Useful Terms for the Study of Fiction
Deus ex machina
("God from the machine".) The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence (so named from the practice of some Greek dramatists of having a god descend from heaven at the last possible minute—in the theater by of machine—to rescue the protagonist from an impossible situation.
utopia
(1) An ideal place that does not exist in reality. (2) A work describing such a place. The word utopia, which evokes the Greek for both outopia, meaning "no place," and eutopia, meaning "good place," is itself a pun re- ferring to a nonexistent good place. English writer Sir Thomas More coined the term in 1516, using it as the name of his model society as well as the title of his book Utopia. Utopian literature, which reached its height in Anglo-American literature in the nineteenth century, describes, but does not necessarily promote, an author's vision of the ideal place. Utopias are frequently depicted as distant and delightful lands lost, forgotten, or unknown to the rest of the world until their (re)discovery by an adventurous traveler who returns to tell the tale. Some utopian texts subtly satirize the specific utopia described; others satirize humanity's yearning for utopia in general. Dystopias, by contrast, are horrific places, usually characterized by degenerate or oppressive societies.
Static character
A character who is the same sort of person at the end of a work as at the beginning.
Round character
A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are complex and many-sided.
Flat character
A character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits.
epistolary novel
A novel whose plot is entirely developed through letters, whether through an exchange of letters among multiple through the correspondence of only one character. The epistolary form enables authors to directly reveal the intimate private thoughts of characters and lends immediacy to narratives in permitting events to be recounted just after - and occasionally even during the their occurrence. Samuel Richardson's Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) and Clarissa Harlowe (1748) are early examples that are generally considered to have established the genre, which was extremely popular during the eighteenth century but fell out of fashion thereafter.
Dilemma
A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable.
voice
A term referring to: (1) the manner of expression of the speaker in a literary work (particularly the narra- tor) or of a character in the work (e.g., Huck Finn's "voice"); (2) the style of a given author (e.g., the "voice" of American poet Walt Whitman); or (3) the unique and pervasive human that the reader or audience senses is the driving force behind a literary work and the source of its ethical norms and values.
Catharsis
A term used by Aristotle to describe some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy. [Source: Perrine's]
Comedy
Broadly defined, any amusing and entertaining work; more narrowly defined, an amusing and enter- taining drama. Comedy is often contrasted with tragedy, not only because it ends happily and presents the "lighter side" of life but also because it generally represents the experiences of ordinary people in common or vernacular language, whereas tragedy has traditionally depicted noble characters in a loftier literary style. Humor (or wit) is the essential element of any comedy. Comic effect may be subtle or coarse; it is typically achieved through some incongruity, whether physical, verbal, or conceptual (such as when a character is exaggerating what he has done or would be able to do if a given situation arose). Although comedies aim to evoke laughter, they may also have a serious purpose. Ancient Greek comedy is typically subdivided into three categories.
mood
Defined by some critics as synonymous with atmosphere, by others as synonymous with tone, and by still others as synonymous with both. Atmosphere refers to the general feeling cre- ated for the reader or audience by the work at a given point, whereas tone refers to the attitude of the author toward the reader, audience, or subject matter. The atmosphere of a work may be en- tirely different from the tone, although the two inevitably affect one another. Mood is probably closer to atmosphere than to tone, but, as a general term, it can correctly be applied to either. One could say that an author creates a somber mood, thereby using it as a synonym for atmosphere; one could also say that an author's mood is somber, thereby using it as a synonym for tone.
form
Either the general type or the unique structure of a literary work. In the sense of "general type," form refers to the categories according to which literary works are commonly classified (e.g., ballads, novellas, son- nets) and may imply a set of conventions related to a particular genre. It may also refer to metrical arrangements, rhyme patterns, and so forth (blank verse, heroic couplets, and quatrains are all literary forms). The term is often used more specifically, however, to refer to the structure of a particular work; in this case, form involves the arrangement of component parts by some organizational principle, such as parallelism or the chronological sequence of events. [Perrine's]
Commercial fiction
Fiction written to meet the taste of a wide popular audience and relying usually on tested formulas for satisfying such taste.
genre
From the French for "kind" or "type," the classification of literary works on the basis of their content, form, or technique. For cen- turies works have been grouped according to a number of classificatory schemes and distinctions, such as prose / poem, epic / drama / lyric, and the traditional classical divisions comedy / tragedy / lyric / pastoral / epic / satire. Current usage is broad enough to permit umbrella categories of literature (e.g., fiction, the novel) as well as subcategories (e.g., science fiction, the sentimental novel) to be denoted by the term genre.
prose
From the Latin for "straightforward," ordinary written or spoken expression; as applied specifically to literature, nonpoetic expression, that is, expression that exhibits purposeful grammatical (including syntactic) de- sign but that is not characterized by deliberate or regular rhythmic or metrical patterns. Major prose forms include nonfictional works such as biographies and essays and fictional works such as novels and short stories.
