Literary Terms Defined (aka high school was a long time ago)
Literary Devices
Symbolism: when one thing is used to represent another
Example: a dove as a symbol for peace, a white flag as a symbol for surrender
Irony: When you expect one thing and the total opposite happens at the end of the story.
Three types of irony your child may mention are listed below with examples:
Verbal irony: a statement in which the actual meaning is different from what the words are actually saying. Sometimes it may be sarcastic, however, verbal irony and sarcasm are not same thing. True verbal irony is not meant to hurt or taunt.
Example: On a blustery, rainy day the statement, “What a beautiful day!” is ironic, not sarcastic.
Dramatic Irony: when the audience knows something that one or more of the characters does not know and the audience sees the action or language of the character as irony.
Example: In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet the audience is aware that Juliet has taken a sleeping potion and is not dead. Romeo, assuming she is dead, poisons himself. Had he waited, he would have seen Juliet awaken.
The Mystery of Eatum Hall by John Kelly is an entire book of dramtic irony. This is a wolf story, but the Pork-Fowlers (a pig-goose husband-wife team) have no idea that's the case. Horace Pork-Fowler, the narrator, informs us that he and Glenda have been invited by the new owner of Eatum Hall (Mr. A. Hunter) for a weekend of free overeating. They didn't see sly Mr. Hunter, a wolf, deliver the invitation. But we did! Mr. Hunter clearly plans to fatten the Pork-Fowlers for a Sunday slaughter and then to serve them to his wolf friends. The wonderfully ominous pictures tell that story, but Horace and Glenda remain gluttonously oblivious.
Situational Irony: when what actually happens isn’t what is expected to happen, it often defies logic.
Example: Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins is a book in which the action is all situational irony. Rosie walks around the barnyard and doesn’t realize that she is being pursued by a hungry wolf. While Rosie manages to avoid falling in the pond, the fox winds up in the pond. The hen is able to step around a rake, that nails the fox, etc.
Flashback: section that interrupts a present story to relate an event from the past
Example: Judi Kurjian’s In My Own Backyard opens with a boy looking through his bedroom window and wondering "how many people had stood where I was, looking at this very same place." Suddenly, the quiet landscape of garden, brook and mountain reverses its usual forward course toward noon and turns backward in time. A succession of scenes—showing: people cutting hay with scythes; a sawmill and oxen teams; settlers; Native Americans celebrating a harvest--carry the reader deep into history. As the time trip gathers speed, the boy sees glaciers, dinosaurs, dense steamy air, swamps swelling into oceans and "a beach with hissing sulphur springs.
Foreshadowing: clues given to suggest what going to happen later.
Examples: In Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigswe have an example of direct foreshadowing “. . . the whole big bad wolf thing is all wrong. The real story is about a sneeze and a cup of sugar.”
In McPhail’s Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore the foreshadowing is set up by t
he rhythm which is quite similar to Poe’s “The Raven”.
Figurative Language
Some common examples of figurative language are listed below with examples.
Simile: a comparison of two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”.
Example: He is as strong as a bull. She is as pretty as a picture.
Metaphor: a comparison of two like things without using “like” or “as” .
Example: She is a gem. He is a rock.
Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration for effect.
Example: I walked 1,000 miles. I had a gazillion math problems for homework.
Onomatopoeia: the word itself makes the sound it names.
Example: honk, splat, boom, crunch
Literary Elements
Setting: Time, place, and physical environment of a story
Theme: The overall meaning of the story (love, greed, death, courage)
Plot: Sequence of events in a story
Exposition: Usually at the beginning of the story. It introduces the characters, plot and theme
Climax: The high point of the plot. It’s where the conflict is typically resolved.
Resolution: How the conflict is solved, how it all works out.