Literature

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Literary Devices, Techniques and Figures of Speech

Reading passages (both long and short) include questions about the authors’ use of literary

techniques and figures of speech—tools authors use to convey meaning or to lend depth and

richness to their writing.

The following list contains 25 common literary techniques and figures of speech. The most useful

ones have been underlined:

Alliteration: The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants, at the beginning of words. For

example, Robert Frost’s poem “Out, out—” contains the alliterative phrase “sweet-scented stuff.”

Allusion: A reference within a literary work to a

historical, literary, or biblical character, place, or

event. For example, the title of William Faulkner’s

novel The Sound and the Fury alludes to a line

from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of nearby words. For example, the line

“The monster spoke in a low mellow tone” (from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lotos-

Eaters”) contains assonance in its repetition of the “o” sound.

Caricature: A description or characterization that exaggerates or distorts a character’s prominent

features, usually for purposes of mockery. For example, a cartoon of a gaunt Abraham Lincoln

with a giant top hat, a very scraggly beard, and sunken eyes could be considered a caricature.

Cliché: An expression, such as “turn over a new leaf,” that has been used and reused so many

times that it has lost its expressive power.

Epiphany [ih-pif-uh-nee]: A sudden, powerful, and often spiritual or life changing realization that a

character experiences in an otherwise ordinary moment. For example, the main character in

James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an

epiphany during a walk by the sea.

Foreshadowing: An author’s deliberate use of hints or suggestions to

give a preview of events or themes that do not develop until later in

the narrative. Images such as a storm brewing or a crow landing on a

fence post often foreshadow ominous developments in a story.

Hyperbole [hi-pur-buh-lee]: An excessive overstatement or conscious exaggeration of fact. “I’ve

told you that a million times already” is a hyperbolic statement.

Idiom: A common expression that has acquired a meaning that differs from its literal meaning,

such as “It’s raining cats and dogs” or “That cost me an arm and a leg.”

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Imagery: Language that brings to mind sensory impressions. For example, in the Odyssey, Homer

creates a powerful image with his description of “rosy-fingered dawn.”

Irony: Broadly speaking, irony is a device that emphasizes the contrast between the way things are

expected to be and the way they actually are. A historical example of irony might be the fact that

people in medieval Europe believed bathing would harm them when in fact not bathing led to the

unsanitary conditions that caused the bubonic plague.

Metaphor: The comparison of one thing to another

that does not use the terms “like” or “as.” A

metaphor from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life is but

a walking shadow.”

Simile [sim-uh-lee]: A comparison of two things

through the use of the words like or as. The title of

Robert Burns’s poem “My Love Is Like a Red, Red

Rose” is a simile.

Motif: A recurring structure, contrast, or other device that develops a literary work’s major

themes (see below). For example, shadows and darkness are a motif in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of

Two Cities, a novel that contains many gloomy scenes and settings.

Onomatopoeia: The use of words like pop, hiss, or boing, in which the

spoken sound resembles the actual sound.

Oxymoron: The association of two terms that seem to contradict each

other, such as “same difference” or “wise fool.”

Paradox: A statement that seems contradictory on the surface but

often expresses a deeper truth. One example is the line “All men

destroy the things they love” from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad

of Reading Gaol.”

Personification: The use of human characteristics to describe

animals, things, or ideas. Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago”

describes the city as “Stormy, husky, brawling / City of the Big

Shoulders.”

Pun: A play on words that uses the similarity in sound between two words with distinctly different

meanings. For example, the title of Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest is a pun on

the word earnest, which means serious or sober, and the name “Ernest.”

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Rhetorical question: A question asked not to elicit an actual response but to make an impact or

call attention to something. “Will the world ever see the end of war?” is an example of a rhetorical

question.

Sarcasm: A form of verbal irony (see above) in which it is obvious from context and tone that the

speaker means the opposite of what he or she says. Saying “That was graceful” when someone

trips and falls is an example of sarcasm.

Symbol: An object,

character, figure, place,

or color used to

represent an abstract

idea or concept. For

example, the two roads

in Robert Frost’s poem

“The Road Not Taken”

symbolize the choice

between two paths in

life.

Thesis: The central

argument that an author

makes in a work. For

example, the thesis of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is that Chicago meat packing plants subject poor

immigrants to horrible and unjust working conditions, and that the government must do

something to address the problem.

Tone: The general atmosphere created in a story, or

the author’s or narrator’s attitude toward the story

or the subject. For example, the tone of the

Declaration of Independence is determined and

confident.

Theme: A fundamental, universal idea explored in a

literary work. The struggle to achieve the American

Dream, for example, is a common theme in 20th-

century American literature. “Oppression of

women”, “Facing Reality”, “Injustice”, “Desire for

Power”, “Love”, “Friendship”, “War” or “Death” are

other examples of themes.

Source: http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/sat/satcriticalreading/section4.php