Literary Terms Examples

A fire station, expected to safely resolve fires, burns down.

"His smile was as stiff as a frozen fish." (Raymond Chandler)

The student generally excelled in school, but algebra was his Achilles' heel.

"The fearful passage of their death-marked love / And the continuance of their parents' rage..." (Shakespeare, R & J)

"To feast his fill of the flesh of men." (Beowulf)

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the mockingbird appears repeatedly to signal moments of innocence and goodness.

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." (Shakespeare, As You Like It)

Springtime is a sign of new life and hope in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

"Black trees tilted, stunted black arms pointing as if to a distant place untouched by flame." (Colson Whitehead)

Romeo drinks poison so he can join Juliet in death, even though the audience knows she is actually alive.

"To the swinging and the ringing of the bells, bells, bells / ... To the rhyming and chiming of the bells!" (Poe)

"The barn... smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows." (E. B. White)

In a song, Taylor Swift describes balancing on a tightrope to narrate the fear and loss of a fragile relationship.

"... Or memorise another Golgotha, / I cannot tell." (Shakespeare, Macbeth) Golgotha was the site of Jesus' crucifixion.

I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!

The tale of Frankenstein warns against the dangers of human arrogance.

In "A Modest Proposal," Jonathan Swift satirically proposes the destitute Irish sell and cannibalize their children.

In The Great Gatsby, the green light at the end of the dock represents the unattainability of the American Dream.

"The kitten ... had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach." (Louisa May Alcott)

In The Great Gatsby, time and clocks appear repeatedly to highlight characters' relationships with the past and future.

A character's red hair shows the reader she is passionate and quick to anger.

In The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien gives descriptions in a conversational, lighthearted manner, like an adventure story.

Little did she know that things were never that easy...

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."