Literary Devices
Most frequently used on the AP Literature Exam
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Diction – there will always be a multiple choice diction question
a. Types - to analyze diction go to the nouns and verbs in the sentence. Choose two highlighters, they must be in
different colors. Highlight all the nouns in one color only and write them on the left margin of your paper. What
type of connotation do you get? Then, highlight all the verbs in the passage in another color. Write your verbs on
the right margin of the paper. Remember these verbs will include feelings and emotions.
b. Diction is also monosyllabic and polysyllabic.
i. Monosyllabic – only has one syllable. For example: bar, her, its why, just, not, both, since, health
ii. Polysyllabic – has three or more syllables. For example: exciting; wonderful; fantastic; irregular;
unnecessarily; wickedly
c. Contributing to tone and mood - how does diction (word choice) contribute to tone and mood.
i. Tone – is the attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character. In writing, tone is revealed
by word choice. – give list of word choices.
ii. Mood is usually created through descriptive details and evocative language and to suggest the writer’s
particular worldview.
d. Contributing to Author’s Style – Style is the writer’s characteristic manner of employing language (The AP Vertical
Teams Guide for English, p. 16).
Tone - If you see a tone question or an identity question you can expect a shift to occur somewhere in the reading
passage.
a. Identification (the tone)
b. In passage as a whole (the tone)
c. In one paragraph
d. Shifts (in tone) – remember poetry
e. Location in shift
Syntax – Sentence Structure – this is the function of simple sentences, the writer’s style. Also make sure you know all
the terminology to syntax.
a. Quotient/verbal patterns
b. Phrases, clauses, and sentences
Function/Effect of
a. Word(s) – how it works in sentence
b. Phrases- function
c. Clauses
d. Literary elements
e. Rhetorical strategies – use of detail, repetition
Grammar – most grammar will be noun/pronoun reference
Figures of Speech/Literary Terms
a. Identification
b. Finding examples
c. Main types used in passages
Point of View
a. Types
i. First Person Point of View – the narrates the story using “I” or “me” to tell the story
1. Participant – The narrator is a central/major character in the story and is directly involved in the
action.
2. Major character - The major characters may have prejudices or needs to justify their own actions
to themselves which may distort what we're told.
3. Minor character - The minor characters observe the action without being an integral part of it, and
they lack essential information. We may have to guess about what really happened or is
happening.
4. Innocent Eye Narrator – the character telling the story may be child or a developmentally disabled
individual; the narrator is thus naive. The contrast between what the innocent-eye narrator
perceives and what the reader understands may produce an ironic effect.
5. Stream of Consciousness - (interior monologue) is a narrative method in modern fiction in which
the author tells the story through an unbroken flow of thought and awareness. The technique
attempts to capture exactly what is going on in the mind of a character.
6. Different times of a narrator’s life
ii. Second Person Point of View - When “you” is used to narrate the story. It can be intimate or accusatory.
This should be used in adventure and recipe books. This is a non-participant point of view. You will see
the use of “you,” “your,” “yourself” but is rarely used in literature.
iii. Third Person Point of View
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Non-Participant Point of View - The nonparticipant point of view is also called the third-person
point of view because third-person pronouns (he, him, she, her, they, and them) are used to tell the
story.
a. “Omniscient” - The all knowing narrator can tell us about the past, present and future of
all the characters (godlike). The author enters the minds of all the characters.
b. “Limited” - The narration does not use “I” or “me”. Only he/she/it. The narrator focuses
on the thoughts and feelings of just one character. The author limits his omniscience to
the minds of a few of the characters or to the mind of a single character. Third person
limited is similar to omniscient, except the writer can only access the thoughts and
feelings of one character. The writer stays by the side of this character, so the story is
limited to this one person’s experiences, and the narrator tells the story through this one
character’s eyes and mind. By putting limitations on what the reader is able to know,
suspense and mystery become much more available to the writer. Also, the narrator often
takes on the attitudes of the point of view character, assuming that the character’s beliefs
about the events of the story are true. This brings the focus in on this one select character
and makes the story much more personal.
c. Objective Narrator - The author does not enter a single mind, but instead records what
can be seen and heard. This type of narrator is like a camera or a fly on the wall.
