Literary Techniques
Writers
Characters
Text ID
Theories
100

one of them is wearing open-toed sandals, the toenails painted pink. I remember the smell of nail polish, the way it wrinkled if you put the second coat on too soon, the satiny brushing of sheer pantyhose against the skin, the way the toes felt, pushed towards the opening in the shoe by the whole weight of the body. The woman with painted toes shifts from one foot to the other. I can feel her shoes, on my own feet. The smell of nail polish has made me hungry

what is prison literature!

100

He died of tuberculosis in 1924

Kafka 

100

Ms Lucy 

NLMG 

100

The tulips are not tulips of blood, the red smiles are not flowers, neither thing makes a comment on the other. The tulip is not a reason for disbelief in the hanged man, or vice versa. Each thing is valid and really there. It is through a field of such valid object that I must pick my way, every day and in every way. I put a lot of effort into making such distinctions. I need to make them. I need to be very clear, in my own mind

HM Tale 

100

"in which the flea-sized banality is of greater sustaining interest to the trapped protagonists than the whale-sized adventure, where snot might be of more interest than snow" 

prison literature 

--bonus: writer? 

200

The enemy of the state was successfully neutralized 

euphemism 

200

He gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College 

DFW

200

The Commander 

HM Tale 

200

What’s more, there was now all the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in the dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest movement; he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on his back and sides; he was much too indifferent to everything now to lay on his back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this condition, he was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living room.

Metamorphosis 
200

the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.

determinism 

300

Few of us recall that perilous summer

first person plural 

bonus: what text does this come from?

300

He won first prize at the Festival of Dionysus 18 times,

Sophocles 

300

Unnamed narrator 

Dangerous Laughter


Bonus: name another text that features this 

300

" But the cat gives her a skeptical look and stumbles away in its skirts. The last to come is Jupiter. He prances through the tomato vines, holding in his generous mouth the remain~ of an evening dipper. Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.

country husband

300

What techniques does the following statement describe? Estrangement is powerful when it puts the known world in doubt, when it makes the real truly strange; but most powerful when it is someone’s estrangement, bringing into focus the partiality of a human being

Unreliable narration 

bonus, name another 

400

This simple announcement, like the war cries of the Scottish chieftains,-only refreshes the ferocity of the combatants. Louisa gives Henry a blow on the shoulder.

simile: 

bonus: which text does this come from?

400

He retreated from public life, stopped publishing, and devoted himself to Hindu meditation 

JD Salinger 

400
"Gertrude was a stray" 
The Country Husband 
400

Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling
Sometimes I can't believe it
I'm moving past the feeling again

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire

400

Art exists to help us recover the sensation of life; it exists to make us feel things, to make the stone stony. The end of art is to give a sensation of the object seen, not as recognized. The technique of art is to make things 'unfamiliar,' to make forms obscure, so as to increase the difficulty and the duration of perception. The act of perception in art is an end in itself and must be prolonged. In art, it is our experience of the process of construction that counts, not the finished product.”

Defamiliarization 

500

Looking back now, I can see why the Exchanges became so important to us. For a start, they were our only means, aside from the Sales—the Sales were something else, which I’ll come to later—of building up a collection of personal possessions. If, say, you wanted to decorate the walls around your bed, or wanted something to carry around in your bag and place on your desk from room to room, then you could find it at the Exchange. I

Allegory

bonus: explain why 

500

The legs agitated themselves once more. I looked as if for the enemy against which he struggled. I looked out of doors. What had happened there? Presumably it was midday, and work in the fields had stopped. Stillness and quiet had replaced the previous animation. The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brooks. The horses stood still.

Virginia Woolf

500

"Like father, like daughter: both headstrong, deaf to reason! She has never learned to yield. She has much to learn. The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron Cracks first, and the wildest horses bend their necks At the pull of the smallest curb."

Antigone and Oedipus 

500

And I, the monarch of each race,

Had power to kill—yet, strange to tell!

In quiet we had learn'd to dwell;

My very chains and I grew friends,

So much a long communion tends

To make us what we are:—even I

Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.


Prisoner of Chillon, Byron 

500

He came up with theories about Greek tragedy 

Aristotle, Poetics