Literary Devices
An appeal to the audience's emotions, often using stories or descriptive language to evoke pity or anger.
What is pathos
Set in the "Roaring Twenties," this character represents the corrupt side of the American Dream through his bootlegging and obsession with the past.
Who is Jay Gatsby?
This literary movement in the 1920s saw an explosion of Black artistic and intellectual expression.
What is the Harlem Renaissance
This character is the niece of Reverand Parris
Who is Abigail Williams
This specific "Big Idea" describes the belief that anyone, regardless of their background, can attain success through hard work
What is the American Dream
A comparison of two unlike things using "like" or "as," such as "Gatsby’s smile was like a rare clock"
What is a simile
This literary style often features a disillusioned narrator and focuses on the loss of traditional values after WWI
What is Modernism?
In Nella Larsen's novel, this character is "passing" for white while living a life of constant fear and concealment
Who is Clare Kendry?
In an allegory, characters and events often serve as these, representing abstract ideas like greed, envy, or justice rather than just being individual people.
What are symbols?
An appeal to logic, using facts, statistics, and clear reasoning to support an argument.
Logos
An appeal based on the credibility, character, or authority of the speaker.
what is ethos
This physical location in the novel represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth
What is the Valley of the Ashes
This "Big Idea" involves taking action to create change or stand up for what you believe in, a common theme in the poetry of Langston Hughes
what is activism
Arthur Miller wrote this play as an allegory for this 1950s historical event involving Senator Joseph McCarthy.
What is the Red Scare/McCarthyiusm
This short story by Shirley Jackson explores the dangers of blindly following tradition.
What is "The Lottery"
The placement of two opposing ideas or images side-by-side to highlight their differences, such as the Valley of Ashes vs. East Egg
What is juxtaposition
These represent the "eyes of God" staring down on the moral failures of the characters.
What are the eyes of Doctor T.G. Eckleburg
A central theme of this novel and poetry, it refers to who you are and what makes you "you," including your race and social class.
What is identity
In Act 1, this character’s arrival in Salem with a heavy armload of books—which he describes as being "weighted with authority"—marks the beginning of the intellectual justification for the witch trials.
Who is Reverand John Hale
This term describes the underlying message or "big idea" that an author wants to convey about human nature or society.
What is a theme
This device is a direct address to an absent person, an object, or an abstract idea, as if it could respond.
What is an apostrophe?
this term describes the tone of the novel’s ending, characterized by a loss of hope and a realization that the American Dream is unattainable
what is disillusioned
The complex relationship between Irene and Clare highlights the conflict between these two ways of life: staying within one's community vs. seeking upward mobility through deception.
What is security vs. risk or safety vs. danger
Beyond simple storytelling, the "big picture" goal of an allegory like The Crucible is to offer _____________: a lesson that warns the audience about repeating specific patterns of human behavior or social injustice
what is criticism
A figure of speech that combines contradictory terms, like "jumbo shrimp" or "organized chaos"
What is an oxymoron