Literary Devices

Literary devices are techniques that writers use to create a special and pointed effect in
their writing, to convey information, or to help readers understand their writing on a
deeper [Link] are some important Literary Devices:

1. Allusion: Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea
of historical, cultural, literary or political significance. It does not describe in detail the
person or thing to which it refers. It is just a passing comment and the writer expects the
reader to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its importance in a
text.
By and large, the use of allusions enables writers or poets to simplify complex ideas and
emotions. The readers comprehend the complex ideas by comparing the emotions of
the writer or poet to the references given by them.
e.g. “Stop acting so smart—it’s not like you’re Einstein or something”. This is an allusion
to the famous real-life theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.
2. Confidant :(Lat. ‘trusting’) A stock character in novels, and, especially, in drama:
the trusted friend of the protagonist, to whom the latter announces his plans and
aspirations, thus providing a convenient method of allowing the audience to learn of
motives and probable developments. Horatio acts as Hamlet’s confidant in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
3. Elegy. (Gk.) A poem of lamentation, concentrating on the death of a single person,
like Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850), which describes his grief at the death of his friend
Arthur Hallam, or Yeats's 'In Memory of Major Robert Gregory' (1919). The death
celebrated may be that of a public figure rather than a personal friend.
4. Pathetic fallacy. Used to describe the habit, common and legitimate in poets, of
assuming an equation between their own mood and the world about them: they are sad,
therefore the weather is gloomy. Many poets go further and describe nature in terms of
their feelings: the sky weeps, the wind moans. The attribution of human feelings to
inanimate nature is a common form of metaphorical writing.
5. Soliloquy. (Lat. 'to speak alone') A curious but fascinating dramatic convention,
which allows a character in a play to speak directly to the audience about his motives,
feelings and decisions, as if he were thinking aloud. The psychological depth which the
soliloquy gives to Shakespeare's tragedies, particularly Macbeth and Hamlet is
inestimable. Part of the convention is that a soliloquy provides accurate access to the
character's innermost thoughts: we learn more about the character than could ever be
gathered from the action of the play alone.
6. Tableau: (Fr. 'picture painted on wood") A picture; especially a pictorial grouping of
persons in a drama. A tableau vivant is a living picture, a silent and motionless group of
persons arranged so as to represent a dramatic or melodramatic scene. A set piece
describing such a picture - like a grouping of people in a novel, or poem- would also be
called a tableau.
7. Tale: A short narrative in prose or verse. It may be distinguished from the short
story because of its concentration on incident and action rather than character and
atmosphere. A tale is less self-consciously literary than a short story, closer perhaps to
the oral origins of literature, whereas the short story develops after the novel and strives
for a special kind of focus and intensity.
8. Technique: (Gk. 'art, craft') The method, craft and skill of writing. Many literary
terms are attempts to categorise and detail the innumerable methods by which writers
create patterns, meanings and effects out of language. Every element in a literary work
other than its theme or message, is organised according to technical considerations.
Often a belief in the naturalness or spontaneity of literary utterance leads to "technique'
becoming a pejorative term, suggesting merely artificial and decorative effects. But
though some figures of speech are merely decorative, it is false to divide technique and
meaning: there can be no utterance, no meaning of any kind, without technique of some
sort, however rudimentary.
9. Plot: In a narrative or creative writing, a plot is the sequence of events that make up
a story, whether it’s told, written, filmed, or sung. The plot is the story, and more
specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time. Plots are typically
made up of five main elements:
1. Exposition: At the beginning of the story, characters, setting, and the main conflict are
typically introduced.
2. Rising Action: The main character is in crisis and events leading up to facing the
conflict begin to unfold. The story becomes complicated.
3. Climax: At the peak of the story, a major event occurs in which the main character
faces a major enemy, fear, challenge, or other source of conflict. The most action,
drama, change, and excitement occurs here.
4. Falling Action: The story begins to slow down and work towards its end, tying up
loose ends.
5. Resolution/Denoument: Also known as the denouement, the resolution is like a
concluding paragraph that resolves any remaining issues and ends the story.
Plots, also known as storylines, include the most significant events of the story and how
the characters and their problems change over time.

