Home School Partners - CLEP - Analyzing & Interpreting Literature - Literary Terms 2

Question 1

Hubris

Answer 1

Excessive pride or arrogance that often negatively affects a story character (often a tragic hero).

Question 2

Hyperbole

Answer 2

An exaggerated overstatement (“I’ve told you a million times to stop that!” or “That guy’s as big as a mountain!”).

Question 3

Imagery

Answer 3

Words a writer uses to create images in a reader’s mind.

Question 4

Invective

Answer 4

Insulting, abusive, or critical language.

Question 5

Irony (Dramatic)

Answer 5

A character expects one thing to happen, but the reader knows that something else will happen.

Question 6

Irony (Situational)

Answer 6

Something happens in a story that is totally unexpected to the reader (like a twist ending in a “Twilight Zone” episode).

Question 7

Irony (Verbal)

Answer 7

Saying the opposite of what is actually true, like saying “This has been a great day!” after wrecking your car and losing your job.

Question 8

Malapropism

Answer 8

Mistakenly using the wrong word or phrase (which often sounds close to the correct word/phrase), like saying, “I like America’s electrical college voting system” when the actual word is “electoral.”

Question 9

Metonymy

Answer 9

Using a single characteristic or part of an object or idea to identify the entire object or idea:

“Hollywood is releasing some trashy movies.” [The word “Hollywood” here represents the whole film-making industry.]

“The pen is mightier than the sword.” [The word “pen” doesn’t just mean an actual pen, but the ability to write convincingly.]

Question 10

Metaphor

Answer 10

A comparison between two things WITHOUT using “like” or “as.”:

“I am the bread of life” (Jesus in John 6:35).

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” (William Shakespeare).

Question 11

Motif

Answer 11

A story element or idea that appears often and represents the theme of the story. Example: “Macbeth” contains examples of sleep and sleepwalking, which represent innocence and guilt, respectively.

Question 12

Narrator

Answer 12

The person telling the story (not the same as the author!).

Question 13

Naturalism

Answer 13

Literature that tries to show believable, everyday reality, often showing the harshness of life.

Question 14

Oxymoron

Answer 14

A phrase (often only two words) that contradicts itself, like “painfully beautiful” or “I’m busy doing nothing.”

Question 15

Paradox

Answer 15

An idea or statement that seems to contradict itself:

• a rough-looking, armed sheriff who is actually gentle
• “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore; it’s too crowded!”

Question 16

Parody

Answer 16

A work that imitates another work with ridicule, humor, and/or irony:

• Weird Al Yankovic’s “Eat It” is a parody of the Michael Jackson song “Beat It.”
• In “Gulliver’s Travels,” the nations Lilliput and Blefescu go to war over how to “properly” eat eggs, a parody of the often ludicrous reasons that nations go to war.