Literary Devices
A statement or subject that shifts attention away from the main issue, often used to avoid a difficult question.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question."
Mary Maloney
What is: Lamb to the Slaughter
- Roald Dahl
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth
Who is: William Shakespeare
3 Shakespeare plays read in grade 12.
What is: Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet
- William Shakespeare
What is the term for a word that reads the same backward and forward?
What is: A palindrome
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"
What is: Macbeth
Captain Torres
What is: Lather and Nothing Else
- Hernando Téllez
The Cherry Orchard and The Seagull
Who is: Anton Chekov
Farm animals overthrow their human master only to slide back into an oppressive dictatorship.
What is: Animal Farm
- George Orwell
A brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement.
What is: An allusion
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
What is: Romeo and Julliet
Mr. Summers
What is: The Lottery
- Shirley Jackson
The Crucible, and Death of a Salesman.
A group of British schoolboys stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash during a war
What is: Lord of the Flies
- William Golding
A weakness, error, or fault in a person, plan, or system that ultimate ends in a characters downfall.
What is: A Hamartia / Fatal Flaw
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
What is: Hamlet
Georg Znaeym
What is: The Interlopers
- Saki
Waiting for Godot, and Endgame.
Who is: Samuel Beckett
This 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in Maycomb, Alabama, and explores the themes of racial injustice and the destruction of innocence through the eyes of a young narrator named Scout.
What is: To Kill a Mockingbird
- Harper Lee
Examine the following:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
What literary device are these sentences?
What is: Iambic pentameter
"I am a man more sinned against than sinning."
What is: King Lear
Caravan Master
What is: The Curio Shop
- William Kotzwinkle
The Picture of Dorian Gray
A young boy's journey down the Mississippi River and his evolving friendship with a runaway slave
What is: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Mark Twain