Vocab List #1: English II Honors
Vocab List #1: English II Honors
Vocab List #1: English II Honors
English II Honors
1. Themes: Linking devices that hold a text together structurally, e.g. the battle between
good and evil: the general idea or insight about life a writer wishes to express. All of the
elements of literary terms contribute to theme. A simple theme can often be stated in a
single sentence.
2. Repetition of certain words: Why, with all the words at his or her disposal, does a
writer choose to repeat particular words?
3. Imagery: language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling, touching.
7. Narrator: Usually first or third person. Is the narrator the same as the author?
8. Style, tone, and voice: Gut reactions are useful here. Examine your own responses.
What is it that makes you respond as you do? Are you the author’s intended audience? If
not, who is? The attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous,
sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective.
9. Analogy: The comparison of two pairs that have the same relationship. The key is to
ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part
to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find.
Example:
Hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot:cold::fire:ice
10. Flashback: Action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time,
which is necessary to better understanding.
11. Foreshadowing: The use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in
literature.
Example:
I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.
He’s as big as a house.
Example:
A smiling moon, a jovial sun
Example:
the author alludes to Helen of Troy when discussing woman who brings about ruin.
For example, the fact that only teams from the U.S. and Canada play in the World
Series is ironic.
Example:
Red win is paradoxically good and bad for us.
18. Symbolism: is using an object or action that means something more than it literal
meaning.
Example:
The bird of night (owl is a symbol of death)
The character of Indiana Jones parodies the type of macho adventurer of the
1930s epitomized by Ernest Hemingway. He is a parody of that stereotype.
23. Authorial Intrusion: Discussions directed to the reader and constituting a substantial
break in the narrative illusion of reality are termed authorial intrusions. While ordinary
descriptions are not authorial intrusions, substantial essays addressed to the reader are.
25. Effaced Narrator: Third-person narrators can be almost invisible. When the narrator
uses only language and sentiments appropriate to the character acting as the current
centre of consciousness, the narrator is said to be effaced.
28. Hypotaxis: Hypotaxis is the opposite of parataxis. Thus, a hypotactic style is one
marked by sophisticated subordination of ideas within sentences.
29. In Medias Res: In medias res means literally “in the middle of things.” Homeric
epics begin in medias res; a shift to an earlier period of time normally follows such an
introduction.
30. Limited Point of View: The perceptual range of a narrative is often limited in some
way, most often by adopting the limitations of the character providing the central
consciousness. Mansfield suggests a more sophisticated point of view than Bertha
Young’s in “Bliss,” but she deliberately limits the narrative to Bertha’s range of insight;
thus, the reader sees how little Bertha understands, but is offered no greater
understanding.
32. Narrative Approach: the way a writer chooses to tell the story (the narrative
approach) establishes the tone and character of a narrative. The basic choice is whether to
tell the story from without (the third person omniscient point of view exemplified by
Mansfield’s “Bliss,” O’Connor’s “A Good Man,” and Cassill’s “The Father”) or within
(the first person point of view exemplified by O’Connor’s “My Oedipus Complex,”
Tan’s “Rules of the Game,” and Joyce’s “Araby0. Authors may make deliberate and
substantial distinctions between the moral outlook of a narrator or central consciousness
and the moral standards of a story. Subtle matters distinguish the narrative approach even
of writers sharing the same point of view. Frank O’Connor, for example, allows his child-
narrator to work with a rather formal adult vocabulary. Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”
displays a narrative approach too complex to be described by any standard point of view.
Point of attack is also considered in discussions of narrative approach. The best
explanation of the term is that it concerns the relationship the author creates between the
voice that tells the story and the characters in the story.
33. Point of Attack: Point of attack is originally a dramatic concept; it designates the
stage of the plot at which a work begins. In composing “Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge,” for example, Bierce chose a late point of attack: Farquhar is actually being
hanged as the story opens. Subsequently, a flashback explains how Farquhar was duped
into making his van assault on the bridge (this story, of course, is a trick: in relation to the
real action of the story, the point of attack coincides with the beginning).
34. Point of View: The term describes the way the reader is presented with the story—
whether through the voice of an observer or participant who refers to him- or herself (first
person) or through a more impersonal voice which describes the action from without
(third person). Third person omniscient describes a narrative point of view that is all-
knowing and provides the reader with “privileged” information about the story. More
commonly, the third person narrator is deliberately limited in some way.
35. Realism: Realism signifies a specific historical movement in literature and a mode of
literary representation without regard to period. In the former sense, the term refers to the
nineteenth-century movement represented by Balzac in the France, George Eliot in
England, and William Dean Howells in America. These writers (and their many
followers, rivals, and imitators) opposed themselves to romanticism, insisting that a
writer must present an accurate imitation of life. The techniques of realism are not,
however, natural, but are themselves conventional approaches to representing the world.
In general, the realist deliberately pursues commonplace object in preference to the
bizarre, even though the real world includes the bizarre. Also, details are often
accumulated “unrealistically.” Realist narrative often includes excessively descriptive
descriptions. On entering a room, a real person rarely notices anything special about the
surroundings, unless he or she is very bored indeed. A realist narrative will use the
accumulation of detail to induce the reality effect, the appearance that the fictional object
has the same objective depth as a real object. Hemingway commented on another basis of
selection when he mentioned seizing on “the unnoticed things that made emotions”
(Norton 1672).
36. Tone: The concept of “tone” is based upon the assumption that a literary work can be
regarded as representing some of the special qualities of a mode of speech. It is
considered to be the author’s way of revealing an attitude toward some subject—but not
necessarily the attitude of the author. An author may adopt a persona which is at variance
with his own character—the tone of such a persona will be chosen by the author, but will
not be that of the author.
Aristotelian Appeals
37. Logos
Appeals to the head using logic, numbers, explanations, and facts. Through Logos, a
writer aims at a person’s intellect. The idea is that if you are logical, you will understand.
38. Ethos
Appeals to the conscience, ethics, morals, standards, values, principles.
39. Pathos
Appeals to the heart, emotions, sympathy, passions, sentimentality.
Twenty-three Four letter Words You Twenty-two Words Off the Beaten
Can Use in Class Path