1. Teddy Lesmana
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
INSTRUCTIONS:
Completely define each bolded term.
Provide three examples of each term. Make up your own example, or find an
example in other material (and cite the source). Then for each of your examples,
clearly explain how it demonstrates the device in question. For instance, "The
rock burned against my fingertips is an example of sensory imagery. This is sensory
imagery because it calls on the sense of touch."
Answer any questions thoroughly. Write as much as you need to completely
explain the answer. Vigorously demonstrate your understanding of each
concept.
* * *
Alliteration
"Alliteration is a term that describes the literary devices. Alliteration can be seen as a series of
words in a row have the same first consonant sound".
The following examples describe a series of words in a row that have the same first consonant
sound:
1. Becky’s beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy.
2. Carla cat clawed her couch, creating chaos.
3. Dan’s dog dove deep in the dam, drinking dirty water as he dove.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow1.
Here, the emphasis is on 'w' and 'h'.
Source: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/alliteration-examples.html
1 Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/consonance-examples-of-consonance.html
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2. Consonance
"Consonance describes a combination of consonant sounds or two things that are in agreement".
The following examples describesconsonant sounds or two things that are in agreement
1. Some mammals are clammy2. Here the emphasis on m's.
2. Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile3. Here the emphasis on r's, d, and j’s
3. My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays4. Here the emphasis on ay's
Assonance
"Assonance is the act of repeating a vowel sound in a phrase or sentence, often in poetry"5
The following examples describerepeating a vowel sound in a phrase or sentence:
1. Life it seems will fade away6.
2. Drifting further every day7
3. “That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea8” (William Butler Yeats).
How are these three devices similar?
These three literary devices emphasize on the repetition either consonants or vowels.
How are these devices different?
The differences lie on the emphasis (either vowels or consonants).
Two of these devices are types of the third. Which two, and why?Alliteration and consonance (both emphasize on
consonants.)
* * *
Anastrophe
Anastrophe is "reversal of the usual order of the parts of a sentence; inversion (Ex.: “Came the dawn”)9”.
Anastrophe is “most often a synonym for hyperbaton, but is occasionally referred to as a more specific
instance of hyperbaton: the changing of the position of only a single word10”.
2Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/consonance-examples-of-consonance.html
3 Source: http://fos.iloveindia.com/consonance-examples.html
4 Source: http://fos.iloveindia.com/consonance-examples.html
5 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/assonance
6 Source: http://fos.iloveindia.com/assonance-examples.html
7 Source: http://fos.iloveindia.com/assonance-examples.html
8 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/assonance
9 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/anastrophe
10 Source: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/A/anastrophe.htm
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3. Examples:
1. “Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear” (Alexander Pope)11.
2. In an inaugural address of John F. Kennedy:
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country12."
3. “It only stands / Our lives upon, to use Our strongest hands13”.
—Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra 2.1.50-51
* * *
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is "a word that sounds like the common sound of the object it is describing14".
Examples:
An onomatopoeia poem by Lee Emmett of Australia also illustrates much onomatopoeia related to
water15:
Water plops into pond
Splish-splash downhill
Warbling magpies in tree
Trilling, melodic thrill
* * *
Allusion
An allusion is" a statement that hints at something rather than being direct16.
Examples:
1. "Saying to someone, "boy you look really tired, have you been getting enough sleep" instead of
telling someone they look old because of wrinkles under their eyes17".
2. "I violated the Noah rule: predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does." ~ Warren Buffett 18
3. "I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El,
to save the Planet Earth." ~ Senator Barack Obama19
11 Source: : http://www.yourdictionary.com/anastrophe
12 Source: http://fos.iloveindia.com/anastrophe-examples.html
13 Source: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/A/anastrophe.htm
14 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/onomatopoeia
15 Source: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/5-examples-of-onomatopoeia.html
16 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/allusion
17 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/allusion
18 Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/example-of-allusion.html
19 Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/example-of-allusion.html
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4. Symbol
A symbol is "something that stands for or represents something else20".
