Discovering Literary Devices 2

1. Discovering Literary Devices 2 Personification Hyperbole Idiom Pun Onomatopoeia Oxymoron Repetition Imagery

2. Simile and Metaphor • Simile– direct comparison between two unlike objects using likeor as. • Example: Paul Bunyan is as big as a mountain. • Metaphor–a figure of speech in which something is described as though it is something else. Unlike a simile, a metaphor does not contain like or as. • Example: Paul Bunyan is a mountain of a man.

3. Extended Metaphor • A figure of speech that compares two essentially unlike things at some length. • Example: Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won… -Walt Whitman, “O Captain! My Captain!” • In this poem, President Lincoln is compared to the captain of a ship, and the ship is a metaphor for the U.S.

4. Personification • The giving of human qualities to an animal, object, or idea. • Example: Winter trees are starving, lacking leaves of spring.

5. Onomatopoeia • The use of words whose sounds suggests their meaning. • Example: The boom of thunder woke me from my nap.

6. Hyperbole • A figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or for humorous effect. • Example: He runs so fast he could catch a bullet.

7. Idiom • Phrases that have nothing to do with the meaning of the whole group of words together as a whole. • Examples: • A Dime A Dozen: Anything that is common and easy to get. • A Leopard Can't Change His Spots: You cannot change who you are.Finding Your Feet:  To become more comfortable in whatever you are doing • 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.

8. Pun • A play on words that uses the similarity in sound between two words with distinctly different meanings.

9. Oxymoron • Figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. • Examples: icy hot; jumbo shrimp; bittersweet

10. Repetition • A technique in which a sound, word, phrase, or line is repeated for effect or emphasis. • Example: In my sleep, I dream In my sleep, I believe In my sleep, I mourn

11. Imagery • Consists of words and phrases that appeal to readers’ five senses. • Example: Soft snow fall upon the waiting roofs. The fluffy flakes create a mound of white powder…

12. Symbol A person, a place, an object, or an action that stands for something beyond itself. Example: A single white dove flew above the warring country, lost in its path.