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Literary Devices
Fuller 2025-2026 Literary Devices,,English 1 honors
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Exposition | The part of the story that introduces the setting, the characters and the basic situation. |
| Rising action | The part of the story where the conflict, or problem is introduced. |
| Climax | The turning point or the highest point in the action of the plot. It is the moment of greatest tension, when the outcome of the plot hangs in the balance. |
| Falling action | The part of the story where the conflict lessens |
| Resolution (denouement) | The story’s conclusion or outcome of the story. |
| Conflict | a struggle between opposing forces |
| Internal conflict | A struggle that takes place in the mind of a character. The character struggles to make a decision, take an action, or overcome a feeling. |
| Person vs self | When a character struggles with conflict that takes place inside the character's mind, usually involving the main character’s inner struggle with self-doubts, a moral dilemma, or his/her own nature. |
| External conflict | A struggle with an outside force, such as another person or some force of nature. |
| Person vs person | When a character has a conflict that pits one person against another. |
| Person vs nature | When a character has conflict against a natural force (as opposed to a supernatural force), for example, the weather, the wilderness, or a natural disaster. |
| Person vs society | An external conflict that occurs in literature when the protagonist is placed in opposition with society, the government, or a cultural tradition or societal norm of some kind. |
| Dynamic character | A character who changes or grows during the course of the work. |
| Static character | A character who does NOT change. These characters are often used by writers to develop conflict and are not usually the central characters in a story. |
| Direct characterization | the author directly states a character’s traits. |
| Indirect characterization | an author provides clues about a character by describing what a character looks like, does, and says, as well as how other characters react to him or her. It is up to the reader to draw conclusions. |
| Theme | The major idea of an entire work of literature. A theme may be stated or implied. (always in complete sentences) |
| 1st person POV | The story is told from the perspective of a character in the story, and the character uses the first-person pronoun “I”. |
| 3rd person POV | The story is told from the perspective of a narrator outside the story, and the narrator uses third-person pronouns such as he or she to refer to the characters. |
| 3rd person omniscient | A type of third person-point of view where the narrator knows and tells about what each character feels and thinks. |
| 3rd person limited | A type of third person point of view where the narrator relates to the inner thoughts and feelings of only one character, and everything is viewed from this character’s perspective. |
| Irony | The contrast between an actual outcome and what the reader or the characters expect. |
| Dramatic irony | Irony that occurs when the audience is aware of something that the character or speaker is not. |
| Situational irony | Irony that occurs when something happens that directly contradicts the expectations of the character or the audience. |
| Verbal irony | Irony that occurs when a person says the opposite of what is meant. |
| Authors craft | The specific techniques that an author chooses to relay an intended message. (Ex: the use of figurative language, tone, flashback, imagery, irony, word choice, syntax (sentence structure), dialogue, etc.) |
| Allusion | A reference to a well-known person, a place or an event from literature, the arts, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports or science that connect literary works to a larger cultural heritage, and allow the author to connect to the real world. |
| Dialect | The form of language spoken by people in a particular region or group. |
| Flashback | The technique of disrupting the chronological flow of a narrative by interjecting events that have occurred at an earlier time. |
| Foreshadowing | The use of clues or hints to suggest future action. |
| Symbol | A person, a place, a thing, or an event that has meaning in itself and stands for something beyond itself. |
| Motive | A reason that explains or partially explains a character’s thoughts, feelings, actions or speech. (Ex: Characters are often motivated by needs, such as food and shelter or feelings, such as fear, love, and pride.) |
| Setting | The time and place where the action in a literary work occurs. |
| Mood | The feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage, also known as atmosphere. |
| Tone | The writer’s attitude toward his or her audience and subject. (Ex: It can often be described by a single adjective, such as formal or informal, serious or playful, bitter or ironic.) |
| Bias | A personal and largely unreasoned judgment either for or against a particular person, position, or thing; a prejudice. |
| Epiphany | A character’s sudden flash of insight into a conflict or situation. |
| Archetype | A type of character, detail, image, or situation that appears in literature from around the world and throughout history. Some critics believe that they reveal deep truths about human experience. (Ex: the hero, the outcast; the quest, the task;) |
| Motif | Recurring subjects or ideas that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Think of them as the “building blocks” or “pieces” of themes. Most often, they are universal. (Ex: journey, love, regret, trickery, madness, etc.) |
| Connotation | The implicit, rather than explicit, meaning of a word, consisting of the suggestions, associations, and emotional overtones attached to a word. |
| Denotation | The most specific or literal meaning of a word; its dictionary meaning |
| Authors craft | The specific techniques that an author chooses to relay an intended message. (Ex: the use of figurative language, tone, flashback, imagery, irony, word choice, syntax (sentence structure), dialogue, etc.) |
| Imagery | Language that creates a sensory impression within the reader’s mind. visual (eyes) auditory (ears) tactile (touch) thermal (heat or cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste) kinesthetic (sensations of movement) |
| Euphemism | The substitution of a mild and pleasant expression for a harsh and blunt one |
| Hyperbole | A dramatic exaggeration or overstatement, either for comic effect or to express heightened emotion. Ex: I had so much homework that I needed a pickup truck to carry all my books home! |
| Idiom | Expressions that develop in a language, region, community, or class of people that cannot be understood literally. (For example, it’s raining cats and dogs does not mean that cats and dogs are falling from the sky, but that it is raining heavily.) |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech in which something is described as though it were something else without using “like” or “as.” |
Created by:
Pebb