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Fiction Exam - final
Content covering literary terms, author's, work titles, etc.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| The Story of an Hour | Kate Chopin (179) |
| The Tell-Tale Heart | Edgar Allan Poe (40) |
| The Yellow Wallpaper | Charlotte Perkins Gilman (215) |
| To Build a Fire | Jack London (109) |
| The Chrysanthemums | John Steinbeck (206) |
| Cathedral | Raymond Carver (86) |
| The Lottery | Shirley Jackson (235) |
| A Good Man is Hard to Find | Flannery O' Connor (336) |
| Harrison Bergeron | Kurt Vonnegut (194) |
| For Esmé with Love and Squalor | J.D. Salinger (pdf on canvas.) |
| Irony | a contradiction or incongruence between appearance or expectation and reality; two types, verbal and situational. |
| Verbal irony | saying the opposite of what you mean (sarcasm) |
| Situational irony* | when the opposite of what you expect happens (ex: Mrs. Mallard's death in "Story of an hour", Tessie Hutchinson's death in "The Lottery," murderer confessing in "The tell-tale heart.") |
| Setting** | the time and place that a literary work occurs (1920s house in "Story of an hour," village in June in "The Lottery," 1950s-60s Georgia in "A Good Man is Hard to Find.") |
| Character | a fictional person or being in a literary text |
| Dialogue | the conversation of characters in a literary work |
| Characterization | the methods by which an author/playwright reveals a character (what a character says, does, or how he/she acts; what a character does not do or say; what a character looks like; how a character interacts with others) |
| Foreshadowing* | hints of what is to come in the future. (Ex: Mrs. Mallard's heart disease in "story of an hour," desc of gray sky at the beginning of "To Build a Fire," grandma mentioning the misfit in "A Good man is Hard to Find.") |
| Antagonist | a character or force against which another character struggles (the bad guy) |
| Protagonist | the most important or leading character in a work |
| Major character | one of the main characters |
| Minor character | a character with a seemingly lesser role (some minor characters end up changing the plot |
| Static character* | a character that does not change (Ex: Harrison Bergeron's mother, John Wesley and June Star in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Old Man Warner in "The Lottery.") |
| Dynamic character* | a character that changes through the plot of a play (Ex: narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the man in "To Build a Fire," Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour," the narrator of "Cathedral.") |
| Plot | the arrangement of events in a fictional work |
| Rising action** | a set of conflicts and crises that lead up to the climax in the plot of a play (The man struggling to survive, building fire in "To Build a Fire," people drawing their names in "The Lottery," Harrison Bergeron breaking into TV studio) |
| Climax** | the point of greatest tension in a narrative (Tessie drawing her name in "The Lottery," Harrison Bergeron getting shot by handicapper general, the man running in "To Build a Fire," Elisa sees her flower in the road in "The Chrysanthemums.") |
| Resolution** | what happens at the conclusion of a narrative work (after the climax) (Ex: Elisa crying at the end in "The Chrysanthemums," the man dying/dog leaving in "To Build a Fire," grandma getting killed in "A Good man is Hard to Find.") |
| Symbol** | something that stands for or suggests something larger or more complex (Ex: the eye/heart/beetles in "The Tell-tale heart," the wallpaper in "The Yellow Wallpaper," the Cathedral in "Cathedral," fire/dog in "To Build a Fire.") |
| Point of view* | the perspective from which a story is told (Ex: shift between 1st and 2nd person in "The Tell-tale heart," Third person limited in story of an hour, the lottery, third person omniscient Harrison Bergeron) |
| First person | the author tells the story through a character that refers to himself or herself as “I” |
| Second person | the author addresses the reader directly using “you” (this style is fairly rare and almost never used by itself) |
| Third person | the author writes about other characters using “he” and “she” without acknowledging the self directly |
| Omniscient | all-knowing; the narrator knows the entire story and can enter the minds and thoughts of any character freely |
| Limited | limited to a single perspective. |
| Situational irony | a set of circumstances that involves a contradiction or incongruity between expectation and reality (when the opposite of what is expected happens) |
