VCE Literature flashcards
VCE Literature · Build recall with a focused review session.
33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Focalisation
- The perspective through which narrative information is filtered. Internal focalisation limits events to what a character perceives and knows; external focalisation reports only observable action without entering any mind.
- Free indirect discourse
- A technique blending third-person narration with a character's idiom and thoughts, without quotation marks. It creates intimacy while retaining narrative distance, and often signals irony or shifting judgement.
- Unreliable narrator
- A narrator whose account the reader has reason to distrust, through gaps, contradictions, self-interest or limited knowledge. Unreliability is inferred from textual signals, not announced by the narrator.
- Motif
- A recurring element such as an image, object or phrase whose accumulated appearances build meaning. Tracking how a motif changes across a text reveals thematic development.
- Framing narrative
- A story enclosing another story, establishing a teller, occasion or audience. It shapes how the inner narrative is received and can introduce distance, doubt or commentary.
- Pathetic fallacy
- Attribution of human emotion to natural phenomena, such as weather reflecting grief. It aligns setting with feeling and is a device to identify, not a synonym for any description of nature.
- Dramatic irony
- A gap between what a character understands and what the audience or reader knows. It generates tension and can direct sympathy or judgement toward particular characters.
- Intertextuality
- Reference to or echoing of another text through allusion, quotation, parody or genre convention. It invites comparison that adds layers of meaning to the host text.
- Structural turning point
- A moment where chronology, setting, voice or tense shifts, redirecting the narrative. Such shifts are formal evidence for claims about theme and character development.
- Close reading
- Sustained attention to the language of a short passage: diction, syntax, imagery, rhythm and punctuation. Conclusions are drawn from textual detail rather than plot summary or biography.
- Embedded quotation
- A short quotation integrated grammatically into the analyst's sentence, followed by explanation. It demonstrates control of evidence better than a long block quotation.
- Interpretive claim
- A contestable statement about meaning supported by textual evidence and reasoning. It differs from plot summary, which reports events without arguing what they signify.
- Tone versus mood
- Tone is the implied attitude of the speaker or narrator toward subject and audience; mood is the emotional atmosphere experienced by the reader. Analysis should name which is being discussed.
- Symbol
- An object, place or action that carries meaning beyond its literal function, sustained by repetition and context. A symbol's meaning can shift or resist a single fixed interpretation.
- Genre conventions
- Recognised features of a category such as tragedy, gothic or bildungsroman, including expected structures and character types. Identifying them lets analysis show conformity, variation or deliberate subversion.
- Narrative gap
- An omission in a narrative, such as unexplained time, unstated motive or absent scene. Gaps invite reader inference and are interpretable evidence rather than flaws by default.
- Adaptation
- A text reworking another text's characters, plot or concerns into a new form or context. Analysis compares what is retained, altered or omitted and what those choices achieve.
- Mentor text
- A published text studied for its craft decisions, used as a model when composing original writing. Imitation of specific techniques, not copying of content, is the aim.
- Authorial intent
- The meaning an author is understood to have intended. In response writing it is treated as one interpretable element, not as final authority over a text's possible meanings.
- Implied reader
- The reader position a text constructs through address, assumed knowledge and tone. Identifying it clarifies how a text positions its audience to respond.
- Register
- The level of formality and specialised vocabulary suited to a context and relationship. Deliberate register shifts can signal power changes, intimacy or satire.
- Diction
- Word choice considered for connotation, precision and tone. Analysing diction means discussing why particular words were chosen over available alternatives.
- Syntax
- Sentence structure, including length, clause order and coordination. Short abrupt clauses and long suspended sentences produce different pacing and emphasis.
- Voice
- The distinctive personality and stance conveyed through a text's language. It is built from diction, rhythm, syntax and attitude, and differs from grammatical person.
- Reflective commentary
- A writer's account of their own compositional choices, explaining decisions about form, voice, structure and language and connecting them to the mentor text's techniques.
- Purpose and audience
- The intended effect and the readers addressed, which together determine form, register and evidence. Stating both before drafting constrains every later compositional choice.
- Comparative analysis
- Discussion of two or more texts organised around shared ideas, devices or points of comparison. It differs from sequential summaries because each paragraph moves between texts.
- Point of view shift
- A deliberate change of narrator or perspective within a text. It can reveal events from competing angles and expose the limits of any single account.
- Metalanguage
- The vocabulary used to describe how texts are constructed, such as register, syntax, imagery and focalisation. Precise metalanguage distinguishes analysis from retelling.
- Parody
- Imitative composition exaggerating another text's or genre's features for comic or critical effect. It requires recognition of the target's conventions to function.
- Pastiche
- Composition in the style of another writer or genre without necessarily mocking it. It demonstrates craft through imitation and can be used to extend or rework a source text's concerns.
- Reader positioning
- The ways a text guides response through selection of detail, narrative voice and structure. Claims about positioning must be tied to specific techniques rather than asserted.
- Textual evidence
- Specific words, images or structural features cited from a text to support an interpretive claim. Evidence requires explanation of relevance; quotation alone does not constitute argument.