy – happy or depressed – caring or cold – honest or dishonest?

3) Background: Where and how did the character grow up – what is the social status of the character – how have they been educated – hobbies or skills – what do they do for a living?

Elements of Character:

4) Motivation: What does the character want? What are the character’s wishes, desires, dreams, and needs?

5) Relationships: How is the character related to the other characters and how do they interact with each other?

6) Conflict: Is the character involved in an internal or external conflict? How does character resolve this conflict?

7) Change: Does the character change in the course of the narrative? Does he or she learn or grow? In other words, is the character static (unchanging) or dynamic (changing)?

Setting:

• Authors use vivid, concrete, and realistic details to describe the time and place of the story. Setting is revealed by details that describe furniture, scenery, customs, transportation, clothing, dialects, weather, time of day, and time of year. Authors will often use the setting to help establish the mood of the story. The setting will frequently symbolize (represent or stand for) an idea.

Conflict:

Conflict is the central struggle between opposing forces in a story. There are two types of conflict:

1. External conflict – a struggle of a character against an outside force. Such as:a. Man vs. (another) man

b. Man vs. nature

c. Man vs. society/government

Conflict:

2) Internal conflict – a struggle within the mind of a character.

a) Man vs. himself

Theme:

• The theme of a story is its underlying or dominant idea of the entire story (expressed in one sentence), the moral or lesson expressed by the story, and the author’s purpose in writing the story.

• A story’s theme can be summarized in one or two sentences by focusing on the story’s central insight, but the them of a story can easily be expanded to paragraph or essay length when explained.

• A story’s theme is a message or conviction about life that a story communicates to the reader.

Theme:

• Themes can be directly stated or implied:• Most themes are not stated directly in the story; they are implied.

To discover the theme of a story, you must ask yourself what the central purpose in: what view of life does the story support and what insight into life does it reveal?

Examples of Theme:

• A man should not be allowed to perish altogether. (Dostoyevski, “The Thief”

• Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity. (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)

• Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another. (Sir Arther C. Doyle, The Adventure of the Speckled Band)

Consider the theme of the following poem:

Bugs

By Leslie Harper

The lightning bug has wings of gold,

The goldbug wings of flame;

The bedbug has no wings at all,

But it gets there just the same.

• The poem is about bugs, but it also has a meaning beyond what it says about bugs.

• What is the theme of the poem?

• The poem is about bugs, but it also has a meaning beyond what it says about bugs.

• One way of stating the poem’s theme is,

“ A person doesn’t have to be wealthy or beautiful to make it

through life.”

Identifying a Story’s Theme:

• It is not always easy to discover an implicit (unstated) theme in a story. You might want to read a work several times to figure out what the writer wants to communicate. The following list contains questions about several elements of a work that will help you identify the theme:

1. Title: What does the title mean? Does it contain a clue to the theme of the work?

2. Characters: What is each of the characters life? Which caracters are arrogant? Which are honest? Which are foolish? What happened to each of the characters as a result of their personality or actions? What does each character learn from his or her experiences? What can the reader learn from the experiences of the characters?

3. Conflict: How is the central conflict of the story resolved or ended? Does the resolution contain a message about a particular moral or ethical issue?

Remember:

• As you explain the theme of any story, you must provide evidence or support from the story to prove that your interpretation of the story is correct.

Plot:

a) Exposition or beginning: Introduces characters and reveals their natures and motivations; shows the setting; establishes a problem (conflict) that needs to be resolved.

b) Rising Action: Events that occur in the story as a result of the problem or conflict. Rising actions are the longest part of a story.

c) Climax: (Turning point) The point in the story that the events of the rising action have been leading to. The climax is the point of maximum interest in the story, and the point at which the conflict is resolved and the outcome of the story becomes clear. Climax is called the turning point because the entire story turns on what happens in the climax. If the climax happens differently then everything after the climax will be different.

Plot:

d)Falling Action(s): The actions that occur after the climax as the plot is reaching an ending. The ending is now clear, but the plot’s loose ends are being wrapped up. This is usually much shorter than the rising action.

e) Resolution: Final action of plot (often a wedding or a funeral). Shows how the story is resolved: the closing image of the story.

Narration:

• Techniques the author uses to tell the story.

• Point of view:a) 1St person: The narrator of the story is a character in the story.

b) 3rd person (omniscient): The story presents the thoughts of many or all of the characters.

c) 3rd person (limited): The story focuses most of its narration on the thoughts of one character (although the story is not told from his/her perspective).

Action:

• Prospective: Action that is told chronologically.

• Retrospective: Action that moves backward chronologically – as told through flashbacks.

• A frame story is a story that is completely told within (framed by) another story.

• In Medias Res: “in the middle of things.” If the story begins in the middle of the action and then proceeds to tell the beginning of the plot through flashbacks, then the story begins in medias res.

Style:

• Tone: The author’s attitude toward the reader of his literary work.

• Mood: The author’s attitude towards the subject matter he is writing about.

Other common literary devices to notice in literature:

• Symbolism: something that stands for or represents something else.

• Hyperbole: An exaggeration for emphasis or effect.

• Foreshadowing: when a scene, atmosphere, or event in a story provides clues for what happens later in a story.

• Flashback: When the chronological order of a story is interrupted to show a scene or event that happened earlier.

• Suspense: The feeling of uncertainty and interest about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience’s perceptions.

• Allusion: a reference in a story to a person, even, idea, or another story.