A Few More Literary Terms for Your Brain
- Alliteration- the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of a word
Example: Super Suicide Society of the Summer Session
- Allusion- a brief reference to a person, event, place, or phrase. The writer assumes the audience will recognize the reference. Allusions that are commonplace for readers in one era may require footnotes for readers in a later time.
Example: Reference to Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly in “Most Dangerous Game”
- Diction- The writer’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. Some types of diction include (but are not limited to) being formal, informal, or poetic.
Example: Instead of saying it hurt, O’Flaherty describes the shotgun wound as a paroxysm of pain in “The Sniper.” This demonstrates how O’ Flaherty chose a formal diction over a simple one--perhaps to emphasize the magnitude of a war.
- Foreshadowing - The use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in literature.
Example: When Rainsford says, “The world is made of two classes the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are the hunters,” it foreshadows how he will later become a huntee and learn the fear and pain of the animals he hunts.
- Hyperbole- An extreme exaggeration, like “I almost died laughing” or “I’m starving.”
Example: “It’s so dark that I could sleep without closing my eyes; the night would be my eyelids.” Rainsford, Most Dangerous Game
- Imagery- Language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.
Example: “The bed was good and the pajamas of the softest silk, and he was tired in every fiber of his being…” Describing Rainsford’s first night at General Zaroff’s château.
- Inference- A judgment based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit
statement. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances.
Example: It can be inferred that the protagonist feels sad at the end of “The Sniper” because he realizes he has just killed his brother.
- Irony- When something turns out different from what was expected—a contradiction between appearance and reality.
Example: When the Sniper turns over the dead body and looks into his dead brother’s face.
It was not Desiree’s fault that the child she bore was black; her husband was actually of black ancestry.
- Personification- Treating abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings.
Example: “The dull panting of the motor” from The Sniper.
- Onomatopoeia- the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents:
Examples: splash, knock, roar, whinnying, bong, hiss, buzz, pow, bang, cluck
thump, pop, splashy, wow, kerplunk, gush, tinkle, smash, growl
crunch, click, sizzle, clattered, clanged, rattle, baa, babble, clip, whinny
clunk, ring, swish, swoosh, clank, whine, wheeze, wheezy, clop, squish, zip
- Simile/Metaphor- A comparison to something else. Similes use “Like or as,” while metaphors do not.
Example: “My love is like a red, red rose.” Simile
“He was such a bear that night” Metaphor
- Suspense- The feeling of growing uncertainty about the outcome of events.
Example: Who will win the “Most Dangerous Game”—Rainsford or General Zaroff?