Literary Terms to Know for The Rights to the Streets of Memphis

Protagonist

• The main character of a story

• The conflict of a story

• The cenral idea of a story

• The bad guy in the story

Antagonist

• The good guy

• The bad person in the story who antagonizes the protagonist

• The setting

• The plot

Personification, or personify

• Act out

• simile

• To act like a person you know

• When human characteristics are given to nonhuman things

Which example has personification?

• Hunger had always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at me gauntly.

• I would grow dizzy and my vision would dim. I became less active in my play, and for the first time in my life I had to pause and think of what was happening to me.

• I stared in bewilderment. Yes, it was true that my father had not come home to sleep for many days now and I could make as much noise as I wanted.

• My mother finally went to work as a cook and left me and my brother alone in the flat each day with a loaf of bread and a pot of tea.

Cause

• The reason why something happens. Happens First.

• The result of what happens. Happens next.

Effect

• The reason why something happens

• The result of what happens. Happens after the cause.

Dialogue

• A conversation between 2 or more characters, indicated by quotation marks.

• The thoughts a character has in his/her head.

• A fight between two characters

• When 2 characters agree

Conflict

• cause

• word

• solution

• problem

central conflict

• The main problem of the story.

• Without a central conflict there can still be a story.

• The least important problem in the story.

• The most important character in the story

Read the sentence

A tornado blew the roof off the house, and as a result, the family had to find another place to live.

Which part is the cause?

• The tornado blew the roof off the house.

• The family had to find another place to live

• as a result

• The tornado blew the trees down.