Poetic Terms

Allegory: narrative made up of a network of symbols that work together to give the story a second meaning beneath

the surface.

Allusion: a reference to history, literature, pop culture, or any other source that is not explained; the reader is

intended to recognize the reference and use it to help understand the current text.

Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds in words that are in close proximity to one another; often

used as a catch-all term for alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

Analogy: a comparison between two things for the purpose of explanation or illustration; the emphasis is on how the

two things are alike, with an implication that they will be alike in other ways as well.

Antagonist: the person or force that opposes the protagonist in a story (can even be an inner quality of the

protagonist’s); not necessarily the “bad guy” (if the story featured a serial killer as its protagonist, then the police might

be the antagonist).

Antihero: a main character who does not adhere to traditional ideas of a “hero” in terms of virtue, courage, or

motivation.

Apostrophe: a figure of speech in which an inanimate object (or absent person) is addressed as if it was present and

able to respond.

Archetype: actions, characters, and situations that occur frequently in literature and can be easily recognized by

readers (even unconsciously).

Aside: a dramatic device in which a character speaks lines to the audience or another character that are understood to

not be heard by other characters onstage, allowing the audience to learn that character’s private thoughts or feelings.

Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds in accented or important words that are in close proximity to one another.

Ballad: a relatively short narrative poem written in stanzas; it often sounds like a song when read aloud.

Caesura: a pause created by punctuation in the middle of a line of poetry rather than at the end of a line or stanza.

Caricature: a description that exaggerates a character’s unique trait or flaw to the point of ridiculousness.

It is easy for villains to be portrayed as caricatures as they often demonstrate none of the complexity of real

people.

Chronological Order: a type of plot structure in which events are narrated in the order they take place (first,

second, third, etc.).

Cliché: a saying that has been overused to the point where it is no longer effective in conveying meaning.

Comedy: a type of drama that is often (but not necessarily) humorous, has a happy ending, and emphasizes human

weakness and limitations.

Conflict: the problem a character faces that drives the action of a story; an external conflict is between a

character and some outside force (another person, nature, fate, society, etc.); an internal conflict is within a

character (to overcome a weakness or fear, to make an important decision, etc.).

societal.

Both “house” and “home” refer to the place where a person lives, but “home” connotes a sense of safety,

belonging, and comfort while “house” is simply associated with the structure a person lives in.

Consonance: the repetition of final consonant sounds in accented or important words that are close to one another.

From “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost: “He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if

there is some mistake.”

Denotation: the dictionary definition of a word; its literal meaning.

The denotation of the word “conflate” is “to combine or blend (two things, especially two versions of a text) so

as to form a whole.”

Dialect: language specific to a particular group of people; may involve spelling, sounds, grammar, punctuation, or

vocabulary; differentiates the group from those around them.

Speaking about Boo Radley, Walter Cunningham, the son of a poor farming family in Harper Lee’s To Kill a

Mockingbird, tells Scout, “Reckon I have. Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans — folks say

he pizened ’em and put ’em over on the school side of the fence.”

Diction: a writer’s choice of words; when discussing diction, it is usually described with an adjective.

When Wilfred Owen, in “Dulce et Decorum Est,” writes, “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood / Come

gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs / Bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,” he

uses sickening diction to convey the horrors of gas attacks in World War I.

Didactic: adjective used to describe writing that is intended to teach or preach; can also be used to describe the tone

of a piece of writing or a character’s speech; tends to be used as a criticism, as most readers prefer to draw their own

conclusions rather than be preached at.

Aesop’s Fables, many children’s books, and many religious texts

Direct characterization: method of describing a character in which an author explicitly identifies a character’s

traits instead of allowing the reader to infer from the character’s words or behavior.

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: “Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,

reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife

understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little

information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of

her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.”

Double entendre: a word, phrase, or statement intended to be understood in two ways; one of those ways usually

has sexual connotations.

From The Importance of Being Earnest: Gwendolyn says, “Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for

developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.”

From The Importance of Being Earnest: Dr. Chasuble, speaking of the woman he clearly has feelings for, says,

“Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism’s pupil, I would hang upon her lips . . . I spoke metaphorically.—My

metaphor was drawn from bees. Ahem!”

Dramatic monologue: a dramatic device in which a character delivers a speech to either the audience or other

characters onstage.

Mercutio delivers a famous dramatic monologue about Queen Mab in Act 1, Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet.

Both Brutus and Mark Antony deliver dramatic monologues after Julius Caesar’s assassination in Act 3, Scene 1

of Julius Caesar.

Dynamic character: a character who undergoes a significant change in personality, character, or outlook (not

circumstances, mood, or appearance) over the course of a story.

Carl, in Disney Pixar’s Up, is a dynamic character because at the beginning of the movie, he is a bitter and lonely

old man, but by the end of the movie, he has become open to adventure and a relationship with Russell.

Elegy: a mournful poem, often written for a funeral or as a lament for someone who has died.

“In Memoriam” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

En media res (or in media res): term that literally means “in the middle of things” and is used when a narrative

begins in the middle of the story, usually at an important point or in the middle of the action.

Homer’s Odyssey begins with Odysseus held captive on Calypso’s island, his grown son suffering under the

invasion of the many suitors vying for his mother’s hand and Athena begging the gods to allow Odysseus to

return home. It isn’t until Odysseus tells his story to the Phaeacians in Books 9-12 that we learn how he got

there.

End-stopped line: a line of poetry in which there is punctuation, indicating a pause, at the end of the line.

From Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”: “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”

Epiphany: a moment of sudden understanding or insight; may lead a character to undergo significant change in

personality, character, or outlook.

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth experiences an epiphany when she realizes she has been

prejudiced and misjudged both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham.

Euphemism: the use of mild, indirect, or vague words to describe something that is offensive or unpleasant.

Jack, from The Importance of Being Earnest, says, “I have lost both my parents” instead of saying both his

parents have died.

Flashback: scene from the past that interrupts the narrative of a story; it is usually included because it provides key

information about a character or the plot.

Toy Story 2 includes a flashback in which audiences see Jessie’s former kid lose interest in cowgirls and

eventually give Jessie away.

Flat character: a character who has not been fully developed, demonstrating only one or two character traits.

Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast, is a flat character: he is arrogant, strong, and handsome but doesn’t

demonstrate any other significant traits throughout the film.

Figure of speech/Figurative language: language that is not intended to be understood literally (or at least not

literally only).

Similes, metaphors, hyperbole, symbols, and irony

Foil character: a character with opposite traits to another character, often a main character, in a text; the contrast

between the two characters allows us to better understand them.

Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorne are foil characters in The Hunger Games: Peeta is quiet and kind while Gale

is outspoken and skilled at providing for a family.

Foot: the basic unit of measurement in determining the meter of a poem; made up of two or three syllables.

Iamb: a two-syllable foot in which an unaccented syllable is followed by an accented syllable (Example: com-

PARE).

Trochee: a two-syllable foot in which an accented syllable is followed by an unaccented syllable (Example:

DOU-ble).

Spondee: a two-syllable foot in which both syllables are accented (Example: JACK’S-CAT).

Anapest: a three-syllable foot in which two unaccented syllables are followed by an accented syllable

(Example: o-ver-COME).

Dactyl: a three-syllable foot in which an accented syllable is followed by two unaccented syllables (Example:

YES-ter-day).

Foreshadowing: a plot device in which the author presents clues about something that will happen later in the

narrative; often used to create suspense.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker has a vision in which he slices off Darth Vader’s head, only to

discover his own face behind the helmet; this foreshadows the later revelation that Darth Vader is his father.

Free verse: a poem in which the only necessary distinction between the poem and prose is the division into lines:

there is no set meter, rhyme scheme, or stanzaic form.

“The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams

Hubris: excessive pride that may be the cause of a character’s downfall.

In Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Oedipus demonstrates hubris in believing he will be able to avoid fulfilling the

prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother.

Hyperbole: exaggeration for the purpose of humor or emphasis; may be referred to as overstatement.

From Elisavietta Ritchie’s “Sorting Laundry”: “If you were to leave me, / . . . / a mountain of unsorted wash /

could not fill / the empty side of the bed.”

Iambic pentameter: a line of poetry made up ten syllables divided into five iambs (one unaccented syllable followed

by an accented syllable); common meter in poetry, particularly sonnets.

From Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare: “my MIS | tress’ EYES | are NO | thing LIKE | the SUN.”

Imagery: language that appeals to the senses; may be visual (sight), auditory (sound), olfactory (smell), gustatory

(taste), tactile (external touch), organic (internal sensation, like nausea or thirst), kinesthetic (movement).

From Maya Angelou’s “Woman Work”: “Fall gently, snowflakes / Cover me with white / Cold icy kisses and / Let

me rest tonight.”

Incongruity: a comedic device in which there is some sort of “gap” or something that does not quite fit.

The opening credits of The Office are an example of incongruity because they feature upbeat, enthusiastic music

with images of an ordinary, even boring, day in the office.

Indirect characterization: method of describing a character in which the author shows what a character is like

by describing the character’s words or actions in such a way that readers can infer their traits.

In his short story “Hunters in the Snow,” Tobias Wolff writes, “Tub had trouble getting through the fences. Frank

and Kenny could have helped him; they could have lifted up on the top wire and stepped on the bottom wire,

but they didn’t. They stood and watched him.” Based on Frank’s and Kenny’s lack of action, the reader is able to

infer they are selfish and do not have empathy or compassion for Tub without Wolff directly stating that this is

the case.

Irony: general term for a mismatch between appearance and reality, expectations and fulfillment, and/or what

happens and what would seem appropriate in that situation.

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that a character does not know.

When viewers watch the movie Titanic, they know from the beginning the ship will sink, changing our

understanding of lines like, “It is unsinkable. God himself could not sink this ship!”

Situational irony occurs when what happens is the opposite of what is expected or what would seem

appropriate.

In the first episode of The Office, Michael Scott is proud of his “World’s Best Boss” mug, but he tells us in

an interview that he bought the mug for himself instead of receiving it as a gift from one of his

employees.

Verbal irony occurs when a character says the opposite of what he or she means; the reader is intended to

understand that this is not how the character feels (it is not a lie intended to deceive).

In The Office, Dwight makes a joke that was funny several years prior, but is now considered outdated,

and Jim replies, “I still love that . . . after seven years.”

Juxtaposition: the placement of two things, characters, or ideas next to one another for the purpose of comparison

and contrast.

The Hunger Games juxtaposes scenes of great luxury in the Capitol with scenes of poverty in the districts,

highlighting the vast difference between the two.

Lyric poem: a poem expressing feelings and emotions; it tends to be short and is not usually a narrative, but it tends

to have some element of musicality.

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Metaphor: a comparison between two unlike things in which instead of being directly expressed, the figurative term is

substituted for or identified with the literal term.

From “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot: “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-

panes, / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes / Licked its tongue into the corners of the

evening, / . . . / Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.” In these lines, the fog is being compared to a

sleepy cat.

Meter: means of measuring and describing rhythmic language; involves arranging the accents of language into

apparently equal intervals of time; described by the type of foot (iamb, trochee, spondee, anapest, or dactyl) and the

number of feet in a line (dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, etc.).

Shakespeare’s sonnets, and most of his plays, are written in iambic pentameter, which means each line is made

up of five (“penta”) feet, and each foot is an iamb, two syllables in which the first is unaccented and the second

is accented.

Metonymy: a type of figurative language in which something closely related is substituted for the thing actually meant.

When newspapers report that “the White House” made a statement, they are using metonymy because it is

actually the president, not the building, who made the statement. The building in which he lives is being used to

represent him.

Mood: the feelings evoked in readers through a poem’s diction and imagery; sometimes referred to as “atmosphere.”

The lonely, rugged moors and foggy weather in Sherlock Holmes’s The Hound of the Baskervilles give the

mystery an eerie mood, as the reader wonders if there is truly a supernatural hound attacking the Baskerville

family.

Motif: a repeated image, idea, or symbol that helps to reveal a text’s theme.

