Rhetorical Devices Overview

Rhetorical Devices

• Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close together. Examples: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck.

• Allusion: Reference to a well-known person, place, or thing from literature, history, etc. Examples: Eden, Scrooge, Prodigal Son.

• Anaphora: Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of successive sentences. It creates emphasis and cohesion. Example: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France..."

• Anadiplosis: Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. Example: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

• Antithesis: Presenting two contrasting ideas in balanced phrases, clauses, or paragraphs. Examples: "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

• Apostrophe: Addressing an absent or nonexistent person, place, or thing as if it were present and could understand. Examples: "Welcome, O life!"

• Asyndeton: Using commas to connect a series of items without conjunctions. This creates a sense of speed and urgency. Example: "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe..."

• Chiasmus: Repetition of ideas in inverted order. Example: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

• Hortative Sentence: Sentence that exhorts, urges, entreats, implores, or calls to action.

• Inversion: Reversing the typical word order (subject-verb-object) in a sentence to emphasize a specific element. Example: "Are you going to the store?"

• Juxtaposition: Placing two things closely together to emphasize similarities or differences.

• Litotes: Deliberate understatement, often achieved by negating the opposite.

• Metaphor: Comparing two unlike things without using "like" or "as." Example: "My love is a fragile flower."

• Metonymy: Using one thing to represent another associated thing. Example: "The pen is mightier than the sword."

• Oxymoron: Paradoxical juxtaposition of contradictory words. Example: "jumbo shrimp"

• Parallelism: Arranging elements (words, phrases, clauses) in similar grammatical form to create balance and rhythm. Example: Listing similar phrases with similar forms ("We shall fight...we shall defend...")

• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things. Example: "The wind howled."

• Rhetorical Question: Question designed not to elicit an answer but to make a point or encourage reflection. Examples: "Are you going to the store?"

• Synecdoche: Using part of something to represent the whole or vice versa, or using a related concept to mean the thing itself. Example: "wheels" to mean a car, or "boards" to mean a stage.

• Zeugma: Using one word to modify two or more other words in different ways, often creating a humorous or unexpected effect. Example: "He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men."