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An example in literature is the character of Touchstone in Shakespeare's As You Like It, described as "a wise fool who acts as a kind of guide or point of reference throughout the play, putting everyone, including himself, to the comic test". [3] Dante's "In la sua volontade è nostra pace" ("In his will is our peace"; Paradiso, III.85) [4]
In relation to foreshadowing, the literary critic Gary Morson describes its opposite, sideshadowing. [11] Found notably in the epic novels of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, sideshadowing is the practice of including scenes that turn out to have no relevance to the plot. That, according to Morson, increases the verisimilitude of the fiction ...
"Man versus man", such as is depicted here in the battle between King Arthur and Mordred, is particularly common in traditional literature, fairy tales and myths. [ 1 ] Traditionally, conflict is a major element of narrative or dramatic structure that creates challenges in a story by adding uncertainty as to whether the goal will be achieved.
An early example is the Arabian Nights tale "The Three Apples". A locked chest found by a fisherman contains a dead body, and two different men claim to be the murderer, which turns out to be the investigator's own slave. Poetic justice: Virtue ultimately rewarded, or vice punished, by an ironic twist of fate related to the character's own conduct
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative. [1] Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject". [2]
This list is for characters in fictional works who exemplify the qualities of an antihero—a protagonist or supporting character whose characteristics include the following: imperfections that separate them from typically heroic characters (such as selfishness, cynicism, ignorance, and bigotry); [ 1 ]
Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza, as illustrated by Gustave Doré: the characters' contrasting qualities [1] are reflected here even in their physical appearances. In any narrative, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character, typically, a character who contrasts with the protagonist, in order to better highlight or differentiate certain qualities of the protagonist.
Many scholars view this connection between the reader and character as a mark of realism. For example, Janet Todd writes that "Austen creates an illusion of realism in her texts, partly through readerly identification with the characters and partly through rounded characters, who have a history and a memory."