Glossary
accent: a way of pronouncing a
language that is distinctive to a country,
area or social class.
anthropomorphism: giving human
emotions, behaviours and characteristics
to objects or animals, such as the power
of reason or of speech; for example, The
Cheshire Cat or the Mad March Hare
in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland; Aslan in C. S. Lewis’ The
Chronicles of Narnia; the dragon Smaug
in J. R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings.
atmosphere: a particular mood of a
setting, often evoked through the five
senses.
audience participation: the
involvement of the audience in a
performance.
bravery: strength and daring in the face
of obstacles.
breaking the fourth wall: the
fourth wall is the imaginary wall between
audience and performer. When the
performer breaks the fourth wall, they
speak directly to the audience, even
treating the audience as characters within
an extension of the scene.
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characteristic : a distinctive feature
or quality.
climax: the point at which a story
reaches its most intense and dramatic
moment.
courage: see bravery.
dream sequence: a part of an artwork
breaking away from reality to portray a
dream or dreamlike events
equality: the condition of having equal
privileges with others, and being on an
equal footing.
emotive language: language that
draws an emotional response from the
audience.
empathy: the ability to understand or
share the feelings of another.
expectation: a preconceived idea
based on what a person has hoped for in
a future situation.
figurative language: the use of
images to stand in place of literal objects
or ideas.
first person narrative: using the
first person pronoun to relate a story.
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flashback: a scene which is a return
to past events. This could begin when
a character starts to think of a memory
from his or her point of view: see frame
narrative.
foreshadowing: an indication of
something to come in the future.
frame narrative: a story in which
another story is embedded as a ‘story
within a story.’
friendship: a positive feeling felt or
shown by a person or group of people for
or to another.
global: involving the whole world,
worldwide.
help: the action of helping and giving
aid.
home: the place where one lives or was
brought up, associated with feelings of
belonging and comfort.
homeland: a person’s home country, or
the land of one’s ancestors.
humiliation: the action of feeling
embarrassed and belittled.
identity: the condition of being an
individual with personal characteristics.
journey: travelling from one place to
another and changing state as a result,
either geographically or in the mind.
justice: the giving of deserved reward
or punishment.
legacy: a long-lasting physical or
spiritual reminder of a person or event.
loneliness: sadness arising from lack of
companionship or society.
loyalty: faithful adherence to some one
or something.
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memory: the action of remembering.
messages: the broad meaning or
significance of something.
motivation: the reason or reasons
characters behave the way they do.
mother country: the country of one’s
birth, of one’s ancestors or of one’s ethnic
group.
naïve: showing a lack of experience or
judgement.
onomatopoeia: the use of words that
seem to imitate the sounds they refer to
(pop, bang, hiss).
overcome: to defeat or conquer.
patriotism: love of a country.
patois: dialect spoken by the people
of a particular region. Jamaican patois is
a Creole language based in English, also
spoken by some black British people of
Caribbean descent.
pulse: to expand and contract
rhythmically; to beat.
racism, racial discrimination:
a belief that one’s own racial or ethnic
group is superior, or that other such
groups represent a threat to one’s cultural
identity, racial integrity, or economic
well-being; hence, discrimination, or
antagonism directed against people of
other racial or ethnic groups based on
such beliefs.1
remembrance: the memory (or thought)
which a person has of a thing or person;
the act or fact of remembering a thing or
person.
repetition: the action of repeating
something, for poetic or rhetorical effect.
respect: a feeling of admiration for
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some one, and consideration of their
feelings.
skills: an ability to perform a function,
acquired or learnt with practice.
rhetorical question: a question
asked for the sake of persuasive effect
rather than as a genuine request for
information, the speaker implying that the
answer is too obvious to require a reply.
Standard English: the form of English
accepted as the ‘correct’ form without
regional or international accents or
dialects.
rhyme: the identity of sound between
syllables, usually at the ends of verse
lines.
rhythm: the pattern of beats or sounds
repeating at equal intervals.
story within a story: see ‘frame
narrative.’
theatre of war: a particular area in
which a war is being fought.
rule of three: the idea that things
that come in threes are more effective,
memorable, satisfying and/or funnier than
any other number.
third person narrative: a style of
storytelling in which the narrator is not
a character within the story, but stands
outside them. All characters within the
story are therefore referred to as ‘he’,
‘she’, or ‘they.’
sensory description: evocation of a
place or event using the five senses: sight,
smell, touch, taste and hearing.
war effort: the actions and behaviour
of a nation at war, working together to
defeat the common enemy.
setting: the place and time at which
a play, novel, or film is represented as
happening.
welcome: to receive a visitor gladly and
hospitably.
shell shock: a disorder identified in
soldiers in the First World War (1914–18),
attributed to exposure to shell-fire and
characterized by severe anxiety and other
psychological disturbances.2
simile: a comparison of one thing with
another.
‘racism, n.’ OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web 20 October 2016
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‘shell shock, n.’ OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2016. Web 20 October 2016
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Illustrations by Sheena Dempsey
Text © The Story Museum
42 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP
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