Exposition
Exposition is a literary tool used to introduce background statistics about activities, settings, characters, or other factors of a piece to the audience or readers. The word comes from the Latin language, and its literal which means is “a showing forth.” Exposition is critical to any tale, for with out it nothing makes sense.
There are many ways to present an exposition, together with monologues, dialogues, in-universe media (newspapers, letters, reviews, journals, etc.), a protagonist’s thoughts, or a narrator’s explanation of past activities. It is certainly one of the 4 rhetorical modes of communication – the other 3 being narration, description, and argumentation.
Examples of Exposition in Literature
Exposition in Movies
Example #1: Star Wars (By George Lucas)
There are countless examples of exposition in many awesome films and one in every of them, which comes across in particular nicely, is from Star Wars. The exposition on this movie is the opening name sequence, which gives facts approximately the past occasions to the target audience. The crawling textual content on the screen at the beginning of every film in the series offers the target market every piece of statistics they need to understand the imminent activities within the film. The starting lines commonly start like this:
“A long time ago in a galaxy some distance away, some distance away…”
Exposition in Literature
Example #2: The Three Little Bears (By Robert Southey)
An exposition is typically placed at the start of a novel, film, or other literary work, because the writer desires the target market to be fully privy to the characters within the story. The famous children’s tale entitled The Three Little Bears applies this method of exposition.
“Once upon a time, there had been three bears. There become a Daddy Bear, who was very big, a Mama Bear, who was middle-sized, and a Baby Bear, who became very small. They all lived together in a bit cottage in the center of the woods. Their preferred breakfast turned into porridge. One morning, when they made their porridge, Daddy Bear said, ‘Let’s move for walk in the woods till it cools.’ Mama Bear and Baby Bear preferred the idea, so off they went. While they were away, a touch female named Goldilocks came taking walks through the wooded area and smelled the porridge…”
With the help of a unmarried passage, the author of the tale has given us an overview of the undergo family, their residence, and facts that sets the tale in motion.
Example #3: Othello (By William Shakespeare)
All of Shakespeare’s writings contain wonderful exposition examples. Take Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and Richard III, and you may see how pretty nicely he used the art of expository writing. Here, two examples from Othello have been taken to difficult the point.
The opening scene in Act I of Othello shows a fierce argument between Roderigo and Iago, which helps build the hobby of the target audience. The target audience realizes that Iago is constantly trying to convince Roderigo to be his associate in destroying Othello. The exposition in this scene plays the following roles:
It explicates Iago’s treacherous, spiteful, and scheming nature.
The main warfare of the play is revealed here. It revolves around Iago’s hid bitterness towards his boss Othello who, in Iago’s opinion, is overlooking him for promotion.
It ascertains primary themes of the play: racism, and that appearance is not constantly the same as reality.
At the stop of Act 1, the play gives the target market a few data about Othello, along with:
He is a completely decent man.
He had run away with Desdemona, Brabantio’s daughter.
He is a extraordinary general who's sought through Venice to guard it in the warfare against the Turks.
As is evident from the examples given above, exposition continually gives us an insight into the characters’ personalities, and adds flavor to the tragedy and drama we see in the direction of the cease of the play.
Function of Exposition
The significance of exposition in literature, as well as in our practical lives, cannot be ignored. Examining the varieties of writing we come upon in our each day lives shows us that almost all of them are incomplete without exposition.
The fiction books, articles, and magazines that human beings read in their normal lives essentially depend on exposition to attach the readers to the main tale through giving them the background facts. In most cases, a story or script loses its essence if now not accompanied by way of an exposition. Not handiest is it essential for bringing readability to a script, but it's also essential to enhance its literary value. The actual essence of a book generally lies in how the reader is delivered to the characters in it and, if executed correctly, the reader automatically starts referring to them.
Moreover, exposition is broadly used for academic functions in schools, colleges, and universities. Generally, students are requested to submit research reviews and skip exams to establish their progress. The exposition here is maintaining the academia up to date on what you have learned so a ways. Also, employees are asked very often to put together enterprise reports and memorandums to replace their employers approximately their progress.
Popular Literary Devices
- Ad Hominem
- Adage
- Allegory
- Alliteration
- Allusion
- Ambiguity
- Anachronism
- Anagram
- Analogy
- Anapest
- Anaphora
- Anecdote
- Antagonist
- Antecedent
- Antimetabole
- Antithesis
- Aphorism
- Aposiopesis
- Apostrophe
- Archaism
- Archetype
- Argument
- Assonance
- Biography
- Cacophony
- Cadence
- Caricature
- Catharsis
- Characterization
- Cliché
- Climax
- Colloquialism
- Comparison
- Conflict
- Connotation
- Consonance
- Denotation
- Deus Ex Machina
- Dialect
- Dialogue
- Diction
- Didacticism
- Discourse
- Doppelganger
- Double Entendre
- Ellipsis
- Epiphany
- Epitaph
- Essay
- Ethos
- Eulogy
- Euphemism
- Evidence
- Exposition
- Fable
- Fallacy
- Flash Forward
- Foil
- Foreshadowing
- Genre
- Haiku
- Half Rhyme
- Hubris
- Hyperbaton
- Hyperbole
- Idiom
- Imagery
- Induction
- Inference
- Innuendo
- Internal Rhyme
- Irony
- Jargon
- Juxtaposition
- Limerick
- Line Break
- Logos
- Meiosis
- Memoir
- Metaphor
- Meter
- Mood
- Motif
- Narrative
- Nemesis
- Non Sequitur
- Ode
- Onomatopoeia
- Oxymoron
- Palindrome
- Parable
- Paradox
- Parallelism
- Parataxis
- Parody
- Pathetic Fallacy
- Pathos
- Pentameter
- Persona
- Personification
- Plot
- Poem
- Poetic Justice
- Point of View
- Portmanteau
- Propaganda
- Prose
- Protagonist
- Pun
- Red Herring
- Repetition
- Rhetoric
- Rhyme
- Rhythm
- Sarcasm
- Satire
- Simile
- Soliloquy
- Sonnet
- Style
- Superlative
- Syllogism
- Symbolism
- Synecdoche
- Synesthesia
- Syntax
- Tautology
- Theme
- Thesis
- Tone
- Tragedy
- Tragicomedy
- Tragic Flaw
- Transition
- Utopia
- Verisimilitude