Literary Techniques and Devices - Definition & Examples

**Grade 10 Literary Techniques and Devices** **Trope:** any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense. **Simile:**  is a comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words *like* or *as...

**Grade 10 Literary Techniques and Devices** **Trope:** any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense. **Simile:**  is a comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words *like* or *as*. It is definitely a stated comparison, where the poet says one thing is like another, e.g., The warrior fought like a lion.   **Metaphor:** is a comparison without the use of *like* or *as*. The poet states that one thing is another. It is usually a comparison between something that is real or concrete and something that is abstract, e.g., Life is but a dream.   **Personification:** is a kind of metaphor which gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics, e.g. The wind cried in the dark.   **Hyperbole:** is a deliberate, extravagant and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used either for serious or comic effect, e.g. The shot that was heard 'round the world.   **Understatement:** is the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony which deliberately represents something as much less than it really is, e.g., I could probably manage to survive on a salary of two million dollars a year.   **Paradox:** is a statement which contradicts itself. It may seem almost absurd. Although it may seem to be at odds with ordinary experience, it usually turns out to have a coherent meaning, and reveals a truth which is normally hidden, e.g., The more you know, the more you don't know. (Socrates)   **Oxymoron:** is a form of paradox which combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. This combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness, e.g., sweet sorrow, wooden nickel.   **Pun:** is a play on words which are identical or similar in sound but which have sharply diverse meanings. Puns may have serious as well as humorous uses, e.g., When Mercutio is bleeding to death in *Romeo and Juliet*, he says to friends, "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." **Anaphora:** Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent. **Asyndeton:** Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally: instead of X, Y, and Z\... the writer uses X,Y,Z\.... see polysyndeton. **Connotation:** The suggested or implied meaning of a word or phrase.  Contrast with *denotation*.  For example: When Dorthy says, "There's no place like home." = the meaning/feelings associated with "home".   **Denotation:** the dictionary definition of a word.  Contrast with *connotation*.    **Symbolism:** is a device in literature where an object represents an idea.  In William Blake\'s \"The Lamb,\" the speaker tells the lamb that the force that made him or her is also called a lamb: Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, I\'ll tell thee, Little lamb, I\'ll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a lamb; The symbol of the lamb in the above lines corresponds to the symbolism of the lamb in Christianity wherein Christ is referred to as The Lamb of God.   **Allegory:** is an extended narrative (story) in which the characters, events and settings that represent abstract qualities in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface story. - *Animal Farm* on the surface is about a bunch of animals who take over their farm.  The allegory shows how it represents communism and what occurred during the Russian Revolution.   **Allusion:** is a reference to a mythological, literary, historical, or Biblical person, place or thing.  Biblical allusions are frequent in English, such as references to the Garden of Eden.   Strictly speaking, allusion is always indirect.  It seeks, by tapping the knowledge and memory of the reader, to secure a resonant emotional effect from the associations already existing in the reader's mind.   **Juxtaposition:** is an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast.  This usually occurs with two opposites. An example of this can be seen in: - *In To Kill a Mockingbird *comparing characters with moral courage to those who lack it.   **Imagery:** is the use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions or ideas.  In a literal sense, it means the collection of images in a literary work.  Patterns of imagery are sometimes taken to be keys to a deeper meaning of a work. For example: a common use of imagery is the contrasting images of light vs. dark.   **Foil:** is when  a minor character whose personality or attitude contrasts with that of the main character.  Juxtaposing one character against another intensifies the qualities of both, to advantage or sometimes to disadvantage.  An example of this would be Atticus Finch vs. Bob Ewell in *To Kill a Mockingbird.* \* * **Theme:** is the main idea or meaning, often an abstract idea upon which a work of literature is built.  Do not confuse topic and theme.  A theme is [not] one word but rather a message that the author is trying to convey.   - Example:  a topic would be war.  A theme would be: War never brings peace.   **Analogy:** the act of comparing two things that are alike in some way e.g. There is an analogy between a pump and the human heart. \* * **Antagonist:** is the character in a drama or novel who presents the greatest opposition to the central figure (protagonist). e.g. sympathetic antagonist like Macduff in [Macbeth] or villainous antagonist like Iago in [Othello ]is an original type which others imitate.  **A Literary Archetype:** is a character or theme that recurs frequently. e.g. the heroic adventurer, the death and re-birth idea in mythology; and the isolation and self-recognition motif in tragedy **Character:** is a person in a play, short story, or novel. - **ROUND CHARACTER:** complex, many-sided, fully developed by the author - **FLAT CHARACTER:** characterized by one or two traits only; often minor - **STOCK CHARACTER:**  is the stereotyped figure who has occurred so often in fiction that his nature is immediately known;                 e.g. the strong, silent sheriff; the mad scientist - **STATIC CHARACTER:** same sort of person at the end of the story as he was at the beginning - **DYNAMIC CHARACTER:** undergoes a permanent change in some aspect of his character, personality, or outlook **Characterization:** The methods a writer uses to communicate information about characters to readers. **Direct Characterization:** When the author *tells* the reader directly about a character. **Indirect Characterization:** When the author *shows* the character in action and lets readers draw their own conclusions. **Irony:** is the result of a statement saying one thing while meaning the opposite, or of situations developing contrary to expectation. - **VERBAL IRONY** refers to a statement in which the opposite of what is said is meant. E.g.. Mark Twain: \"It's easy to quit smoking. I\'ve done it hundreds of times\" - **DRAMATIC IRONY** is based on the same principle of opposition between appearance and reality, but here the speaker is unaware of the opposition, and thus his ironic statements are not intentional as they are with verbal irony. The audience, though, often recognizes the ironic implications of such speech. E.g. When Brutus says, \"And for Mark Antony, think not of him,/For he can do no more than Caesar s arm/When Caesar\'s head is cut off"\...it is not until much later that he discovers the opposite to be true. - **SITUATIONAL IRONY** is a discrepancy between expectation and realization. E.g. a man who develops an elaborate plot to kill his wife is trapped in his own device **Tragedy:** is a dramatic or narrative writing in which the main character suffers disaster after a serious and significant struggle but faces his or her downfall in such a way as to attain heroic stature **Soliloquy:** is a speech made by a character alone on the stage. The device is used to reveal to the audience the private workings of a central character s mind and to fill in important background information. It can also provide motivation or foreshadow future events. The soliloquy, popular in Elizabethan drama, has almost disappeared in the modern drama. **Pathos:** (from the Greeks, meaning suffering ) is a term used to describe scenes or passages in literature which evoke pity or sorrow.  e.g. Pathos occurs in Hemingway\'s [The Old Man and the Sea] when the aged Santiago loses his battle with the sharks over his great fish **Hamartia:** is the Greek word for the tragic flaw of a character, a flaw which leads to his eventual downfall or destruction. e.g. Macbeth s ambition **Hubris:** is a Greek word meaning excessive or overbearing pride. In tragedy, hubris is often the tragic flaw, which causes the hero\'s downfall by pushing him beyond the bounds of moral or divine law. e.g. this flaw of pride is present in [King Lear] **Contrast:** is the dissimilarity between two or more objects or situations, pointed out directly or implicitly. Such literary devices as paradox, juxtaposition, oxymoron, character foils, and irony are all means of producing contrasts. **Protagonist:** is the central character of a drama or narrative. **Syntax:** generally means word order/sentence structure. Syntax seems to be that level of language that most distinguishes poetry from prose. It is unlikely that any prose writer or speaker would say, "I will arise and go now and go to Innisfree and a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made." This syntax is unusual. **Diction:** The use of words on oral or written discourse. Diction includes vocabulary, which generally means words at one time. For example, Hemingway liked simple words: monosyllables. **Foreshadowing:** A writing technique that gives readers clues about events that will happen later in the story. **Flashback:** An interruption in a story to tell about events that happened earlier is known as a flashback.  It is used to provide background information that clarifies the current action in the story. **Tone:** Is the "feeling" of the plot and/or **the author's attitude** toward the subject being written about. The tone is the characteristic emotion that pervades a work. Tone is set by: ACTION: a brutal murder sets a morbid tone, DETAILS: presenting facts, AUTHOR'S STYLE: figurative language, diction, rhythm, sounds, etc. Tone may be: formal, informal, intimate, solemn, sombre, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, satirical or many others...described as an adjective. **Mood:** is the emotion the author wanted **the readers to feel** while reading about the subject. The mood is the emotion evoked by a text in the reader. It's what YOU experience. **Conflict:** The central source of tension and drama in the story. Conflict is also sometimes referred to as the story problem. There are 2 main types of conflict: **Internal Conflict:** man vs. self or **External Conflict:** man vs. man, man vs. society, man vs. fate, man vs. nature, etc. **Motif:** a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition. It is something that you see more than once in the piece, so it must have some meaning. **Plot Structure:** The framework that determines how the story is put together -- many stories follow the "traditional" plot structure: - *Exposition:* Background material about characters, setting, and dramatic situation with which the author introduces the essentials of the story to the reader. - *Rising Action:* The part of the story, including exposition, in which the tension rises. Rising action builds to its highest point of tension at the story's climax. - *Climax*: The moment when the action comes to its highest point of dramatic conflict. Most often, the climax occurs *before* the actual ending of the story. - *Falling Action:* The part of the story, following the climax and leading to the resolution, in which there is a sharp decline in dramatic tension. **Setting:** When and where the story takes place **Point of View (can be shifting):** The vantage point from which an author presents a story, sometimes called method of narration or narrative perspective. Six methods of narration include: - 1^st^ person major: Told using "I", from the main character's point of view - 1^st^ person minor: Told using "I" from a minor character's point of view - 2^nd^ person: Told using "you": this is rarely used and makes the story universally applicable - 3^rd^ person omniscient: Told using "he", "she", "they" etc. and you know the thoughts of some or all of the characters - 3^rd^ person limited (or central): Told using "he", "she", "they" etc. and you only know the thoughts of 1 character (usually the main character) - 3^rd^ person objective (or dramatic): Told using "he", "she", "they" etc. and you do not know the thoughts of any characters. The reader becomes the spectator.