Literature “Boot Camp”
AP LITERATURE
SPRING 2013
Plot
DAY 1
Plot
 Is what happens in a narrative
 More than series of events
 Authors must arrange conflicts, complications and resolutions
to create logical cause-and-effect relationships.
 Must understand not just what is happening but
WHY it’s happening
5 Main Stages
Climax
Denouement
Exposition
 Provides background information about the
characters, setting, and situation, describe the nature
of the conflict
Rising Action
 After an inciting incident, the conflict and
complications for the main character begin to build.
Climax
 Occurs when emotional tension or suspense of the
plot reaches its peak.
 May include a turning point where the fortunes of
the protagonist improve or worsen.
Falling Action
 Details the result or fallout of the climax or turning
point.
 The conflict gets resolved.
Denouement (Day-noo-mah)
 French for “untying the knot”
 Brief phase, the conflict has been resolved and
balance is restored to the world of the story.
 Fairy tale “And they lived happily ever after.”
 Used to tell the moral of the story but 20th and 21st
century – readers are left to ponder the possible
meaning
Misc.
 May follow a chronological sequence, but sometimes
writers deliberately present events in a manner that
requires readers to assemble them into a cohesive
pattern.
 A story may begin “in medias res,” meaning “in the
middle of the action” or writers might employ a
flashback to describe events that have taken place
before the story begins or foreshadowing to hint at
things that might happen later in the story.
Questions to help analyze plot
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Is the plot arranged in chronological order, or does it begin
in medias res?
Does the plot involve a flashback? If so, what is its purpose?
What conditions at the outset make the situation unstable?
What is the nature of the conflict?
Is the conflict external or internal?
What is the high point, or climax?
How is the conflict resolved? If there is no resolution, why
not?
Is there a denouement? If not, why is the story
inconclusive?
What patterns do you find in the plot’s structure?
Assignment for “The Jewelry”
 In groups of 4 – discuss the following – you will have
15 minutes then we will discuss as a class.
1. Create a plot structure
2. Discuss the questions on the previous slide
3. Once the secret of Madame Lantin’s jewelry is
revealed, what details from earlier in the story take
on a different significance?
4. How and why might the story’s end – especially its
last paragraph – defy expectations? How does it
once again change your interpretation of earlier
events and of Lantin’s first marriage?
Homework
Setting
DAY 2
General Information
 Indicates the time and place, the when and where
 Includes objective facts such as
 Nation or town
 Date and time
 Weather and season
What does setting tell us about
the plot?
A Dark and Stormy Night
A Spring Morning with lots of Sunlight
A farm house in Maine
An internment camp in Germany
How setting relates to meaning
 Establishing a contrast between a different setting is
being ironic.
 You will have to consider the thematic significance of
things that might at first seem merely physical and
objective
 Most important thing pay attention to the details
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The sights and sounds
Textures and tones
Colors and shapes
Historical Context
 A time and place that has its own political, economic,
or social upheavals
 Usually goes unstated – author expects the reader to
bring to the book.
 Sometimes historical setting are not implicit but
explicit – with dates and places clearly indentified
Cultural Environment
 Setting may also establish the cultural environment
of a work – the manners, mores, customs, rituals,
and codes of conduct
 Sometimes cultural environment is based on an
actual period, culture, or community – sometimes
authors make or invent new cultures
Questions to help analyze setting
What is the geographical setting? The time, place,
weather, season? Why is it important?
2. What historical context or social environment is
being depicted, and what background information
is required to understand the situation?
3. What details of the setting does the author use to
create atmosphere or mood?
4. How does the setting seem to relate to the themes?
1.
Assignment for “The Lady with a Dog”
 In groups of 4, discuss the following, we will discuss as a class.
 Discuss the questions from the previous slide.
 Yalta, where “the Lady with the Dog” opens is a resort on the
Black Sea, Moscow, where Gurov lives, is described at the
beginning of section III. To what extent do the settings
relate to the events and emotions of the story? How
do other details – such as the watermelon is section
II and the slightly “off” sturgeon in section III –
relate to the settings and attitudes and feelings
associated with the places? Which are conventionally
assumed to be more real, the feelings we have on
holiday (vacation) or those in our everyday lives?
How is this convention related to our expectations
about the outcome of the story? To the meaning of
the story?
Homework
 Read and annotate “Barn Burning” by William
Faulkner
 When and where is the story occurring? How does
Faulkner convey this information to you?
Character
DAY 3
General Information
 Goes hand-in-hand with plot because the conflict
that structures a plot usually arises between two or
more characters
 External conflict – usually has a protagonist and an
antagonist
 Internal conflict – characters struggles with
temptation or tries to reconcile two incompatible
traits.
 Main characters grow or change over the course of
the story – sometimes they change structures the
plot.
More info
 For a character’s growth to be believable, it must be
clearly motivated by the circumstances of the story.
 Sometimes the change is gradual and sometimes it is
sudden – epiphany
3 categories of characters
 Round (or dynamic) – usually protagonist exhibits a
range of emotions and changes over the course of the
story – multiple personality traits and thus resemble real
people
 Flat characters (or static) embody only one or two traits
and provide a background for the protagonist’s actions

Common type is called a foil – a contrasting character who allows the
protagonist to stand out more distinctly
 Stock characters may represent stereotypes, such as the
absent-minded professor or the town drunk occasionally
providing comic relief.
How author’s reveal character
 Either – directly or indirectly
 Direct characterization occurs when a narrator explicitly
describes the background, motivation, temperament of
appearance of a character.
 Indirect characterization occurs when an author shows rather
than tells us what a character is like through what he or she
says, does, or thinks, or what others say about the character.
Questions to help analyze characters
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Who are the main characters in this story? Who is
the protagonist? Who is the antagonist?
What do we know about them? What is their
relationship to each other?
How do they change from beginning to end?
What is the function of the minor characters?
Do some characters see themselves differently from
the way readers see them? If so, how?