Ogayon Reviewer LIT 104

Literature Hand-Out 1
Literary Elements
Setting Time and place are where the action occurs
Details that describe:
Furniture
Scenery
Customs
Transportation
Clothing
Dialects
Weather
Time of day
Time of year
Elements of a Setting

Location Life Era

Place Time

Physical
Setting History

Atmosphere Day

Mood Feelings

Word
Choice
Use as activator to activate prior knowledge. Write
Weather the web on the board or overhead and students
create one at their seats. Then as class share and fill
in.

The Functions of a Setting

To create a mood or atmosphere
To show a reader a different way of life
To make action seem more real
To be the source of conflict or struggle
To symbolize an idea
Example:
We left the home place behind, mile by slow mile, heading for the mountains,
across the prairie where the wind blew forever.
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At first there were four of us with one horse wagon and its skimpy load. Pa
and I walked, because I was a big boy of eleven. My two little sisters romped
and trotted until they got tired and had to be boosted up to the wagon bed.
That was no covered Conestoga, like Pas folks came West in, but just an old
farm wagon, drawn by one weary horse, creaking and rumbling westward to the
mountains, toward the little woods town where Pa thought he had an old uncle
who owned a little two-bit sawmill. (Taken from The Day the Sun Came Out by
D. Johnson)
Types of Characters
People or animals
Major characters
Minor characters
Round characters
Flat characters
Characterization
A writer reveals what a character is like and how the character changes
throughout the story.
Two primary methods of characterization:
Direct- writer tells what the character is like
Indirect- writer shows what a character is like by describing what the
character looks like, by telling what the character says and does, and
by what other characters say about and do in response to the
character.
Direct Characterization
And I dont play the dozens or believe in standing around with somebody in
my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my
chances even if Im a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is
how I got the name Squeaky. (From Raymonds Run by T. Bambara)
Indirect Characterization
The old man bowed to all of us in the room. Then he removed his hat and
gloves, slowly and carefully. Chaplin once did that in a picture, in a bank--he
was the janitor. (From Gentleman of Rio en Medio by J. Sedillo)
Factors in Analyzing Characters
Physical appearance of character
Personality
Background/personal history
Motivation
Relationships
Conflict
Does character change?
Ogayon Reviewer LIT 104

Elements of Character

Fully
Relatives Friends
Developed

Main Minor

Not Fully
Protagonist
Character Developed

Flat Co-Main Antagonist

Enemy

Plot
Plot is what happens and how it happens in a narrative. A narrative is any work that
tells a story, such as a short story, a novel, a drama, or a narrative poem.
Parts of a Plot
Inciting incident event that gives rise to conflict (opening situation)
Development- events that occur as result of central conflict (rising action)
Climax- highest point of interest or suspense of story
Resolution- when conflict ends
Denouement- when characters go back to their life before the conflict
Diagram of Plot

Special Techniques of Plot

Suspense- excitement or tension
Foreshadowing- hint or clue about what will happen in story
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Flashback- interrupts the normal sequence of events to tell about something

that happened in the past
Surprise Ending- conclusion that reader does not expect
Conflict
Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces
Every plot must contain some kind of conflict
Stories can have more than one conflict
Conflicts can be external or internal
External conflict- outside force may be person, group, animal, nature,
or a nonhuman obstacle
Internal conflict- takes place in a characters mind
Symbol
is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular
mark that represents something else by association.
Theme
A central message, concern, or insight into life expressed through a literary
work
Can be expressed by one or two sentence statement about human beings or
about life
May be stated directly or implied
Interpretation uncovers the theme
Example of Theme
Every man needs to feel allegiance to his native country, whether he always
appreciates that country or not. (From A Man Without a Country by Edward
Hale pg. 185 in Prentice Hall Literature book)
Literary Terms
Alliteration - Is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words.
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That time will come and take my love away,
-Shakespeare, Sonnet 64-

Analogy - Is the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship.
Hand : Palm :: Foot : Sole

