LITERARY TECHNIQUES AND FIGURES OF SPEECH
The
following list contains 25 common literary techniques and figures of speech
likely to be covered on the SAT Critical Reading:
Alliteration: The repetition of similar sounds,
usually consonants, at the beginning of words. For example, Robert Frost’s poem
“Out, out—” contains the alliterative phrase “sweet-scented stuff.”
Allusion: A reference within a literary work
to a historical, literary, or biblical character, place, or event. For example,
the title of William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury alludes to a line
from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds in a
sequence of nearby words. For example, the line “The monster spoke in a low
mellow tone” (from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lotos-Eaters”) contains
assonance in its repetition of the “o” sound.
Caricature: A description or characterization
that exaggerates or distorts a character’s prominent features, usually for
purposes of mockery. For example, a cartoon of a gaunt Abraham Lincoln with a
giant top hat, a very scraggly beard, and sunken eyes could be considered a
caricature.
Cliché: An expression, such as “turn over a
new leaf,” that has been used and reused so many times that it has lost its
expressive power.
Epiphany: A sudden, powerful, and often
spiritual or life changing realization that a character experiences in an
otherwise ordinary moment. For example, the main character in James Joyce’s A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an epiphany during a walk by the sea.
Foreshadowing: An author’s deliberate use of hints
or suggestions to give a preview of events or themes that do not develop until
later in the narrative. Images such as a storm brewing or a crow landing on a
fence post often foreshadow ominous developments in a story.
Hyperbole: An excessive overstatement or
conscious exaggeration of fact. “I’ve told you that a million times already” is
a hyperbolic statement.
Idiom: A common expression that has
acquired a meaning that differs from its literal meaning, such as “It’s raining
cats and dogs” or “That cost me an arm and a leg.”
Imagery: Language that brings to mind
sensory impressions. For example, in the Odyssey, Homer creates a powerful
image with his description of “rosy-fingered dawn.”
Irony:
Broadly speaking, irony is a device that emphasizes the contrast between the
way things are expected to be and the way they actually are. A historical
example of irony might be the fact that people in medieval Europe believed
bathing would harm them when in fact not bathing led to the unsanitary
conditions that caused the bubonic plague.
Metaphor: The comparison of one thing to
another that does not use the terms “like” or “as.” A metaphor from
Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Life is but a walking shadow.”
Motif: A recurring structure, contrast, or
other device that develops a literary work’s major themes (see below). For
example, shadows and darkness are a motif in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two
Cities, a novel that contains many gloomy scenes and settings.
Onomatopoeia: The use of words like pop, hiss, or
boing, in which the spoken sound resembles the actual sound.
Oxymoron: The association of two terms that
seem to contradict each other, such as “same difference” or “wise fool.”
Paradox: A statement that seems
contradictory on the surface but often expresses a deeper truth. One example is
the line “All men destroy the things they love” from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad
of Reading Gaol.”
Personification: The use of human characteristics to
describe animals, things, or ideas. Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” describes
the city as “Stormy, husky, brawling / City of the Big Shoulders.”
Pun: A play on words that uses the
similarity in sound between two words with distinctly different meanings. For
example, the title of Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest is a
pun on the word earnest, which means serious or sober, and the name “Ernest.”
Rhetorical
question: A
question asked not to elicit an actual response but to make an impact or call
attention to something. “Will the world ever see the end of war?” is an example
of a rhetorical question.
Sarcasm: A form of verbal irony (see above)
in which it is obvious from context and tone that the speaker means the
opposite of what he or she says. Saying “That was graceful” when someone trips
and falls is an example of sarcasm.
Simile: A comparison of two things through
the use of the words like or as. The title of Robert Burns’s poem “My Love Is
Like a Red, Red Rose” is a simile.
Symbol: An object, character, figure,
place, or color used to represent an abstract idea or concept. For example, the
two roads in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” symbolize the choice
between two paths in life.
Theme: A fundamental, universal idea
explored in a literary work. The struggle to achieve the American Dream, for
example, is a common theme in 20th-century American literature.
Thesis: The central argument that an author
makes in a work. For example, the thesis of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is that
Chicago meat packing plants subject poor immigrants to horrible and unjust
working conditions, and that the government must do something to address the
problem.
Tone: The general atmosphere created in a
story, or the author’s or narrator’s attitude toward the story or the subject.
For example, the tone of the Declaration of Independence is determined and
confident.
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