English: Naturalism & Realism Literary Terms

Realism

sought to portray life as faithfully and accurately as possible, focusing on ordinary people suffering the harsh realities of everyday life

Naturalism

sought to portray ordinary people’s lives, but suggested that environment, heredity, and chance, or forces they could neither understand nor control, determined people’s fate

Point of View

the way that you perceive time in the story

objective POV

POV where you follow the action without understanding and character’s thoughts about the event

Third-person limited POV

POV where the narrator relates the inner thoughts and feelings of a single character

stream of consciousness

thoughts and ideas the way the human mind experiences them–in short bursts, without full sentences, and often without clear or logical connections

conflict

the struggle between two opposing forces

internal conflict

conflict occurring within the mind of a character

external conflict

conflict occurring between a character and society, nature, another person, God, or fate

Irony

contrast between what is stated and what is meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens

Verbal Irony

the use of words to suggest the opposite of the usual meaning 

Dramatic Irony

contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader knows to be true(when the reader knows something that a character does not)(often serves to heighten the sense of conflict)

Situational Irony

when the outcome of an action or situation is very different from what one expects

simile

comparison of two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”

metaphor

comparison of two unlike things

foreshadowing

a warning or indication of a future event

personification

human like characteristics in something that is not human