FIGURES
OF SPEECH
INTRODUCTION
Creative writing strategies used by an author to convey
his or her message(s). Literary devices help readers to visualize, interpret
and analyze literary texts when used well. There are two kinds of literary
devices – literary elements and literary techniques which includes figurative
language.
Literary
Elements
Literary Elements are the components or pieces that make
up a story or literary work. Some of the Literary Elements are Antagonist,
Characterization, Climax, Conflict, Imagery, Mood, Motif, Narrator, Plot, Point
of View, Protagonist, Setting, Tone and Theme.
Literary
Techniques
Words or phrases in literary texts that writers use to
achieve artistic or creative expression. Literary techniques also help readers visualize,
understand and appreciate literature. Some of the literary techniques are Allegory,
Allusion, Anthropomorphism, Exposition, Figurative Language, Foil,
Foreshadowing, Parallelism, Repetition.
Figurative
Language
Figurative Language is a creative use of words and
phrases that offers a hidden meaning beyond any literal interpretation. Some of
the Figurative Languages are Adage/Proverb, Analogy, Alliteration, Assonance,
Cliche, Hyperbole, Idiom, Irony, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron,
Personification, Pun, Simile, Symbolism, Understatement.
FIGURES
OF SPEECH
SIMILE
A Simile is an explicit comparison between essentially
unlike things. It is introduced by connectives such as ‘like’, ‘as’, ‘than’ or
a verb like ‘seems’. In a simile the objects or events or ideas compared must
be different and the points of resemblance between them must be brought out
clearly. Similes are used in poetry as well as in prose. A simile links
together a complex and an external object which is familiar to the reader. A
conceit is a type of simile in which the comparison is taken to a fantastic
level.
Example:
Wordsworth – “I
wandered lonely as a cloud” (Daffodils)
Shakespeare – “The
barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water” (Cleopatra)
Byron
– “She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies” (She Walks in Beauty)
Burns
– “My love is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June” (A Red, Red Rose)
METAPHOR
A Metaphor is
termed as an implied or compressed simile. A metaphor ascribes to some action
or thing, a property which it cannot literally possess in that context. The
meaning of a metaphor is not derived from the meaning of the words in it. Metaphors
are more often used in poetry than in prose. They enhance the emotional effect
of poetry. In prose, they are used to give rhetorical effect.
Examples:
This
is my play’s last scene (play – life).
He
is the pillar of the state.
She
has entered eternal sleep.
The camel is the ship
of the desert.
PERSONIFICATION
Personification is really a special kind of metaphor. It
is the attribution of human qualities to something that is not human. It is a
figure of speech in which inanimate objects and abstract ideas or qualities are
spoken of, as if they are persons or human beings.
Examples:
John
Keats – “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time”
(Ode on a Grecian Urn)
Shakespeare
– “Blow, blow thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s
ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so
keen,
Because thou art not
seen,
Although thy breath be rude. (As
You Like It)
HYPERBOLE
A hyperbole is a far-fetched and over exaggerated
description. This figure of speech consists in representing things as much
greater or smaller than they really are, with the intention of producing a more
striking effect than a plain statement. It is often used either for heightened
seriousness or for comic effect.
Examples:
Shakespeare
– “Here is the smell of blood still;
All perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this
little hand?” (Macbeth)
W.H.
Auden – “I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa
meet,
And the river jumps over
the mountain
And the salmon sing in
the street,
I’ll love you till the
ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry. (As I Walked
One Evening)
CONCEIT
Conceit is seeing similarity in dissimilar things.
Conceit is a figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened
together with the help of similes or metaphors. A comparison turns into a
conceit when the writer links two things which are not similar. The readers are
aware of the dissimilarity but the writer takes great care to conceal it.
Examples:
John
Donne – “If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed
foot, makes no show
To
move, but doth, if the other do” (A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning)
John
Donne – “Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare
Where we almost, yea
more than married are.
This flea is you and I,
and this
Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is” (The
Flea)
SYMBOL
Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and
qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their
literal sense. It can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing
another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more
significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by
someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of
friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling may stand as a symbol of
the feeling of affection which that person has for someone.
Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context
they are used in. “A chain”, for example may stand for “union” as well as
“imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meaning of an object or an action is understood
by when, where and how it is used. It also depends on who reads them.
Examples:
The
dove is a symbol of peace.
A
red rose or red colour stands for love or romance.
Black
is a symbol that represents evil or death.
A
ladder may stand as a symbol for a connection between the heaven and the earth.
A broken mirror may
symbolize separation.
Shakespeare
– “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and
women merely players;
They have their exists
and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts” (As
You Like It)
The above lines are
symbolic of the fact that men and women, in course of their life perform
different roles. “A stage” here symbolizes the world and “players” is a symbol
for human beings.
METONYMY
Metonymy is a figure of speech in which an attribute of a
thing or a name is used to substitute the thing itself.
Examples:
The
pen is mightier than the sword. (pen – author, sword – soldier)
Grey
hair – old age
Throne – monarchy
SYNECDOCHE
Synecdoche is figure of speech in which a part of a thing
is used to denote the entire object or the whole is used to denote a part. It
is common to confuse synecdoche with metonymy. The difference lies in the fact
that in a synecdoche, a part is used to represent the whole, or a whole used
for a part, whereas in metonymy, there is a substitution of a word or a phrase
for another word or phrase that is loosely associated with it.
Examples:
India
lost the match. (India – a small group of Indians who constitute a sports team)
I need more hands for
this task. (hands – persons)
TRANSFERRED
EPITHET
In this figure of speech, an epithet or qualifying
adjective is sometimes transferred from a person to an object or from one word
to another.
Examples:
Thomas Gray –
“The ploughman homeward
plod his weary way” (Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard)
In the first case
‘weary’ has been transferred from ‘the ploughman’ to the ‘way’.
Shakespeare
– “Death lies on her like an untimely
frost.
Upon the sweetest
flower of all the field... (Romeo and
Juliet)
UNDERSTATEMENT
A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker
deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. A
statement which lessens or minimizes the importance of what is meant.
Example:
Andrew
Marvell – “The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there
embrace” (To His Coy Mistress)
Here Marvell attempts
to convince his lover to seize the day and enjoy life while she still can. He
reminds her that there is no one to love while in a grave. While Marvell’s
subject is serious, he uses understatement to lighten the statement.
CLIMAX
Climax is a structural part of a plot and is at times
referred to as a crisis. It is a decisive moment or a turning point in a
storyline at which the rising action turns around into a falling action. Thus,
a climax is the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak that calls
for a resolution or denouement (conclusion).
Examples:
Shakespeare
– “Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth
suddenly;
A flower that dies when
first it gins to bud;
A brittle glass that’s
broken presently:
A doubtful good, a
gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken,
dead within an hour. (The Passionate
Pilgrim)
Corianthians
– “There are three things that will endure; faith, hope and love. But the
greatest of these is love”.
ANTICLIMAX
Anticlimax is a rhetorical device which can be defined as
a disappointing situation or a sudden transition in discourse from an important
idea to a ludicrous or trivial one. It is when at a specific point,
expectations are raised, everything is built-up and then suddenly something
boring or disappointing happens; this is an anticlimax. Besides that, the order
of statements gradually descends in anticlimax.
Example:
Alexander
Pope –
“Here
thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel
take, and sometimes tea...” (The Rape of
the Lock)
In the extract, it is
used as a figure of speech. Pope is drawing the attention of the readers to the
falseness. Anna is Queen of England, who holds meeting and indulges also in
afternoon tea customs. Ludicrous effect is created by using the anticlimax.
RHETORICAL
QUESTION
A rhetorical question is a question that is asked without
expecting an answer. The question might be one that does not have an answer. It
might also be one that has an obvious answer but you have asked the question to
make a point, to persuade or for literary effect.
Examples:
Percy
Bysshe Shelley – “O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
(Ode to the West Wind)
The poet achieves the
desired effect by asking this rhetorical question instead of making a statement.
The answer to this question is not sought; rather, an effect is successfully
created giving a fine finished touch to the ode.
William
Wordsworth – “Will no one tell me what she sings?” (The Solitary Reaper)
An answer is not
expected to this question. The poet prefers a rhetorical question to a plain
statement to emphasize his feelings of pleasant surprise.