Freytag's Pyramid
German writer Gustav Freytag's conception of the structure of a typical five-act play, intro- duced in Die Technik des Dramas (Technique of the Drama) (1863). According to Freytag's analysis, such plays are divisible into five parts: the introduction (containing an "inciting moment" or "force"), rising action, climax, falling action, and catastrophe. These parts loosely correspond with the five acts of the drama, although rising action can occur during the first act and falling action usually includes the catastrophe or "closing action," which typically takes place in the fifth and last act. Freytag referred to the five acts - as opposed to the five parts - of a drama as "the act of introduction," "the act of the ascent" (in which the play's action intensifies as conflicts develop), "the act of the climax" (containing the play's most important scene, the one in which the rising action culminates), "the act of the return" (in which new characters are introduced and "fate wins control over the hero"), and "the act of the catastrophe." Although Freytag confined his analysis to five-act plays (tragedies in particular, and especially William Shakespeare's), Freytag's Pyramid has been applied to other dramatic forms and even to fiction, including prose. In these applications, the term resolution is used instead of catastrophe.
Comic relief
In a tragedy, a comic scene that follows a scene of seriousness and by contrast intensifies the emotions aroused by the serious scene.
character
In its general literary sense, a character is a figure, whether human or nonhuman, in a literary work. Characters may be animals or even nonliving entities, provided that the author gives them the attributes of a human individual.
stream of consciousness
In psychology, the continuous flow of past and present experience through the con- scious mind; in literature, a narrative mode rendering an individual's subjective, ongoing, and often jumbled mental observation and commentary. The term was first used by Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain, who referenced the "concurrence of Sensations in one common stream of consciousness,-in the same cerebral highway" in The Senses and the Intellect (1855). Subsequently, American psychologist William James gave currency to the term in The Principles of Psychology (1890), writing that "Consciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits.... It is nothing jointed; it flows. A 'river' or a 'stream' are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described." Literary works written using stream of consciousness feature the mental flow of one or more characters, a flow determined by free association rather than logic or linguistic rules (e.g., of punctuation or syntax). As a result, stream-of-consciousness narratives tend to strike readers as fragmented, illogical, or even incoherent-as our thoughts, emotions, and sensory impressions often are. This lack of cohesion, however, is orchestrated rather than random or purposeless, designed to reveal particular characteristics of and provide insight into a character's mind.
anachronism
Something outside of its proper historical time period. When this "error" occurs, an author places an event, person, or thing during a time when it could not have existed.
Artistic unity
That condition of a successful literary work whereby all its elements work together for the achievement of its central purpose. In an artistically unified work, nothing is included that is irrelevant to the central purpose, nothing is omitted that is essential to it, and the parts are arranged in the most effective order for the achievement of that purpose. [Source: Perrine's]
Direct presentation of character
That method of characterization in which the author, by exposition or analysis, tells us directly what a character is like, or has someone else in the story do so.
Denouement
That portion of a plot that reveals the final outcome of its conflicts or the solution of its mysteries.
connotation
The association(s) evoked by beyond its denotation, or literal meaning. A connotation may be perceived and understood by almost everyone if it reflects broad cultural associations, or it may be recognized by comparatively few readers or listeners who have certain knowledge experience. A connotation may even be unique to a particular individual, whose personal experiences have led him or her to associate a given word with some idea or thing in a way that would not be familiar to others.
