The Most Dangerous Game

Literary Terms

Tone

• How the author/narrator feels

Mood

• How the audience feels

Connotation

• Emotional associations, suggestions, or implications of a word

Denotation

• Literal, dictionary definition of a word

Plot

• series of related events (exposition, complication, climax, resolution/denouement)

Conflict

• struggle

External Conflict

• man vs. man, man vs. society, man vs. nature

Internal Conflict

• struggle in a character’s mind or heart

Chronological Order

• Told in the order that events unfolded

Flashback

• When writers interrupt the flow of events to present an episode from the past

Foreshadowing

• Hints or clues that suggest what is to come in a story

Simile

• comparison using like or as

Direct Characterization

• What the narrator or another character tell us about a character

Indirect Characterization

• What we learn about a character through their actions

Fiction

• An invented or imagined story

First person point of view

• Uses I, me, or we. The narrator is a character

Third person point of view

• Uses he, she, they. Either follows one or two characters (limited) or is all-knowing (omniscient).

Allusion

• A reference to a person, place, or event outside of the story

Theme

• The main idea or the basic meaning of a work

Satire

• A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weakness and wrongdoings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general.

Protagonist

• Main character

Antagonist

• Opposes the protagonist

Quickwrite

• Quickwrite: Some of the most exciting narratives pit villain against hero in a life-or-death struggle. The tension in such stories often depends as much on the character of the bad guy or gal as on that of the hero. Write a few sentences describing a villain from a novel, story, or movie. Why does the character fascinate you?