Literary Elements: Plot, Character, Theme, Point of View, Symbolism, and Irony

Vocabulary flashcards covering core literary terms and concepts, including plot elements, character types, thematic analysis principles, points of view, symbolism, allegory, fantasy, irony, and sentimentality.

Plot

The sequence of incidents or events through which an author constructs a story; it is not merely the action itself, but the way the author arranges the action toward a specific end.

Conflict

A clash of actions, ideas, desires, or wills. It can be physical, mental, emotional, or moral (person vs. person, person vs. environment/nature, or person vs. self).

Protagonist

The central character in a conflict, whether sympathetic or unsympathetic as a person.

Antagonist

Any force arranged against the protagonist—whether persons, things, conventions of society, or the protagonist's own character traits.

Artistic Unity

The essential quality of a good plot in which nothing is irrelevant, incidental, or there merely for its own sake; every detail contributes to the total meaning and effect of the story.

Deus ex Machina

Literally "god from a machine"; the resolution of a plot through an improbable coincidence, an unexpected inheritance, or an implausible twist of fate rather than through the logical outgrowth of the characters' actions.

Motif

A recurring element, image, incident, or verbal formula that helps to unify a work and reinforce its theme.

Direct Presentation

The method of characterization in which the author tells the reader straight out, by exposition or analysis, what a character is like, or has someone else in the story describe the character.

Indirect Presentation

The method of characterization in which the author shows the reader the character in action, allowing the reader to infer what the character is like from what they think, say, or do.

Flat Character

A character who is characterized by only one or two traits and can be summed up in a sentence.

Static Character

A character who remains essentially the same person from the beginning of the story to the end.

Round Character

A complex, many-sided character who has the three-dimensional quality of a real human being.

Dynamic (or Developing) Character

A character who undergoes a permanent, distinct change in character, personality, or outlook over the course of the story.

Stock Character

A special kind of flat character who is a stereotyped figure that has occurred so often in fiction that their nature is immediately known (e.g., the mad scientist, the cruel stepmother, the brilliant detective).

Epiphany

A moment of spiritual insight into life or into the character's own circumstance, usually defining the moment of a dynamic character's change.

Theme

The controlling idea or central insight of a piece of fiction; the unifying generalization about life stated or implied by the story.

Perrine's Six Principles of Theme

Six rules to determine and state theme accurately: 1. Expressible as a sentence; 2. Stated as a generalization about life; 3. Avoid absolute generalizations; 4. Central and unifying concept; 5. No single way of stating it; 6. Avoid clichés.

Point of View

The angle of vision or perspective from which a story is told.

Omniscient

A point of view where the story is told in the third person by a narrator whose knowledge and prerogatives are unlimited; the narrator is free to go wherever they wish and peer inside the minds and hearts of any or all characters.

Third-Person Limited

A point of view where the story is told in the third person, but from the viewpoint of one character in the story; the narrator knows only what that single character thinks, feels, observes, and hears.

Objective (or Dramatic)

A point of view where the narrator disappears into a kind of roving sound camera that can go anywhere but can record only what is seen and heard; it cannot comment, interpret, or enter a character's mind.

First Person

A point of view where the author disappears into one of the characters, who tells the story in the first person ("I").

Stream-of-Consciousness

A narrative technique (often used within first-person or third-person limited point of view) that presents the apparently random, continuous flow of thoughts, feelings, memories, and sense impressions passing through a character's mind.

Symbol

Something that means more than what it is—an object, person, situation, or action that has a literal meaning in the story but suggests or represents other meanings as well.

Allegory

A story in which people, things, and happenings have a hidden or symbolic meaning, used primarily to teach a moral lesson or illustrate an abstract truth, where every element has a fixed, one-to-one correspondence.

Fantasy

A nonrealistic story that transcends the bounds of known reality, introducing elements that are impossible according to our everyday understanding of the physical world (such as ghosts, talking animals, or magic) to illuminate truth about human experience.

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this is the reader's temporary, intentional acceptance of the impossible or improbable premises of a story (especially in fantasy) in order to engage with the narrative emotionally and intellectually.

Irony

A literary device or situation involving a contrast or incongruity between expectation and reality, appearance and reality, or intention and result.

Verbal Irony

A figure of speech in which the speaker says the opposite of what they actually mean.

Dramatic Irony

The contrast between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true.

Irony of Situation (Situational Irony)

A discrepancy between appearance and reality, between expectation and fulfillment, or between what is and what would seem appropriate.

Sentimentality

Contrived or excessive emotion; an attempt by an author to elicit a greater emotional response from the reader than the situation in the story actually warrants (often relying on stock responses, tear-jerking situations, or oversimplified characters).