Coincidence
The chance concurrence of two events having a peculiar correspondence between them.
motivation
The combination of personality and situation that impels a character to behave the way he or she does. Establishing motivation is critical to the plausibility of the action.
setting
The combination of place, historical time, and social milieu that provides the general background for the characters and plot of a literary work. The general setting of a work may differ from the specific setting of an individual scene or event; nonetheless, specific settings may be said to contribute to the overall setting. In drama, setting may refer to the physical backdrop of the play, that is, the scenery and some- times even the props. Setting frequently plays a crucial role in determining the atmosphere of a work.
analepsis
The evocation in a narrative of scenes or events that took place at an earlier point in the story. One of the three major of anachrony, analepsis is com- monly equated with flashback.
persona
The speaker in a literary work, often first-person narrator. The term derives from the Latin word for "mask" and literally refers to that through which sound passes. Some critics equate the persona with the narrator, others with the implied author. Although the persona often serves as the "voice" of the author, the two should not be conflated, for the persona may not ac- curately reflect the author's personal opinions, feelings, or perspective on a subject. EXAMPLES: Notable literary personae include the wife-murdering Duke who speaks in Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess" (1842); Pip, the selfish young social climber who narrates Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations (1861); and J. Alfred Prufrock, who wonders if he "dare[s] to eat a peach" in T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917).
Climax
The turning point or high point in a plot.
Characterization
The various literary means by which characters are presented.
myth
myth: A traditional anonymous story, originally religious in nature, told by a particular cul- tural group in order to explain a natural or cosmic phenomenon. Individual myths are typically part of an interconnected collection of such tales, known as a culture's mythology. Even when a culture no longer believes that its myths are true explanations, however, these stories often sur- vive as receptacles of important cultural values. Myths generally offer supernatural explanations for the creation of the world (whether seen as the planet alone or the universe generally) and humanity, as well as for death, judgment, and the afterlife. Myths that explain the origins of humanity often focus on the cultural group telling the myth and may even portray the group, as in many Native American myths, as "the people," or the "true" people. Stories chronicling the adventures of gods and other supernatural forces, especially stories about their various feuds and encounters with mortals, are also common fare, as are tales about the fictional humans who must interact with them. The ancient Greek warrior Achilles is as much a mythic figure as Zeus, the supreme ruler of the gods in the Greek Pantheon. Myths are distinguished from legends, which detail the adventures of a human cultural hero (such as Robin Hood or Annie Oakley) and tend to be less focused on the supernatural. Whereas a legend may exaggerate perhaps even wildly -the exploits of its hero, it is likely to be grounded in historical fact. Myths also differ from fables, which have a moral, didactic purpose and usually feature animal characters.
climax
(1) The point of greatest tension or emotional intensity in a plot. (2) A term used synonymously with crisis to refer to the turning point in the action when the protagonist's lot will change decisively, whether for the better or the worse; in this second sense, climax, which follows the rising action and precedes the falling action in the plot of a story or drama, is a structural element, one of five associated with Freytag's Pyramid, a model developed by nineteenth-century German writer Gustav Freytag for analyzing five-act plays (tragedies in par- ticular). (3) As a rhetorical term, the last and most important in a series of items or terms ordered progressively based on their importance.
short story
A brief fictional prose narrative, typically 1,000-10,000 words in length, that often centers on a particular episode or event. Short stories may range from about 500-2,000 words (the short short story, such as O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" [1906) to 12,000-20,000 words (the long short story, such as James Joyce's "The Dead" (1907]) or even to novella-length works such as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898). The short story may be distinguished from the even briefer prose narrative form known as the anecdote by its meticulous and e craftsmanship. It may also be distinguished from the longer novel form by its relatively simple purpose, which is generally to reveal essential aspects of a character or characters, not to show character development over time. Unlike novels, short stories usually have a single focus and produce a specific dramatic revelation or effect (often the result of opposing motivations or forces) toward which the story builds and to which everything else in the story is subordinate, Short stories are like novels, however, insofar as s they they have nave the tne chameleon capability of re- flecting characteristics and elements of any number of other major genres.
Conflict
A clash of actions, desires, ideas, or goals in the plot of a story or drama. Conflict may exist between the main character and some other person or persons; between the main character and some exter- nal force-physical society, or "fate"; between the main character and some destructive element in his or her nature.
