Literary Devices in Relation to the Novel

COMMON LITERARY ELEMENTS

(a)   Characters

A character is any person or thing taking part in a story. Someone or something that is simply mentioned by anyone taking part in the story while they do not take any part themselves cannot qualify for a character. 

(i)    Main Characters

These are characters around whom the story revolves. They take the leading role and form the basic plot of the story. Their progresses are closely and carefully presented because a story is judged in relation to these characters. Main characters could be protagonists or antagonists.

-        Protagonists

This term refers to the main character in a story. He/she is the one with whom the audience must align itself. In short, the protagonist should be a character who must emerge the ultimate winner. There are stories where the ultimate winner might not be easily identified, but even in this case, there should be a character or characters whom the audience feels passionately connected to. The audience wishes nothing bad should happen to this character. If something bad happens, the audience must still hope that the protagonist must emerge victorious at the end. In the “Jesus” movie, Jesus Christ can be taken as the protagonist.

-        Antagonist

Simply put, the antagonist is a main character that opposes the protagonist. For the qualities of a protagonist to be seen, there is need for some opposing force. The antagonist is not always a human being. It could be the protagonist’s own conscience or a natural phenomenon like weather.

For instance, if you want to travel from Chikwawa to Blantyre, but your conscience keeps on warning you against the journey, that inner warning is the antagonist. It may be recurrent such that it continues nagging you even after your journey has already started. If you make it despite the intrinsic warning, you have triumphed over your antagonist. Additionally, the elements could be antagonists. 

You might be cycling from Chitipa to Karonga. Just after two kilometers, your bicycle breaks down. As you go back to have it fixed, it begins to rain fiercely and your clothes are dripping wet. When you get back home to change them, you find that your grandmother is sick and you are supposed to take her to hospital. All these impediments – though not humans – are your antagonists. They can simply be matters of fate. So, in short, an antagonist is a protagonist’s main source of opposition and the story’s source of conflict.

 (ii)    Minor Characters

These are helpers of the main characters. Some minor characters might be helping the protagonist while others might be helping the antagonist.

(b) Characterisation

This basically refers to how characters are presented in a story. Areas of concentration are, but not limited to, characters’ personalities, their physical attributes, life histories, their social attributes and mental or psychological aptitude

(c) Plot

Plot refers to the sequence of events in the story. In short, the plot of a story is the explanation of events from one point to another.

(d) Setting

The setting of the story is the time and place in which the story occurs. Setting may not always be very distinct. For instance, it may happen that the time and place in which the story is set are not very clear. This could be the case if the writer hasn’t used any clear-cut dates or names of places. In this regard, the determination must be made by the reader. This can be done by the use of a more general setting like “in post-colonial Malawi”, or “in a democratic African state”.

If a story is set only in one place, it is important to stick to the place even if it seems remote. For example, if it is set at Dyeratu Trading Centre, it may not be very necessary to say the story is set in Chikwawa. A better option could be “the story is set at Dyeratu Trading Centre”. Only give supplementary details if they are provided. The same applies to time. If a story is set in January 1999, it doesn’t feel right to say “the story is set in the late 90s”. In short, one needs to be careful with the determination of the setting. Setting is a fixed aspect of a story, so it usually looks awkward to have ten people coming up with their own different settings of the same story.

(e) Conflict

Generally, the conflict in a literary story is the struggle between the opposing parties. This struggle is at the centre of the story. The audience (readers, in this case) get immersed in the struggle, expecting that one party has to emerge the winner. The conflict often starts on a lower note. Then it gradually rises until it reaches a climax where, whatever the case, a resolution must be found. This resolution usually becomes the final outcome of the story.

(f) Climax

The climax of a story is the summit of the story where the apprehension becomes too much. As the conflict mounts, it has to reach ‘breaking point’. This ‘breaking point’ must be broken so that the tense diminishes. The breaking of this extremely tensed moment does not always mean that the ultimate solution to the problem/conflict has been found. It may simply imply something has been done that has allayed the high apprehension.

(g) Resolution

Also known as the denouement, the resolution of the story is the assuaging of the tensed point which is the climax. It simply means a compromise has been found and the opposition has been dealt with. Some stories don’t have clear resolutions. Readers are supposed to imagine how the tensed moment was actually dealt with.

(h) Creative licence

The author exaggerates or alters some universal facts for the sake of enhancing meaning or emphasising a point. For instance, in Smouldering Charcoal, Mchere’s twin daughters are only aged 4, but they undertake some household chores which may seem too much for them. Even their reactions to their mother sometimes leave a lot to be desired. But, then, the author has the creative licence to present them the way he has, perhaps with the aim of enhancing the disorder that is in Mchere’s family. In most cases, authors have the liberty to hide behind the veil of creative licence when they know that they might be committing a literary sin called authorial intrusion.

(i) Structure

The structure of a story if the manner in which the various elements of the story are presented. One structure may just explore the chronological progress of events. Another structure may involve flashbacks where the narrator or the characters hark back to former moments. Therein could be foreshadowing as well. This is where characters or narrators imagine what would happen in the future. It is more like a vision of the future.

(j) Point of view

The point of view of a story is, in simple words, the identity of the narrative voice, or the angle from which the story is told. Most stories carry the third-person point of view which can be an abstract narrative voice, an omniscient voice or a limited voice. In the abstract narrative voice, the narrator is unidentified; in the omniscient voice, the narrator is an all-knowing entity that even gropes into inner thoughts of the characters; in the limited voice, the narrator is an outside entity who does not have access to all the information regarding the characters. Note that point of view does not refer to the author’s opinions or perspectives. The voice that ‘directs’ the progress of events in a novel or a short story is not the author; rather, it is the narrator.

Some stories are written from the first person point of view where the narrator is also taking part in the events in the story. Pronouns like “I”, “we”, “us”, “our” etc are prevalent. Other stories are written from the second person point of view. Such stories are rare because the narrator addresses the person who actually took part in the story or who the story is all about. The most prevalent pronouns are “you” and “your”. The most common way is where the exposition is made to someone who might have forgotten about what happened to them. So the story is simply the reminder.

(k) Dialogue

Dialogue simply means the conversation of characters in a literary work. It is typically enclosed within quotation marks.

(l) Exposition

This is the first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided.

(m) Falling action

In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution is the falling action.

(n) Flashback

An interruption of a story’s chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame. Writers use flashbacks to complicate the sense of chronology in the plot of their works and to convey the richness of the experience of human time. Dreams can be good examples of flashbacks.

(o) Narrator

The narrator in a story is the voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. If is from the narrator’s progress that we often determine the story’s point of view.

(p) Rising action

This is the set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a story’s plot, leading up to the climax.

(q) Theme

This refers to the idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalisation.

(r) Mood

The mood of the story is the emotional condition created by the story. It is the general feeling that the reader gets from the text. The reader’s personal moods must be excluded, thus, the mood of a story has to be universal. It does not make sense to find that someone identifies a celebration mood in a story where someone identifies a mournful mood. The mood must be properly described because it is a literary element. For instance, some moods can be dark, murky, angry, mysterious, creepy, livid, cheerful, sad, gloomy, expectant etc.