Significance Checklist A passage in a novel, play or story is significant as it fulfills one
or more of the functions listed below:
Connections to Plot and Setting
Provides background information: Gives reader insight into a situation or a character’s past.
Establishes the setting: Presents the time and place, which the plot develops.
Advances or complicates the plot: Develops the plot.
Develops conflict: Creates tension between character or focus.
Contains the inciting force: Introduces the main conflict.
Displays the major crisis: Shows a major happening in the course of the plot.
Displays the climax: Presents the turning point of the plot; the reader becomes aware if the protagonist will
succeed or fail.
Connections to Character
Provides character revelations: Reveals an aspect of the personality or motives of a character.
Shows character development: Shows a change in the character’s personality or motives.
Provides contrast: Shows differences between characters or situations.
Is an example of the use of a foil: Shows a minor character in a contrasting role to a major character.
Connections to Literary Devices
Develops a mood or atmosphere: Provides a feeling or tone.
Displays verbal or situational irony: Shows irony through speech or situation.
Establishes dramatic irony (only in speech): Uses irony which is not understood by the character who says it.
Provides comic relief: Presents a humourous situation which follows a dramatic scene.
Contains Symbolism: Uses a concrete object to represent an idea of a feeling.
Presents imagery (simile, metaphor, hyperbole): Presents mental pictures, pictures created using words.
Displays foreshadowing: Provides clues to an incident or situation, which will occur later on in the plot.
Shows pathetic fallacy: Uses the weather or climate to reflect the emotions of the character.
Provides pathos: Develops a feeling of pity or sympathy toward a situation or a character.
Provides Suspense: Develops a sense of uncertainty as to the outcome of events.
Connections to Topics and Theme
Suggests a topic and/or helps develop the theme: Presents a new theme or the development of a theme.