- What literary device does Montgomery use to describe the river and the field of daisies?
Comparisons! Montgomery compares the river to a “gleaming blue snake” and the daisies to a “field
white as snow.” These comparisons allow the reader to connect the images to something already in his
mind to create more vibrant image.
“Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south and
even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken words froze solid afore they
could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to find out what folks were talking about the night
before.”
- In this excerpt from a tall tale about Paul Bunyan, which literary device is used to great effect?
If you are thinking hyperbole, then you are correct! Think about what the author’s goal for using that
particular device might be. Hyperbole helps the author communicate to the reader that it wasn’t just plain
old cold. It was incredibly cold. However, instead of just using italics like we just did, the author used
the much more creative exaggeration of words freezing in midair to get his point across.
“Jackson pulled back the curtain to look at the rain. ‘Better start building that Ark,’ he said over
his shoulder.”- What does Jackson mean?
He means that it is raining really hard. How would you know that? Jackson says to start building an “ark,”
a reference to Noah’s Ark, which he had to build to survive a great flood. What literary device is this?
Allusion. An allusion is a reference to something (usually another great work, event, or person) without
explicit mention of it.
LITERARY DEVICES DRILL
Now let’s think back to the speech by President Kennedy. Go back and read for stylistic elements. Write
down any stylistic elements you find on a separate sheet of paper. When you are done, compare your
findings with ours below.
Here are some examples of style devices and rhetorical elements you may have found in the speech.
- Metaphor: JFK uses the metaphor of space as the ocean when he says, “We set sail on this new
sea” in the first paragraph. This metaphor is continued later in the paragraph with “whether this
new ocean will be a sea of peace.”
In the seventh paragraph, JFK says that Houston will “become the heart” of a large scientific
community.Rice will “reap the harvest” of the new advancements in technology.Imagery: JFK mentions “feeding the fires of war” which creates the image of war as a dangerous,
uncontrollable element of nature.