AQA · English Language · 8700
GCSE English Language: Literary devices — structure
Perspective, shifts in focus, foreshadowing, pace, sentence forms and endings: the structural devices Paper 1 Question 3 asks about, with the sentence types that count as language in Question 2.
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Which narrative perspective uses 'I' and 'we'?
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First person.
Why can a first-person narrator be unreliable?
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The reader sees only what that character sees, believes or chooses to tell.
What is a third-person omniscient narrator?
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A narrator outside the story who knows every character's thoughts and actions.
What is a third-person limited narrator?
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A narrator outside the story who follows the thoughts of one character only.
What is a shift in focus?
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The writer moving the reader's attention, for example from the wide setting to one small detail.
What does 'zooming in' mean in structural analysis?
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Narrowing from the whole scene to a single close-up detail, like a camera.
What is foreshadowing?
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An early hint about what will happen later, building anticipation or dread.
What is a flashback?
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A break in the present action to show an earlier event, often revealing a motive or a past.
A text that moves between different times instead of running from start to finish has a ? structure.
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non-linear
A story that opens in the middle of the action begins ?.
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in medias res
What is a cyclical structure?
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An ending that returns to the image or situation of the opening, giving closure or a sense of being trapped.
What is a cliffhanger?
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An ending at a moment of suspense that leaves the outcome unresolved.
What is an open ending?
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An ending that leaves the final meaning or outcome for the reader to decide.
What is a motif?
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An image, object or idea repeated through a text, gathering meaning each time it appears.
What is an anticlimax?
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A deliberate let-down: tension is built up and then deflated by something trivial.
Why might a writer place a calm scene directly before a violent one?
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The contrast makes each scene more vivid and sharpens the shock of the violence.
How do short sentences usually affect pace?
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They quicken it, creating urgency, shock or tension.
How do long, descriptive sentences usually affect pace?
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They slow it down, lingering on detail and atmosphere.
What is a compound sentence?
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Two main clauses joined by a conjunction such as 'and', 'but' or 'so'.
What is a complex sentence?
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A main clause plus at least one subordinate clause that cannot stand alone.
What is a minor sentence?
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A grammatically incomplete sentence, often without a verb, used for impact: 'Silence.'
What effect does a one-sentence paragraph usually have?
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It isolates one idea so the reader has to pause on it.
What is a narrative hook?
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An opening designed to seize the reader's curiosity, such as a mystery or an unexplained line of dialogue.
What is 'withholding information' as a structural device?
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Delaying a key fact so the reader keeps reading to find it out.
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