Instruction 3-1

Characters Traits | Literary Devices | Ambiguities, Subtleties, Ironies | Describe the Functions of Soliloquies, Asides | Summary

When an author writes a story, he uses different tools to create a specific feeling in the reader. These tools are called literary devices. Once you learn to recognize the literary devices in a story, you will be able to dig beneath the surface and find the real messages that the author is trying to convey.

First let’s look at the basic building blocks of a story. Every story contains a few key elements: a main character, a setting, a plot, and a theme.

All stories contain characters—whether they’re human or not. A character is a person in a text. The main character in a story is usually complex and has a few unusual quirks. Authors often try to develop these characters throughout the story so that they change or evolve in some way because of the circumstances they have to deal with. Characters that have been developed and individualized are often called rounded characters.

Many stories contain another type of character—the stock character. How many high school movies have you seen that have a bully, a class clown, a partier,  a jock, a “brain,” and a beauty queen? 

Characters that you can label like this usually don’t develop or have unusual characteristics. They usually represent a group or class of people. Stock characters are in the story just for the purpose of showing the development of the main character by creating interesting opportunities for conflict.

So now you’re asking, “what is conflict?” Conflict is the heart of the whole story. It is the struggle of two opposing forces. 

When you read a story, you’ll find that the conflicts fall into one of these categories:

Internal conflict—man vs. self or man vs. social issues 
External conflict—man vs. man or man vs. nature

Many stories include more than one type of conflict. For example, a soldier might be sent into battle. He might be fighting against other soldiers (man vs. man), but he also might be struggling with a lack of courage (man vs. self). When you are trying to understand what messages the author is communicating, it’s important to identify the conflict in the story.

Think of your own life as a story. The setting is the time and place where the action occurs. Where are you right now? Are you indoors or outdoors? Is it night or day? Is it cold, dark, and rainy? Think about how the words “cold, dark, and rainy” make you feel. Do they create a picture in your mind? An author uses the setting to create a feeling, or mood, in the reader.

The plot is the sequence of events in the story. Think about the last week in your life. All of the events that occurred, the places you went, the people you talked to, the things you did, these things are all part of the plot of your life. Authors use the plot to show the development of the main character. And in your life, obviously the main character is you!

Usually in a story the main character is the protagonist, or “the good guy.” The bad guy, or whatever causes the major conflict for the main character, is called an antagonist. 

The theme is the main idea of the story. Think “big ideas”—it’s not the same as the plot. In the story about the soldier in battle, the theme might be that true courage is doing something even though you’re afraid. You can use all of the other elements of the story to help you figure out the theme.

Tone is the author's attitude toward his or her subject and the audience. A writer's tone may be comic, bitter, angry, detached, casual, or passionate, among many other possibilities. Think about the story of the soldier. If the author is against war, his tone might be angry, bitter, or sarcastic. Figuring out what kind of tone the author has can help you get to the heart of the story and even guess at the author’s motive for writing it. 

Now let’s look at a couple of literary devices, the tools that an author might use to create a feeling in or send a message to the reader. We’ll get more into literary devices in the next section, but here are a couple of examples. 

Sometimes the author will deliberately play something down in order to emphasize it even more. This kind of literary device is called understatement. Often the result is pretty humorous, and it can create something called irony. Irony happens in a story when reality is different from the way it appears, or when somebody says one thing but means something different.

When a writer wants to get you to understand their feelings about an idea—like love, peace, excitement, or sorrow—the writer might compare the idea to an object. For example, a writer might try to explain to you what old age feels like, and he might do that by comparing it to a tree in autumn. All the leaves are falling off and dying, and cold winds are starting to blow through the branches. 

By creating this picture of the tree in your mind, the author gives you a feeling. Even though you might not be old, you understand how old age makes the author feel.

When a writer compares two unlike things and uses either the word “like” or “as,” he is using a simile. When the writer doesn’t include “like” or “as,” he is using a metaphor. Check it out:

“Getting older, I feel like a tree in autumn. All of my leaves are falling off, and the birds that used to sing in my branches have flown away.” –simile

“This time of year you might see me with just a few yellow leaves still hanging. My branches are shaking against the cold, bare and lonely.” –metaphor

Links for Students, Parents and Teachers

Now let's do Practice Exercise 3-1 (top). 

Next Page:  Literary Devices (top)