Literary Terms
An author's choice of specific words to create tone and meaning
What is diction?
This is when a non-human entity is given specifically and uniquely human qualities.
What is personification?
A dramatic work about a serious subject that portrays the demise or downfall of the protagonist, who is both personally flawed and overwhelmed by forces larger than themselves.
What is tragedy?
Performing this role in the novel, Nick Carraway is both 'within and without', participating in the story's events and telling the story to the reader.
What is first person narrator?
A proper in-text citation must include these two things in parentheses.
What is the author's last name and page number? i.e. (Wilson 78)
The central and unifying ideas of a text. These are not explicitly stated but must be inferred and interpreted; they are universal ideas that transcend the narrow confines of the narrative, and connect with all people at all times. Examples might include greed, ambition, identity.
What are themes?
A direct comparison of two things (people, places, events, objects, etc) to illustrate a larger truth or idea.
What is metaphor?
Troy was able to use his disability pay to make a down payment on his house. This is a source of shame and embarrassment for Troy.
Who is Gabriel?
This object symbolizes Gatsby's hopes, dreams, and ambitions of rising to a higher station than the one he was born into.
What is the green light?
This is the term for the formatting of a Works Cited citation that positions the second and other subsequent lines underneath the first line.
What is a 'hanging indent'?
A reference in a text to something outside of the text -- this can be something from history, religion, or culture -- that illustrates important themes and shows there is a larger world in which the narrative is set
What is allusion?
Extreme exaggeration
What is hyperbole?
Troy Maxson's journey from the Deep South to the northern city of Pittsburgh mirrors the mass movement of Black Americans in the first half of the 20th Century, often referred to as this.
What is the Great Migration?
This historical event is attributed in the novel to the corrupt activities of Meyer Wolfsheim.
What is the 1919 World Series?
This is the proper formatting for the titles of novels and plays.
What is italics?
Description of appearance, speech, what is said by others, actions, and, sometimes, private thoughts.
What is indirect characterization?
A play on the meaning or sound of words.
What is a pun?
This is the ancient Greek term for excessive pride, often in the form of a human openly defying or disobeying the gods. Many readers interpret Troy as possessing this quality.
What is hubris?
Tom Buchanan's antimodernist sentiments are symbolically expressed by his choice to convert his car garage into this.
What is a horse stable?
This type of source offers commentary and reaction to a primary document.
What is a secondary source?
Any description that appeals to any of the five senses: sights, sounds, feelings, smells, tastes
What is imagery?
Examples include when a situation turns out differently than expected, or when someone says something but means another, or, in a play, when the audience knows something the characters do not.
What is irony?
The title Fences representing divisions--both people and societies being kept apart--is an example of this literary device.
What is symbolism?
Aside from Nick, Henry C. Gatz, and a handful of servants and butlers, he is the only other person to attend Gatsby's funeral.
Who is 'Owl Eyes'?
This sentence presents the main idea or argument of an essay. It unifies the paper, and everything in the paper must support and advance this idea.
What is thesis?