| Unreliable narrator** | a character who, intentionally or unintentionally, fails to provide an accurate report of events or situations and whose credibility is therefore compromised (ex: narrator of "The tell-tale heart," the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper.") |
| Epiphany* | a moment where a character achieves vivid realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge (oftentimes it is a turning point for a character) (Ex: Narrator's perspective changing in "Cathedral," Mrs. Mallard envisioning the freedom of the future.) |
| Utopian fiction | fiction that describes an imagined place, society, or state of things in which everything is perfect (Thomas Moore) |
| Dystopian fiction* | fiction that describes an imagined place or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic (setting/government in Harrison Bergeron, village/rituals in "The Lottery.") |
| Satire** | a work that uses humor, exaggeration, or ridicule in order to point out problems and bring about reform (Harrison Bergeron satirizing equality, the lottery system in "The Lottery.") |
| Epithalamium* | a poem or work celebrating a marriage (Ex: For Esme with Love and Squalor, Mrs. Mallards marriage maybe? possibly "The Yellow Wallpaper.") |
| Frame Story* | a story that contains other stories within it (usually the frame story gives a reason for telling the other stories within) ex: For esme with love and squalor. |
| The gothic... | exists in different periods; can exist within different genres, gives you a lens/way of focusing on things |
| History in the British Gothic | Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (regarded as first gothic novel); subtitle = a Gothic Story. |
| Gothic literature is.. | an extension of romantic literature; haunted castles, threatening mysteries, family curses, senses of terror, ghosts, damsels in distress, etc. |
| Typical elements of American Gothic literature | scary setting, omens/foreshadowing/dreams, supernatural events, puritanism/guilt, psychological terror, romantic or obsessive love, the uncanny |
| Scary Setting | haunted woods, caves, mountains, wild or mysterious frontier (a wildness), place has a "wildness" to it that people cannot control, later on...a haunted family estate |
| Examples of scary setting | Tell-Tale heart, The Yellow Wallpaper (teeth marks on the bed, the wallpaper itself, etc.) house might be haunted. In Tell-tale Heart, the way the man is sleeping/being stalked (supposed to be a safe place, but it is not.) |
| Omens/foreshadowing/dreams | a sense of foreboding, something bad is about to happen, sometimes plotline includes legends (stories) or dark events that have already occurred, dreams offer insight into the future or a way of interpreting what can't be accepted |
| Supernatural events | events that cannot be rationally or logically explained; ghosts/monsters/figures that have a darkly spiritual air about them, doors that open themselves, strange noises or lights |
| Example of supernatural events | "I vs. Eye" in the Tell-Tale-Heart; eye almost is supernatural in nature |
| Puritanism/guilt | Extreme guilt that hangs like a pall over a story, but it is difficult to identify; often ancestral guilt (passed down in generations, not limited to the individual.) |
| Examples of puritanism/guilt | - guilt in tell-tale heart (he hears the heart beating) - guilt over not caring for the baby in the yellow wallpaper |
| Psychological terror | Internal struggle to come to terms with confused parts of the self; battle between rational and irrational; senses that are not entirely accurate. American Gothic moves from outward to inward madness |
| Examples of psychological terror | -senses playing a joke on the woman in the Yellow Wallpaper -man hearing the heart beating/voices in heaven/hell (The Tell Tale Heart) |
| Romantic or Obsessive love | Lovers are in extreme circumstances; feel emotions of love and despair very keenly; often one lover dies or goes mad |
| The uncanny | Uncanny = strangely familiar; recognize, but it is slightly different..and all the more terrifying; ex: characters that act as doubles |
| Examples of the uncanny | woman inside the wallpaper, the eye in the tell-tale heart; oddly familiar yet it is very weird |
| Gothic can be used for many purposes; sometimes to talk about things that are hard to talk about; deep topics that cannot be said directly. | true. |
Created by:
FaithMcBaith
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