Vocabulary List Two

The House on Mango Street

1. Vignette: A short, well-written sketch or descriptive scene that does not have a plot but it
reveals character, mood or tone.

2. Narrator: In drama a character, found in some plays, who, speaking directly to the audience,
introduces the action and provides a string of commentary between the dramatic scenes. The
narrator may or may not be a major character in the action itself.

3. Figure of speech: A word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not
meant to be understood on a literal level.

4. Figurative language: Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken
literally or only literally.

5. Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead

person, and abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of
responding.

6. Dramatic framework: The situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic or fanciful, in which an
author places his or her characters in order to express the theme.

7. Direct metaphor: One that states the comparison explicitly, such as "fame is a bee.”

8. Implied metaphor: One that does not state the 2 terms explicitly, such as "I like to see it lap
the miles."

9. Mixed metaphor: One that has gotten out of control and “mixes” its terms so that they are
visually or imaginatively incompatible, such as "The President is a lame duck who is running
out of gas."

10. Onomatopoeia: The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning, such as
hiss, snap, bark, and bang.

11. Symbol: A person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond
itself. It often has a literal meaning but suggests or represents other meanings in the narrative
as well.

12. Synesthesia: Presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another
sensation or the stimulation of two or more senses simultaneously, [such as in the line, “With
Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—between the light—and me.”]

13. Analogy: A comparison of two things to show that they are alike in certain respects.

14. Oxymoron: A figure of speech that combines apparently contradictory or incongruous ideas or
words, such as "bitter sweet," “jumbo shrimp,” and “good grief.”

15. Understatement: Saying less than one means. It may exist not only in what one says, but also
in how one says it.
16. Metonymy/Synecdoche: It is a form of metaphor that uses a closely related idea for the idea
itself, such as “…every nation, tribe, and tongue” (instead of language) or “I love
Shakespeare” (instead of his literary works). It is also a part of something used to signify the
whole, such as “Get your butt in here right now!” [Also, it is the reverse, whereby the whole
can represent the part (e.g. “Canada played the United States in the Olympic hockey finals.”).
Another form involves the container representing the thing being contained (e.g. “The pot is
boiling.”) or the material from which an object is made standing for the object itself (e.g. “The
quarterback tossed the pigskin.”)].

17. Personification: The giving of human attributes to an animal, thing, of idea.

18. Paradox: An apparent or seeming contradiction which is nevertheless true like "life after
death."

19. Anthropomorphism: The assignment of human characteristics to a god, an animal, or an

inanimate object [such as expressed in Exodus 15:26: "If you listen carefully to the voice of
the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes…].

20. Cadence: The natural rise and fall of the voice as used in a free verse form.

21. Stanzaic form: The form taken by a poem when it is written in a series of units having the
same number of lines and usually other characteristics in common.

22. Fixed form: It is a traditional pattern of development or structure that applies to the whole
poem, such as a haiku or a limerick.

23. Free verse: Poetic lines that rely on the natural rhythms of ordinary speech but have no
regular (or fixed) meter or rhyme.

24. Ballad: A song or songlike poem that tells a story.

25. Elegy: A poem that mourns the death of a person or laments something lost.

26. Ode: A complex, generally long lyric poem on a serious subject.

27. Pastoral: A type of poem that depicts rustic life in idyllic, idealized terms.

28. Sonnet: Refers to any poem of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter.