Literary Devices
What is simile?
The time and place in which a story unfolds.
What is setting?
An exaggeration or overstatement.
Example: I had to wait forever.
What is hyperbole?
A nonfiction account of a specified time in a person's life based on personal experience and emotional truth.
What is memoir?
Any text that is the product of imagination rather than a documentation of fact.
What is fiction?
The use of language to create sensory impressions (appeals to the five senses).
What is imagery?
A person, animal, or thing telling the story.
What is the narrator?
The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or usual meaning.
What is verbal irony?
A text that aims to present ideas and evoke an emotional experience through the use of imagery, word choice, structure, and sound.
Example: "A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman
What is poetry / a poem?
A word that is similar in meaning to another word.
What is a synonym?
Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling.
What is figurative language?
The portion of a story following the climax in which the conflict is resolved.
What is the resolution?
An object or abstract idea given human qualities or human form.
Example: Flowers danced about the town.
What is personification?
The genre of literature represented by works intended for the stage; a work to be performed by actors.
Example: Oedipus Rex
What is drama?
An inclination or preference in favor or against something; the positive or negative approach toward a topic.
What is bias?
A device in literature where an object, color, or animal represents an idea.
Example: a rainbow represents hope
What is symbolism?
A device used to present an action that occurred before current (present) time of the story.
What is a flashback?
The author's attitude toward the subject of the work.
What is tone?
A form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside of the narrative itself.
Example: Zootopia and Animal Farm
What is allegory?
The repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words.
Example: Sally sold seashells by the seashore.
What is a alliteration?
The prevailing emotions or atmosphere of a work. (How the reader feels.)
What is mood?
A device used to create expectation or to set up an explanation of later developments.
What is foreshadowing?
A recurring subject, event, idea, symbol, or action in a literary work.
What is motif?
A literary approach that humorously criticizes people or ideas.
Example: Jojo Rabbit or Saturday Night Live
What is satire?
The method an author uses to reveal characters and their various traits and personalities through speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions, or looks.
What is indirect characterization?