Literary Devices with Dynamic Impact

Because of the variety of literary devices, we will examine them in groups. In this third article on literary devices, we review a dozen dynamic ones that writers often misuse or overlook.

Chiasmus

It is symmetry in grammatical structure in which two clauses are used with a reversal of structure against one another. Dramatic and memorable, such a sentence is designed to persuade the reader about a key concept such as defining a value or questioning cause and effect.

• Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. (John F. Kennedy)
• When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
• People can’t change the truth, but the truth can change people.
• Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have the strength. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
• Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.
• They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. (Jim Calhoun)

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is exaggerating for emphasis. Comedians learn to master hyperbole because it creates an immediate emotional response.

• He’s as old as dirt.
• The crowd erupted.
• I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together in the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. (John F. Kennedy at the Nobel Prize dinner)

Irony

Verbal irony is the use of words to create the opposite of their intended meaning. For example, entering a nearly empty county fair and declaring it too crowded. While sarcasm often includes irony, not all sarcasm is ironic because sarcasm intends to offend. Sarcasm is aggressive, like insulting someone and adding, “Just kidding.”

• The grammar professor said two positives cannot make a negative. A student shouted, “Yeah, right.”

Situational irony (or a plot twist) would be the sinking of the Titanic, declared to be unsinkable.

• The human rights museum of Canada bars unvaccinated Canadians.
• One of the most often banned books in America is Fahrenheit 451 by Rad Bradbury, a book about anti-censorship.

Dramatic irony is when the reader knows what’s coming, but the character is unaware of the danger just around the corner. In the story of Hansel and Gretel, the witch intends to eat the children, but by the end of the story, the children trap her in her own oven.

Meiosis

To minimize or understate something for an effect. For example, He named his elephant Tiny. Janet Evanovich uses meiosis often in her Stephanie Plum series. The characters discuss outrageous things [car bombs, burning buildings, getting shot at] as casually as if discussing the weather while making a big deal about whether Stephanie is currently dating Morelli or Ranger. This sounds like the opposite of melodramatic speech and is hilarious. This same device is used in the movie and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Metonymy

Metonymy proposes a relationship between two different things and replaces the name of one thing with another that is not part of the other thing. This can be used to show an abstract concept through the use of a concrete thing (a person, place, or thing).

• The White House issued a statement today.
• He paid with plastic.
• The suits were in agreement about the merger.
• The pen is mightier than the sword.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is when the whole of a thing is substituted for a part, or a part for the whole.

• Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
• “Here comes the Army,” she said when the soldier walked in.
• Trespassers could die of lead poisoning.
• Pour me a glass of bubbly.

Oxymoron

Use an oxymoron by combining opposite or contradictory words to create humor, add a deeper meaning, or for dramatic effect, such as Senate Intelligence Committee, negative income, clean fill dirt, old news, deafening silence, and virtual reality.

Paradox

A paradox is when a seemingly contradictory statement is true. A paradox is usually a longer statement than an oxymoron. Paradoxes can also point out the complexity of human behavior.

• Craft must have clothes, but truth goes naked. (Thomas Fuller)The only constant is change.
• All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. (George Orwell, Animal Farm)
• I can resist anything but temptation. (Oscar Wilde)

Parallelism

Create a repeating pattern of words or phrases for emphasis. This is another form of symmetry in grammatical structure using elements that are similar or identical in meaning, meter, sound, or structure.

• We shall fight on the seas. We shall fight in the air. We shall fight on the ground. We shall not surrender. (Winston Churchill)
• If nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve. (William Tecumseh Sherman)
• Easy come easy go.
• Like father, like son.
• What goes around comes around.

Use parallelism to show unlike things are equal by grouping them.

• No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. (William Penn)

Use parallelism to show how things usually lumped together are different.

• What you see is news, what you know is background, and what you feel is opinion. (Lester Markel, NY Times)

Personification

Personification is giving human characteristics or traits to objects or machines. Stephen King used this device for a full novel—Christine—in which a car came alive with a vengeance. Horror novels and movies animate objects like dolls and turn them into weapons. Consider the essence of an object, its purpose or function, and imagine the personality and human behavior that object could inhabit or represent.

• The sun smiled.
• The sky wept.
• The tree reached for the clouds.
• My father’s garden thrived in the heat like an unleashed temper.

Synesthesia

• Use the sensory adjectives, adverbs, and nouns associated with one sense for another. This is a subtle and surprising device with a big impact. While poets and comics make great use of it, so do literary authors.
• The bread tasted like smoke. (taste and smell)
• Her hair looked like nails dragged over a chalkboard. (sight and sound)
• He had a smooth, dark chocolate voice. (sound and taste)

Zeugma

Zeugma is using a single word (most often a verb) to apply to two or more words (usually nouns) in the same sentence. The meanings can create literal and metaphorical connotations. This can also be done by planting one shocking thing in a list of adjectives or objects.

• He opened her front door and the secrets in his heart.
• He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men. (Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried)
• You are resolved, Aeneas, to weigh your anchor and your vows. (Ovid

Resources: https://literarydevices.net/ and https://writerunboxed.com/