EL121 ‫التعاريف الكتاب االول كاملة‬
1. First person point of view: A narrator who uses the pronoun "I" and is a character in the story.
In "Araby" the narrator is the first person point of view.
2. Limited omniscient point of view: A narrator who used third person pronouns and
concentrates on one character in the story. The narrator in "After Twenty years" is limited
omniscient point of view.
3. Third person point of view: A narrator who used third person pronouns and is not a character
in the story.
4. Objective point of view: A narrator who used third person, it is like a camera he did not know
what is inside the characters.
5. Omniscient point of view: A narrator who used third person and knows all the characters in a
story. The narrator in "To Build a Fire" when he describe at the end of the story what is the dog
thinking.
6. Round character: a character that develops and is realistic. For example, the man in "to build
a fire”
7. Third Omniscient Narrator: is described as being “all knowing". This narrator comments on all
the characters in the story, revealing their actions, experiences and thoughts. Like the narrator in
“to build a fire " nest rust.
8. Science fiction: A kind of writing in which events are in the future, but they are based on our
current stage of science and technology. For example, "Sound of Thunder"
9. Drama: writing in verse or prose that represents life or character through action and dialogue.
10. Impressionism: a kind of writing which requires senses and feeling rather than an objective
reality.
11. Unreliable Narrator: Narrators who speak in either the first person or third person and is mad
dishonest or deceived. Could be mad, dishonest and deceived into believing something that is
not true, like narrator in for example, "The Tell Tall Heart.
12. Setting: describes the time, location and circumstances of the events in a story. For example,
"To Build a Fire" By Jack London. The setting is very clear from the beginning. It is daytime on a
very cold day. We find that in, "exceedingly cold and gray" It is 75 Fah.
13. Conflict: It is the opposition of forces which ties one incident to another and makes the plot
move. Conflict is not merely limited to open arguments; rather, it is any form of opposition that
faces the main character. Within a short story there may be only one central struggle, or there
may be one dominant struggle with many minor ones. For example, conflict between the man and
nature in “To Build a Fire” between the narrator and the old man in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
14. Symbolism: describes the use of a concrete object to represent a concept or idea. For
example, colors: Yellow: Symbolism cowardice. Brown: Symbolism dull. Red: Symbolism to fire
Black: Symbolism to sadness and death.
15. Personification: a figure of speech in which nonhuman objects are given human
characteristics. We find that for example, in " Arabi" by James Joyce, Gazed is used to describe
the house "gazed at one another" , " gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces" and "
lifted their feeble lanterns".
16. Motivation: All characters, whether they are flat or round, static or dynamic, minor or main act
out of a certain motivation. A Motivation is the reason behind a character's action. For example,
in “The Tell Tale Heart” mad was kill the old man because he has vulture eyes, so that the
motivation for kill.
17. Irony: A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (situational irony),
conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation. A writer
may say the opposite of what he means, create a reversal between expectation and its fulfillment,
or give the audience knowledge that a character lacks, making the character's words have
meaning to the audience not perceived by the character. For example, Situational Irony in
“Araby” and “After Twenty Year”
18. Plot: A plot describes the way the events of a story are arranged. Most plots have a specific
structure of: exposition, rising action, climax and falling action, and denouement. All stories have
plots even if no action takes place. For example, the plot of the short story “To Build a Fire” is
based on the Protagonist going out traveling in very cold weather to Alaska and attempts to build
a fire under a spruce tree covered with snow. The man is unable to eat or build a fire due to the
extreme cold. The story ends by the man freezing and dying.
19. Episodically plots: have one incident or short episode linked to another by a common
character or unifying theme maybe through chapters. Used by authors to explore character
personalities, the nature of their existence, and the flavor of a certain time period.
20. Metaphor: It is a literary device or tool, in which one object is directly compared to another
without the use of “as if” or “like.” For example, in “The Scarlet Ibis” Doodles’ deep sympathy for
the ibis focuses the reader’s attention to the striking similarity between the boy and the bird. In
this way the scarlet ibis becomes a Metaphor which helps to clarify the theme of the story,
namely, the effect of a hostile environment on humans and animals.
21. Climax: is the highest point of action in the plot of a story or what has also been called the
turning point of the story .it is the point at which the situation for the protagonist turns or
changes. For example, in " Jack and the Beanstalk" by Joseph Jacobs, The climax is when the
ogre and Jack are brought together or at least the point when both the ogre and jack each know
about the existence of the other.
22. Naturalism: a kind of writing which depicts reality very closely and emphasis the effects of the
environment and heredity on the individual. it is a kind of realism. For example " To build a fire"
by Jack London, we see that nature is not necessarily cruel, but we saw a conflict between that
true nature to man " not very intelligent" and the nature.
23. Flashback: A device that allows the writer to present events that happened before the time of
the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Various methods can be used, including
memories, dream sequences, stories or narration by characters. For example, when the narrator
recalls what happened at the Cairo airport in “A Letter from Gaza” when the narrator recalls his
brother Doodle in “The Scarlet Ibis”
24. Episodic: a style of a plot which presents events as a series of incidents that are not
connected to each other.
25. Epiphany: it is a moment in the story where the character realizes a truth and becomes aware
of something. For example, in the short story “Araby” the narrator’s change of heart concludes
the story on a moment of epiphany but not a positive one. Instead of reaffirming his love or
realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for Mangan’s sister, the narrator
simply gives up. What might have been a story of happy, youthful love becomes a tragic story of
defeat. (OR) The epiphany in the story has when the bazaar closes down and the narrator realizes
that Mangan’s sister will fail his expectations as well.
26. Allusion: A reference taken from literature, religion, history, or any other field in order to draw
attention to a certain idea. The fall of the coin in "Araby" emphasizes that money in the truth and
there is no romance.
27. Resistance literature: kind of writing which highlights the life of people living under
occupation, it records the struggle of a people. For example, in " A letter from Gaza by Ghassan
Kanafani, writer tell us that Nadia in hospital because she was injured in the Israeli bombing of
Gaza , she threw herself on top of her little brothers and sisters as a result lost her leg .the
narrator wants Mustafa to leave California and come back to the Gaza . Gaza needs Mustafa , the
narrator wants Mustafa to come back and learn from Nadia's amputated leg.
28. Suspension of disbelief: A literary concept which describes the state whereby the reader is
prepared to believe in the characters and events in a story, poem, play, regardless of how
unbelievable or unrealistic they may be.