Example:
1. Jack o' Lantern representing Halloween21.
2. The character of the madwoman in the attic in the novel "Jane Eyre" is identified in Jean Rhys's
"Wide Sargasso Sea" as a symbol for women's hidden rage22.
What is the difference between an allusion and a symbol?
Allusion send a hint from historical, literary, or biblical characters while symbol rather represents an abstract idea which is
not necessarily real.
* * *
Metaphor
A metaphor is a "word or phrase used to compare two unlike objects, ideas, thoughts or feelings to
provide a clearer description23".
Example: “She is all states, and all princes, I., a metaphysical poet John Donne24
Simile
A simile is "a figure of speech where two unlike things are compared, generally by using the word like or
as25.
Example:
"He is as hungry as a horse26."
What is the key difference between and metaphor and a simile?
While metaphor does not use terms "like" or "as", simile does.
* * *
20 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/symbol
21 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/symbol
22 Source: http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/symbol.htm
23 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/metaphor
24 Source: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-metaphors-in-poems.html
25 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/simile
26 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/simile
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5. Call and response
Call for response is "a statement quickly followed by an answering statement27".
Example:
“I AM THE OTHER 98%!” — Call and Response Speech
Raise your hand :
- if you’re a Wall Street banker.
- if you got a $10 million dollar bonus this year.
- if you’ve got an army of lobbyists in Washington.
- if you destroyed the economy — and then got a bailout from the Fed28.
* * *
Foreshadowing
Foreshadow means" to give a hint beforehand that something is going to happen29".
Example:
"In dramatic literature, [foreshadowing] inherits the name Chekhov's Gun. In a letter he penned in 1889,
Russian playwright Anton Chekhov wrote: 'One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is
thinking of firing it.' . . .30
* * *
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is "a description that is exaggerated for emphasis31".
Example:
I could sleep for a year or this book weighs a ton32.
What is a one-word synonym for hyperbole?
Amplification
* * *
27 Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/call-and-response
28 Source: http://other98.com/sample-speech/http://other98.com/sample-speech/
29 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/foreshadow
30 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/foreshadowingterm.htm
31Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/hyperbole
32 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/hyperbole
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6. Personification
Personification is "giving human characteristics to non-living things or ideas33".
Following are the examples of personification34:
1. "The sun smiling on a field of flowers35"
2. The wind stood up and gave a shout.
He whistled on his fingers and
Kicked the withered leaves about
And thumped the branches with his hand
And said he'd kill and kill and kill,
And so he will! And so he will!
(James Stephens, "The Wind")
3. "Only the champion daisy trees were serene. After all, they were part of a rain forest already two
thousand years old and scheduled for eternity, so they ignored the men and continued to rock the
diamondbacks that slept in their arms. It took the river to persuade them that indeed the world was
altered."
(Toni Morrison, Tar Baby, 1981)
4. "The small waves were the same, chucking the rowboat under the chin as we fished at anchor."
(E.B. White, "Once More to the Lake," 1941)
5. "The road isn't built that can make it breathe hard!"
(slogan for Chevrolet automobiles)
6. "Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves."
(P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves, 1930)
* * *
Asyndeton
Asyndeton is "the practice of leaving out the usual conjunctions between coordinate sentence elements36".
Following are the examples of asyndeton37:
1. "He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac."
(Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
33 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/personification
34 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/personifterm.htm
35 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/personification
36 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/asyndeton
37 Source: http://www.yourdictionary.com/asyndeton
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7. 2. "Joona walks through the Christmas market in Bollnäs Square. Fires are burning, horses are snorting,
chestnuts are roasting. Children race through a stone maze, others drink hot chocolate."
(Lars Kepler, The Hypnotist. Trans. by Ann Long. Picador, 2011)
3. "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down,
In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!"
(Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953)
4. "She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice,
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen.
He was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice,
He was base, he was bad, he was mean.
He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat
To view his collection of stamps."