EPIGRAM
Epigram is a rhetorical device that is a memorable,
brief, interesting and surprising satirical statement. It has originated from a
Greek word, epigramma, and meaning inscription or inscribe. Often ingenious or
witty statements are considered as epigrams. This literary device is commonly
used in poetry, where it appears as a short satirical poem with a single
subject ending in an ingenious or witty thought. The poets like Alexander Pope,
John Donne, William Shakespeare and Samuel Taylor Coleridge popularized epigram
as a literary device during sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Jane Wilde, an
Irish poet, believed that epigrams were much better than an argumentative
speech.
Examples:
Eleanor
Roosevelt – “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”.
Oscar Wilde – “As long
as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is
looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular”.
Both of these epigrams
are not only interesting and brief but also satirical, as the first one is
about the sense of inferiority while the second one is about war.
EUPHEMISM
A euphemism may be defined as an inoffensive or indirect
word or expression used in place of one that is considered unpleasant or
shocking. The term originally referred to the elaborate and ornate style of
writing which was introduced by John Lyly in his works “Eupheus, the Anatomy of Wyt” (1578) and “Eupheus and his England” (1580).
Examples:
He
passed away – he died.
He
is a special child – he is disabled or retarded.
Going
to the other side – death.
On
the streets – homeless.
Comfort
woman – for prostitute.
Kick
the bucket – for death.
Between
jobs – unemployed.
Big-boned
– heavy or overweight.
Economical
with the truth – liar.
Domestic
engineer – maid
In
the family way – pregnant.
Mentally challenged –
stupid.
MALAPROPISM
Malapropism is a use of an incorrect word in place of a
similar sounding word that results in a nonsensical and humorous expression. The
word malapropism comes from “Mrs. Malaprop”, a character in Sheridan’s comedy “The Rivals”, who has a habit of replacing
words with incorrect and absurd utterances producing a humorous effect. A miss-speech
is considered malapropism when it sounds similar to the word it replaces but has
an entirely different meaning. For instance, replacing acute by obtuse is not a
malapropism because both words have a contrasting meanings but do not sound
similar. Using obtuse for abstruse, on the other hand, is a
malapropism, as there is a difference in meanings and both words sound similar.
POINT
OF VIEW
Point of view is the angle of considering things, which
shows the opinion, or feelings of the individuals involved in a situation. In
literature, point of view is the mode of narration that an author employs to
let the readers ‘hear’ and ‘see’ what takes place in a story, poem, essay, etc.
Point of view is a reflection of the pinion an individual from real life or
fiction can have.
- First
person Point of view involves the use of either of the two pronouns ‘I’
and ‘We’.
Example:
“I felt like I was getting drowned with shame and disgrace”.
- Second
person Point of view employs the pronoun ‘You’.
Example:
“Sometimes you cannot clearly discern between anger and frustration”.
- Third
person Point of view uses pronouns like ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, ‘they’ or a
name.
Example:
“Mr. Stewart is a principled man. He acts by the book and never lets you
deceive him easily”.
PARADOX
A Paradox is a statement that apparently contradicts
itself.
Examples:
George Orwell –
“All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than others” (Animal Farm).
Shakespeare – “I must
be cruel to be kind” (Hamlet).
ALLUSION
An allusion is a reference to another literary work or
person or event. An author uses allusions to enrich his work and give it a more
profound meaning. Allusions may include reference to people or events,
references to author’s own life or references to other literary works. For
instance, when one calls a person a ‘Scrooge’, one is referring to
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly character from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Pope and Dryden make use of several allusions to events and people of their age in their works. The title of William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury is an allusion to a line from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Life’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.
Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly character from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Pope and Dryden make use of several allusions to events and people of their age in their works. The title of William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury is an allusion to a line from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Life’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.
PATHETIC
FALLACY
Pathetic Fallacy is a figure of speech in which human
emotions are given lifeless objects and abstract ideas. It is a special kind of
personification in which the inanimate, the lifeless, and the abstract, are
made to partake of human emotions.
Examples:
All
Nature wept at his death, and the Flowers were filled with tears.
It
is usual to begin the name of the personified object with a capital letter.
