litdevices

toc =Literary Devices= Examples from Young Adult Novels and Literature Books

=**Alliteration**=

** She sells seashells by the seashore. ** ** The shells she sells are surely seashells. ** ** So if she sells shells on the seashore, ** ** I'm sure she sells seashore shells. **** (Betty Love July 5, 2013) **

Alliteration
Over the __c__obbles he __c__lattered and __c__lashed (//Glencoe Literature: Reading with Purpose, Course 3//; Posted by Leslie Hughes)

From the Harry Potter series : several book titles (Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghous, Holidays with Hag) and character names (Godric Griffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall and MANY more). (Posted by Karen Parker)

From Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night". . . (Lynne Burgess) I have **stood still** and **stopped** the **sound** of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street

From Jean Toomer's poem "Reapers": "Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes.." (Posted by A Wilkinson)

From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan": (posted by A Denney) "In Xandadu did **Kubla Khan**/ A stately pleasure **dome decree**:/ Where Alph, the sacred **river, ran**/ Through caverns **measureless to man**/ Down to a **sunless sea**"

Allusion
From // Romeo and Juliet //, referring to mythological Cupid and Diana: " Well, in that hit you miss: she'll not be hit/With Cupid's arrow; she hath Dian's wit..." (submitted by Jennifer Carmack)

Anthropomorphism
In many of the fables of La Fontaine, the author gives the animals human abilities, such as speech. Some of these fables are //Le Corbeau et le renard//, //Le Cigale et le fourni//, and //Les Animaux malades de la Peste//. (MSears)

A wonderful example of Anthropomorphism is from Ruyard Kipling's //Jungle Book.// This story opens with: "It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world." (Submitted by Doug Milligan)

Metaphor:
//Paper Towns// by John Green is a novel that basically IS a 305 page extended metaphor. How many YA books can boast that they incorporate Whitman and Melville repeatedly and in different contexts into the narrative to increase the metaphorical resonance?!? The novel is organized into three different sections- the strings, the grass, and the vessel- that represent the protagonist's evolving interpretation of life, particularly the effect of pain upon one's sanity and the perception of others. The following text is the protagonist's final analysis of each of these metaphors:

“When I’ve thought about him dying – which admittedly isn’t that much – I always thought of it like you said, that all strings inside him broke. But there are a thousand ways to look at it: maybe the strings break, or maybe our ships think, or maybe we’re grass – our roots are so interdependent that no one is dead as long as soneone is still alive. We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you’re imagining a world in which you can become irreparably broken. If you choose grass, you’re saying that we are all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems not only to understand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications… I like the strings, I always have. Because that’s how it // feels //. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is…We are not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me imagine you as an actual person. But we’re not different sprouts from the same plant. I can’t be you. You can’t be me. You can imagine another well- but not quite perfectly, you know? “Maybe, it’s more like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen-these people leave us, or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable…But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it’s only in that time that we can see each other, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never looking inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.”

This example is from Shakespeare's //Macbeth//, Act V Scene 3
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets its hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by idiots, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Posted by Laura Page (great metaphor example - Vicki Cornelius) "

"They smashed up things and creatures and then they retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness." (from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; submitted by Ken L. Spear)

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and **Juliet is the sun**." (//Romeo and Juliet//--Act II scene ii; submitted by JoCarrie Partain)

"blow through his nose like a foghorn" from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevendon
“I have passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine." //A Tale of Two Cities// by Charles Dickens (Patricia Tanton) I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all... From Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, //The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,// The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,..." "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes (Sharon Boling) "Look how he grins //and swings the scaly horror of his folded tail." "//Lizards and Snakes" by Anthony Hecht (Sharon Boling) //The mere brute pleasure of reading- the sort of pleasure a cow must get from grazing. GK Chesterston from Anna Quindlen's "How reading changed my life" ( Linda Stringer)// "Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor" "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros (Martha Kohl) "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you." In //A Wrinkle in Time// by Madeleine L'Engle, Mrs. Whatsit compares human life to a sonnet. ( Chandra West ) " It wasn’t until they stepped out into the eighteenth floor that the building became a crawling hive---children chasing each other down the corridors, both domestic and stray cats creeping tight against the walls, the ever-constant blur of netscreen-chatter spilling from the doorways." //Cinder// by Marissa Meyer submitted by Gayle J. Rogers

