Introduction to Literature - Short stories and novels

In short story and novel, there are literary elements as such:

• Theme - The idea or point of a story formulated as a generalization. In American literature, several themes are evident which reflect and define our society. The dominant ones might be innocence/experience, life/death, appearance/reality, free will/fate, madness/sanity, love/hate, society/individual, known/unknown. Themes may have a single, instead of a dual nature as well. The theme of a story may be a mid-life crisis, or imagination, or the duality of humankind (contradictions).
• Character - Imaginary people created by the writer. Perhaps the most important element of literature.

• Protagonist - Major character at the center of the story.
• Antagonist - A character or force that opposes the protagonist.
• Minor character - 0ften provides support and illuminates the protagonist.
• Static character - A character who remains the same.
• Dynamic character - A character who changes in some important way.

• Characterization - The means by which writers reveal character.

• Explicit Judgment - Narrator gives facts and interpretive comment.

• Implied Judgment - Narrator gives description; reader make the judgment.

• Plot - The arrangement of ideas and/or incidents that make up a story.
• Causality - One event occurs because of another event.
• Foreshadowing - A suggestion of what is going to happen.
• Suspense - A sense of worry established by the author.
• Conflict - Struggle between opposing forces.
• Exposition - Background information regarding the setting, characters, plot.
• Complication or Rising Action - Intensification of conflict.
• Crisis - Turning point; moment of great tension that fixes the action.
• Resolution/Denouement - The way the story turns out.

• Structure - The design or form of the completed action. Often provides clues to character and action. Can even philosophically mirror the author's intentions, especially if it is unusual.

• Setting - The place or location of the action, the setting provides the historical and cultural context for characters. It often can symbolize the emotional state of characters.

• Point of View - Again, the point of view can sometimes indirectly establish the author's intentions. Point of view pertains to who tells the story and how it is told.

• Narrator - The person telling the story.
• First-person - Narrator participates in action but sometimes has limited knowledge/vision.
• Objective - Narrator is unnamed/unidentified (a detached observer). Does not assume character's perspective and is not a character in the story. The narrator reports on events and lets the reader supply the meaning.
• Omniscient - All-knowing narrator (multiple perspectives). The narrator takes us into the character and can evaluate a character for the reader (editorial omniscience). When a narrator allows the reader to make his or her own judgments from the action of the characters themselves, it is called neutral omniscience.
• Limited omniscient - All-knowing narrator about one or two characters, but not all.

• Language and Style - Style is the verbal identity of a writer, oftentimes based on the author's use of diction (word choice) and syntax (the order of words in a sentence). A writer's use of language reveals his or her tone, or the attitude toward the subject matter.
• Irony - A contrast or discrepancy between one thing and another.
• Verbal irony - We understand the opposite of what the speaker says.
• Irony of Circumstance or Situational Irony - When one event is expected to occur but the opposite happens. A discrepancy between what seems to be and what is.
• Dramatic Irony - Discrepancy between what characters know and what readers know.
• Ironic Vision - An overall tone of irony that pervades a work, suggesting how the writer views the characters.

Examples of short stories are:  Flipping Fantastic, One Is One And All Alone, QWERTYUIOP & The Fruitcake Special.