iv. Psychic Distance (Close 3rd Person) – there are five stages: (1) Basic Situation, General Details, No
Emotion; (2) Specific Person, Added Detail, Mild Emotion; (3) Characters are more personal; (4) Extreme
Emotion; (5) All Fragments, Particular(ing), Second Person
v. Unreliable Narrator - A narrator who, intentionally or unintentionally, relates events in a subjective or
distorted manner. The author usually provides some indication early on in such stories that the narrator is
not to be completely trusted. To get an understanding of Unreliable Narration the following must be
applied:
1. Reconstruct meaning to test validity
2. Too self interested
3. Not sufficiently experienced
4. Not sufficiently knowledgeable
5. Not sufficiently moral
6. Too emotional
7. Actions to inconsistent with words
8. Culturally displaced
9. Compare the facts to the situation
10. Apply your knowledge to the world
vi. What If? - What if the point of view changes from a different character’s perspective? What would the
outcome of the novel, play or poem be like?
b. Multiple – when you see this you need to ask yourself, “What is the effect of multiple points of view?” Typically,
Multiple Points of View are present in dramas and plays.
Use of Irony – is the use of contrast
a. Types
i. Verbal Irony - Consists of implying a meaning different from, and often the complete opposite of, the one
that is explicitly stated. Usually, the irony is signaled by clues in the context of the situation or in the style
of expression. In complex cases, the detection of irony may depend on values that the author assumes are
shared by his or her audience. Be careful, as verbal irony requires subtle reading and comprehension and is
always in danger of being misconstrued, and thereby of shocking or offending a naïve audience. (Hamilton
44).
ii. Dramatic Irony - Occurs when the audience is privy to knowledge that one or more of the characters lacks.
The technique can be used in for comic or tragic effects.
iii. Situational Irony - takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what
would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen. Typically, both the reader and the characters
in the story do not anticipate a surprise or a twist in story line coming.
iv. Sarcasm - The taunting use of apparent approval or praise for actual disapproval or dispraise, is mistakenly
used as synonymous with verbal irony. The distinctions are that sarcasm is simpler and more crude; in
dialogue, it is often signaled by vocal inflection.
v. Pathetic Fallacy - is a type of PERSONIFICATION, in which inanimate aspects of nature, such as the
landscape or the weather, are represented as having human qualities or feelings. The term, which was
invented by the Victorian critic John Ruskin, derives from the logical absurdity (“fallacy”) of supposing
that nature can sympathize with (feel pathos for) human moods and concerns. Typically, pathetic fallacy
reflects or foreshadows some aspect of the poem or narrative at that point, such as the plot, theme, or
characterization, and so intensifies the tone.
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vi. Cosmic Irony - Refers to an implied worldview in which characters are led to embrace false hopes of aid or
success, only to be defeated by some larger force, such as God or fate.
vii. Understatement - Is a form of IRONY in which a point is deliberately expressed as less, in magnitude,
value, or importance, that it actually is.
viii. Tragic Irony - When dramatic irony occurs in tragedies.
ix. Free Verse - Free verse poem's are poem's that do not have rules, they do not rhyme and does not have a
meter. The poet makes up the rules for the poem as the poem is progressing or thoughts are being
completed.
x. Narrator - A narrator can establish irony based on diction, tone, sarcasm, loose structure in a sentence, shift
from one point of view to another, and a string of uncoordinated clauses in a passage (Hamilton 116, 176,
187).
xi. Structural Irony - Refers to an implication of alternate or reversed meaning that pervades a work. A major
technique for sustaining structural irony is the use of a naïve protagonist or an unreliable narrator who
continually interprets events and intentions in ways that the author signals are mistaken.
Imagery
a. Types
i. Visual imagery - something described through sight, appears most commonly in poetry.
ii. Auditory imagery - representation of a sound
iii. Olfactory imagery - representation of a smell
iv. Gustatory imagery - representation of a taste
v. Tactile imagery - touch: hardness, softness, wetness, heat, cold
vi. Organic imagery - internal sensation, hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea
vii. Kinesthetic imagery - movement, physical tension
b. Frame of reference - is a way of looking at the world, whether that's seeing things only in good and bad or
immigrant and nonimmigrant terms or it's a matter of thinking that the world operates around meritocracy -- that
people earn and then deserve their place in life. For example identifying images using the Holocaust, Asian artwork,
Indian music, cowboy setting, summertime vacation.