Literary Devices Quiz

The masks they wore weren't just for disguise—the Jews became mice scurrying beneath the floorboards, hiding from the sharp-eyed cats who prowled the streets.

• Metaphor

• Personification

• Allusion

• Synecdoche

"The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it."

• Verbal Irony

• Understatement

• Hyperbole

• Paradox

The gates of Auschwitz stood before us, its iron teeth grinning with anticipation.

• Oxymoron

• Personification

• Metonymy

• Hyperbole

The swastika rose over Europe, and beneath its shadow, millions disappeared.

• Synecdoche

• Metaphor

• Metonymy

• Personification

We received no bread that day. We were given a much more valuable commodity: hope.

• Verbal Irony

• Hyperbole

• Oxymoron

• Metaphor

His Auschwitz tattoo was a library card to memories no one wanted to check out.

• Metaphor

• Synecdoche

• Anaphora

• Metonymy

The shadows around us had been watching us, silent witnesses to a world turned inside out.

• Personification

• Hyperbole

• Allusion

• Paradox

The empty bowls, the empty bunks, the empty eyes—emptiness was the only thing in abundance.

• Anaphora

• Synecdoche

• Metonymy

• Hyperbole

In the barracks, the privileged prisoners ate while the starving watched; outside, the SS officers laughed while the inmates wept; during roll call, the strong remained standing while the weak collapsed.

• Antithesis

• Metaphor

• Oxymoron

• Paradox

Poland was not a country for mice in 1939; the cats had declared open season.

• Synecdoche

• Metaphor

• Personification

• Verbal Irony