Rhetorical Devices

Question 1

allusion

Answer 1

reference to a famous person

Question 2

metaphor

Answer 2

comparison between two things, saying one thing is another

ex. time is a theif

Question 3

analogy

Answer 3

longer version of a metaphor: taking an abstract concept and EXPLAINING it with a concrete idea

ex. time is like a thief in that thieves steal physical objects and time steals moments of our lives.

Question 4

simile

Answer 4

comparison between two things using words “like, as, than”

ex. time is like a thief

Question 5

personification

Answer 5

describing an object with human characteristics

Question 6

oxymoron

Answer 6

contradictory terms that make sense when said together

ex. deafening silence

Question 7

paradox

Answer 7

self-contradictory statement, but makes sense when inspected

ex. the beginning of the end

Question 8

juxtaposition

Answer 8

placing two opposite things side by side but it makes sense

Question 9

alliteration

Answer 9

repeating initial consonant

ex. bubbling brooke

Question 10

consonance

Answer 10

words that end with the same sounds

ex. flash and flesh (same sh sound)

Question 11

assonance

Answer 11

repetition of a vowel

Question 12

onomatopoeia

Answer 12

word imitates a sound

ex. buzz from the bee

Question 13

hyperbole

Answer 13

exaggerating something

Question 14

irony

Answer 14

actual meaning is the opposite, sarcasm

Question 15

pun

Answer 15

play on words; these words have more than one possible meaning.

ex. son and sun

Question 16

repetition

Answer 16

repeating words so the readers remember

Question 17

rhetorical question

Answer 17

obvious answer but makes the readers think, used for emphasis, drawing conclusions

Question 18

climatic sentence

Answer 18

arrangement of words in order of ascending power

ex. Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

Question 19

anaphora

Answer 19

repeating of same word at the beginning of each phrase

Question 20

epistrophe

Answer 20

repeating of words at the end of a phrasepar

Question 21

parallelism

Answer 21

same structure is repeated, draws attention to the similarities between different sections