Descriptions Julian, the narrator, provides detailed descriptions of characters’ appearances, settings, and actions. He also has a tendency to use similes in his descriptions. He remarks that the Gimp (once a friend of his) is “much taller than all the others. In the dark I couldn’t see but could only imagine the face armored with…
Tag: Literary Devices
A Boy And His Dog – Short Story – Literary Devices
Dystopia Almost every element of “A Boy and His Dog” brings the dystopic setting to life. Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia; it is a depiction of a world (usually in the future) that is bleak, emotionless, and harsh. Ellison utilizes descriptions of the physical world in addition to language, attitudes, and culture to fully…
Black Boy by Kay Boyle – Literary Devices
Point of View The story is told from the first-person point of view. The narrator is a grown woman looking back on an incident that took place when she was about 10 or 12 years old. The reader is only privy to what goes on in the mind of the narrator. Yet, because the narrator…
Animal Stories by Jason Brown – Literary Devices
Use of Time Brown freely switches back and forth between different years in the story, even within the same section. For example, one section begins with Jamie referring to the summer of 1977, when “we stayed inside and drew the shades.” A few paragraphs later, but still in the same section, he is back in…
Hamlet – Puns – Soliloquy – Revenge – Blank Verse
Aside An aside is the term for a remark uttered out loud but understood by the audience as reflecting a character’s thought while not being heard by the other characters on the stage. Hamlet’s first words in the play, ‘‘A little more than kin, and less than kind,’’ constitute an aside. The words are not…
Coriolanus – Literary Devices – Imagery
Animal Imagery Running through Coriolanus are images of animals. When Aufidius calls him ‘‘boy,’’ Coriolanus responds that he, Aufidius, is a false hound and that he, Coriolanus, has been like an eagle who has attacked the Volscians as if they were doves in a dovecote. The Roman tribunes compare Coriolanus to a wolf and the…
The Comedy Of Errors – Literary Devices
Comedy, from Farce to Romance The Comedy of Errors has widely been interpreted as not just a comedy but a farce; a comedic work that features satire and a fairly improbable plot can be considered farcical. In the nineteenth century, the British poet and scholar Samuel Taylor Coleridge affirmed that the play was in fact…
As You Like It – Literary Devices
Lyrical Interludes Shakespeare emphasized the romantic, pastoral aspect of As You Like It by including a significant number of songs and poems. In all, five different songs are performed, more than in any other comedy, while the audience hears three poems read aloud, two of Orlando’s—one of which is then parodied by Touchstone—and one of…
As You Like It – Pastoral Elements
Traditionally, a pastoral is a poem focusing on shepherds and rustic life; it first appeared as a literary form in the third century C.E. The term itself is derived from pastor, the Latin word for ‘‘shepherd.’’ A pastoral may contain artificial or unnatural elements, such as shepherd characters speaking with courtly eloquence or appearing in…
Antony and Cleopatra – Imagery – Literary Devices
Language and Imagery Antony and Cleopatra is distinguished among Shakespeare’s plays for its lush, evocative language. Some critics have even suggested that it should be classified with Shakespeare’s long poems rather than ranked alongside his plays. Scholarly discussion has focused on Enobarbus’s vividly detailed depiction of Cleopatra on her barge and on the lovers’ continual…