Literary Elements

What parts make up a story?

Story GrammarStory GrammarSettingCharactersPlot ConflictClimaxThemeResolutionSymbolism

What is setting? • Time and place where the action occurs

FurnitureFurniture SceneryScenery CustomsCustoms TransportationTransportation ClothingClothing DialectsDialects WeatherWeather Time of dayTime of day Time of yearTime of year

What are details that describe setting?

Elements of a SettingElements of a Setting

Setting

Place

Atmosphere

Time

History

EraLife

Mood

Weather

Feelings

WordChoice

Location

Physical

Day

Use as activator to activate prior knowledge. Write the web on the board or overhead and students create one at their seats. Then as class share and fill in.

What are the functions of a setting?

To create a mood or atmosphere

To show a reader a different way of life

To make action seem more real

To be the source of conflict or struggle

To symbolize an idea

We left the home place behind, mile by slow mile, heading for the mountains, across the prairie where the wind blew forever.

At first there were four of us with one horse wagon and its skimpy load. Pa and I walked, because I was a big boy of eleven. My two little sisters romped and trotted until they got tired and had to be boosted up to the wagon bed.

That was no covered Conestoga, like Pa’s folks came West in, but just an old farm wagon, drawn by one weary horse, creaking and rumbling westward to the mountains, toward the little woods town where Pa thought he had an old uncle who owned a little two-bit sawmill.

Taken from “The Day the Sun Came Out” by D. Johnson

People or animalsMajor charactersMinor charactersRound charactersFlat characters

What types of characters are there?

What is characterization? • When a writer reveals what a a writer reveals what a character is like and how the character is like and how the character changes throughout the character changes throughout the storystory

Direct-Direct- writer tells what the writer tells what the character is likecharacter is like

IndirectIndirect- writer shows what a - writer shows what a character is like by describing character is like by describing what the character looks like, by what the character looks like, by telling what the character says telling what the character says and does, and by what other and does, and by what other characters say about and do in characters say about and do in response to the character.response to the character.

What are the two methods of characterization?

Direct CharacterizationDirect Characterization…And I don’t play the dozens or believe

in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I’m a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name Squeaky.

From “Raymond’s Run” by T. Bambara

Indirect CharacterizationIndirect Characterization

The old man bowed to all of us in the room. Then he removed his hat and gloves, slowly and carefully. Chaplin once did that in a picture, in a bank--he was the janitor.

From “Gentleman of Rio en Medio” by J. Sedillo

Elements of CharacterElements of Character

Character

Main

Flat

Minor

Not Fully Developed

FriendsRelativesFully

Developed

Protagonist

AntagonistCo-Main

Enemy

• Encounters conflict and is changed by it

• More fully developed

• Minor character who does not experience dramatic change

• Like an “extra” in a movie

What is a round character?

What is a flat character?

Physical appearance of character

PersonalityBackground/personal

historyMotivationRelationshipsConflictDoes character change?

What are the factors in analyzing characters?

What is What is Plot?Plot?

• Plot is what happens Plot is what happens and how it happens in and how it happens in a narrative. A a narrative. A narrative is any work narrative is any work that tells a story, such that tells a story, such as a short story, a as a short story, a novel, a drama, or a novel, a drama, or a narrative poem.narrative poem.

What What are the are the Parts of Parts of a Plot?a Plot?

Inciting incident – event that gives rise to conflict (opening situation)

Development- events that occur as result of central conflict (rising action)

Climax- highest point of interest or suspense of story

Resolution- when conflict ends (falling action)

Denouement- when characters go back to their life before the conflict

Diagram of PlotDiagram of Plot

Inciting incident/Opening situation

Introduction

(Exposition)

Dev

elop

men

t/

Ris

ing

Act

ion

Climax

Falling

Action

Resolution

Denoument

Conflict is a struggle Conflict is a struggle between opposing forcesbetween opposing forces

Every plot must contain Every plot must contain some kind of conflictsome kind of conflict

Stories can have more than Stories can have more than one conflictone conflict

Conflicts can be external or Conflicts can be external or internalinternal

What is conflict?

External conflictExternal conflict- outside - outside force may be person, group, force may be person, group, animal, nature, or a animal, nature, or a nonhuman obstaclenonhuman obstacle

Internal conflictInternal conflict- takes place - takes place in a character’s mindin a character’s mind

What is external conflict?

What is internal conflict?

What are the 4 Types of Conflict?

• Man vs. Man (external)

• Man vs. Nature (external)

• Man vs. Self (internal)

• Man vs. Society (external)

A central message, concern, or insight into life expressed through a literary work

Can be expressed by one or two sentence statement about human beings or about life

May be stated directly or implied

Interpretation uncovers the theme

What is theme?

Example of ThemeExample of Theme

“Every man needs to feel allegiance to his native country, whether he always appreciates that country or not.”

From “A Man Without a Country” by Edward Hale pg. 185 in Prentice Hall Literature book

• The part of the story's plot line in which the problem of the story is resolved or worked out.

• This occurs after the falling action and is typically where the story ends.

What is Resolution (Falling Action)?

What is Symbolism?

• The use of a word, a phrase, or a description, which represents a deeper meaning than the words themselves.

• a sudden twist, a ‘switcheroo,’ or a surprise ending

• when you say one thing, but mean another. When it is done to hurt, it is called sarcasm.

What is irony?

What is verbal irony?

• when you expect one thing, but another happens.

• when the audience knows something that the characters do not.

•  

What is situational irony?

What is dramatic irony?

• Foreshadowing is when the author gives clues or hints about what might happen later on in a story.

• Example: Nothing could go wrong on such a perfect day. Or so I, in my childlike innocence thought.

What is foreshadowing?

• Flashback is an interruption in the present action of a story to tell about something that happened in the past—a jump back in time.

• Example: I couldn’t believe I had been tricked! All of a sudden I remembered back to a summer long ago when My brother and I had gone to stay with our grandparents in the country . . .

What is a flashback?

• the feeling the vocabulary used conveys to the reader.

• the writer’s attitude toward his/her subject.

What is mood?

What is tone?

• the perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told.

• told by a character who uses the first-person pronoun “I”.

• the narrator uses third-person pronouns such as “he” and “she” to refer to the characters.

What is point of view?

What first person point of view?

What is third person limited point of view?

• The reader is all-knowing. They know all the thought and feelings of all charactersWhat is third

person omniscient point of view?

• The inner thoughts of a character. When a character is thinking to himself, it is called interior monologue

• Gives the character to reflect

• TIPS

• Interior = inside

• Monologue = one

What is interior monologue?