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine Just own the night like the 4th of July 'Cause, baby, you're a firework Come on, show 'em what you're worth Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah" As you shoot across the sky-y-y ( Katy Perry - Firework - posted by LClark 7/714)

Cause I want you, And I feel you, Crawling underneath my skin Like a hunger, Like a burning, To find a place I've never been (Nick Lachey - What's Left of Me - posted by LClark 7/7/14)

by Garth Brooks
 * "The River"**

You know a dream is like a river Ever changin' as it flows And **a dreamer's just a vessel** Trying to learn from what's behind you And never knowing what's in store Makes each day a constant battle Just to stay between the shores... I will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry Like a bird upon the wind These waters are my sky I'll never reach my destination If I never try So I will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry (posted by LClark 7/7/14)
 * That must follow where it goes**

Simile
"Moose Malloy looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food." //Farewell My Lovely// by Raymond Chandler (DGiddy)

** "One woman had long, pale blond hair, straight as corn silk." from //Breaking Dawn// by Stephanie Meyer **
The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. //A Tale of Two Cities// by Charles Dickens (Elizabeth Goodson) Mother whose heart hung humble as a button On the bright splendid shroud of your son From War is Kind by Stephen Crane "He's as like as twins. He can crack us like lice with his fingernail." "Lizards and Snakes" by Anthony Hecht (Sharon Boling) His hope and confidence had never gone, but now they were freshening as when the breeze arises. "The Old Man and The Sea" Hemingway (Linda Stringer) "Some are skinny like chicken lips. Some are baggy like soggy Band-aids after you get out of the bathtub. I don't care what kind I get. Just as long as I get hips." "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros (Martha Kohl) “Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough….” "A Rose for Emily " by William Faulkner (Grace Andres) "Florida was plenty hot, certainly, an humid, too. Hot enough that your clothes stuck to you like Scotch tape, and sweat dripped like tears from you forhead into your eyes." __Looking for Alaska__ John Green (Posted by A. Denney) From Ayn Rand's //Anthem,// "The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood." (Posted by jgteach30). Bernie had a stubborn streak that ran the length of her spine like the white stripe on a skunk. __So B. It__ by Sarah Weeks(posted by Shannon Clark 7/13/11)

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in? (Katy Perry - Firework- posted by LClark 7/7/14)

by Garth Brooks
 * "The River"**

You know **a dream is like a river** Ever changin' as it flows And a dreamer's just a vessel That must follow where it goes Trying to learn from what's behind you And never knowing what's in store Makes each day a constant battle Just to stay between the shores... I will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry Like a bird upon the wind These waters are my sky I'll never reach my destination If I never try So I will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry (posted by LClark 7/7/14)

Imagery
Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crepe and dimmed the light of the candles. From The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorn So hot, if you were packing candy, you had a soup in your pocket by two o'clock.So hot, the dogs were tripping over their own tongues. "Maniac McGee" Jerry Spinelli ( Linda Stringer) "But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it. It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in" from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (Martha Kohl) "The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough." -- In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound (Kelli Paramore) "I looked upon the scene before me- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain- upon the bleak walls- upon the vacant eyelike windows-upon a few rank sedges- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees- with an utter depression of soul, which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of the reveler upon opium- the bitter lapse into everyday life- the hideous dropping off of the veil." from "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe (Posted by A. Denney)

