FICTION : FICTION PLOT
POINT OF VIEW
CHARACTER
SETTING
SYMBOL
THEME
PLOT : PLOT Arrangement of events in a story including:
-the sequence in which they are told
-the relative emphasis they are given
-the causal connection between events
(Plot continued…) : (Plot continued…) ELEMENTS OF A PLOT
CONFLICT-
The central struggle that moves the plot forward.
ex: the protagonists struggle against fate, nature, society, or another person.
In certain circumstances, the conflict can be between opposing elements within the protagonist.
(ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) : (ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) 2. RISING ACTION-
The early part of the narrative, which builds momentum and develops the narrative's major conflict
3. CLIMAX-
The moment of highest tension in the plot or, more generally, to any episode of high tension.
An anticlimax occurs when the plot builds up to an expected climax only to tease the reader with a frustrating non-event.
ex: Jane Austen’s novels, such as Sense and Sensibility, are full of romantic anticlimaxes.
(ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) : (ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) 4. FALLING ACTION-
the latter part of the narrative, during which the protagonist responds to the events of the climax and the various plot elements introduced in the rising action are resolved.
5. REVERSAL (PERIPETEIA)-
a sudden shift that sends the protagonist’s fortunes from good to bad or visa versa.
(ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) : (ELEMENTS OF A PLOT CONTINUED…) 6. Resolution-
An ending that satisfactorily answers all the questions raised over the course of the plot
Slide 7 : TYPES OF PLOT
Plots can take a wide variety of forms, ranging from orderly sequences of clearly related events to chaotic jumbles of loosely connected events.
Chronological Plot:
-events are arranged in the sequence in which they occur
-ex: Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, tells a roughly straightforward story from beginning to end.
Brief Summary : Brief Summary
(TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) : (TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) Achronological Plot-
Events are not arranged in the sequence in which they occur.
Ex: Homer’s Iliad is full of flashbacks and digressions that relate what happened before and after the central conflict of the poem.
How it all started…. : How it all started….
Although actual locations of “The Iliad and Odyssey are unknown, this is a possible configuration of the area covered in Homer’s epic. : Although actual locations of “The Iliad and Odyssey are unknown, this is a possible configuration of the area covered in Homer’s epic.
Slide 12 : Climactic Plot-
All the action focuses toward a single climax
Ex: Aeschylus's Agamemnon is a classic example of a climactic plot
Slide 13 :
(TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) : (TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) Episodic Plot
a series of loosely connected events
Ex: Cervantes’s Don Quixote
Fighting the Giants : Fighting the Giants
What is the difference between a climactic plot and an episodic plot? : What is the difference between a climactic plot and an episodic plot? climactic plot,
begins near the end of the story
action involves a limited number of characters
unfolds in one or two days
and typically occurs in one location
The climactic play evolved in ancient Greece (5th Century BC) and was popular during the French Renaissance (1630 to 1700) and the early Realistic Period (1890 to 1940).
episodic plot
begins near the beginning of the story
action typically involves a large cast
unfolds over a number of months (or years)
broken into many short scenes staged in numerous different locations.
The episodic pattern is primarily seen in the work of Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) and the early 19th century Romantic Playwrights
(TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) : (TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) Non Sequitur Plot
more of an anti-plot
defies traditional logic by presenting events without any clear sequence and characters without any clear motivation
Ex: the theater of the absurd (a literary movement)
Theater of the Absurd & the Non Sequitur Plot : Theater of the Absurd & the Non Sequitur Plot A movement in which all of humanity is deemed illogical and purposeless.
Ex: Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot
The entire story is absurd
It follows no literary rules (no conflict, rising action, resolution, etc…)
(TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) : (TYPES OF PLOT CONTINUED…) Subplot
A secondary plot that is of less importance to the overall story but may serve a s a point of contrast or comparison to the main plot
Ex: The subplot involving Gloucester and his sons in Shakespeare’s King Lear
ACT III. SCENE IV. PART OF A HEATH, WITH A HOVEL. : ACT III. SCENE IV. PART OF A HEATH, WITH A HOVEL. LEAR, KENT, FOOL, EDGAR, DISGUISED AS A MADMAN,
AND GLOSTER,WITH A TORCH.
