Literary Devices

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Literary Devices

• To help us understand Vinces language in Son of
  the Mob

2
Simile

• A comparison using like or as
• Examples
• My family eats like an army.
• The pine trees stand like soldiers around our
  cottage.
• That book was as thrilling as the Behemoth.

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4
Metaphor

• A comparison between two unlike things, without
  using like or as
• Examples
• Life is a highway. -- songwriter, Tom Cochrane
• Life for me aint been no crystal stair.
• its had boards torn up
• And splinters on the stairs. -- poet, Langston
  Hughes
• For if dreams die
• Life is a broken-winged bird
• That cannot fly. Langston Hughes

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Personification

• Giving human qualities to non-human (inanimate)
  objects
• Examples
• that rifle leaves the silence terrified --poet
  Sid Marty
• the river snuffled on the beach poet Irving
  Layton
• the monstrous anger of the guns poet Wilfred
  Owen

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Alliteration

• Neighbouring words start with the same sound
• Examples
• The woods are lovely, dark and deep poet
  Robert Frost
• Then a hood covered my head.
• Dont make it harder for us, the hangman
  whispered. poet Alden Nowlan

7
Hyperbole (Exaggeration)

• Obvious exaggeration of the facts (can have a
  comic or serious effect)
• Example
• I have seen many amazing things in my long and
  troubled life history. I have seen a series of
  corridors built entirely of human skulls. I have
  seen a volcano erupt and send a wall of lava
  crawling toward a small village. I have seen a
  woman I loved picked up by an enormous eagle and
  flown to its high mountain nest. But I can still
  not imagine what it was like to watch Aunt
  Josephines house topple into Lake Lachrymose.
• -- from Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate
  Events

8
Irony

• Irony occurs when someone says something but the
  reverse is true
• Or, it occurs when a situation is the opposite of
  what is expected
• Example
• Mikeys father Peter is a great champion. He
  wins bets in the pubs by drinking more pints than
  anyone He wins all that money but he doesnt
  bring it home. Sometimes hes like my father and
  drinks the dole itself author Frank McCourt,
  in Angelas Ashes

9
Allusion

• An allusion is a reference to a well-known
  person, event or thing in life, literature or
  history. The audience is familiar with the term.
• Example
• He realized that by coming to the dance he had
  brought his problems with him like a Trojan
  Horse, and he could only hope he would be able to
  keep them bottled up
• from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller