Literacy Devices

Protagonist

The central character in a story, play, or novel.

Antagonist

A force working against the protagonist or main character.

Characterization

How an author develops characters and their personalities.

Direct

A character trait is directly stated for a character(said by the narrator or someone else in the story).

Indirect

The reader assigns the character trait based on the character’s action, speech, or relationship with others.

Internal conflict

Person vs. Self

External Conflict

Person vs. Person, Person vs. Nature, Person vs. Fate, Person vs. Society

Plot

The sequence of events in a literary work.

Exposition

The essential background information at the beginning of a literary work.

Rising action

The development of conflict and complications in a literary work.

Climax

The turning point in a literary work.

Falling action

Results of effects of the climax of a literary work

Resolution/ Denouement

End of a literary work/when loose ends are tied up, and questions are answered.

Setting

The time and place of a literary work

Tone

The author’s attitude toward the subject of a work.

Mood

How a reader feels while reading. The mood is created by the author’s use of detail, setting, characters, etc. and the tone they create.

Theme

A literary work conveys a message about life or human nature. It is a topic and insight given about that topic.

Point of view

The vantage point or perspective from which a literary work is told.

First-person point of view

The narrator is the character(use of ‘I’)

Third-person point of view

The narrator is outside of the story(use of ‘he',’ ‘she,’’they’)

Figurative Language

Language that represents one thing in terms of something dissimilar(non-literal language), including simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, symbol, pun, etc.)

Hyperbole

An author’s use of exaggeration or overstatement for emphasis.

Similie

A comparison of two things that have some quality in common. Use words like or as.

Metaphor

A comparison of two things that have some quality in common. Does not give words like or as

Personification

Giving of human qualities to an inanimate object or idea.

symbol

A person, a place, an object, or an action that stands for something beyond itself.

Idiom

A figure of speech that society has assigned meaning to. For example, “butterflies in my stomach, head in the clouds,” etcetera.  

Imagery

Descriptive language that utilizes any of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sound, sight)

Flash back

The method of returning to an earlier point in time to make the present clearer.

Foreshadowing

A hint of what is to come in a literary work.

Irony

A contrast between what is expected and what exists or happens.

Situation irony

 occurs when the actual result of a situation is different from what you’d expect the result to be

Dramatic irony

occurs when the audience knows a critical piece of information that a character in a play, movie, or novel does not. This type of irony makes us yell, “DON’T GO IN THERE!!” during a scary movie.

verbal irony

a speaker’s intention is the opposite of what he or she is saying. For example, a character stepping out into a hurricane and saying, “What nice weather we’re having!”