Vocab
What is a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole, or occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part.
Synecdoche
The following line from The Crucible contains what literary device?
"I should hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law..."
What is hyperbole?
This iconic phrase from the novel's final sentence uses rhythmic, flowing sentence structure to capture the ongoing human struggle against time and the past.
What is “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”?
This visceral simile in Hughes’s poem suggests that a neglected dream doesn't just vanish, but becomes a source of infection or physical decay.
What is "fester like a sore"?
This literary device gives human qualities to nonhuman objects, often helping settings reflect emotional condition
What is personification?
What is is a literary device where an author reveals a character's personality, traits, and motives implicitly through their actions, speech, thoughts, and appearance, rather than stating them outright.
Indirect characterization
Recite the definition of the term recoil.
What is to involuntarily flinch? (Answers may vary here)
Nick Carraway uses this specific, damning adjective to describe Tom and Daisy Buchanan's moral irresponsibility and tendency to let others clean up their messes.
What is "careless"?
In his sprawling "catalog" of a poem, Walter Dean Myers traces the journey of the "A Train" back to the banks of this specific African river.
What is the Niger?
A playwright uses this type of reference to connect a character, event, or idea to history, religion, or mythology
What is an allusion?
What refers to the act of an impartial third party or judge resolving a conflict, dispute, or moral dilemma between opposing sides.
Arbitrating
Reverend Hale goes into Elizabeth Proctor's cell for this reason regarding her husband, John Proctor?
What is to convince him to confess?
Fitzgerald utilizes this literary device when describing Gatsby’s smile as having a "quality of eternal reassurance" that a person might encounter only "four or five times in life."
What is hyperbole?
Hughes uses this punctuation mark to create a tone of interrogation and uncertainty.
What is the question mark?
This concept describes pressure placed on individuals to conform to the dominant culture, sometimes at the cost of their own identity
What is assimilation?
The name for language used in familiar, everyday, and informal conversation rather than formal speech or writing
What is colloquial?
Judge Danforth is more concerned about this than bending the law, even when the law is too harsh.
What is his own reputation?
This industrial wasteland serves as a grim, structural contrast to the immense wealth of East Egg and features an extended metaphor comparing ashes to a farm.
What is the Valley of Ashes?
This 7-letter word describes the sudden, violent, or creative release of energy that both poets suggest occurs when a dream is long suppressed.
What is "Explode"? (or "Explosion")
Name one of the allusions used in the play:
What is Prometheus?
What is Adam and Eve?
What is thirty pieces of silver?
What is Queen of the Nile?
What is Mrs. Miniver?
What is Tarzan?
A term that refers to a dispersed group of people living outside their ancestral or geographic homeland; oftentimes this term refers to their shared cultural backgrounds.
What is diaspora?
According to Miller, the government - at the time of the Salem Witch Trials - often gained support during conflicts by making this accusation against opponents.
What is claiming the opponents are allied with the Devil or evil forces?
Fitzgerald's intentional use of vague language like "might have been" emphasizes the ambiguity and illusion surrounding this physical landmark at the end of a dock.
What is the green light?
Myers juxtaposes these two religious figures—one a West African Yoruba deity and the other a central figure of Christianity—to show Harlem’s blended heritage.
Who are Shango and Jesus?
Who is the playwright that describes the Younger family's apartment as "tired" furnishings and a carpet that "has fought back by showing its weariness"?
Who is Lorraine Hansberry?