Elements of Drama

These are instructions in the script of a play that tell actors how to enter, where to stand, when to move, also information about the lighting, scenery, props, and sound effects.

• Stage Directions

• Setting

• Anagnorisis

• Characterization

This refers to the scenery and furniture onstage (what we see onstage).

• Set

• Symbol

• Setting

• Subplot

The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story.

• Relief

• Recognition

• Rising Action

• Resolution

The means by which writers present and reveal character.

• Climax

• Characterization

• Comic relief

• Complication

The conversation of characters in a literary work.

• Diction

• Dialogue

• Dramatic monologue

• Denouement

When a sentence is purposefully left incomplete or cut off.

• Aposiopesis

• Aside

• Allusion

• Alliteration

This is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and

feelings to him/herself and to the audience.

• Staging

• Soliloquy

• Subplot

• Symbol

A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.

• Conflict

• Improvisation

• Reversal

• Tragic Flaw

A quality of a play's action that stimulates the audience to feel pity for a character. This is always

an aspect of tragedy, and may be present in comedy as well.

• Pathos

• Logos

• Ethos

• Kairos

The time and place of a literary work that establish its context.

• Plot

• Setting

• Mood

• Aside