(Flanders and Swann, "Have Some Madeira, M'Dear")
5. "Why, they've got ten volumes on suicide alone. Suicide by race, by color, by occupation, by sex, by
seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed: by poisons, by firearms, by drowning,
by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by types of poison, such as corrosive, irritant, systemic,
gaseous, narcotic, alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high
places, under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks, under the feet of horses, from
steamboats. But Mr. Norton, of all the cases on record, there's not one single case of suicide by leap
from the rear end of a moving train."
(Edward G. Robinson as insurance agent Barton Keyes in Double Indemnity, 1944)
6. "It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.
"Cold; tempest; wild beasts in the forest. It is a hard life. Their houses are built of logs, dark and
smoky within. There will be a crude icon of the virgin behind a guttering candle, the leg of a pig hung
up to cure, a string of drying mushrooms. A bed, a stool, a table. Harsh, brief, poor lives."
(Angela Carter, "The Werewolf." The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, 1979)
7. "I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods"
(Anne Sexton, "Her Kind")
8. "In some ways, he was this town at its best--strong, hard-driving, working feverishly, pushing,
building, driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful."
(Mike Royko, "A Tribute")
9. "Anyway, like I was saying, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it,
saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried.
There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew,
shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That--that's about it."
(Bubba in Forrest Gump, 1994)
10. "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the
river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and
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8. dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of
collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on
the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners,
wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the
wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering
little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky
of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds."
(Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852-1853)
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is”a rhetorical term for a sentence style that employs many coordinating conjunctions38”
Following are the examples of polysyndeton39:
1. [I]t is respectable to have no illusions--and safe--and profitable--and dull."
(Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, 1900)
2. "Most motor-cars are conglomerations (this is a long word for bundles) of steel and wire and rubber
and plastic, and electricity and oil and petrol and water, and the toffee papers you pushed down the
crack in the back seat last Sunday."
(Ian Fleming, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car, 1964)
3. "He pulled the blue plastic tarp off of him and folded it and carried it out to the grocery cart and
packed it and came back with their plates and some cornmeal cakes in a plastic bag and a plastic
bottle of syrup."
(Cormac McCarthy, The Road. Knopf, 2006)
4. "Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and
schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly--mostly--let them have their whiteness."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969)
5. "I don't care a fig for his sense of justice--I don't care a fig for the wretchedness of London; and if I
were young, and beautiful, and clever, and brilliant, and of a noble position, like you, I should care
still less."
(Henry James, The Princess Casamassima, 1886)
6. Count Olaf: Looks like you could use a little assistance.
Klaus Baudelaire: You're going to need assistance when we get back to town! Aunt Josephine's going to
tell everyone what happened!
Count Olaf: [sarcastically] And then I'll be arrested and sent to jail and you'll live happily ever after
with a friendly guardian, spending your time inventing things and reading books and sharpening your
little monkey teeth, and bravery and nobility will prevail at last, and this wicked world will slowly but
surely become a place of cheerful harmony, and everybody will be singing and dancing and giggling
38 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/polysyndterm.htm
39 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/polysyndterm.htm
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9. like the littlest elf! A happy ending! Is that what you had mind?
(Jim Carrey and Liam Aiken in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, 2004)
7. "Standing still, I can hear my footsteps
Come up behind me and go on
Ahead of me and come up behind me and
With different keys clinking in the pockets,
And still I do not move."
(W.S. Merwin, "Sire." The Second Four Books of Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 1993)
8. "There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes
and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the
wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the
mountains."
(Ernest Hemingway, "In Another Country," 1927)
9. "By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and
trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last
swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are
parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary
colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in
full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with
chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic
meetings between women who never knew each other's names."
(F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925)
10. "And she pushed St. Peter aside and took a keek in, and there was God--with a plague in one hand
and a war and a thunderbolt in the other and the Christ in glory with the angels bowing, and a
scraping and banging of harps and drums, ministers thick as a swarm of blue-bottles, no sight of Jim
[her husband] and no sight of Jesus, only the Christ, and she wasn't impressed. And she said to St.
