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 sequence of events within a story
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 work with two levels of meaning – a literal one and a symbolic one. In such a work, most of the characters, objects, settings, and events represent abstract qualities and are symbols, for example, Animal Farm and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
What is an example of allegory?
200
The method of narration used in a short story, novel, narrative poem, or a work of nonfiction (Name the types of narration).
What are first person p.o.v. and third person p.o.v. - including limited and omniscient?
200
A figure of speech involving exaggeration; i.e. "I have seen this river so wide it had only one bank." - Mark Twain and "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse"
What is an example of hyperbole?
200
A main or central idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work which may be stated directly or indirectly. It focuses on life or human nature.
What is an example of theme?
200
The repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences "It bEAts . . . as it swEEps . . . as it clEAns!" (Slogan for Hoover vacuum cleaners)
What is an example of assonance?
300
A indirect reference to another book or work of art, or famous person, or event in life or literature. i.e. Comparing someone's beauty to 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
A poetic device characterized by the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession, as in "pitter patter"
What is an example of consonance?
400
The comparison of two different 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
A special kind of concise paradox that brings together two contradictory terms, for example, civil war, pretty ugly.
What is an oxymoron?
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
Joseph Campbell's monomyth, or __________, is a basic pattern that is found in many narratives from around the world. A hero partakes in this journey and faces challenges, even death, before winning in the end.
What is an example of the hero's journey/cycle?
500
When a writer writes for one or more of these purposes: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain.
What is an example of author's purpose
500
A type of plot in which two stories of equal importance are told simultaneously.
What is parallel plot?
500
When a girl tries to avoid stepping in a puddle and a truck rides by and soaks her head to toe.
What is an example of situational irony?
500
An elaborate comparison, involved and ornate. Also called the extended or Homeric simile. It 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 an epic simile?
500
A figure of speech whose meaning is different from the literal meaning of its words.   "It’s raining cats and dogs" and "hit the lights"
What is an example of an idiom?
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