figures of speech
Figurative Language
Metaphor: comparison without "like" or "as"
Example: "All the world's a stage / And all the men and women
merely players" — Shakespeare, As You Like It
Simile: comparison with "like" or "as"
Example: "that memory blinked like a distant fog light in a stormy sea"
— James McBride, The Color of Water
Personification: giving human attributes to inanimate objects
Example: "the sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in
the sky" — Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hyperbole: over-exaggeration
Example: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse
Mixed Metaphor: two or more metaphors that are
illogical when combined
• Ex. We'll burn that bridge when we get there
Metonymy: substituting a phrase with another phrase
that is closely related
• Ex. "The fact is, the Crown must win. Must always
win" — Queen Mary, The Crown
Synecdoche: substituting a part of an object for the whole or vice versa
• Ex. Boots on the ground
Symbolism: using an object to represent an abstract idea or concept beyond the
object's literal meaning
• Ex. beating heart in Poe’s "The Tell-Tale Heart" represents the narrator's guilt
Imagery: vivid description that appeals to the five senses
• Ex. "l Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high oler vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Analogy: explains a situation, object, or idea by comparing it to a
different situation that is familiar
Ex. "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would
smell as sweet. / So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd / Retain that
dear perfection which he owes / Without that title" - Shakespeare, Romeo
and Juliet
Connotation: suggested or implied meaning of a word or phrase
• Positive, negative, neutral
Verbal Irony: when the speaker says something but
means the opposite
Ex. Saying "It would be my pleasure" to do something when you
actually don't want to do it
Ex. Pride and Prejudice, 2005 movie
Mr. Darcy: "Do you always talk, as a rule, while dancing?"
Lizzie Bennet: "No...no, I prefer to be unsociable and
taciturn. Makes it all so much more enjoyable, don't you
Think?"
Dramatic Irony: the audience knows something that the characters don't
• Ex. Romeo thinks that Juliet is dead when the audience knows she is asleep
Situational Irony: when the actual outcome is the opposite
of what is expected
• Ex. In O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief," two men
who kidnap a boy for ransom end up paying the boy's
father to rid themselves of the boy
Juxtaposition: placing two items side by side to contrast them
• Ex. The book Beloved by Toni Morrison jumps back and forth
in time to juxtapose past and present
Paradox: a statement that seems self-contradictory
but actually reveals a truth
• Ex. "I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can
always trust to be dishonest" — Captain Jack
Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
Understatement: phrase that downplays the extent or importance of a situation
• Ex. Saying "we had a little disagreement" when you had a huge fight
Foreshadowing: hint that gives the reader a sense of what
will happen later on in the text
• Ex. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a family of 6 goes
on a road trip and passes by a field with 5 or 6 graves,
foreshadowing the family members' own deaths
Allusion: historical, literary, cultural reference
to person, place, event
Repetition: using the same word or phrase again and again in close proximity
• Ex. In Maya Angelou's poem "Phenomenal Woman," the speaker repeats
the lines "I'm a woman. / Phenomenally. / Phenomenal woman / That's me."
Idiom: an expression or sequence of words that has a
specific, nonliteral meaning when put together
• Ex. Bury your head in the sand
Antithesis: place opposing ideas next to each other in a sentence in parallel fashion
to contrast them
Ex. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of Light, it was the season of Darkness..." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Tone: narrator's, speaker's, or author's attitude
toward the subject
Words to describe tone: optimistic, whimsical,
encouraging, ecstatic, accusatory, arrogant
Mood: emotion that the audience feels in response
to the text; emotion evoked in the audience
Words to describe mood: reflective, melancholy,
nostalgic, hopeful, peaceful, surprised
Diction: author's purposeful word choice
Words to describe diction: pretentious,
euphemistic, literal, academic, trite, verbose,
colloquial, flowery, patriotic
Alliteration: a sequence of words that each start
with the same sound or letter
• Ex. We read really riveting romance novels
Assonance: repeating a vowel sound
• Ex. This initiative is a big risk
NOTE: letter i is being repeated
Consonance: repeating a consonant sound
• Ex. Her mellifluous lullaby lulled me to sleep
Onomatopoeia: word that replicates the sound it refers to
• Ex. Bang, crash, murmur, mumble, babble, splash
PERIPHRASIS: substituting a descriptive phrase, made up
of a concrete adjective and abstract noun, for a precise
word: "fringed curtains of thine eye" (= eyelashes).
PUN: deliberate confusion of words based upon similarity of
sound (waist/waste).
MALAPROPISM: unconscious pun; confusing "odious" for
"Onerous."
WORDPLAY: a serious pun, as when a dying man says
"tomorrow you shall find me a grave man."
REPETITION, PARALLELISM, CONTRAST, ANTITHESIS: devices which
have the rational appeal of logic and the aesthetic appeal of symmetry. For
example: "Suit the action to the word and the word to the action"
uses contrasted repetition of "action" and "word" within parallel grammatical
units (noun plus prepositional phrase).
ANAPHORA: repetition of word or words beginning a series of parallel
syntactical units ("this sceptered isle, ... this blessed
plot, thisearth, this realm, this England"). See sonnet 91
DOUBLE EPITHET: two words of identical or almost identical meaning
joined by a conjunction. The chief effect is richness or plenitude of style:
"extravagant and erring," "foul and pestilent." One of Shakespeare's favorite
devices; usually combines a Latinate and an Anglo-Saxon word.
HENDIADYS: two words joined by a conjunction although one
modifies the other ("this policy and reverence of age" means
"this policy of reverencing age").
TRANSPOSITION: rearrangement of normal word order for
effect (Noun-Verb-Direct Object may become N-DO-V, e.g. "I
the apple ate" for "I ate the apple"; "gentle my lord" means
"my gentle lord").
APOSTROPHE: direct address of an abstraction or of someone
absent ("O time!..."; "Death, be not proud!")