10. Subplot. A subsidiary action running parallel with the main plot of a or novel. The
plot and subplot may be almost separate in their development, but more often they
interpenetrate, and the subplot provides parallels and contrasts with the main plot. A
famous example is the way the fortunes of Gloucester and his two sons reflect the plight
of Lear and his daughters in Shakespeare's King Lear (1605-6). Subplots are a very
common feature of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.
11. Setting. The time and place in which a play takes place. Suitable scenery.
costume and props should assist the audience to recognise the setting straight away.
In novels and short stories, the setting, the time and place in which the characters are
created, may also be crucially significant, not least because writers may use it to convey
information about the mood or temperament of the characters themselves, either
symbolically or by adopting the characters point of view towards it.
12. Protagonist. (Gk. 'first actor, first combatant') In Greek drama the principal
character and actor. Now used almost synonymously with 'hero' to refer to the leading
character in a play, novel or narrative poem. Strictly speaking, plays and novels can
have only one protagonist, clearly the focus of major interest, perhaps in conflict with an
ANTAGONIST.
[Link]. A short popular saying embodies a general truth, sometimes in
metaphorical language: e.g. 'Rolling stone gathers no moss', 'a stitch in time saves
nine', 'look before you leap', etc. Proverbs seem common to most cultures and ages.
They represent homely wisdom.
14. Pathos. (Gk. 'suffering, grief ') Moments in works of art which evoke strong
feelings of pity and sorrow are said to have this quality. The death of Little Nell in
Chapter 71 of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop (1840) is typical of the nineteenth-century
taste for pathetic death scenes. Such focuses of tenderness are nowadays felt to be too
blatant in their manipulation of our feelings. The tragic drama is full of moments of
pathos: for example Gertrude's description of the death of Ophelia at the end of Act IV
in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600-1). Nor is comedy without sudden flashes of pathos.
[Link]; (Greek, ’ladder’) the point at which the protagonist’s fortunes reach their
highest point before the ‘turning points’ which initiates the ‘falling action’. In general, any
point of great intensity in literary work; in a narrative the culminating moment of the
action.
16. Metaphor: It is a common figure of speech that makes a comparison by directly
relating one thing to another unrelated thing. Unlike similes, metaphors do not use
words such as “like” or “as” to make comparisons. The writer or speaker relates the two
unrelated things that are not actually the same, and the audience understands that it’s a
comparison, not a literal equation. The word comes from a Latin phrase meaning “to
carry across,” and a metaphor does just that—it carries a shared quality or
characteristic across two distinct things.
e.g. The “peak of his career,” for example, is a metaphor, since a career is not a literal
mountain with a peak, but the metaphor represents the idea of arriving at the highest
point of one’s career.
17. Simile: A simile is a very common figure of speech that uses the words “like” and
“as” to compare two things that are not related by definition. For example, “he is as tall
as a mountain,” doesn’t mean he was actually 1,000 feet tall, it just means he was really
tall.
18. Conflict: In literature, a conflict is a literary device characterized by a struggle
between two opposing forces. Conflict provides crucial tension in any story and is
used to drive the narrative forward. It is often used to reveal a deeper meaning in a
narrative while highlighting characters’ motivations, values, and weaknesses.
19. Hyperbole: Hyperbole is a statement made emphatic by overstatement. For
example,
There are a million other things to do.
The person in front of me walked as slow as a turtle.
20. Symbolism: Symbolism is a literary device that refers to the use of
symbols in a literary work. A symbol is something that stands for or suggests
something else; it represents something beyond literal meaning. In literature, a
symbol can be a word, object, action, character, or concept that embodies and
evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.
 rainbow–symbolizes hope and promise
 green traffic light–symbolizes “go” or proceed
 tree blossoms–symbolize spring season