Symbol
 Anything that represents or stands for something else
 Example: “Out, damned spot!” Lady Macbeth cries in
her sleep. The blood spots she dreamed she saw on her
hands were symbols of the guilt she now feels after
helping kill Duncan.
 Example: “Fruitless crown” is a symbol of Macbeth’s
infertility; his children (which he will not have, of
course) would not have been kings.
Personification
 Giving human characteristics to something that isn’t
human, or to an abstract idea
 Example: If chance will have me King, why, chance
may crown me without my stir.
 Example: Come, seeling Night, scarf up the tender
eye of pitiful Day…
Theme
 Main ideas of the story—a “living idea” that emerges
from the plot
 Example: Good vs. evil
 Example: The effects of ambition on people
 Example: Inverted values (“fair is foul and foul is
fair”)
Foil
 A secondary character whose personal traits and
characteristics are essentially opposite from a main
character. Foils are used to highlight character
differences.
 Example: Banquo is Macbeth’s foil. Banquo, who is
more noble than Macbeth, would have treated the
witches’ prophecy much different from Macbeth, if
their roles were reversed.
Apostrophe
 Addressing an inanimate object, or something that is
dead or otherwise not present.
 Example: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, /
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch
thee!”
Metaphor
 Metaphor: A comparison that does not use like or as
 Example: Look like the innocent flower but be the
serpent underneath it.
 Example: “O full or scorpions is my mind, dear wife”
 Example: “I have begun to plant thee, and will labor
to make thee full of growing.”
Simile
 A comparison using like or as
 Example: “Your face, my thane, is as a book where
men / May read strange matters.”
 Example: “And pity, like a naked newborn babe.”