Conversations in Literature, 20th Century

Literary Elements

ANTAGONIST: a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates, or works against the
main character, or protagonist, in some way. The antagonist doesn’t necessarily have to be a
person. It could be death, the devil, an illness, or any challenge that prevents the main character
from living “happily ever after." In fact, the antagonist could be a character of virtue in a
literary work where the protagonist represents evil.

CHARACTER: Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative

work through extended dramatic or verbal representation. The reader can interpret characters as
endowed with moral and dispositional qualities expressed in what they say (dialogue) and what
they do (action). E. M. Forster describes characters as "flat" (i.e., built around a single idea or
quality and unchanging over the course of the narrative) or "round" (complex in temperament
and motivation; drawn with subtlety; capable of growth and change during the course of the
narrative). The main character of a work of a fiction is typically called the protagonist; the
character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends (if there is one), is the antagonist.
If a single secondary character aids the protagonist throughout the narrative, that character is the
deuteragonist (the hero's "side-kick"). A character of tertiary importance is a tritagonist.
These terms originate in classical Greek drama, in which a tenor would be assigned the role of
protagonist, a baritone the role of deuterogamist, and a bass would play the tritagonist.

CLIMAX: (From Greek word for "ladder"): The moment in a play, novel, short story, or
narrative poem at which the crisis reaches its point of greatest intensity and is thereafter
resolved. It is also the peak of emotional response from a reader or spectator and usually the
turning point in the action. The climax usually follows or overlaps with the crisis of a story,
though some critics use the two terms synonymously.

CONFLICT: The opposition between two characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist),
between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as
forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on. Conflict may also be completely internal, such
as the protagonist struggling with his psychological tendencies (drug addiction, self-destructive
behavior, and so on).

PLOT: The structure and relationship of actions and events in a work of fiction. In order for a
plot to begin, some sort of catalyst is necessary. While the temporal order of events in the work
constitutes the "story," we are speaking of plot rather than story as soon as we look at how these
events relate to one another and how they are rendered and organized so as to achieve their
particular effects. Note that, while it is most common for events to unfold chronologically or ab
ovo (in which the first event happens first, the second event happens second, and so on), many
stories structure the plot in such a way that the reader encounters happenings out of order.

1 www.alident.org
 Conversations in Literature, 20th Century
Literary Elements

POINT OF VIEW: The way a story gets told and who tells it. It is the method of narration that
determines the position, or angle of vision, from which the story unfolds. Point of view governs
the reader's access to the story. Many narratives appear in the first person (the narrator speaks
as "I" and the narrator is a character in the story who may or may not influence events within
it). Another common type of narrative is the third-person narrative (the narrator seems to be
someone standing outside the story who refers to all the characters by name or as he, she, they,
and so on). When the narrator reports speech and action, but never comments on the thoughts of
other characters, it is the dramatic third person point of view or objective point of view. The
third-person narrator can be omniscient--a narrator who knows everything that needs to be
known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place,
and who has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives. The narrator can
also be limited--a narrator who is confined to what is experienced, thought, or felt by a single
character, or at most a limited number of characters. Finally, there is the unreliable narrator (a
narrator who describes events in the story, but seems to make obvious mistakes or
misinterpretations that may be apparent to a careful reader). Unreliable narration often serves to
characterize the narrator as someone foolish or unobservant.

POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER: The central figure in a limited point of view narration, the
character through which the reader experiences the author's representation of the world.

PROTAGONIST (pro-TAG-eh-nist) A protagonist is considered to be the main character or

lead figure in a novel, play, story, or poem. It may also be referred to as the "hero" of a work.
Over a period of time the meaning of the term protagonist has changed. The word protagonist
originated in ancient Greek drama and referred to the leader of a chorus. Soon the definition
was changed to represent the first actor onstage

RESOLUTION (DENOUEMENT): A French word meaning "unknotting" or "unwinding,"

denouement refers to the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an
aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot. It is the unraveling
of the main dramatic complications in a play, novel or other work of literature. In drama, the
term is usually applied to tragedies or to comedies with catastrophes in their plot. This
resolution usually takes place in the final chapter or scene, after the climax is over. Usually the
denouement ends as quickly as the writer can arrange it--for it occurs only after all the conflicts
have been resolved.

2 www.alident.org
 Conversations in Literature, 20th Century
Literary Elements
SETTING: The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of
a fictional or dramatic work occurs; the setting of an episode or scene within a work is the
particular physical location in which it takes place. Setting can be a central or peripheral factor
in the meaning of a work. The setting is usually established through description--but sometimes
narration or dialogue also reveals the location and time. Settings have a way of drawing the
reader into a piece of literature while facilitating understanding of the characters and their
actions. Understanding the setting is useful because it enables us to see how an author captures
the attention of the reader by painting a mental picture using words.

THEME: A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work. The
theme can take the form of a brief and meaningful insight or a comprehensive vision of life; it
may be a single idea such as "progress" (in many Victorian works), "order and duty" (in many
early Roman works), "seize-the-day" (in many late Roman works), or "jealousy" (in
Shakespeare's Othello). The theme may also be a more complicated doctrine, such as Milton's
theme in Paradise Lost, "to justify the ways of God to men," or "Socialism is the only sane
reaction to the labor abuses in Chicago meat-packing plants" (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle). A
theme is the author's way of communicating and sharing ideas, perceptions, and feelings with
readers, and it may be directly stated in the book, or it may only be implied

Works Cited:
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html

3 www.alident.org