Literary Devices & Techniques
This term refers to the blending of the narrator's voice with the thoughts or speech of a character, often without quotation marks.
What is free indirect discourse?
Choose the grammatically correct sentence:
A) Each of the students have their own opinion.
B) Each of the students has their own opinion.
What is B?
In Pride and Prejudice, this character’s shifting use of free indirect discourse subtly shows her growing awareness and self-reflection.
Who is Elizabeth Bennet?
A repeated consonant sound at the beginning of words.
What is alliteration?
This 19th-century American movement emphasized nature, individualism, and the soul.
What is Transcendentalism?
A narrative technique in which the chronology is intentionally disrupted or disordered to reflect psychological realism.
What is nonlinear narrative (or non-chronological structure)?
Identify the sentence with parallel structure:
A) She likes reading, writing, and to jog.
B) She likes reading, writing, and jogging.
What is B?
In Beloved, the character Beloved can be interpreted as a literal ghost, a psychological manifestation, or this literary device symbolizing trauma.
What is an allegory?
A 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme, often about love.
What is a sonnet?
A 20th-century movement marked by fragmented structure and a break with tradition.
What is Modernism?
This is the deliberate placement of two contrasting ideas or images next to each other for effect.
What is juxtaposition?
Fix the error in this sentence: “Its a well-written poem with alot of emotion.”
What is: "It’s" (contraction) and "a lot" (two words)?
In Macbeth, the motif of blood serves primarily as this, representing both guilt and inescapable consequences.
What is a symbol?
A pause in the middle of a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation.
What is a caesura?
This movement, including Hughes and Hurston, celebrated Black culture in 1920s New York.
What is the Harlem Renaissance?
A character who contrasts with another character, usually the protagonist, to highlight qualities of the main character.
What is a foil?
Name the punctuation mark that joins two independent clauses without a conjunction.
What is a semicolon?
In No Exit, Sartre uses the setting of a room with no mirrors or escape as this kind of extended metaphor for existential judgment.
What is a hellish metaphor for self-awareness and interpersonal torment?
A metrical pattern of five feet, each with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
What is iambic pentameter?
A reaction against Romanticism, this movement focused on everyday life and societal problems.
What is Realism?
A technique where one sense is described using terms from another (e.g., “a loud color” or “a sweet sound”).
What is synesthesia?
This kind of clause cannot stand alone and usually begins with words like “although,” “because,” or “when.”
What is a dependent (or subordinate) clause?
In The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses Gregor’s transformation as an example of this literary mode that presents absurd or fantastic elements in an otherwise realistic world.
What is magical realism?
This device is used when a part of something represents the whole, like “all hands on deck.”
What is synecdoche?
This post-WWII movement questioned meaning, truth, and language itself.
What is Postmodernism?