Light and dark are often used as motifs in a piece of literature (like The Lord of the Rings), emphasizing good

versus evil; the motif of blues music runs through August Wilson’s Fences to highlight change and connections

between generations and to evoke a context for African-American history and culture.

Ode: a formal, often ceremonious, lyric poem written in praise of a person, place, thing, or idea.

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats and “Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda

Onomatopoeia: a word used to imitate a sound.

Boom, hiss, crash, splash, and thud

Paradox: a seeming contradiction that is somehow true.

According to Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Poetry is a language that tells us, through a more or less emotional

reaction, something that cannot be said.” This statement is a paradox because it seems impossible for poetry to

tell us something that cannot be said; however, Robinson is commenting on poetry’s power to evoke

experiences and emotions that would not be nearly as impactful if described in prose.

Parody: a comedic technique in which a writer imitates a genre or text in an exaggerated fashion.

The “Modern Warfare” episode of the television show Community is a parody of many well-known action and

war movies in which the students engage in a campus wide paintball fight for priority registration.

Personification: a type of metaphor in which a nonhuman idea or object is given human qualities.

From “How Far I’ll Go” in Moana: “See the line where the sky meets the sea? / It calls me / And no one knows /

How far it goes.”

Plot: the sequence of events that makes up a story; begins with the basic situation or exposition, in which the

characters, conflict, and setting are introduced; continues with complications, or problems and difficulties the

protagonist encounters while trying to resolve the story’s conflict(s); peaks at the climax, the story’s highest point of

suspense or tension where it is determined how the conflict will be resolved; ends with a resolution that brings all of

the story’s threads to a close.

In The Lion King, we meet Simba, Nala, Rafiki, and Mufasa in the Pridelands and learn that Scar is planning to

overthrow his brother as king (exposition); Simba visits an elephant graveyard, believes he caused his father’s

death, runs away to live in the jungle with Pumbaa and Timon, and reconnects with his old friend Nala, who tells

him how the Pridelands have suffered under Scar’s rule (complications); Simba returns to the Pridelands and

battles Scar (climax); the Pridelands are restored to health under Simba’s rule and the circle of life continues

with the birth of Simba’s son (resolution).

Point of view: the perspective from which a story is told.

First person point of view: the narrator is a character in the story, using pronouns like “I,” “me,” and

“we.”

From Stephenie Meyers’s Twilight: “The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through

the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely

stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Edward Cullen’s back

stiffened and he turned slowly to glare at me—his face was absurdly handsome—with piercing, hate-

filled eyes. For an instant I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a

second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. He turned back to the receptionist.”

Second person point of view: the story is told from the reader’s perspective, using pronouns like “you.”

From Somebody’s Luggage by Charles Dickens: “You were conveyed,—ere yet your dawning powers

were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside,—you were conveyed, by

surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic and General Dining-Rooms, there

to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female

constitution.”

Third person limited point of view: the narrator is not a character in the story, using pronouns like

“he,” “she,” “it,” and “they” to tell the story; the perspective is limited to one character’s thoughts and feelings.

From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling: “It was worse than Harry could ever have

imagined sitting there and listening. The crowd screamed . . . yelled . . . gasped like a single many-

headed entity, as Cedric did whatever he was doing to get past the Swedish Short-Snout. Krum was still

staring at the ground. Fleur had now taken to retracing Cedric’s steps, around and around the tent. And

Bagman’s commentary made everything much, much worse. . . . Horrible pictures formed in Harry’s

mind as he heard: ‘Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow. . . . He’s taking risks, this one! . . . Clever

move – pity it didn’t work!’ . . . And then, after about fifteen minutes, Harry heard the deafening roar

that could only mean one thing: Cedric had gotten past the dragon and captured the golden egg.”

Third person omniscient point of view: the narrator is not a character in the story and uses pronouns

like “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they” to tell the story; the narrator has unlimited knowledge and permission to go

anywhere, whether the narrator chooses to reveal that information to the reader or not. [Helpful Hint: Having

trouble distinguishing between third-person limited and omniscient point of view? Even if the story is told

primarily from one character’s perspective, if you can find even one sentence where the narrator identifies

something that character wouldn’t know, the point of view is third person omniscient.]

From Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: “Mr. Clutter seldom encountered trespassers on his property; a

mile and a half from the highway, and arrived at by obscure roads, it was not a place that strangers

came upon by chance. Now, suddenly a whole party of them appeared, and Teddy, the dog, rushed

forward roaring out a challenge. The visitors proved to be five pheasant hunters from Oklahoma. . . . By

custom, the hunters, if they are not invited guests, are supposed to pay the landowner a fee for

letting them pursue their enemy on his premises, but when the Oklahomans offered to hire hunting

rights, Mr. Clutter was amused. ‘I’m not as poor as I look. Go ahead, get all you can,’ he said. Then,

touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his

last.”

Objective point of view: method of narration in which the narrator reveals only what can be seen and

heard; there is no interpretation, commentary, or inclusion of characters’ private thoughts and feelings; the

purest form of objective point of view would be dialogue.

From “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway: “The woman brought two glasses of beer and

two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table and looked at the man and the girl.

The girl was looking off at the line of hills. They were white in the sun and the country was brown and

dry.”

Protagonist: the main character of a story.

Mirabelle is the protagonist of Encanto.

Pun: a play on words.

From Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: As Mercutio lies dying in Act 3, Scene 1, he tells his friends, “Ask

for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” Here, Mercutio could be using the meaning of the word

“serious and solemn,” or “a place for the burial of a corpse”; it is also possible he is using both meanings.

Refrain: a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines in a poem; usually repeated according to a set pattern.

From “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop: “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” is repeated in lines 1, 6, 12, and 18.

Rhyme: the repetition of the accented vowel sound and any consonant sounds that follow it in two words within close

proximity to one another (Examples: cat—hat; later—alligator, shake—snake).

Masculine rhyme is the term used to describe rhyme sounds that occur only in the final, stressed syllable

(Examples: mean—green; mend—bend).

Feminine rhyme is the term used to describe rhyme sounds that occur in a stressed syllable followed by one or

more syllables (Examples: stocking—shocking; aspire—desire; folly—melancholy).

Internal rhyme describes a pair of rhyming words where at least one word occurs within a line of poetry

(Example from “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and

weary).

External (or end) rhyme describes a pair of rhyming words in which both words are placed at the ends of

lines of poetry (Example from Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare: “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”).

Approximate (or slant) rhyme describes words that almost, but do not quite, rhyme (Example from “The

Tiger” by William Blake: “What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”).

Rhythm: the natural rise and fall of language, particularly the wavelike recurrence of sound characteristic of poetry. A

poem’s rhythm is determined by an author’s use of meter and rhyme.

Round character: a well-developed and complex character with many traits (possibly even contradictory traits).

Katniss Everdeen is a round character in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games: she is tough, but she is also

compassionate; she rebels against the Capitol, but she also feels afraid; she uses Peeta’s love for her to help

them win the Games, but she also cares for him; she volunteers as tribute to save her sister, but she can also be

unkind, even cruel.

Run-on line: a line of poetry with no natural speech pause (indicated by punctuation) at its end in which the words of

one line flow directly into the words of the next line.

From Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”: “Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots / Of gas-shells

dropping softly behind.”

Sarcasm: bitter or unkind remark that is intended to hurt a person’s feelings.

In The Princess Bride, Wesley tells a self-involved (and not very bright) character, “Truly, you have a dizzying

intellect.”

Satire: a type of literature in which a writer mocks human foolishness, weakness, or wickedness for the purpose of

bringing about reform.

Voltaire’s Candide, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll”

Setting: the time and place in which the events of a story unfold.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet takes place over several summer days in Verona, Italy.

Simile: a comparison between two unlike things in which the comparison is directly expressed using “like,” “as,”

“resembles,” or a similar term.

From “Surface Pressure” in Encanto: “I’m as tough as the crust of the Earth is.”

Soliloquy: a dramatic device in which a character is alone onstage and delivers a speech revealing their private

thoughts or feelings; it is as if the character is “thinking out loud.”

At the beginning of Act 1, Scene 7 in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth is alone onstage and delivers a

soliloquy in which he reveals his fears and hesitations about killing King Duncan.

Sonnet: a fourteen-line poem written (almost always) in iambic pentameter that follows a set rhyme scheme.

English / Elizabethan / Shakespearean sonnet: a sonnet divided into three quatrains and a

concluding couplet that follows the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. (Examples: any of Shakespeare’s sonnets

or “Death, be not proud” by John Donne)

Italian / Petrarchan sonnet: a sonnet divided into an octave and a sestet; the octave has a rhyme

scheme of abbaabba, and the sestet has two rhyme sounds, like cdcdcd or cdecde. (Examples: “On First Looking

Into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats or “The world is too much with us” by William Wordsworth)

Stanza: a grouping of lines in a poem; can vary in length, but there are common groupings like couplets (two lines),

tercets (three lines), quatrains (four lines), sestets (six lines), and octaves (eight lines).

John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is broken into nine four-line stanzas, or quatrains.

Static character: a character who does not undergo any significant change in personality or character over the

course of a story.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are examples of static characters from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series: they are

protective, kind, wise, and brave from the beginning of the series until the end.

Stock character: a character who fits a common “type” and is easily recognizable.

Students in teen movies are often stock characters: the mean cheerleader, the dumb jock, the socially awkward

nerd.

Stream of consciousness: a method of narration in which the narrator presents a character’s thoughts in a

seemingly random order, mirroring the way in which people think when associations may be psychological rather than

logical and memories may be mingled with current thoughts and experiences.

From Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolff: “She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out,

out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs

of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she

scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs

passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.”

Subordinate character: a character whose role in a story, while important, is smaller than that of the protagonist

or antagonist.

In Black Panther, Okoye and M’Baku are examples of subordinate characters: they play important roles as the

head of Wakandan armed forces and the leader of the Jabari tribe, but their roles are smaller than those of

Black Panther and Erik Killmonger.

Suspense: the quality of a story that makes a reader want to continue reading to find out what happens next.

When authors end a chapter on a cliffhanger, they leave the reader in suspense, which means they often read

another chapter because they cannot wait to find out what happens.

Symbol: an object (or place, name, etc.) that functions both literally and figuratively in a text; that is, the object is

literally in the text, but it also represents something else.

In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the blue-eyed baby doll symbolizes the ideal of white beauty that is imposed

upon girls of all races from a young age.

Theme: the central insight about life a writer intends to convey; all details in a work should point toward this theme,

which writers often leave readers to infer; an appropriate theme can be expressed as a complete sentence (rather than

being merely a topic), is not a cliche, does not reference specific characters or events from the text, avoids absolute

terms like “always” or “never,” addresses the entire text, and is not a moral (in other words, it observes something

about life rather than telling the reader how to behave).

One theme of Toy Story might be “People who are initially rivals may come to realize that they need one

another.”

Tone: the writer’s or narrator’s attitude toward the subject, the reader, a character, or himself/herself.

In the last two lines of Marge Piercy’s poem “Barbie Doll,” the speaker comments on the scene she has

described with a tone of disgust: “Consummation at last. / To every woman a happy ending.”

Tragedy: type of drama that tells the story of a main character who is good but not perfect and undergoes a series of

events that lead to a downfall, allowing the audience to experience catharsis, or a release of emotions.

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet, Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and August Wilson’s Fences

Tragic hero: protagonist of a tragedy who is good but not perfect and stands above the average person in some way;

the hero either has a tragic flaw or makes a mistake that leads to a downfall; the punishment the hero receives is greater

than the crime.

Macbeth, Hamlet, Willy Loman, and Troy Maxson are examples of tragic heroes in the tragedies listed above.

Understatement: stating something that is less than the truth or with less force than is warranted, not to deceive but

to evoke a response in the reader.

From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio describes his fatal wound in Act 3, Scene 1 as “a

scratch, a scratch” that “‘tis enough.”

Villanelle: a nineteen-line poem with two rhyme sounds divided into five tercets and one quatrain; the first and third

lines of the first stanza function as a refrain throughout the poem.

“Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas