LITERARY TERMS EXAPMLE

Point of View

Example: First person singular: "I had the craziest night last night! I'll tell you all about it." First person plural: "New York was great. We went to the Statue of Liberty, we walked around Central Park, and we ate fantastic food. It's our favorite city." Third person: "My grandfather was a pilot in the war, and one time he survived a terrible crash."

Repetition

Example: How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, Of the bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! ("The Bells" by Edgar Allen Poe).

Metaphor

Example: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players." (As You Like It by William Shakespeare)

Juxtaposition

Example: "All's fair in love and war." *Love and war are opposites, and yet this proverb shows that they have one thing in common which is that anything goes. This juxtaposition demonstrates that there is more alike between the concepts of love and war than one might originally think.

Connotation

Example: "Cheap": While the dictionary definition of the word "cheap" is something does not cost a lot, "cheap" can also mean something that it not well-made or of low value; it depends on the context. #1: The tickets to the basketball game were so cheap! I have never purchased such affordable tickets. #2: The chair was so cheap; it broke as soon as I sat on it.

Denotation

Example: "Cheap": the dictionary definition of the word "cheap" is → something does not cost a lot.

Alliteration

Example: "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before..." ("The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe) .

Characterization

Example: "Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning." (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling).

Mood

Example: "He rolled in his bed, twisting the sheets, grappling with a problem years too big for him, awake in the night like a single sentinel on picket. And sometime after midnight, he slept, too, and then only the wind was awake, prying at the hotel and hooting in its gables under the bright gimlet gaze of the stars." (The Shining by Stephen King).

Style

Example: "He was completely integrated now and he took a good long look at everything. Then he looked up at the sky. There were big white clouds in it. He touched the palm of his hand against the pine needles where he lay and he touched the bark of the pine trunk that he lay behind." (For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway) *Hemingway was particularly famous for his straightforward style.

Foreshadowing

Example: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee).

Hyperbole

Example: "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!".

Diction

Example: "It is a pleasure to see you again! How are you today?" vs. "Hey, what's up?".

Imagery

Example: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats." (1984 by George Orwell).

Antithesis

Example: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens).

Allegory

Example: "The Tortoise and the Hare" from Aesop's Fables: From this story, we learn that the strong and steady win the race.

Analogy

Example: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." (Animal Farm by George Orwell).

Prose

Example: "The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. " (Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Brontë).

Pun

Example: A boiled egg every morning is hard to beat.

Theme

Example: Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love. (A theme for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling).

Foil

Example: Gaston and Beast (from Beauty and the Beast).

Archetype

Example: Hero: Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi.

Motif

Example: In his most famous speech, Martin Luther King Jr. used the motif of "I have a dream" to tie together disparate ideas, such as the historic language of the United States of America's "Declaration of Independence" with the more concrete images of people who once were at odds sitting down together.

Epiphany

Example: Isaac Newton was sitting below an apple tree when an apple fell on his head, which caused him to develop his Universal Law of Gravitation. It was an "Ah-Ha!" moment.

Tone

Example: Nostalgic tone: Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad. (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee) .

Cliché

Example: Roses are red, violets are blue...

Protagonist

Example: Simba from The Lion King.

Symbolism

Example: The American flag: The thirteen red and white stripes on the American flag symbolize the original thirteen colonies, while the fifty stars are a symbol for the fifty states.

Ambiguity

Example: The bark was painful. (Could mean a tree's bark was rough or a dog's bark communicated pain or hurt the listener's ears).

Personification

Example: The car sputtered and coughed before starting.

Assonance

Example: The early bird catches the worm.

Consonance

Example: The female, and two chicks, each no bigger than my thumb, scattered, shimmering in their pale-green dresses; ("Hummingbirds" by Mary Oliver).

Dialogue

Example: The phone rang, and Jerry picked it up. "Hello?" There was a moment of silence on the other end. "Is this Jerry Simmons?" a male voice asked. "Yeah. Who is this?" The man paused. Jerry could hear him take a deep breath. "Jerry, my name is Dave. I'm your brother."

Flashback

Example: When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee).

Dialect

Example: Y'all ready to have some fun?

Simile

Examples: His heart was as cold as ice Sleeping like a log Fast as lightning.

Onomatopoeia

Examples: Machine noises—honk, beep, vroom, clang, zap, boing Animal names—cuckoo, whip-poor-will, whooping crane, chickadee Impact sounds—boom, crash, whack, thump, bang Sounds of the voice—shush, giggle, growl, whine, murmur, blurt, whisper, hiss Nature sounds—splash, drip, spray, whoosh, buzz, rustle.

Irony

Examples: Verbal irony: takes place when the speaker says something in sharp contrast to his or her actual meaning [e.g., "What a pleasant day" (when it is raining heavily)] Situational irony: a situation in which the outcome is very different from what was expected. (e.g., referring to WWI as "the war to end all wars") Dramatic irony: occurs when the audience has more information than one or more characters in a work of literature. [e.g., the movie "The Truman Show", where only Truman doesn't know that he's being filmed at all times].