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| the message which the author is trying to convey to the reader. Do not confuse this with the subject of a story, as two stories may have the same subject but vastly different themes. |
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| in a work of literature is when there is a definite conflict between Good and Evil, and Good wins out. |
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| language used in a non-literal way. The words do not mean what they seem to mean. The two most common types of Figurative Language are similes and metaphors. A simile compares two things directly: "She is like a rose." A metaphor is an implied comparison between two things: "She is a rose." |
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| the representation in literature of a sensory experience. It is the result of Figurative Language. What the author does is to describe a thing so well that the reader can almost see it, taste it, smell it, hear it or feel it. |
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| the giving of human qualities to non-human things such as inanimate objects (spoons and dishes) ,animals, and even concepts (such as Death and Mother Nature). |
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| a form of fiction which, when one reads it, there needs to be a suspension of disbelief. In other words, the reader needs to accept magic, mythic creatures, talking animals, etc. |
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| the perspective from which the story is being told. In other words, who is telling us the story? There are three types of point of view which we discussed: |
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| Here, we are told the story by a person who is not involved in the story. This is sometimes called "The Fly on the Wall" perspective. We see what the characters are doing and hear what they are saying, but we cannot read their thoughts and we cannot know what is going on elsewhere in other places or times. |
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| the story is told to us by the central character (protagonist). The key words used here by the narrator are "I" and "me". We know only what the main character is thinking, not the other characters. We are still limited to the present time and place, unless the person telling us the story thinks back in time about things that have happened. |
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In this case, the story is told by a person not in the story. It is different than Third Person, though, because here the observer is not a "fly on the wall." Rather, he or she is "omniscient" and knows all and sees all. There may be degrees of this; the observer may be limited omniscient, only being able to know things about some of the characters. The narrator here can tell us what people are thinking, their motivations, and also what is happening or happened or will happen in other times and places.
It easy to see here that some points of view will be more appealing to younger children with short attention spans (First and Third Persons), while others (Omniscient Observer) can easily be handled by older children. |
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| what the characters do, when they do it, and how they do it. It is basically the story line. There are two types of plots: |
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| when the story slowly builds up to a climax and then has a quick resolution. You must read a progressive plot in order. Reading Chapter Three of a book before Chapter One would not be too rewarding if the plot is progressive. People may disagree about what point is the climax, but it comes in most cases towards the end of the story. |
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when the story is presented in "episodes," and each one flows into the next. (Like soap operas) You can read any episode you want without having read any of the others. And, you need not read them in order. There are really no "resolutions" in stories with episodic plots—they seem to go on and on and on.
As far as children go, younger children will find stories with episodic plots more appealing because of the fewer demands on "paying attention." Older children, who can remember what happened in earlier chapters, will find progressive plot stories more satisfying. |
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| a work of fiction, usually a fantasy, loaded with symbols, which parallels a real life experience, either a specific historical happening or a general situation in life.The key here is that it "parallels" real life. In most cases, if a story could really happen, it overlaps life and it is not an allegory. |
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| a concrete object (something you can see and touch) which represents an abstract or an idea (something you cannot see and/or touch). For example, our flag is a symbol of the philosophies of our country. Symbols are used extensively in Allegories to draw parallels between the fantasy world and the real one. |
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| the central character in a work of fiction. S/he is the character around whose fate all of the action revolves. Sometimes, there may be more than one protagonist (co-protagonists). |
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