Connections Between Text
Story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.
Allegory
A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.
Symbols
A speaker or writer’s choice of words.
Diction
The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person , a thing, a place, or an experience.
Imagery
A statement that says less than what is meant.
Understatement
A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Analogy
A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work.
Motifs
A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.
Dialect
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Metaphors
A statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth.
Paradox
Used to help the reader make a new, insightful connection between two different entities that might not have seemed related.
Extended Metaphor
Poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.
Juxtaposition
A word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
Colloquialism
A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.
Personification
When a character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better.
Dramatic Irony
An artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period.
Pastiche
Literally means “opposite,” is a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect.
Antithesis
An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.
Connotation
A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.
Similes
Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else.
A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style.
Parody
The way in which words and sentences are placed together.
Syntax
The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
Denotation
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Hyperbole
Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen.
Situational Irony