Literary Devices

a comparison of two unlike things using the word "like" or "as"

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• oxymoron

a direct comparison of two unlike things; saying one thing IS another

• hyperbole

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

giving human-like qualities to nonhuman things

• situational irony

• alliteration

• oxymoron

• personification

an extreme exaggeration

• hyperbole

• oxymoron

• onomatopoeia

• motif

an object that represents an idea larger than itself

• motif

• verbal irony

• symbol

• idiom

two consecutive words with opposite or very different meanings

• oxymoron

• simile

• situational irony

• assonance

a reference to someone, somewhere, or something famous (most commonly made to the Bible, mythology, or Shakespeare)

• assonance

• idiom

• allusion

• foreshadowing

a group of words that has a collective meaning different from that of the individual words

• idiom

• verbal irony

• paradox

• onomatopoeia

repetition of beginning word sounds that are close together

• onomatopoeia

• alliteration

• allusion

• pun

repetition of internal vowel sounds in neighboring words

• onomatopoeia

• alliteration

• assonance

• allusion