Anthropomorphism - The act of attributing human forms or qualities to entities

which are not human

Personification - Is giving human qualities to animals or objects

Apostrophe - Is when an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object

is directly addressed.
"Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!" -Edgar Allan Poe
"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death!" - Sir Walter Raleigh
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Assonance - Is the repetition of vowel sounds

Hear the mellow wedding bells. Edgar Allan Poe

Conceit - An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image,

such as an analogy or metaphor

Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair some time declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grows't:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Conflict - Is the struggle found in fiction. Conflict may be internal or external and is
best seen:
Man vs Man
Man vs Nature
Man vs Himself
Consonance - Is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance
All mammals named Sam are clammy
Enjambed The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line
without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line.
Example: I carry your heart with me
-e. e. cummings
Euphemism A mild word of phrase which substitutes for another which would be
undesirable because it is too direct, unpleasant, or offensive
correctional facility for prison
sanitation worker for garbage collector
adult entertainment for pornography
Flashback Is action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier
time which is necessary to better understanding
Foreshadowing In drama, a method used to build suspense by providing hints of
what is to come
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Metonymy Is substituting a word for another word closely associated with it.
The White House supports the bill.
Oxymoron Is putting two contradictory words together
Deafening silence
Living Dead
Onomatopoeia Is a word that imitates the sound it represents
Paradox Reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory
The saviors come not home tonight;
Themselves they could not save;
Hyperbole Is exaggeration or overstatement
These books weigh a ton.
I could sleep for a year.
Irony Is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.
Metaphor Comparison of two unlike things using the verb to be and not using
like or as in a simile
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They
have their exits and their entrances; - William Shakespeare

Literature Hand-Out 2
Literary Theory
What is literary theory?
The way people read texts
The lens through which you view the literature
There is no right way to look at literature
All schools of thought think they are the right way
The Creation of Critical Theory
20th Century: theories began to emerge
No theory is based in factual knowledge- someone created it and it is
arguable
Some theories are created in opposition or response to another theory
Using Theories
Rigid application of a theory can spoil a book
Using multiple theories can enhance the story
This is an open ended process- NOT a science
Reader Response
Making a connection between your experiences and the text
Literature has no objective meaning
A reader brings their own thoughts and experiences
For Example:
Connect the literature to your life
Connect the literature to current events
Discuss how the literature makes you feel
Compare the literature to the way you view the world
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Formalist Criticism
Scientific dissection of texts
Focus on literary elements
Analyze: setting, character, plot, theme, imagery, foreshadowing, irony, etc.
Common Assumptions of Formalist Criticism
Literature is a special mode of language and different from every day
language
A literary work is independent of the author and historical context during
which it was written
Archetypal Criticism
Archetypes are universal symbols that appear in literature, myth, dreams,
oral tradition, songs, etc.
Examples of Archetypes
Images such as:
water
sun
certain colors or numbers
circles
the serpent
garden
tree
desert
Characters such as:
the hero
"the earth mother"
"the soul mate"
"the trickster"
the damsel in distress
Ideas such as:
Light vs. Darkness
Good vs. Evil
The Journey/Quest
Common Assumptions of Archetypal Criticism
Certain images recur in texts
Certain characters/character types recur in texts
Certain motifs and patterns recur in texts
Cultural/Post-Colonial Criticism
Examines how different religions, ethnicities, class identifications, and
political beliefs affect how texts are created and interpreted
What it means to be part of- or excluded from- a particular group enhances
understanding of the text in relation to culture
Colonialism
Colonialism is the political and economic control over a dependent territory
Colonialism seeks to shape the identities of the colonized people
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Uses a process called othering- the colonized are seen as different and
lesser than the colonized
Common Assumptions of Post-Colonial Criticism
It is important to look at the relationship between dominant and non-
dominant cultures
Many times, literature written by colonized people attempts to articulate
empowered identities and reclaim culture
Historical\Biographical Criticism
According to Wilfred Guerin, historical/biographical criticisms
"...sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of the author's life
and times or the life and times of the characters in the work" (Guerin, 22).
Common Assumptions of Historical/Biographical Criticism
Understanding the social structure or way of life of a certain time
period will help the reader draw conclusions and better understand the story
Discovering details about the author's life and times will help the reader
develop ideas about a story
New Historical Criticism
New Historicism seeks to find meaning in a text by considering the work
within the framework of the ideas and assumptions of its historical era
Concerned with the political function of literature and with the concept of
power
New Historical Criticism
Focused on revealing the historically specific model of truth and authority
(not a "truth" but a "cultural construct") reflected in a given work.
Literature will tell us about ways of thinking at the time: ideas of social
organization, prejudices, taboos, etc.
New Historicism is more "sociohistorical" than it is a delving into facts
concerned with cultural constructs of society
It's not just where would Keats have seen a Grecian urn in England, but from
where he may have absorbed the definitions of art and beauty
Psychological
Deals with the work of literature as a fictional expression of the personality,
state of mind, feelings, and desires of the author
The idea is to evaluate the psychology of the character or the author to find
meaning in the text
Common Assumptions of Psychological Theory
The authors psychological conflicts are revealed in his or her work
Readers can do an in-depth analysis of the characters as if they were real
people
The readers psychological analysis of a piece of text might analyze the
authors psychological state or the readers own psychological state of mind
Marxist Criticism
Based on the economic and cultural theory of Karl Marx
founder of communism
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Communism: a stateless, classless society

Wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Deals with class struggles
Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will
produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction
Marx believed that groups of people that owned and controlled major
industries could exploit the rest of the population by forcing their own values
and beliefs onto other social groups
How to Use Marxist Theory
Focus on power and money in the literature
Who has the power or money?
Who does not?
What happens as a result?
Feminist Criticism
Realizes cultural and economic problems in a patriarchal society
Realizes issues that have hindered or prevented women from achievement
Recognizes that society sees women as other to man
Common Assumptions of Feminist Criticism
Our civilization is pervasively patriarchal
The concepts of gender are cultural constructs
The patriarchal ideology pervades writing that has been considered great
literature
Great literature lacks autonomous female role models
Primarily addresses male readers
Makes the female reader an outsider- assumes male values to identify
Strategies for Using Feminist Criticism
Consider the gender of the author and the characters- what role does gender
or sexuality play in this work?
How are sexual stereotypes reinforced?
How does the work reflect or distort the place of women or men in society?
Structuralism
Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world in relationship to structures
Every element in the literature has no significance by itself- it is determined
by all the other elements involved in the literature
The literature is a stable, closed entity with definite meaning
Postmodern Theory
A reaction to structuralism
The reader can find endless meaning
There is no single center, essence, or meaning in the literature
Modern Vs. Postmodern Theory
Modernist:
WWI: The belief in human goodness is splintered
Yeats says, The center will not hold
People feel alienated from one another
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Can no longer could count on unifying beliefs or behaviors

Veered away from linearity or harmo
Postmodernist:
WWII: The Holocaust and atomic bomb took the splintered views of
modernism and destroyed them entirely
There never was a center
Stresses absences, contradictions, sub-texts, and the inability of language to
connect one human being with another
Modernism Vs. Postmodernism
Modernism
There is an absolute, universal truth that we can understand through
rationalism and logic
"Disenchantment with material truth and search for abstract truth."
Postmodernism
There is no universal truth. Rationality by itself does not help us truly
understand the world
"There is no universal truth, abstract or otherwise."
Many Modernists Think:
Works of art can provide the unity, coherence, and meaning which has been
lost in most of modern life
Art will do what other human institutions fail to do
Postmodernists
Postmodernism doesnt mind fragmentation or incoherence, but rather
celebrates that lack of meaning
Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play with
nonsense (From Mary Klages, 2007)
Postmodern Theory
No objective and absolute truth
Rather, ideas are viewed as being social constructions
It is a broad movement with many different writers, often disagreeing among
themselves