The Path To EXCEEDS
Definition:
• author’s purposeful choice of words
Example:
• choosing ma'am miss lady chick or
broad for a woman, depending on the
author’s audience/purpose
Definition:
• a word, phrase, or clause that is replaced by
a pronoun in the same or in another
sentence
Example:
• Jane lost a glove and she can't find it.
(Jane is the antecedent of she and glove is
the antecedent of it.)
Definition:
•the use of informal words, phrases or
even slang in a piece of writing;
informal; dialect
Examples:
•“y’all” “gonna” “ain’t”
•from The Great Gatsby--“You’re selling
bonds, aren’t you, old sport?”
Definition:
• the explicit or direct meaning or set of
meanings of a word or expression
Examples:
• “Wind” is the denotation for air in natural
motion.
• “Labrador” is the denotation for a certain breed
of dog.
Definition:
• ideas, feelings or meanings associated with a
word or suggested by it; the secondary
meaning of a word or expression beyond its
literal meaning (denotation)
Example:
• A possible connotation of “home” is a place of
warmth, comfort, and affection.
Definition:
• an abbreviated saying that expresses a general
truth, or clever observation
Examples:
• Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and
wise too late. [Benjamin Franklin]
• Well done is better than well said. [Benjamin Franklin]
• No gains without pains. [Benjamin Franklin]
Definition:
•a statement or proposition that seems selfcontradictory or absurd but in reality
expresses a possible truth.
Examples:
•“I must be cruel to be kind.” [William
Shakespeare] Hamlet
•“All animals are equal, but some are more
equal than others.” [George Orwell] Animal Farm
Definition:
• A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker
deliberately makes a situation seem less
important or serious than it is.
Example:
• "I have to have this operation. It isn't very
serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the
brain.” [J. D. Salinger] Holden Caulfield in
The Catcher In The Rye
Definition:
• an attitude or feeling that may lie under, or be more
subtle than, the more obvious tone of the piece.
Examples:
• Apart from the political undertone, I really enjoyed the
comedic play.
• Despite the humor used in the lecture on cheating that
we received today, no one can doubt its serious
undertone.
Definition:
• calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent
person, or to a place or thing, or a personified
abstract idea
Examples:
• “Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy
form from off my door!“ [Edgar Allen Poe] The Raven
• "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art--"
[John Keats] "Bright Star"
Definition:
• a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are
described in terms of characters, figures and events, the
objective of its use is to preach some kind of a moral lesson
Examples:
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller is fictional story about individuals
affected by the Salem Witch Trials, and an allegory of the Red
Scare and McCarthyism of the 1950s.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell is a fictional tale about animals
taking over a farm, and an allegory of the Russian Revolution.
Definition:
• refers to the trustworthiness or credibility of the writer
or speaker; it can also be affected by the writer's
reputation--his or her expertise in the field, his or her
previous record or integrity
Examples:
• In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
Frederick Douglass has credibility as a source of
information about slavery, because he was born into
slavery himself and is telling his own life story about
what it was like.
Definition:
• emotional appeal; appeal to the audience's sympathies and
imagination; causes an audience to feel what the writer feels
Examples:
• ASPCA commercials evoke emotion from the viewer, usually
sadness and anger, by showing animals that have been
abandoned.
• Mastercard. Taking your son to a baseball game=$200. Front
row seats at the game=$500. Watching your son catch the game
winning home run=priceless. Evokes emotion with family
values that "cannot be bought without Mastercard."
Definition:
• refers to the clarity of the claim, the logic of its reasons,
and the effectiveness of its supporting evidence.
Examples:
• "More than one hundred peer-reviewed studies have
been conducted over the past decade, and none of them
suggests that this is an effective treatment for hair loss.“
• "You don’t need to jump off a bridge to know that it’s a
bad idea. Why then would you need to try drugs to know
if they’re damaging? That’s plain nonsense."
Definition:
• refers to polite, indirect expressions which replace words and
phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest
something unpleasant
Examples:
• “For the time being,” he explains, “it had been found necessary
to make a readjustment of rations.” [George Orwell] Animal
Farm
• “wardrobe malfunction"
(Justin Timberlake's description of his tearing of Janet
Jackson's costume during a half-time performance at Super
Bowl XXXVIII)
Definition:
• literary device wherein the author places a person, concept,
place, idea or theme parallel to another with the purpose of
highlighting the contrast between the two and comparing them
Example:
• In Paradise Lost, Milton has used juxtaposition to draw a
parallel between the two protagonists, Satan and God, who he
discusses by placing their traits in comparison with one another
to highlight their differences.
• Comparing MLK Jr.’s and Malcom X’s beliefs about the civil
rights movement side-by-side.
