Ender’s Game

1. Ender’s Game Literary Terms

2. Foreshadowing • The use of hints or clues in a story to suggest what action is to come. • It is frequently used to create interest and build suspense.

3. Irony • A perception of inconsistency, sometimes humorous, in which the significance and understanding of a statement or event is changed by its context.

4. Types of Irony: • Situational irony: what happens is the opposite of what is expected • Example: The firehouse burned down. • Example: “The Gift of the Magi”

5. Types of Irony • Dramatic irony: the audience or reader knows more about a character’s situation than the character does and knows that the character’s understanding is incorrect • Example: In Medea, Creon asks, “What atrocities could she commit in one day?” The reader, however, knows Media will destroy her family and Creon’s by day’s end.

6. Types of Irony • Structural Irony: the use of a naïve hero, whose incorrect perceptions differ from the reader’s correct ones. • Example: Huck Finn

7. Types of Irony • Verbal irony: a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant; sarcasm. • Example: A large man whose nickname is “Tiny”

8. Allusion • A reference to a person, place, poem, book, event, etc., which is not part of the story, that the author expects the reader will recognize. • Example: In The Glass Menagerie, Tom speaks of “Chamberlain’s umbrella,” a reference to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

9. Persona • The author’s chosen identity in a work of literature • The plot is revealed through what this character says • This technique allows the writer to adopt the beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes of a character in the work, which allows for different approaches to stories • The reader should usually interpret the “I” in the writing as someone different from the author