novel
A lengthy fictional prose narrative. The novel is distinguished from the novella, a shorter fictional prose work that ranges from roughly fifty to one hundred pages in length. The greater length of the novel, especially as compared with even briefer works such as the short story and the tale, permits authors to develop one or more characters, to establish their motivation, and to construct intricate plots. Some authors and critics maintain that it is possible to write a nonfiction novel; novelist Norman Mailer has used the word faction to refer to such works. However, the stor- ies recounted in novels are usually and perhaps essentially products of the imagination, despite the presence in many novels of historical facts, events, and figures. Scholars disagree about when the novel first appeared on the literary scene. Some bestow this distinction on The Tale of Genji (c. A.D. 1000), a long story by Shikibu Murasaki, a Japanese court lady, about the life, particularly the love life, of a young prince. Others argue for one of two works published in 1678: French writer Madame de Lafayette's La princesse de Clèves, which contains many of the elements characteristic of the novel form as it was established in the eight- eenth century, particularly in England; or Englishwoman Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, which was billed as a true account of an African prince sold into slavery. Of all the candidates, however, Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha (part 1, 1605; part 2, 1615) is cited most often, at least in the Western world. Certainly, it was the most famous and influential of the picaresque narratives often viewed as transitional works linking the prose tale and the novel in Western literary history. Picaresque narratives can be seen as a framed set of tales; episodic in structure, they recount a series of events linked by the presence of a single, usually roguish, protagonist, or main character. Although picaresque works, Don Quixote included, lack the sustained focus on characterization typical of later novels, they undeniably played a special role in the development of the novel (especially the realistic novel) by debunking the idealized forms of the romance and by legitimizing a fairly systematic examination of a spe- cific theme or problem.
satire
A literary genre or mode that uses irony, wit, and sometimes sarcasm to expose humanity's vices and foibles. Through clever criticism, satirists debunk and deflate their targets, whether persons, groups, ideas, or institutions. Unlike comedy, which is primarily geared toward amusement and entertainment, satire generally has a moral purpose: to provoke a response to correctable human failings, ideally some kind of reform. Predominantly satirical forms include the burlesque, comedy of manners, fabliau, mock heroic, parody, picaresque narrative, and political cartoon.
Foil character
A minor character whose situation actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character; most often the contrast is complimen- tary to the major character.
free indirect discourse
A mode of presenting discourse, the thoughts or statements of characters in a work, that blends third-person narration with the first person point-of-view. Free indirect discourse combines elements of direct discourse and indirect discourse to give the reader a sense of being inside a character's head without actually quoting his or her thoughts or statements. Describing the mode in The Dual Voice: Free Indirect Speech and Its Functioning in the Nineteenth-Century European Novel (1977), Roy Pascal wrote: "On the one hand it evokes the person, through his words, tone of voice, and gesture, with incomparable vivacity. On the other, it embeds the character's state- ment or thought in the narrative flow, and even more importantly in the narrator's interpretation, communicat- ing also his way of seeing and feeling." In direct discourse, the narrator relates a character's thoughts and utterances in an unfiltered way, conveying precisely what the character thinks or says. (She thought, "I'll demand the money from him, or else!") In indirect discourse, the narrator takes a more independent approach, reporting- and sometimes paraphrasing - what characters think or say. (She planned to demand the money from him, coupling it with a threat.) Free indirect dis- course infuses the reportorial approach with the character's perceptions and language, giving rise to a "dual voice" that may interweave even merge the voices of narrator and character. (She would demand the money from him, or else!) Pioneers of free indirect discourse include nineteenth-century English novelist Jane Austen and French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who used it extensively in Madame Bovary (1857). In the twentieth century, modernist writers made particular use of the mode, which remains common today.
historical novel
A novel that makes use of historical events or figures in a fictitious narrative. Although Sir Walter Scott is often credited with inaugurating the historical novel in England, Maria Edgeworth, an Ango-Irish writer living in Ireland, pioneered the genre in Castle Rackrent (1800), a satire on Anglo-Irish landlords that is also fre- quently considered to be the first regional novel; Scott, who corresponded with Edge- worth for years, acknowledged her work in an 1829 preface to his Waverley Novels (1814-32). Significant influences on the historical novel include Madame de Lafayette's La princesse de Clèves (1678) - sometimes itself called the first historical novel—and Gothic literature. Historical novels reflect varying degrees of research, including into details such as the customs, dress, localities, and speech patterns of the time. True-to-life elements may be added to lend a sense of authenticity to the novel, but in serious examples of this genre, historical matter is central to the story line rather than peripheral or decorative. Historical novels are often vehicles for authorial insights into historical figures or into the causes and consequences of historical events. EXAMPLES: Luó Guànzhōng's Romance of the Three Kingdoms (c. fourteenth century); William Makepeace Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond (1852); Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis (1895); Baroness Emma Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905); Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's August (1971); Gore Vidal's (1984).
naive hero
A protagonist, generally the narrator of a work, who cannot fully comprehend the world around him or her and who thus consist- ently but unwittingly misinterprets events or situations. The naive hero's naiveté often results from innocence or immaturity but may also stem from a mental defect or disability or a character trait such as in- sensitivity. A naive hero who also narrates the work is a type of unreliable narrator, a narrator whose opinions the reader recognizes as fallible and, therefore, untrustworthy. Authors may use naive heroes for comic or ironic effect or to achieve pathos, often by having an innocent child relate horrifying events that he or she does not fully understand. Use of a naive hero is a common form of structural irony, creating a sustained discrepancy throughout the work between the hero's or heroine's perceptions and those of the reader or audience. EXAMPLES: Lemuel Gulliver, the narrator of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1735), who is so impressed by the talking horses he meets in Houyhnhnmland that he can see none of their faults and, as a result, none of the virtues of humankind; the young chimney sweep in William Blake's short "The Chimney Sweeper" (1789), who evokes pathos.
antihero
A protagonist, particularly in a modern literary work, who does not exhibit the qualities of the traditional hero. Instead of being a grand and/or admirable figure—brave, honest, and magnanimous, for example—an antihero is all too ordinary and may even be petty or criminal.
motif
A recurrent, unifying element in an artistic work, such as an image, symbol, character type, action, idea, object, or phrase. A given motif may be unique to a work, or it may appear in numerous works, whether by the same author or different authors. In fact, a motif be may so widespread that it serves as the kernel for works typically associated with different genres or even different fields, such as art, music, architec- ture, myth, and folklore, in which hundreds of motifs including the cruel stepmother, magic carpet, perilous journey, and twin birth have been identified and even indexed. Motif is related to but distinguished from theme, which refers more broadly to the statement(s) that the text seems to be making about its subject. A motif is a thematic element, an element that informs and casts a revealing light on the theme.
folk tale
A short narrative that has been orally transmitted through successive generations within a given com- munity and that typically evolves over time. Although folk tales usually begin as oral tales of unidentified origin, they are generally committed to writing at some point. Occasionally, the reverse happens: an original, published story by a specific, identified person comes to be thought of as a folk tale and thus enters the realm of folklore. Folk tales may include fables, fairy tales, legends, myths, tall tales, ghost stories, stories about giants, stories about saints, and humorous anecdotes. EXAMPLES: Stories about Annie Oakley, Casey Jones, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jesse James, Johnny Apple- seed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Sacajawea are staples of American frontier folklore, as are stories about former slave John Henry, who was said to be the strongest steel-driver working the railroads. As the folk tale goes, Henry beat out a steam-powered drill in a contest of man against machine, only to die immediately thereafter. People say that Henry's image be and his hammering heard in the tunnel where he worked.
fable (apologue)
A short, fictional story in prose or verse told to illustrate a moral point or les- son; a type of allegory. The moral of a fable is often expressed at the end of the tale via an aphorism, epigram, or maxim. Fables often feature personified animals as their principal characters; animal- centered or animal-dominant fables may also be called beast fables. (The term apologue, generally used synonymously with fable, is sometimes used more specifically to designate the beast fable.) While often considered to be children's literature today, fables typically originated in folklore told by, for, and to adults; the genre dates back to ancient times in both the East and West. Legends, myths, lies, and unbelievable stories may also be loosely referred to as fables.
narrator
A speaker through whom an author presents a narrative, often but not always a char- acter in the work. Every narrative has a narrator; a work may even occasionally have multiple narrators or a main narrator with subnarrators. The type of narrator used is intertwined with point of view, the vantage point from which the narrative is told. A work written from the third- person point of view may have either an omniscient or limited narrator. One written from the first- person may be narrated by the author, if the work is autobiographical or otherwise nonfictional, or, if fictional, by the protagonist, another character (whether major or minor), or a witness who observes but does not participate in the action. (Use of the second-person point of view is rare in prose fiction.) Furthermore, narrators may be classified as intrusive (opinionated) or unintrusive (detached), terms generally used with respect to omniscient narrators; reliable or unreliable, terms generally used with respect to fictional first-person narrators; or self-conscious self- effacing, depending on whether they draw attention to their status as storytellers and to the work as a literary product. Third-person narrators (particularly omniscient ones) generally have a more authorial-seeming sound and function and are more likely to comment upon the action in addition to recounting it.
narrative
A story or a telling of a story, or an account of situation event. Narratives may be fictional or nonfictional and may be oral, written, or visual. Some critics use the term even more generally; for instance, in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (1987), narratologist Hayden White called narrative "a meta-code, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted."
frame story
A story that contains another story or stories. Usually, the frame story explains why the interior story or stories are being told. For example, the frame story in The Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights) (c. 1450) explains that Queen Shahrazad tells her husband, King Shahryar, a story every night- each one ending with a reference to or preview of the story to be told the following night- because the King has had over a thousand previous wives executed the morning after the wedding night in order to ensure that they would never be unfaithful to him, as was his first wife. The degree to which the frame story has its own plot varies; that is, the frame story may be extremely sketchy or fairly well developed. The interior stories are likely to be fully developed tales, usually completely separate from one another (except insofar as they are linked by the narrative frame and sometimes by theme or subject matter).
science fiction
A type of fiction that is grounded in scientific or pseudo-scientific concepts and that, whether set on Earth or in an alternate parallel world, employs both realistic and fantastic elements in exploring the question "What if?" As British novelist Kingsley Amis explained in New Maps of Hell (1964), science fiction deals with a situation that "could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extraterrestrial in origin." While the term science fiction, which was coined in 1851 by British author William Wilson and popu- larized in the late 1920s by science-fiction novelist and publisher Hugo Gernsback, encompasses a wide variety of works, topics and themes typical of the genre include utopian or dystopian societies, fantastic journeys to unknown worlds, time travel, alien invasions and encounters, wars involving mass destruction, the destruction or as- similation of cultures, questions of identity, and the (d)evolution of humanity.
imagery
A term used to refer to: (1) the corpus of images in a text; (2) the language used to con- vey a visual picture (or, most critics would add, to represent any sensory experience); and (3) the use of figurative language, often to express abstract ideas in a vivid and innovative way. Imagery of this third type makes use of figures of speech such as simile, personification, and metonymy. Imagery is a central component of almost all imaginative literature and is often said to be the chief element in poetry. Literal imagery is purely descriptive, representing an object or event with words that draw on or appeal to the kinds of experiences gained through the five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell). Figurative imagery may call sensory experience to mind but does so as a way of describing something else - often some abstract idea that cannot be depicted literally or directly (for example, Emily Dickinson's ""Hope' is the thing with feathers" [1861]). Whether literal or figurative, however, imagery is generally intended to make whatever the author is describing concrete in the reader's mind and to provide the reader with a sense of vividness and immediacy. Imagery has a specific and special relation to symbolism. All symbols depend on images, which are often repeated to give the symbol cogency and depth. In Toni Morrison's novel Beloved (1987), the repeated description of Sethe's scarred back as wrought iron or as a tree serves to make her a symbol of the slave's extraordinary physical and spiritual suffering and strength. Some critics have suggested that the key to unlocking the meaning of a work lies in identifying its image patterns and understanding how they work together to suggest symbolize larger meanings or themes. These critics believe that the pattern of imagery in a work more truly re- veals its meaning than an author's, character's, or narrator's assertions.
hyperbole
A trope employing deliberate, emphatic exaggeration, usually for comic or ironic effect. Some critics refer to hyperbole as overstatement. EXAMPLES: Lady Macbeth's guilty musing in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (1606), after her husband Macbeth executes her plan to murder King Duncan: "Here's the smell of blood still; / All the perfumes of Arabia / Will not sweeten this little hand." Oscar Wilde commented hyperbolically on Walter Pater's The Renaissance (1873) when he said, "the last trumpet should have sounded the moment it was written."
stock character
An established, instantly recognizable character type to whom the audience or reader ascribes specific characteristics by virtue of convention. Some stock characters recur within particular genre, whereas others regularly appear in a variety of genres. Stock characters are often, but not always, stereotyped or flat; many are caricatures drawn simply and defined by a single idea or quality, but some are more fully developed, or round. EXAMPLES: In fairy tales, the wicked stepmother and her intended victim, a beau- tiful, innocent young girl; the villain with an oily-looking "handlebar" mustache in Victorian melodramas and early movies; the strong, silent, gun-toting macho cowboy in American Westerns. The braggart soldier appears in works ranging from ancient Roman comedies such as Plautus's (Titus Maccius Plautus) Miles Gloriosus (c. 205 B.C.) to William Shakespeare's plays to commedia dell'arte (a form of improvisational comedy in which the braggart soldier called "il Capitano") to the musical A Funny Thing Hap- pened on the Way to the Forum (1962).
cliché
An expression used so often (and so often out of context) that it has become hackneyed and has lost its original impact. Many clichés were once hailed as striking metaphors, only to be denigrated over time. EXAMPLES: "Under the weather," "don't rock the boat," "just what the doctor ordered," and "have a nice day" are common clichés, as are the more recently popular "get a grip," "don't go there," and "show me the money!," prominently featured in the movie Jerry Maguire (1996).
monologue
An extended narrative, whether oral or written, delivered uninterrupted and exclusively by one person. A dramatic monologue is a lyric poem in which the speaker addresses a silent listener in the context of a situation that sheds revealing light on the speaker's character. A soliloquy is a monologue performed onstage as part of a play in which a character reveals his or her inner thoughts or emotions out loud but while alone. An interior monologue presents a character's stream of consciousness by reproducing his or her mental flow (thoughts, emotions, sensations) without verbal expression. Interior monologue may be direct, from the first-person point of view, as if the reader were inside the character's mind, or indirect, using a third-person narrator to mediate the character's mental flow.
unintrusive narrator
An omniscient, third-person narrator who relates a story without (or with a minimum of) personal commentary. Also called an objective impersonal narrator, an unin- trusive narrator "states the facts" and, as far as possible, leaves matters of judgment up to the reader. The most drastic examples of unintrusive narrators are those who do not even relate the characters' feelings, motives, or states of mind. Many contemporary critics question the very con- cept of the unintrusive narrator, arguing that a self-effacing voice does not and probably cannot exist. EXAMPLES: The following realistic works feature unintrusive narrators: Stendhal's (Marie- Henri Beyle) The Red and the Black (1830), Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), and the novels in Anthony Trollope's Barsetshire series (1855-67) and Palliser series (1864-80). Unintrusively narrated short stories include Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" (1927) and Paul Theroux's "Clapham Junction" (1980).
Antagonist
Any force in a story or play that conflicts with the protagonist. The antagonist may be another person, an aspect of the physical environment, or a destructive element in the protagonist's own nature. See Conflict.
Character
Any of the persons presented in a story or play.
dystopia
From the Greek for "bad place," the opposite of a utopia. A dystopia is usually set at some point in the author's future and describes a nightmarish society in which few would want to live. Writers presenting dystopias generally want to alert readers to the potential pitfalls and dangers of society's present course or of a course society might conceivably take one day. Accounts of dystopias inevitably conclude by depicting unpleasant, disastrous, or otherwise ter- rifying consequences for the protagonists well for humanity as a whole. EXAMPLES: George Orwell's 1984, written in 1948, describes a totalitarian society in which a figure known as "Big Brother" is always watching and political party control is sparamount- even, perhaps especially, over people's thoughts. Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 (2009-10) is a dys- topian novel, set in a 1984 Tokyo parallel world, whose title alludes Orwell's 1984 and puns on the similar pronunciations of "Q" and "9" in Japanese. In The Handmaid's Tale (1985; adapted to film 1990 and television 2017-), Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood depicts women as having been stripped of their personal freedoms and slotted into male-controlled categories: wives, servants (Marthas), breeders (handmaids), and women who enforce the repression of their peers (Aunts).
sarcasm
From the Greek for "to tear flesh like dogs," intentional derision through cutting humor or wit, often directed at another person and designed to hurt or ridicule. Sarcasm frequently involves obvious, even exagger- ated verbal irony, jeeringly stating the opposite of what is meant (for instance, false praise) so as to heighten the insult. EXAMPLES: Comedian Groucho Marx's one-liner "I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception"; the barbed exchange between twentieth-century American novelists William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, in which Faulkner asserted that Hemingway "has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to a dictionary," and Hemingway replied, "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think that big emotions come from big words?"
irony
Irony has been called the subtlest comic and rhetorical form. Instead of flatly stating a point, the ironist's speech is often tongue-in-cheek, de- liberately polished and refined, leaving the impression of intentional re- straint. The ironist's approach to a subject may even seem unemotional, a wry illustration of a point. Notably, the success of any irony is subject to a paradox: the ironist wears a mask that must be perceived as such. The audience must recognize the discrepancy at issue, or the irony fails to achieve its effect. Irony should not be confused with either sarcasm or satire. Sarcasm is usually involves irony: A contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expect- ation and reality. This disparity may be manifested in a variety of ways. A discrepancy may exist between what someone says and what he or she actually means, between what someone expects to happen and what or really happens, or between what appears to be true and what actually is true. The term may be applied to events, situations, and structural elements of a work, not just to statements. Irony may even be used as a general mode of expression, in which case one might describe an author's very tone as ironic. Irony comes from the Greek eiron, which derives from eironeia, meaning "dissembling." In Greek drama, the eiron was a character who, although weaker than his opponent, the braggart alazon, nevertheless defeated him by misrepresenting himself in some way, for instance by acting foolish or stupid. Meiosis, or understatement, was perhaps the eiron's most potent- and, to the audience, humorous -weapon.
melodrama
Originally, any drama accompanied by music used to en- hance the emotional impact and mood of the performance (for instance, opera); today, any work that relies on the improbable and sensational for dramatic effect and emotional appeal. Melodramas typically feature im- plausible plots emphasizing romance and thrilling, often violent action; stock or flat characters; extravagant emotion; and a happy ending in which virtue prevails. Melodrama began to develop as a literary mode or genre in the late eighteenth century, particularly in France, and became the main the- atrical form in Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century. In early-nineteenth-century London, melodramas became increasingly popular as a means of circumventing the Licensing Act of 1737, a law requiring government preapproval of plays and authorizing only the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theaters to present them; as musical en- tertainments, melodramas could be performed elsewhere and reduce the threat of censorship. In the Victorian Period, melodrama came to emphasize the conflict be- tween pure good and evil, pitting heroes and heroines of impeccable mor- ality against despicable villains engaged in malevolent intrigue. Romantic plots twisted by a scheming villain were typical, as were unbelievably happy endings in which poetic justice required that evil be punished and good rewarded.
anachrony
The literary technique of presenting material out of chronological order; alternatively, the achronological presentation of events. Anachronous narratives are characterized by plots in which events are recounted in an order different from their chronological sequence. There are three major types of anachrony: (1) analepsis, the insertion of scenes that have occurred in the past; (2) prolepsis, the insertion of scenes that take place in the future; and (3) ellipsis, the omission of material in a narrative that creates a chronological gap. Analepsis, the most common form of which is flashback, usually occurs near the beginning of a work and often recounts an event that occurred before the opening scene. Pro- lepsis, which includes flashforward and other techniques for previewing future events or developments, is often used in television and film to create feelings of anticipation, curiosity, and suspense.
protagonist
The main character in a work; usually also the hero heroine, but some- times an antihero. The term comes from the Greek for "first combatant" and referred to the first actor (the person with the leading role, supported by the chorus) in classical Greek tragedy. If the protagonist is in primary conflict with another character, that character is the antagonist; an evil antagonist is called a villain. EXAMPLES: Evelina Anville is the protagonist and heroine of Fanny Burney's Evelina (1778); Emma Woodhouse is the protagonist but dubious heroine of Jane Austen's Emma (1815); Becky Sharp is the unheroic - and sometimes quasi-villainous - pro- tagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1846).
crisis
The point in a plot when the conflict has intensified to a level at which the protagonist's lot will change decisively, whether for the better or for the worse. The crisis is sometimes called the turning point because it represents the pivotal moment when the protagonist's fortunes begin to turn. The term crisis, which refers to a purely structural element of plot, is sometimes but not al- ways synonymous with climax, which also (and perhaps especially) signifies the point of greatest tension or emotional intensity in a plot. Thus, though the crisis and climax of a work often occur together, this need not be the case. Some critics also apply the terms crisis and climax to minor peaks in the plot that change or intensify the course of the action. Most critics, however, limit the use of the term crisis to the plot's ultimate turning point. EXAMPLE: In the movie Dead Poets Society (1989), the main character, Neil, decides to perform in a play even though his father has The crisis occurs when his father finds out and shows up at the play, from which point Neil's fortunes decline progressively, ending with his suicide.
foreshadowing
The technique of introducing into a narrative material that prepares the reader or audience for future events, actions, or revelations. Foreshadowing often involves the creation of a mood atmosphere that suggests an eventual outcome; the introduction of objects, facts, events, or characters that hint at or otherwise prefigure a developing situation or conflict; or the exposition of significant character traits allowing the reader or audience to anticipate that character's actions or fate. Occasionally the theme or conclusion of a work is foreshadowed by its title. Prolepsis, the evocation in narrative of scenes or events that take place at a later point in the story, necessarily foreshadows that future event or action. Foreshadowing is found in all narrative genres but is especially common in suspense fiction, including mysteries, Gothic novels, and detective fiction. Although there are many methods of foreshadowing and many this technique, its effect is to unify the plot by making its development and structure seem logical and perhaps even inevitable. As nineteenth-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once said, "if there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last."