Definition:
• a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of
historical, cultural, literary or political significance.
Examples:
•“I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio’s.” This refers
to the story of Pinocchio, where his nose grew whenever he told a lie.
[The Adventures of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi.]
•“When she lost her job, she acted like a Scrooge, and refused to buy
anything that wasn’t necessary.” Scrooge was an extremely stingy
character from Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol.
•“I thought the software would be useful, but it was a Trojan Horse.”
This refers to the horse that the Greeks built that contained all the
soldiers. It was given as a gift to the enemy during the Trojan War and,
once inside the enemy's walls, the soldiers broke out. By using trickery,
the Greeks won the war.
Definition:
• refers to using elements in sentences that are grammatically
similar or identical in structure, sound, meaning, or meter; adds
symmetry, effectiveness and balance to the written piece.
Examples:
• This is not only just what I wanted, but also just what I needed.
• “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for
you, ask what you can do for your country.” [John F. Kennedy]
• "Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their
brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it.
They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will
determine their altitude." [Jesse Jackson]
Definition:
• a statement which has two or more possible
meanings
• a statement whose meaning is unclear
Examples:
• "Brave men run in my family.“
• "I can't tell you how much I enjoyed meeting your
husband.“
• Prostitutes Appeal to Pope (newspaper headline)
Definition:
• the use of over-exaggeration for the purpose of creating
emphasis or being humorous, but it is not intended to be taken
literally.
Examples:
• "People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for there was
nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with,
nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.“
[Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird]
• "And the skin on her face was thin and drawn tight like the skin
on an onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of
two ice picks.“ [Flannery O’Connor, Parker’s Back]
Definition:
• a word or phrase that is not meant to be taken literally;
a dialect or jargon of a group of people
Examples:
• A chip on your shoulder=you have a bad attitude
• Sick as a dog=you are very ill
• Rub someone the wrong way=to annoy or bother
• In English, it would be “raining cats and dogs.”
In Africa, they might say “it's raining old women with
clubs.”
Definition:
• refers to the process of using observation and background
knowledge as well as other known premises to determine a
conclusion that makes sense.
Examples:
• Jack sees cookie crumbs on the floor and chocolate around his
son's mouth. Jack can infer that his son got into the cookie jar.
• Watching a man run towards the gate at the airport, one can
infer that he is running late for his flight.
• It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the
gardener saw Wilson’s body a little way off in the grass, and the
holocaust was complete.”
Because of our knowledge of what a holocaust is, we can infer
that this means that George is now dead as well.
Definition:
• occurs when the audience knows something that the
characters do not.
Examples:
• If you’re watching a movie about the Titanic and a
character leaning on the balcony right before the ship hits
the iceberg says, "It's so beautiful I could just die."
• In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo thinks Juliet is dead and the
audience knows she is not.
• In a scary movie, the character walks into a house and the
audience knows the killer is in the house.
Definition:
• occurs when the outcome of a certain situation is
completely different than what was initially expected.
Examples:
• At a ceremony celebrating the rehabilitation of seals
after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, at an
average cost of $80,000 per seal, two seals were
released back into the wild only to be eaten within a
minute by a killer whale.
• A man who is a traffic cop gets his license suspended
for unpaid parking tickets.
Definition:
• occurs when words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is
different from the actual meaning of the words.
Examples:
• “Upon the murderer I invoke this curse – whether he is one man and all
unknown, or one of many – may he wear out his life in misery to
miserable doom!”
Oedipus is unknowingly cursing himself as his father’s murderer.
• “Go ask his name: if he be married.
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
Juliet commands her nurse to find out who Romeo was and says if he were
married, then her wedding bed would be her grave. It is a verbal irony
because the audience knows that she is going to die on her wedding bed.
Definition:
• occurs when the author tells what he/she wants the
audience to know about the character(s)
Examples:
• “The patient boy and quiet girl were both well
mannered and did not disobey their mother.”
• "Curly was quick and mean.“ [John Steinbeck, Of Mice
and Men]
Definition:
• occurs when the audience has to figure out for
themselves the characteristics of the character by
observing his/her thought process, behavior, speech,
way of talking, appearance, and interactions with
other characters
Examples:
• “’I’ve got a nice place here,’ he said, his eyes flashing
about restlessly.” [Tom Buchanan, The Great Gatsby]
• “You did, you did! You drank the charm to kill John
Procter’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody
Procter!” [Betty Parris to Abigail Williams, The Crucible]
Definition:
• a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize
foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using
humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule with the purpose of
improving humanity
Examples:
• “Weekend Update” from Saturday Night Live
• The Daily Show
• Most political cartoons in newspapers and magazines
• “There warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or
two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a
puncheon floor in summer-time because it’s cool. If you notice,
most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog
is different.” [Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]
Definition:
• the use of words that mean the opposite of what one
really wants to say especially in order to insult
someone, to show irritation, or to create humor
Examples:
• "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others
whenever they go." [Oscar Wilde]
• "Honesty is the best policy -- when there is money in
it." [Mark Twain]
• "The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of
conversation but not the power of speech." [George
Bernard Shaw]
Definition:
• words that are similar or have a related meaning to
another word.