Peter This is no place for me and turned and went striding into the mists and across the fire-tipped
clouds to her home."
(Ma Cleghorn in Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Grey Granite, 1934)
11. "There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens,
and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of
oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery
and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places."
(Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848)
12. "He moved very fast and pain flared in my arm as the pressure came on--he was going to break it and
I curved a thumb-shot for the eye and missed and struck again and missed and went on striking until
his head rolled back and I felt the softness of the eye and struck and dragged my arm free and went
for the throat."
(Adam Hall, The Sinkiang Executive, 1978)
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10. 13. "Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war--not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the
lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government--not any other thing. We are
the killers."
(Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, 1968)
* * *
Anaphora
Anaphora is “a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of
successive clauses40.
Following are the examples of anaphora41:
1. "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country.
What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."
(Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940)
2. "I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I
don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off."
(Policeman in The Big Lebowski, 1998)
3. "It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the
place."
(Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, 1951)
Epistrophe
Epistrophe isrepetition of a word or expression at the end of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or
verses especially for rhetorical or poetic effect (as Lincoln's “of the people, by the people, for the
people”)42.
Following are the examples of epistrophe43:
1. "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of
fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes
crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!"
(Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003)
2. "Don't you ever talk about my friends! You don't know any of my friends. You don't look at any of my
friends. And you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends."
(Judd Nelson as John Bender in The Breakfast Club, 1985)
3. "For no government is better than the men who compose it, and I want the best, and we need the best,
and we deserve the best."
(Senator John F. Kennedy, speech at Wittenberg College, Oct. 17, 1960)
40 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/anaphora.htm
41 Source: http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/anaphora.htm
42 Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epistrophe
43 Source:
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11. 4. "And close your eyes, child, and listen to what I'll tell you.
Follow in the darkest night the sounds that may impel you.
And the song that I am singing may disturb or serve to quell you."
(Jerry Merrick, "Follow," as sung by Richie Havens on the album Mixed Bag, 1967)
* * *
Sensory imagery
For this term, provide three examples for each of the five senses, for a total of fifteen examples and
explanations. Following are some examples of words specific to the five sensory systems44:
Visual Auditory Kinesthetic Olfactory Gustatory
picture scream feel pungent sweet
flash shout warm fragrant sour
bright listen grasp sweet salty
sharp tone sharp dank bitter
clear whisper peaceful rich aroma fresh
see ring cold stinky juicy
light utter rugged musty bland
dark nasal joyful rotten burnt
large squeal fuzzy odor zesty
blue quiet hard essence tangy
The following examples will take you through all the senses and will guide you to evoke specific imagery
internally. For best results, close your eyes during visualization.
Visual
A shape: circle, triangle, square
An oak tree
A rose
A sailing boat
A button
A computer
Auditory
The wind blowing through the trees
The ring on your telephone
The sound of your computer keyboard
Scales played on a guitar
Water lapping on a lake shore
More examples on auditory imagery45
44 Source: http://www.stress-relief-tools.com/types-of-imagery.html
45 Source: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-imagery.html
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12. 1. The eerie silence was shattered by her scream.
2. He could hear the footsteps of doom nearing.
3. The music coursed through us, shaking our bodies as if it came from within us.
Olfactory
Petrol fumes
Newly baked bread
Chlorine
New mown grass
Freshly brewed coffee
Gustatory (taste)
Sugar
Bananas
Salt
Lemon
Toothpaste
Kinesthetic
Kinesthetic imagery can be further divided into: sense of touch, temperature, movement, and feelings.
Touch - imagine the feelings of:
Standing barefoot on a sandy beach
Running your fingertips on satin fabric
Holding a smooth pebble
Temperature:
Sunlight falling over your arm
Holding an ice cube
Stepping into a warm bath
Movement:
Swimming
Running on grass
Throwing a ball
Feelings:
Peaceful
Angry
Sad
Calm
Happy
END
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