Unit 6 · Longer Fiction or Drama II

Foil ● (core concept) — A supporting character set up as a contrast, so that another character's traits, attributes, or values show up more clearly.

Complexity ○ — The quality of a text that resists simple, single readings. In the CED it grows out of characters' competing or inconsistent choices, out of multiple and contrasting perspectives within one text, and out of contrasts that introduce nuance, ambiguity, or contradiction. (Named across EKs; never defined as a standalone term.)

Chronology ● (core concept) — The time order in which a plot's events occur. Writers interrupt chronology with structures such as flashback, foreshadowing, in medias res, and stream of consciousness — and with shifts in tense.

Flashback ● (core concept) — A break in chronological order that presents earlier events. Like the other chronology-interrupting structures, it can stir anticipation or suspense and build tension.

Foreshadowing ● (core concept) — Hints of events still to come — one of the structures that interrupt a plot's chronology, able to stir anticipation or suspense.

In medias res ● (core concept) — Latin for 'in the middle of things': opening a narrative in the midst of the action rather than at its beginning — one of the structures that interrupt chronology.

Unreliable narrator ● (core concept) — A narrator readers learn to trust less. When readers spot bias in a narrator — inferred from which details the narrator includes and which they leave out — they may judge that narrator less reliable, and that judgment colors their understanding of characters' motives. (The CED's phrasing is 'less reliable' in NAR-1.U; 'unreliable narrator' is the standard term.)

Narrator bias ● (core concept) — The slant in a narrator's or speaker's account, revealed by the perspective-driven choice of which details to include, how much detail to give, and what to leave out.

Syntax ○ — The arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses within sentences. The CED notes that how phrases and clauses are arranged can emphasize details or ideas and can convey a narrator's or speaker's tone. (Named in skill 4.C and EK NAR-1.Q; never defined as a standalone term.)

Symbol ● (core concept) — A physical thing in a text that takes on the job of standing for an idea or concept. It can mean different things to different readers or in different contexts: some symbols carry widely shared associations, while others gain meaning only inside a particular text. How a symbol is used can also imply a narrator's, character's, or speaker's attitude.

Symbolic character ● (core concept) — A character treated as the embodiment of an idea or concept rather than just a person. Some recur so often they are archetypal — though the exam will not require identifying archetypes.