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Defining Character

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin – The Great Dictator

Readers get to know literary characters through the descriptions of their appearance and actions, their speech patterns in dialog with other characters and themselves, observations/statements by other characters (or the narrator), and sometimes directly from the character’s thoughts and emotions.  The art behind this information-download process is known as characterization.

There are two methods to convey characterization information to the reader.

Direct Characterization.  In this method  (also known as explicit characterization), the reader learns directly from the narrator/author all about the character’s personality

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What’s Your Point of View?

Binocular View

Sand People From a Distance

In literature, the story teller (or narrator) is responsible for telling the reader all the information the author wants the reader to know about the story. They are the eyes, ears and voice of the story. In fact, it is only through the narrator that you receive all sensory input from the story world. The point of view (POV) of the story is the perspective by which the author allows the reader to

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What Can Be Said About Theme?

Metropolis - Maria

Metropolis 1927 – Explores Social and Political Themes

Theme in literature is perhaps one of the hardest things to define.

We (meaning me and possibly you) hem and haw and verbally fence around the topic of theme.  We think we know what it means, and yet it is perhaps the last thing we can identify about any story.

Sometimes it is only after we have read or written the entire story that we begin to pick up the thread of a theme. And generally this only

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