==Characterization: The writers from Pilgrim whose journals make up the only written account of Thanksgiving are described below: "As for this poor relation, I pray you to accept it, as being writ by the several actors themselves, after their plain and rude manner; therefore, doubt nothing of the truth thereof. If it be defective in any thing, it is their ignorance, that are better acquainted with planting than writing. " //Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth// copyright 1622 Atticus is **characterized** as an almost impossibly virtuous man, always doing what is right and imparting impeccable moral values to his children. From //To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee (Allison Whisenant Delbert) "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made . . . . " from //The Great Gatsby// by F. Scott Fitzgerald(Grace Andres) Mad Molly scratched her grizzled hair beneath her dark wool shawl and cackled, "Glory Be!" from __Only the River Runs Free__ by Bodie and Brock Thoene==

**Personification**
"The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky." from //Their Eyes were Watching God// by Zora Neale Hurston (Chandra West)

"With a cold November wind stabbing through his jacket, Darrell Mercer took one last walk with his best friend, Malik Stone." from //The Bully// by Paul Langan (Sandy Mallicoat) A screaming comes across the sky. Thomas Pynchon's //Gravity's Rainbow// 1973 (Jennifer Calhoun) The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. William Gibson's //Neuromancer 1984 (Jennifer Calhoun)//

"The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky." from //Their Eyes Were Watching God// by Zora Neale Hurston (Dianne Huey)

"Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders:" from "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg (L. Carter)

"I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;" from "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert W. Service. The author assigns fear as something human that he can actually wrestle with in the snow. He also portrays the stars as being human by having the ability to dance. (Terry Green)


 * MOTIF**: A recurring important idea or image. A motif differs from a theme in that it can be expressed as a single word or fragmentary phrase, while a theme usually must be expressed as a complete sentence. Example: Blood is an important motif in " A Tale of Two Cities", appearing numerous times throughout the novel. (posted by Rebecca Cox for elearning/REA3465/Session_4}

"Four legs good, two legs bad." //Animal Farm// (SBailey)

=Onomatopoeia: = the formation of words whose sound is imitative of the sound of the noise or action designated, such as hiss, buzz, and bang (M. Marsh)bing bang boom


 * PARADOX**--We wonder sometimes how opposites can exist at the same time and still have validity. This partial quote from Dickens' __A Tale of Two Cities__ is an example of paradox: "IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . ." (posted by Minnie Dewberry)

"A stormy night on the eve of a murder" from "The Monkey's Paw"- Sorry, that my example is not from the high school level, but I am moving in a week, so ALL of my books are packed in boxes. Posted by Megan Hall
 * Foreshadowing**
 * Juliet - "Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of the tomb." The next time Juliet from Shakespeare's //Romoe and Juliet// sees Romeo is when they are in the tomb. She wakes to find him dead. (Posted by Anita Richter)**

"No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. " //Animal Farm.// (SBailey)

Hyperbole
A deliberate exaggeration or overstatement often used for comic effect. Mark Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" contains many examples including the claim that Jim Smiley "followed a bug as far as Mexico to win a bet." (posted by Lindy Mastin for session 4)

**Hyperbole**
//From Casey At The Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer: "Then from the gladdened multitude went up a joyous yell---It rumbled in the mountaintops, it rattled in the dell; It struck upon the hillside and rebounded on the flat; For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. (posted by Eileen Edling/ Summer 2011, session 4)//

This is an example from **"**__**A Tale of Two Cities"**__ : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", Posted by Henry Williams
 * Oxymoron**

Another example from Milton's __Paradise Lost__, "No light, but rather darkness rather visible." (Posted by Lynne Burgess)

**Rhyme Scheme** It was two by the village clock, (A) When he came to the bridge in Concord town. (B) He heard the bleating of the flock, (A) And the twitter of birds among the trees, (C) And felt the breath of the morning breeze (C) Blowing over the meadow brown. (B) And one was safe and asleep in his bed (D) Who at the bridge would be first to fall, (E) Who that day would be lying dead, (D) Pierced by a British musket ball. (E) - from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, //Paul Revere's Ride//. (Posted by Jonathan Jenkins)

Theme
Examples from //The Hunger Games//: (1) the inequality between rich and poor and (2) suffering as entertainment (posted by Meredith Sheffield)

This example is from Shakespeare's //Macbeth//, Act V Scene 3
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets its hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by idiots, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Posted by Laura Page "