| A | B |
|---|
| Aside | Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play |
| Catharsis | purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occur in the audience of tragic drama |
| Climax | the culmination of the rising action within a scene or overall plot |
| Conflict | A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work |
| Denouement | The resolution of the plot of a literary work |
| Exposition | The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided |
| Falling action | the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution |
| Monologue | A speech by a single character without another character's response |
| Rising action | A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax |
| Soliloquy | A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage |
| Tragedy | a drama in which the protagonist falls from happiness to misfortune as a result of a tragic flaw |
| Tragic flaw | a tragic protagonist's key trait because of which the protagonist is brought down |
| Foil | a character who serves as a contrast to another perhaps more primary character, so as to point out specific traits of the primary character |
