In MediasMargie, Kala, Dwannisha, Missy, Christos

Terms of Focus

• Exposition • Flashback• Narrative Pace• Parenthetical Observation• Subplot• Shift in Style

Exposition

• Definition - the essential information to provide background knowledge

• Ex: “She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort of which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness; and before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.” (Jane Austen’s Emma)

Flashback

A literary or cinematic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative.

EX: Another example is the ballad of “The Cruel Mother.” A mother remembers her murdered child. While going to a church, she remembers her child born, grown up and died. Later, she thinks back further to a distant time in her past to remember how her own mother was ruthless to her.

EX:

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Narrative Pace

• Definition: The pace at which the authors tell a story, speeding up or slowing down some parts, and omitting others altogether.

• Ex: “I am only bound to invoke memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links connection.”

Parenthetical ObservationDefinition: a brief interruption during which the character or the

narrator reflects on a minor point that clarifies and/or seizes the readers attention.

Example: “That he is mad, ‘tis true ‘tis pity,

And pity ‘tis ‘tis true-- a foolish figure,

But farewell it, for I will use no art.”

Subplot

Definition: Secondary story that parallel or contrast with the main action. Subplot can impact main story or just mirror it.

EX: A subplot in Romeo and Juliet is the rivalry between the families, especially between Benvolio and Mercutio. This serves as a contrast between the love of Romeo and Juliet.

Shift in Style• Definition - a marked change in style, usually accompanied by a

corresponding change in tone

• Ex:“Each event spoke with a cryptic tongue. And the moments of living slowly revealed their coded meanings....There was the languor I felt when I heard leaves rustling with a rainlike sound. ...There was the experience of feeling death without dying that came from watching a chicken leap about blinding after its neck had been snapped by a quick twist of my father’s wrist. ...There was the thirst I had when I watched clear, sweet juice trickle from sugar cane being crushed...And there was the quiet terror that suffused my senses when vast hazes of gold washed earthward from star-heavy skies on silent nights…” (Richard Wright’s Black Boy)

• The shift occurs in this list because it changes from the usual structure (chronological account of his youth) to this list of sense impressions