Literary Devices

Metaphor Saying one thing through another, without a word of comparison: instead of saying that something is like another thing, one says that it is. The image transfers to the subject the qualities of the thing it has been identified with. Foreshadowing A sign, word or image that anticipates, sometimes only for those who reread, something that will happen later in the work. Repetition Returning to the same word, phrase or construction, at the start of successive verses or sentences (anaphora) or throughout the text, to give rhythm, emphasis or insistence. Apostrophe The speaker addresses someone absent or dead, a thing, a place or an idea, as if they could hear. Hyperbole Deliberate exaggeration, which no one takes literally, to emphasize a feeling or a situation. Personification Giving a thing, an animal or an abstract idea actions, feelings or speech proper to a person. Dramatic irony The reader or audience knows something the character ignores, and so the character's words and deeds take on a meaning that the character does not perceive. Antithesis Placing opposing ideas or words side by side, so that one illuminates the other through contrast. Oxymoron Joining in one short expression two words of opposite meaning, such as "sweet bitterness." Comparison Bringing two different things together with an explicit word, such as "like," "just as" or "seems." Unlike the metaphor, the comparison makes plain that these are two things. Situational irony What happens is the opposite of what was expected, or of what someone planned, in a way that reveals something about the characters or the world of the work. Paradox A statement that seems to contradict itself or common sense, but which, when thought through, reveals a truth. Soliloquy In the theater, a speech by a character alone on stage, who thinks aloud and shows the audience what they do not say to others. Rhetorical question A question asked without expecting an answer, because the answer is already implied, or because what matters is the doubt it exposes. Metonymy Naming one thing by another that is connected to it: the part for the whole, the object for its owner, the place for the people, the cause for the effect. Parallelism Phrases or verses following one another with the same construction, so that the reader compares what changes from one to the next. Leitmotiv A word, phrase or image that returns several times throughout the work, tied to a character or an idea, and gains meaning with each return.