Literary Devices

(Figurative Language)
• Figurative language is a tool that
an author uses to help the
reader visualize what is
happening in a story or poem.
Figurative language is meant to
be interpreted imaginatively,
not literally
 Types of Figurative Language:
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
• Hyperbole
• Onomatopoeia
• Irony
• Symbol
• Imagery
 Simile
• a figure of speech that compares two
dissimilar things by using the key words
“like” or “as”.
Example: -Her feet felt like ice.
-The man on the bench looked
as old as time
- “I would have given anything for
the power to soothe her frail soul,
tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance
like a small bird beating about the cruel
wires of a cage.” –Joseph Conrad
 Metaphor
•a figure of speech that compares two
unlike things describing one as if it
were the other.
(Does not use “like” or “as”)
Examples: The leaves were a blanket covering the ground.
My brother’s room is a pigpen.
There were a sea of fans waiting for her to come on
stage.
 Personification
• a figure of speech in which human
qualities are given to a nonhuman
subject

Example:
• The leaves danced in the autumn wind.
• The lightening lashed out with anger.
 Hyperbole
•an exaggerated statement or
overstatement. It’s a figure of speech
that is not to be taken literally.
Example –
•I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!
•I will die if she asks me to dance.
•It’s boiling in here.
 Irony
• The use of words to express something
different or opposite from their literal
meaning (Not what you expected).
– There are three types of irony
• Situational Irony
• Dramatic Irony
• Verbal Irony
 Situational Irony
• When things turn out differently than
expected.
Examples:
– A greedy millionaire winning the lottery.
– Two bank robbers have their car stolen
while robbing a bank.
– A man survives a plane crash only to be
killed on the way to the hospital in an
ambulance wreck.
 Dramatic Irony
• When the audience knows something the
character doesn’t.
– Example: When we know as an audience
that someone is hiding in the closet, but
the character doesn’t.
 Verbal Irony
•When the author says one thing but means
another.
• Example:
• When somebody drops a tray of food and
someone tells them “good job”.
• “I will die if he asks me to dance.”
 Symbol
• Symbols are animals,
elements, things, places, or
colors, writers use to
represent other things.
–Example:
• Snake – Evil, Temptation.
• The colour black - Death
 Imagery
• When an author uses words that appeal to one or
more of our senses.
– Examples:
• The cold of late December blew against my
skin as I walked up to my family’s festive
house for our holiday dinner. As I walked in
the door, the aromas of warm apple pie and
honey baked ham made me feel at home once
again.
 Alliteration
• The repetition of an initial consonant sound
(consonants are all of the letters of the
alphabet that are not vowels.
– Example:
• "The soul selects her own society.“
• “A moist young moon hung above the
mist of a neighboring meadow."
 Onomatopoeia
• the formation of a word from a sound
associated with what is named

• Cuckoo
• Sizzle
• Zip
• Snap