Rhetorical Devices

Using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction or concept.

A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end.

A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. 

An account of events as they happen.

A work that targets human vices or social institutions for reform or ridicule.

Generally, anything that represents itself and stands for something else.

The opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite.

A sub-type of parallelism, repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines

The sensory details used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions.

The emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work.

A figure of speech of apparentlycontradictory terms to suggest a paradox: “jumbo shrimp.” 

The multiple meanings, intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage.

An evaluation of the choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language.

A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb.

A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them.

A self‐contradictory statement, that contains some degree of truth or validity.

An adjective that describes words or general tone that is overly scholarly or academic.

From the Greek, didactic literally means “teaching.”

A figurative image that implies the similarity between things otherwise dissimilar.

The major category into which a literary work fits.

The grammatical framing of words, phrases,or paragraphs to give structuralsimilarity.

The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. 

The non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning.

Related to style, diction refers to the writer’s word choices.

This word group contains both a subject and a verb but does not express a completethought.