Literary Devices
The heavy morning fog was a thick gray blanket draped over the entire city, hiding the streets below
What is metaphor?
As a certified building inspector with three decades of structural engineering experience, I can verify that this foundation is compromised.
What is ethos?
The community theatre group performed a breathtaking, modernized _________ of the classic play that left the audience in awe.
What is rendition?
This dramatic device involves a character turning away from the other actors to speak briefly to themselves or the audience, keeping their thoughts hidden from the people on stage.
What is aside?
The epic convention of attaching formulaic descriptive labels to major characters or objects, such as "the grey-eyed goddess Athena" or "the wine-dark sea."
What is epithet?
Silent shadows slipped secretly across the cold stone floor of the corridor.
What is alliteration?
If we do not upgrade our community water grid immediately, thousands of elderly residents and infants will face severe health crises this summer.
What is pathos?
Calling a tiny, freezing, windowless basement room a "cozy sun-filled paradise" is an absolute _________.
What is misnomer?
This theatrical tool features a character standing entirely alone on a stage, speaking their innermost fears, anxieties, and moral conflicts out loud to the audience.
What is soliloquy?
The specific Greek cultural term for the central theme driving the epic: the agonizing, obstacle-filled journey of a hero trying to achieve their homecoming.
What is nostos?
In a novel, a small, fragile glass figurine is repeatedly mentioned whenever a character feels emotionally vulnerable or close to breaking.
What is symbolism?
According to data collected over the last ten years, switching to solar energy reduces municipal electricity expenses by exactly forty-two percent.
What is logos?
While text messages use __________ language, academic research papers require formal diction.
What is colloquial?
King Duncan remains a flat, unchanging figure throughout his short time in the play, whereas Macbeth alters dramatically from a loyal warrior to a ruthless tyrant. Macbeth is a ___________ character.
What is dynamic?
Homer relies heavily on this specific literary device when he describes a group of men weeping by comparing them to wild birds whose un-winged chicks have been stolen away by farmers.
What is epic simile?
The young child sprinted across the backyard just as a startled deer leaps through an open meadow when a predator draws near.
What is simile?
We must act with courage. We must act with speed. We must act with unity if we want to save our neighborhood.
What is anaphora?
When the concert gate opened unexpectedly early, the crowd rushed forward in ______________.
Staring down at his bloody hands immediately after murdering King Duncan, this traumatized character desperately cries out that all the water in Neptune’s ocean cannot wash his hands clean, but will instead turn the green sea completely red.
Who is Macbeth?
This character demonstrates supreme intellectual cunning by outsmarting Circe’s magic potions and safely navigating the terrifying Underworld, yet his massive pride repeatedly delays his journey.
Who is Odysseus?
He started to get cold feet as the wedding day approached.
What is figurative language?
To get ready for the trip, she packed her suitcase, printed her boarding pass, and confirmed her hotel reservation.
Instead of telling his young child that their pet hamster had died, the father used a ____________ and said the hamster had "gone to live on a beautiful farm in the countryside.
What is euphemism?
Standing alone in her chamber after reading her husband's letter, this intense character explicitly begs dark spirits to "unsex me here" and strip away all her natural human compassion so she can carry out a bloody execution.
Who is Lady Macbeth?
While remaining completely isolated inside a palace overrun by violent suitors for two decades, this character demonstrates supreme emotional endurance, loyalty, and wit by constantly tricking them with an unfinished shroud.
Who is Penelope?