Examples:
•Hardworking: Diligent, Determined, Industrious,
Enterprising
•Honest: Honorable, Fair, Sincere, Trustworthy
•Intelligent: Smart, Bright, Brilliant, Sharp
•Introverted: Shy, Bashful, Quiet, Withdrawn
Definition:
• a word that is the opposite meaning of another
Examples:
• dangerous and safe
• clever and foolish
• risky and safe
• simple and challenging
• worried and calm
Definition:
• a figure of speech in which two opposite ideas are joined to
create an effect
Examples:
• open secret
• tragic comedy
• seriously funny
• foolish wisdom
• original copies
• liquid gas
• deafening silence
Definition:
• struggle between a literary or dramatic character and
an outside force such as nature or another character,
which drives the dramatic action of the plot
Examples:
•
•
•
•
Person vs. Person [Tom Buchanan vs. Jay Gatsby]
Person vs. Nature [Captain Ahab vs. Moby Dick (whale)]
Person vs. Unknown [Tom Walker vs. Devil]
Person vs. Society [Huck Finn and Jim vs. society’s prejudices]
Definition:
• psychological or emotional struggle within the mind of a
literary or dramatic character, the resolution of which creates
the plot's suspense.
Examples:
• Person vs. him/herself
• Huckleberry Finn struggles between his own beliefs about what
is right and wrong when he runs off with Jim, an escaped
slave.
• Nick Carroway struggles with his own feelings of both
admiration and disgust over Jay Gatsby’s
determination/obsession over achieving his dreams.
Definition:
• an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or
genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect;
differs from satire in that the purpose is for
entertainment, not social change
Examples:
• Vampire Sucks parodies and pokes fun at Twilight
• Scary Movie (all horror movies)
• The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall
and Felt Superbad About It (40-year-old Virgin, Knocked
Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad)
Definition:
• a novel written as a series of documents. The usual
form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper
clippings and other documents are sometimes used.
Examples:
• Dracula, Bram Stoker
• Gone Girl, Gilliam Flynn
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker
• Carrie, Stephen King
• Bridget Jones’ Diary, Helen Fielding
Definition:
• story told from the point-of-view of a character in the
novel (often the protagonist); makes frequent use of
the pronoun "I" or “we” as they are talking about
themselves or what is going on around them; gives us
insight into a character's thoughts and feelings
Examples:
• Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
• Bilbo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit
• Nick Carroway in The Great Gatsby
• Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn
Definition:
• the narrator tells the story to another character using
"you"; the story is being told through the addressee's
point of view; least commonly used POV in fiction
Examples:
• guide books, self-help books, do-it-yourself manuals,
interactive fiction, role-playing games,
• choose Your own adventure series-type books
• Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City
• Tom Robbins's Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Definition:
• a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows only the
thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other
characters are presented only externally; third person limited
grants a writer more freedom than first person, but less than
third person omniscient.
Examples:
• Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series
• William Faulkner’s Barn Burning
• Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde.
Definition:
• a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows
the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the
story, as opposed to third person limited, which
adheres closely to one character's perspective.
Examples:
• Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice
• George Orwell’s 1984
• Toni Morrison’s Beloved
• Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Definition:
• 1. a secondary story or stories embedded in the main
story.
2. a narrative providing the framework for connecting
a series of otherwise unrelated stories.
Examples:
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
• Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
• new movie version of The Great Gatsby
• Forrest Gump
Definition:
• a particular type or category of literature or writing,
characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject
matter.
Examples:
• horror
• romantic comedy
• frame narrative
• epistolary
• parody
• superhero fiction
Definition:
• the use of symbols to express or represent ideas or
qualities
Examples:
• color symbolism: black=death or evil, white=life,
purity, wealth red=blood, passion, danger, or immoral
character purple=royalty
• swastika=symbol of hate
• Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken“
roads=journey/paths one can take through life
Definition:
• the narrative technique of relating a story from the midpoint,
rather than the beginning; the story opens with dramatic action
rather than exposition setting up the characters and situation.
Examples:
• Dante’s Inferno
• Homer’s The Odyssey and The Illiad
• “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll
probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy
childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all
before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap,
but I don’t feel like going into it . . . I’ll just tell you about this
madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just
before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take
it easy.” [J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye]