Partial list of “Choices” (more on web site)
p.1
Stylistic Choices
Style is author’s word choice i.e. the actual word used (not the idea expressed) matters. If he could
have said “happy” but says “ecstatic”, and if you think the word “ecstatic” matters, it’s a stylistic choice.
If you think the idea that the character is pleased matters, it is a narrative detail (more about that later)
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Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Example: "Fetched fresh, as I
suppose, off some sweet wood."
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Amphiboly
An ambiguous grammatical structure in a sentence
Assonance
The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told
him of my woe."
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Connotation
The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to
use words rich in connotation. Note: a “symbol” is a word that produces similar/very consistent
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connotations
Hyperbole
A figure of speech involving exaggeration.
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Image
A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of
related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the
work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work
to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action.
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Irony
A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what
is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they
mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of what is expected occurs. In dramatic irony, a
character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters.
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Metaphor
A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or
as. An example is "My love is a red, red rose,"
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Metonymy
A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example: "We
have always remained loyal to the crown."
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Onomatopoeia
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic.
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Personification
The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.
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Simile
A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though. An
example: "My love is like a red, red rose."
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Symbol
An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond
itself. The road in Frost's "The Road Not Taken” is a symbol.
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Synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: "Lend me a hand."
Partial list of “Choices” (more on web site)
p.2
Structural Choices
Structure is the way the words appear on the page. If it matters how they are assembled (into a
sentence, or a paragraph, or a story) or if it matters how big, or how bold, or how few per page etc.,
then you’re talking about structure.
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Anaphora
Repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, lending them emphasis
Asyndeton
The deliberate omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses. "He was a bag of bones, a
floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac."
Caesura
A strong pause within a line of verse
Chiasmus
A balanced sentence whose latter half inverts the structure of the first half: “Ask not what your country
can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."
Couplet
A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem.
Elision
The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. "Flies o'er th'
unbending corn..."
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Enjambment
A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next.
An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is
completed within the line. In the opening lines of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," for example,
the first line is end-stopped and the second enjambed:
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now....
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Mechanical Devices
The writer adds to or changes the appearance of text (eg. Underline, italicize, bold...)
Meter
The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems
Periodic Sentence
A sentence that leaves the completion of its main clause to the end to produce suspense or surprise.
Periphrasis
The use of an unnecessarily long or roundabout form of expression
Polysyndeton
the use of a number of conjunctions in close succession.
Repetition
 Hendiatris idea via 3 words in succession “tall, dark, handsome”
 Tricolon 3 parallel ideas in row: “Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered”
 Refrain 3 repeated phrases in a row: “Abe didn’t want to go to war, but he knew the union req’d it.
FDR didn’t want to go to war, but he knew liberty demanded it. Bob didn’t want to go to war, but he
knew our safety depended on it.”
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Echo: audience repeats response
Rhyme
The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words.
Partial list of “Choices” (more on web site)
p.3
Narrative Choices
Narrative means “story”. Any choice that affects the story (the plot) or how the plot is told
(“narrated”) is a narrative choice.
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Allegory
A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Allegory often takes the
form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities.
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Foil
A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil
for the main character.
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Foreshadowing
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story.
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Narrator
The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author.
 Chronology of story-telling (does the narration use flashbacks?)
 Consistency of narration (does a second narrator emerge? Does the original narrator evolve?)
 Point of view : 1st person narration - narrator involved in story; 3rd person narrn – narrator
observes action (“omniscient” means a narrator knows all; “limited” means narrator does not know
all)
 Tone of narrator (“tone” is speaker’s attitude towards the issue/object about which s/he’s
speaking; to recognize tone you’ll consider the words used: are they overly positive or negative?
Are episodes included or excluded that would otherwise sway us positively or negatively?)
 Reliability of narrator (can we believe the narrator, or is s/he misinformed, or is s/he misleading
us?)
 Chronology of story-telling (does the narration use flashbacks?)