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A story with underlying symbols that really represent something else. A character can be allegorical.
Example: The nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" was a political allegory in which the characters represented people in government who were falling from power. |
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The use of a repeated consonant sound, usually at the beginning of a series of words.
Examples: Silently stalking her sister on the stairs...Falling, falling, fearfully falling |
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A reference to something or someone, usually literary.
Example: Mr. Jones got the neighborhood kids to do his yard work - just as Tom Sawyer got the kids to paint the fence. |
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Placing a person or object in an inappropriate historical situation.
Example: George Washington drove his limousine downtown for the inauguration. |
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Comparing something to something else.
Example: Starting a new job is like starting a new school year. |
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| A short narrative, story, or tale. |
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| The major character opposing the protagonist. Usually the villain. |
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Assigning human attributes, such as emotions or physical characteristics, to nonhuman things. Often used for attributing human characteristics to animals.
Example: My cat, Fluffy, is always happy to see me. |
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| Choice of words. Diction can be incorrect if the wrong word is used. It can be stilted or flowery. It can set the tone. Choice of words can be important. Wrong words can be deliberately used to indicate a character's ignorance or humor. Flowery words can reveal a character's pretension. |
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| A mournful and melancholy poem or song, usually to pay tribute to a deceased person. |
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| A story that has a moral, usually involving animals as the main characters. |
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| Language characterized by figures of speech such as metaphors and similes as well as elaborate expression through imagery. |
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A deliberate exaggeration
Example: The test was the worst in the world. |
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Language that communicates what was expressed in the dialogue, without using a direct quote.
Example: During breakfast, Janet's father told her that she couldn't borrow the car anymore. |
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An expression of meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning.
Example: The music is so loud that I can hardly hear it.
Stories can be ironic as well when they end in a way that is the opposite of what you could have expected. |
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A metaphor is a comparison like a simile, but it doesn't use the words "like" or "as". It's a little subtler.
Example: She was a breath of fresh air in the classroom.
The new principal was stricter than a prison warden. |
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| A literary representation of an event or a story - the text itself. |
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A word intended to simulate the actual sound of the thing or action it describes.
Example: A buzzing bee.
"Bam!" The superhero hit the criminal.
The snake hissed at its predator. |
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A phrase in which the words are contradictory.
Example: He was happy in his pessimism.
They were intelligently ignorant. |
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| An expression of joyful praise. |
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| A story that has a moral. The story of the Good Samaritan is a famous parable from the Bible. |
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A phrase that appears to be contradictory but that actually contains some basic truth that resolves the apparent contradiction.
Example: Although he was sentenced to ten years of hard labor, the guilt-ridden criminal looked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. |
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The repetition of sounds, meanings, or structures to create a certain style.
Example: I don't want your pity. I don't want your money. I don't want your car. I only want your love. |
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| A literary work in which the style of an author is imitated for comic effect or ridicule. |
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| A work that deals with the lives of people, especially shepherds, in the country or in nature (as opposed to people in the city). |
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Something that evokes a feeling of pity or sympathy.
Example: And so, the little orphan girl curled up on the cold steps of the church and tried to sleep. |
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Assigning human attributes to something nonhuman.
Example: I hope that fortune will smile on me when I take my exam. |
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The place from which the narrator or character sees things.
Example: From my perspective, what you did was horrible, although others might not think so. |
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| The perspective from which a story is presented to a reader. The most common points of view are first person and third person. |
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| The main character, usually the hero. |
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| Ridicule of a subject. Satire is humorous and intended to point out something about a serious subject. |
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A simile is a comparison of two things using the words "like" or "as".
Example: I'm as quick as a cricket. |
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| The divisions in a poem, like a paragraph in prose. |
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The author's unique manner of expression; the author's voice.
Example: I'm not a fan of that author; his style is too long-winded and flowery. |
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| The main idea of a piece of literature. |
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Style or manner of expression.
Example: Funeral eulogies have a somber tone. |
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| When a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. |
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| A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special. |
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| A series of events that follows the climax of a drama or narrative and ultimately concludes the story. |
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