POINT OF VIEWThe perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. : POINT OF VIEWThe perspective that a narrative takes toward the events it describes. First-Person Narration
Third-Person Narration
Objective Narration
Unreliable Narration
Stream-of-Consciousness Narration
First-Person Narration : First-Person Narration Narrator tells story from his/her perspective and refers to him/herself as “I”or “we”.
Narrator may take part in story or just an observer
When point of view is the author’s (not a fictional author): autobiography
Third-Person Narration : Third-Person Narration Narrator remains outside the story and describes the characters in the story using proper names and third-person pronouns “he,” “she,” “it,” and “they.”
3 Types of Third Person Narration : 3 Types of Third Person Narration Omniscient Narration:
narrator knows all of the actions, feelings, and motivations of all of the characters.
EX: The narrator of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina seems to know everything about all the characters and events in the story.
Slide 25 : 2. Limited Omniscient Narration:
narrator knows the actions, feelings, and motivations of only one or a handful of characters.
EX: The narrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has full knowledge of only Alice
Slide 26 : Free Indirect Discourse:
Narrator conveys a character’s inner thoughts while staying in third person
EX: Madame Bovary, “Sometimes she thought that these were after all the best days of her life, the honeymoon, so-called.”
Objective Narration : Objective Narration Narrator reports neutrally on the outward behavior of the characters and offers no interpretation of their actions or their inner states
Ernest Hemmingway pioneered this style
Unreliable Narration : Unreliable Narration Narrator is revealed over time to be an untrustworthy source of information
EX: Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day have unreliable narrators
Stream-of-consciousness Narration : Stream-of-consciousness Narration Narrator conveys a subject’s thoughts, impressions, and perceptions exactly as they occur, often in disjointed fashion and without the logic and grammar of typical speech and writing.
This would be a rambling on of a character without punctuation (often found in a soliloquy)
Can be in first-person or free indirect discourse third-person
CHARACTER : CHARACTER A person, animal, or any other thing with a personality that appears in a story
Types of Characters
Protagonist
Hero/heroine
Antihero/antiheroine
Antagonist
Stock Character
archetype
Foil
Protagonist : Protagonist The main character around whom the story revolves
If the protagonist is admirable, he or she is called the hero or heroine of the story
If not admirable- the antihero or antiheroine
Examples
Antihero: Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (ordinary/pathetic character)
Antagonist : Antagonist Primary character or entity that acts to frustrate the goals of the protagonist
Is typically a character, but may also be a nonhuman force
EX: Claudius is the antagonist in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whereas the military bureaucracy is the antagonist in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
Stock Character : Stock Character Common character type that occurs throughout literature
Examples: witty servant, scheming villain, the femme fatale, the trusty sidekick, the old miser, etc..
A stock character that holds a central place in a culture’s folklore or consciousness may be called an archetype.
Foil : Foil Character who illuminates the qualities of another character by means of contrast
EX: John Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale,” the swiftly traveling nightingale serves a s a foil to Keats's sleepy, opium-laden narrator
SETTING : SETTING Location of a narrative in time and space
Historical or Geographical
Ex: Robert Grave’s I, Claudius (set in ancient Rome
Imaginary or reality
Ex: J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (Neverland)
Atmosphere: suggestive mood that the setting may create
Ex: The open windows in the nursery in Peter Pan create an atmosphere of innocence and magic
SYMBOL : SYMBOL Something that is used to represent an abstract idea or concept:
Objects
Characters
Figures
Colors
Ex: Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken” symbolize the choice between two paths in life
*not to be confused with emblem because a symbol can have many different meanings in different contexts
Robert Frost’s, The Road Not Taken : Robert Frost’s, The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
Slide 38 : And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black, Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
THEME : THEME A fundamental and universal idea explored in a literary work
Example of a major theme:
- The perpetual contest between good and evil in John Steinbeck’s East of Eaden