Lit Devices "A"
Story Elements
more Literary Devices
Lit Devices you've met before
Examples to ID
100
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
What is an example of alliteration?
100
The structure of events within a story and the causal relationship between them; a chain of events caused by each other in a story or drama.
What is an example of plot?
100
Hints or clues of what is to come in the action of a play or a story; i.e. Bambi's mother warns him about the dangers of Man in the forest. Later she is killed by a hunter.
What is an example of foreshadowing?
100
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. i.e. "The burning wood crackled and hissed." "He fell, boom, bang, crash, right through the ceiling."
What is an example of Onomatopoeia?
100
Figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though. i.e. "She floated in like a cloud."
What is a simile?
200
A symbolic representation of something, i.e. the blindfolded figure with scales is an ________ of justice.
What is an example of allegory?
200
The "set up" of a story, what is happening as the foundation of the action.
What is the "basic situation" of a story?
200
A figure of speech involving exaggeration; i.e. "I have seen this river so wide it had only one bank." - Mark Twain
What is an example of hyperbole?
200
- putting two contradictory words together. i.e. bittersweet, jumbo shrimp, and act naturally...
What is an example of oxymoron?
200
"It beats . . . as it sweeps . . . as it cleans!" (Slogan for Hoover vacuum cleaners)
What is an example of assonance?
300
A reference to another book or work of art, or famous person, or event in life or literature. i.e. She is as pretty as the Mona Lisa.
What is an example of allusion?
300
Where a story or drama takes place.
What is the setting?
300
A comparison in which one thing is said to be another. i.e. The cat's eyes were jewels, gleaming in the darkness.
What is metaphor?
300
Giving human qualities to animals or objects. i.e. "The daffodils nodded their yellow heads."
What is an example of personification?
300
The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.
What is an example of personification?
400
The comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. i.e. shoe is to foot as tire is to wheel
What is an analogy?
400
The highest point in a story or drama; the top of the mountain of action.
What is the climax?
400
an extended comparison of two things that is continued throughout a piece of work, or in more than one line of poetry. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." ("As You Like It," Shakespeare)
What is extended metaphor?
400
A word is used which has two meanings at the same time, which results in humor. Mercutio--"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance." Romeo--"Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead…"(I iv 13-5)
What is an example of pun?
400
Romeo and Juliet: Mercutio, stabbed and is dying says "tomorow you will find me a grave man" meaning grave in the ground and grave as a bad mistake.
What is an example of pun?
500
The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence, i.e. "I was there for her, pull out a chair for her, turn on the air for her... cuz we related physically and mentally." (Common, "I used to love her") "Flash with a rash gimme my cash flickin' my ash Runnin with my money, son, go out with a blast." (Busta Rhymes, "Gimme Some More")
What is an example of assonance?
500
The French word for how a story is resolved.
What is the concluding action/ events; the denouement?
500
Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," where on the surface he is trying to decide which way to turn at a fork in the road, but, of course, the meaning extends to life itself. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."
What is an example of extended metaphor?
500
Also called epic simile, is a detailed comparison in the form of a simile that is many lines in length. "I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home like a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl and the drill keeps twisting, never stopping --So we seized our stake with it fiery tip and bored it round and round in the giant's eye."
What is an example of Homeric simile?
500
"its crackling roots blazed and hissed - as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens - that's the iron's strength - so the eye of Cyclops sizzled round that stake." (The Odyssey)
What is an example of Homeric or epic simile?
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