English 2202: Short Story Review
Literary Terms
Static Characters: those characters who stay the same throughout the story. For example, the grumpy
old man.
Dynamic Characters: those characters who change throughout the story. The young boy starts out as a
shy, well behaved child. Later in the story he turns out to be a rude, sly person who bully’s everyone.
Climax: the event or point of greatest intensity or interest in the story, the turning point.
External Conflict: a problem or struggle that a character faces in a narrative which drives the plot
forward.
Internal Conflict: a state of mind in which they experience a clash of opposing wishes or needs.
Foreshadowing: a literary device in which an event in a novel or play, text. Is an indication or sign of
later events.
Flashback: a scene in a film, novel, play, etc. Set in a time earlier than the main action.
Imagery: the collection of images in a text which together create a profound mood and infuse the text
with a rich complexity of meaning.
Irony: a literary device in which the audience can perceive hidden meanings unknown to the characters.
Verbal irony occurs when what a character says and thinks he or she means is actually different from
what the audience perceives is meant. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more about a
character’s situation that the character does. Structural irony occurs when there is a naïve (immature)
or deluded hero whose view of the world is widely different from the true circumstances recognize by
the author or reader.
Metaphor: a figure of speech involving an implied (not directly stated comparison, and without using
the words “like” or “as”.
Simile: a figure of speech involving the explicit comparison of two different things, often using the
words “like” or “as” or “than”.
Setting: the time place and circumstance in a story.
Theme: the central idea, focus, or motif in a work of art, especially fiction.
Suspense: a quality in a work of fiction that arouses excite expectation about the outcome in the mind
of the viewer or reader.