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Conflict
The central struggle that drives the plot of a story or, more generally, any struggle between opposing forces in a story. Literary scholars often classify conflicts as internal, in which a character struggles with some internal dilemma, or external, in which a character struggles against outside forces like nature, other characters, or supernatural forces.
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the main conflict pits the protagonist, Ralph, against the antagonist, Jack. Throughout the story, the two boys compete to become the dominant leader of the boys stranded on the island, with Ralph embodying the rules and order of civilization and Jack the opposing tendency toward terror and violence.
Consonance
The repetition of one or more consonant sounds in words that are close together, such as within a single sentence or line of poetry; may include both initial consonant sounds (alliteration) or sounds within words.
The following famous tongue-twister comes precariously close to using consonance in every word.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Couplet
In poetry or verse, a pair of consecutive lines of poetry that form a complete thought, usually rhyming and having the same meter and sometimes placed in their own stanza.
A Shakespearian sonnet is a fourteen-line poem consisting of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a rhyming couplet that often concludes the poem with an unexpected twist. For example, the couplet below concludes a sonnet in which the speaker mostly laments the fact that age will someday degrade his lover’s beauty. “This” in the first line refers to having a child through whom one’s own lost beauty can live on.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
(from Sonnet 2: “When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow,” by William Shakespeare)
Diction
The word choice of a writer or speaker; style of writing or speaking, as related to word choice.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, author Mark Twain uses informal, colloquial diction to develop the character of his narrator, a poor, uneducated boy from Missouri. Huck’s use of regional slang and incorrect grammar becomes an important part of his character, as is clear even from the novel’s opening lines:
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another. . . (Chapter 1)
Idioms are often difficult to translate into other languages because their literal meaning makes very little sense. For example, take the idiom “The world is your oyster,” which roughly means, “You can accomplish anything you want to.” This idiom traces its roots back to one of Shakespeare’s comedies, in which a character colorfully explains that he can get his way by using his sword.
Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open. (Merry Wives of Windsor, II.ii.2-3)
Motif
The technique of using repetition of an idea, event, image, phrase, or symbol throughout a literary work to illuminate and expand the major themes.
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the narrator frequently describes the oppressive heat of the island at various points throughout the story. This motif establishes a connection between the island’s hostile environment and the physical and psychological oppression of the boys stranded there.
Plot
The sequence of major events of a narrative or dramatic work, usually consisting of five basic elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
The plot of most romantic comedies can be succinctly described as: two people meet, they fall in love, they experience some challenge and break up, they cross paths again, they resolve their problem and reunite.
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