allegory
Extended metaphor through endowing many aspects of plots, character and setting with symbolic meaning.
hobo
Itinerant unemployed and homeless person who travels by furtively sneaking aboard trains.
episodic
A form of telling a story which utilizes a loose connection of various events to tell a panoramic story tied together more by theme or character than plot.
vagabond
A wander; world traveler; someone with lots of places to visit, but no particuar place to be.
writer's block
The term for the situation in which a writer discovers an incapacity to write as easily as normal or the obstruction caused by reaching a point in the story where what happens next continues to be a mystery.
personification
An aspect of a larger literary device in which an inanimate object is given human characteristics in which a title object of a story becomes a major character without necessarily acting or being treated like a human.
Beat Generation
Referring to a movement of the 1950s characterized by a younger people rejecting traditional values, embracing dissonant jazz music and spoken poetry.
disillusionment
The melancholy feeling that comes over one when their most cherished beliefs have been revealed
Manifest Destiny
19th century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
chop suey
Non-authentic Chinese-style dish of meat stewed and fried with bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and onions, and often served with rice found in most Chinese restaurants in America.
multiculturalism
Ethnic pluralism; the existence of people representing many different cultures all converging together.
plurilingualism
The ability to speak fluently in a minimum of three different languages and seamlessly switch between each language within the same conversation.
El Dorado
A mythic lost city of gold believed to exist somewhere in the region of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers; the figurative reference to any place thought to hold abundant treasure.
impasse
A place or time which results in gridlock preventing continued forward progression.
indigenous
The ethnic group or culture that is native to a particular geographic region.
