Literary Devices and Irony

• Allusion involves a reference to a well-known person, event, or work.
• The antagonist is a character or group that opposes the protagonist.
• Atmosphere is the feeling or tone created by the author in a literary work.
• Conflict is the central struggle between opposing forces or characters.
• Connotation refers to the emotional and cultural associations of a word.
• Denotation is the literal or dictionary definition of a word, void of emotion.
• Diction involves an author's specific word choice to create a distinctive style.
• Flashback reveals background information through a scene set in the past.
• Foreshadowing provides clues or hints about events that will occur later in the story.

Irony

• Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more than the characters.
• Situational irony involves a contradiction between expected and actual outcomes.
• Verbal irony is when a speaker says one thing but means the opposite.
• Mood is the overall feeling or emotion that a work of literature evokes.
• Pathetic fallacy is when the weather reflects the emotions of characters.
• Plot comprises the sequence of events that constitute the story.

Point of View

• First person uses "I".

• Third person uses "he/she".

• Third person limited presents events through one character's perspective.

• Third person omniscient has an all-knowing narrator.

• The protagonist is the main character in a story.

• Setting encompasses the time, place, and circumstances of a story.

• Symbol is an object, person, or event that represents something else.

• Theme is the central idea or insight about life that the writer conveys.

• Tone is the writer's attitude toward the subject, creating a specific feel.

• Trigger incident sets the rising action of the plot in motion.

Figurative Language

• Hyperbole is exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect.
• Imagery uses descriptive language to evoke the five senses.
• Metaphor compares two unlike things without using "like" or "as".
• Onomatopoeia uses words that imitate the sounds they describe.
• Oxymoron combines two contradictory terms in a statement.
• Personification gives human qualities to inanimate objects or abstractions.
• Pun is a play on words using multiple meanings for humorous effect.
• Simile compares two unlike things using "like" or "as".

Sound Devices

• Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in nearby words.
• Cacophony is the use of harsh, discordant sounds.
• Euphony is the use of pleasant, harmonious sounds.
• Rhyme involves the repetition of the same sounds at the end of words.