Of Mice and Men

							Figurative
Language
            Alliteration
• Repeated consonant sounds

• Sweet smell of success

• Hear the loud alarum bells--
  Brazen bells!
  What a tale of terror, now, their
  turbulency tells!
       Allusion
• Cross reference to
  another work of art
“She’ll be not hit with
  Cupid’s arrow. She hath
  Dian’s wit.”
          Anadiplosis
• Figure of repetition that occurs when the
  last word or terms in one sentence,
  clause, or phrase is/are repeated at or
  very near the beginning of the next
  sentence, clause, or phrase.

• "They call for you: The general who
  became a slave; the slave who became
  a gladiator; the gladiator who defied an
  Emperor. Striking story."
             Anaphora
• Repetition of the initial word(s) over
  successive phrases or clauses

• "To raise a happy, healthy, and hopeful
  child, it takes a family; it takes teachers;
  it takes clergy; it takes business people;
  it takes community leaders; it takes
  those who protect our health and safety.
  It takes all of us."
          Apostrophe
• A figure of speech in which someone
  absent or dead OR something
  nonhuman is addressed as if it were
  alive and present.

• O books who alone are liberal and free,
  who give to all who ask of you and
  enfranchise all who serve you faithfully!
  -- Richard de Bury
     Assonance
• Repeated vowel sounds

• “The June moon loomed
  over the horizon.”
         Asyndeton
• a string of words not separated by
  normally occurring conjunctions

• "We use words like honor, code,
  loyalty. We use these words as
  the backbone of a life spent
  defending something. You use
  them as a punch line."
             En media res
• Narrative technique in which the story
  starts at the midpoint
         Epanalepsis
• beginning and ending a phrase or
  clause with the same word or words

But I ain't goin' no 10,000 miles to
 help murder and kill other poor
 people. If I wanna die, I'll die right
 here, right now fightin' you -- if I
 wanna die.
         Euphemism
• substitution of an agreeable or
  less offensive expression for
  one that may offend or suggest
  something unpleasant to the
  listener

• Full figured
                   Epic
• long, narrative poem on a serious subject,
  presented in an elevated or formal style

• Odyssey
        Epic/Homeric Simile
• Homeric (or Epic) Simile - an extended,
  elaborated, ornate simile developed in a
  lengthy descriptive passage

• “He eats in bird-like quantities, accepting
  tiny portions at fleeting intervals, as the
  sparrow perched above the rose bush
  snatches the small green aphids from the
  dewy leaf.”
                  Epithet
• Brief phrase that points out traits
  associated with a particular character.

• Odysseus=“the master strategist”
             Foreshadowing
• an author uses subtle hints about plot
  developments to come later in the story

•   “O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
•   Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
•   As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
•   Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st
    pale.” (Juliet Act III, Scene V in Romeo &
    Juliet)
                  Hubris
• Hubris - from the Greek word for pride or
  insolence, it is exaggerated self pride or
  self-confidence (overbearing pride), often
  resulting in fatal retribution

• “Men hold me formidable for guile in peace
  and war: this fame has gone abroad to
  the sky’s rim.”
        Hyperbole
• An extreme exaggeration

• I’ve heard that a million
  times.
• She is a hundred feet tall.
               Invocation
• an appeal to a god or goddess for
  inspiration

• e.g. “TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious
  hero who traveled far and wide after he
  had sacked the famous town of Troy.”
               Irony
• Discrepancy between expectation
  and reality
• 3 Types:
  –Situational
  –Dramatic
  –Verbal
             Juxtaposition
• Placing two unlike objects or ideas near
  one another for contrast

• “…and swiftly ran through all his evening
  chores. Then he caught two more men
  and feasted on them.” (juxtaposition of the
  mundane chores with the heinous)
                Metaphor
• Direct comparison two things

• “All the world's a stage,
   And all the men and women merely players;
  They have their exits and their entrances;”
  (Shakespeare, As You Like It)
              Motif
• recurring element that has
  symbolic significance in the story
• devices that can help to develop
  and inform the text’s major
  themes.
• can be an idea, an object, a
  place, or a statement
    Onomatopoeia
• Words that sound like
  what they are

• Pop, crackle, snap
       Oxymoron
• contradictory word pair

• “loving hate”
• “sick health”
           Paradox
• Statement that seems to be a
  contradiction but actually reveals a
  truth
• "War is peace."
  "Freedom is slavery."
  "Ignorance is strength."
  (George Orwell, 1984)
    Parallel Structure
• Successive words, phrases, clauses with
  the same or very similar grammatical
  structure.

• "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us
  well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear
  any burden, meet any hardship, support
  any friend, oppose any foe to assure the
  survival and the success of liberty."
   Personification
• Giving humanlike
  characteristics to an
  inanimate object

• The window winked at me.
       Polysyndeton
• the deliberate and excessive use of
  conjunctions in successive words or
  clauses

• "In years gone by, there were in
  every community men and women
  who spoke the language of duty and
  morality and loyalty and obligation."
          Pun
• Play on words

• What kind of pants do
  ghosts wear?
  Boo jeans
              Repetition

• rhetorical strategy for
  producing emphasis,
  clarity, amplification, or
  emotional effect
• Umbrella term for many others:
  polysyndeton, etc.
  Rhetorical Question
• figure of speech in the form of a
  question posed for rhetorical
  effect rather than to receive an
  answer

• Are you crazy? Are you kidding?
                    Satire
• Literary technique in which ideas,
  behaviors, institutions, etc. are ridiculed for
  the purpose of improving society.

• The Onion
                  Simile
• Comparison of two things using the words
  like or as

• “They were people, but lived like animals.”
  (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)
     Symbolism
• Something that
  represents something
  beyond itself