English Fiction

Critical Terms
Fiction: non-factual literature written in prose
1. Old Story Forms

a) fable: a brief story which points to a moral explicitly

(moral: the underlying message or lesson of a story)
b) parable: a brief story which teaches a lesson implicitly
c) tale: a story which mixes strange and familiar characters and events in a way
which blurs the distinction between fact and fiction

2. Traditional Narrative Forms (pre-18th Century)

a) allegory: a figurative mode of representation telling a story indirectly by means of

symbolic and/or non-literal characters and actions
b) romance: a fantastic narrative which chronicles the legendary difficulties in love
or heroic exploits of admirable individuals written in the romance (i.e. Latinate)
languages

3. Modern Fiction (post-18th Century)

a) novel: a long, usually realistic, prose narrative which develops psychologically

believable characters by relating probable incidents from their lives

(i) picaresque novel – (from pícaro: a wily strickster) episodic novel which
describes the adventures of a lively and resourceful hero on a journey
(ii) Bildungsroman – (from bildung: to develop) charts the development or
growth of a central protagonist from childhood to maturity
(iii) social satire – a veiled or allegorical criticism of the social or political
conditions prevailing at the time the work was written
(iv) Gothic novel – relates supernatural or horrifying events and the extreme
emotional states which they produce (popular in 18th – 19th Centuries)
(v) epistolary novel – based on ‘private’ correspondence between the
characters or between the narrator and a privileged correspondent
(vi) social novel – the work is used to comment on and criticize existing social
conditions and the ills that they produce
(vii) psychological novel – focuses on the inner world of the protagonist(s)
with a view to illuminate psychological processes
(viii) novel of sensibility – focuses on the sensibility or awareness of one
particular character and shows that character in relation to his/her society
(ix) novel of ideas – explores or illustrates particular scientific, philosophical,
or political theories through discussion, personification, or allegory
(x) historical novel – based on real characters and/or events with a view to
illuminate a particular historical figure or period in history
 b) short story: a short, self-contained, prose narrative containing characters and
events similar to those in a novel but less complex and less developed
c) novella: a cross between a novel and a short story

Elements of Fiction
1. Plot: the arrangement in sequence of incidents which bear a significant causal
relationship to each other and make up a story

a) conflict: the clash of opposing forces which drives a plot

b) setting: the time and place in which a plot unfolds
c) exposition: the opening of a work of literature which introduces the setting and
the main characters
d) complications/ rising action: the intensification of the conflict leading to the
crisis or climax in the plot
e) crisis/ climax: the point of greatest tension in the plot where the fate of the
protagonist is usually decided
f) falling action: the reduction in complications after the crisis
g) resolution: the point traditionally at the end of the story where the original
conflict in the plot is resolved

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2. Structure: the way in which a text or a narrative is constructed or organized

a) theme: an important subject or idea explored in a work

b) motif: a repeated word, incident, or theme in a work which reveals some aspect of
the author’s intention
(intention: the author’s conscious purpose in producing a work)
c) structuring principle: a concept, theme, or motif used by an author to structure
his/ her work

3. Character: a fictional persona referred to or inhabiting a text

a) major character/ protagonist: an important figure at the centre of the story’s

action
b) minor character: a secondary character whose function is to support the major
characters and reveal some aspect of their personality
c) antagonist: the character whose opposition to the protagonist sparks off the
conflict in the plot

(i) dynamic character: a character who grows and develops during the
story and displays a change in attitude or behaviour at the end
(ii) static character: usually a minor character who remains the same
from the beginning of a work to the end
4. Point of View: the perspective from which the narrator tells the story

(narrator: the voice or consciousness through which the story is told as distinct
from the author or writer who is the producer of the text)

a) objective point of view: the story is told without direct reference to anything that
does not emerge from the action or dialogue
b) first-person point of view: the story is told from the point of view of a
participant in the action (e.g. “I saw the woman get on the bus.”)
c) third-person point of view: the narrator does not participate in the action nor
assumes the perspective of any one character (e.g. “The woman got on the bus.”)

(i) omniscient point of view: the narrator knows everything about the
characters and enters the mind of each, revealing what they think or feel
(ii) limited omniscience: the narrator is limited to knowing everything about
only one character

5. Language and Style

a) style: the unique way a writer chooses words, arranges them into sentences or
longer units of discourse, and exploits their different meanings
b) tone: the attitude or feeling of the writer towards the subject-matter or the reader
conveyed by the stylistic choices (s)he makes
c) vocabulary/ diction: the kinds of words a writer uses in constructing a text
d) symbol: a character, object, or occurrence that is deliberately used to suggest or
typify something other than itself (e.g. “The cross is a symbol of Christianity.”)
e) irony: (i) a rhetorical device in which what is meant is the opposite of what is
stated (verbal irony), (ii) a point in the text when the reader knows something
which the characters do not (dramatic irony), and (iii) a chance occurrence
which is so unexpected or ill timed that it appears to be the work of a malign
intelligence (situational irony)
f) denotation: the literal or dictionary definition of a word
g) connotation: a secondary or non-literal meaning which a word may imply besides
its literal meaning
h) nuance: a subtle difference or shade of meaning
i) emotive language: language which conveys or provokes an emotional response
j) figurative/ poetic language: the non-literal or imaginative use of language based
more on the connotation than the denotation of words

(i) simile: the comparison of one thing to another using ‘as’ or ‘like’ (e.g.
“He is like a lion in battle.”)
(ii) metaphor: the equation of one thing to another in order to imply an
essential similarity (e.g. “He is a lion in battle.”)
(iii) pun/ double entendre: a figure of speech often used to suggest something
somewhat improper by exploiting the fact that words can have more than
one meaning