sullen

adjective: gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed

From “The Shawl”

“She was moody and sullen one moment, her lower lip jutting and her eyes flashing, filled with storms. The next, she would shake her hair over her face and blow it straight out in front of her to make her children scream with laughter.”

asocial

adjective :rejecting or lacking the capacity for social interaction

from “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”

“Of course, crazy is not the official definition of my mental problem, but I don’t think asocial disorder fits it, either, because that makes me sound like I’m a serial killer or something.”

wharf

noun :a structure built along or at an angle from the shore of navigable waters so that ships may lie alongside to receive and discharge cargo and passengers

From: What You Pawn I Will Redeem

“Back on the wharf, I stood near the Bainbridge Island Terminal and tried to sell papers to business commuters boarding the ferry.”

Fiction: terms for study

These are the terms we reviewed in class at the beginning of the semester, plus the few more that we added to our list of terms. Many of them come from Ann Charters’s “Elements of Fiction.” You should review them and be sure you know what they mean, (especially the terms for different types of narrators for Essay 1)!

plot: the series of events that give a story its meaning and effect: what happens

rising action: the events in which the drama intensifies, rising toward the climax

climax: the most dramatic and revealing moment, usually the turning point

falling action: when the drama subsides and the conflict is resolved

protagonist: the central agent in generating its plot, and this individual can embody the story’s theme

antagonist: the character or force in conflict with the protagonist

round character: a complex, fully developed character, often prone to change

flat character: A one-dimensional character, typically not central to the story

characterization: The process by which an author presents and develops a fictional character

setting: the story’s time and place, as well as its historical moment or its social context

first-person point of view: narration identifiable by the use of the pronoun “I”

second-person point of view: narrator uses “you” to addresses reader

Third-person point of view: narration doesn’t use “I”; occurs when the narrator does not take part in the story

omniscient narration: when the narrator includes information from anywhere, including characters’ thoughts and feelings. (omniscient=all-knowing)

limited narration: when the narrator can relate what is in the minds of only a select few characters

objective/dramatic narration: when the narrator doesn’t have access to characters’ internal thoughts or background information about the setting or situation.

homodiegetic narration: when the narrator is part of the story-world–a character within the story. This would be a first-person narrator, and can also be called a character narrator.

autodiegetic narration: when the narrator is the protagonist. This is a sub-set of homodiegetic narration

prolepsis: a change in the order of the story representing a flash-forward

analepsis: a change in the order of the story representing a flashback

focalizer: a character whose point of view or thoughts the narrator represents–most closely represented in “Elements of fiction” as a point-of-view character. There can be multiple focalizers in a narrative. The narrator is the focalizer in a homodiegetic, or first-person, narration.

diction: the word choices the author makes to tell the story

tone: the story’s attitude toward its subject matter–it can be earnest, sarcastic, humorous, etc

theme: the meaning or concept central to the story

image: descriptive language that engages on of the senses, such as a visual image that makes the reader imagine what something looks like, or a tactile images that depicts what something feels like, etc

symbol: a repeated image that comes to take on a larger meaning in a given story

allegory: a story in which the symbols, characters, and events represent a different metaphysical, political, or social situation that elevates the meaning of the story

 

Sough

intransitive verb

to make a moaning or sighing sound
From “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, page 7, paragraph 1.
“He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk exclaim a lout “Oh!”, which sounded like the soughing of the wind.”
I felt silly having to reread this sentence.  Once I learned the meaning, I reread it once more, and it made me understand the visual of Gregor being judged on his appearance by the chief clerk. It made the moment a lot more dramatic. It made me almost feel bad for him.

Atrocious

Atrocious: Adjective: extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel;: appalling , horrifying.

From “The Yellow Wallpaper”, ” I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as i please, save lack of strength.”(Page 2, paragraph 8)

Now i understand that the narrator believed that the nursery was a scary place  to be in.

Forsooth

forsooth: (adv.) often used to imply contempt or doubt.

Used in “Young Goodman Brown”, paragraph 31; “‘Ah, forsooth, and it is your worship, indeed?’ cried the good dame.”

This word was actually pretty funny to me when I read it and I thought I was either reading early Shakespeare or the Bible; I don’t even think the Bible has the word “forsooth” in it. I’m glad I looked it up and now know the definition because maybe I can use it in a sentence just to throw someone off. In all seriousness however, it’s interesting to me that this word is an adverb, especially because we spoke about adverbs in class. It proves that  not all adverbs are noticeable or end with “-ly.”