An instance of
figurative language (equated with a figure of speech or trope in their narrower meanings) is any way of wording something other than the ordinary literal way, often to provide the audience some heightened feeling, more complex meaning, or deeper connection. American literary theorist
Kenneth Burke has called metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony the "four master tropes", due to their frequency in everyday discourse. Examples of figurative language include: •
Allusion: the use of a word or phrase as an implicit reference to something famous culturally, historically, or literarily. To call
Beirut the "Paris of the Middle East" is an allusion to Paris in the sense of a metropolitan hub of culture, business, finance, and the arts. •
Antanaclasis: a form of
pun or wordplay in which a word is repeated in two different senses. •
Anthimeria: the transformation of a word of a certain word class to another word class: such as a
noun for a verb and vice versa. "Don't
yes, sir me!" is an example. •
Apostrophizing: a character or speaker directly addressing someone absent or dead, or an inanimate or abstract object, as if it were a person. • Types of literary
analogy: a comparison by showing how two seemingly different entities are alike, along with illustrating a larger point due to their commonalities. •
Metaphor: a comparison between something and something else that are not typically connected, without explicitly or self-awarely noting the comparison (thus linguistically leaving the comparison implied or assumed). It is frequently invoked simply by a form of the verb "to be" (
is,
are,
was,
am, etc.). "That boy is a machine!" is a metaphor that emphatically portrays a young man as hard-working, determined, industrious, aggressive, etc. Metaphors that persist across multiple sentences or with complex descriptions are
extended metaphors. •
Simile: a comparison between something and something else that are not typically connected, using extra words (such as "like" or "as") to explicitly mark the comparison. Many examples of synecdoche are typical idioms. Workers on a farm, for instance, are sometimes called "hands" or "farm hands" because of their association with manual labor. •
Personification: a description of inanimate objects or non-animal organisms using human-like or animal-like traits. In the phrase "All their fears melted in the face of the newly risen sun", the sun may literally exist in the scene, but it carries a second meaning too: suggesting newfound hope or courage. •
Imagery: the use of vivid details (typically involving other figures of speech) to invoke any, and usually multiple, of the five senses. It causes the audience to visualize or imagine something, thus "painting a picture" with words. (Rarely also known as
enargia, meaning "Vivid, forceful descriptions creating strong visual images related to audience experience".) •
Understatement, or
meiosis: presenting a diminished view of the importance, significance, or magnitude of a subject, for humor, propriety, cautiousness, or other reasons.
Verbal irony This is the simplest form of irony, in which a speaker says the opposite of what he or she truly intends. Sarcasm is common even in casual everyday conversation to express meanness, playfulness, or humor. Another form is
accismus: expressing the desire for something by denying it. A common example is when someone receives an award while declaring "I'm not worthy to receive this honor".
Situational irony This is when the author creates a surprising event or situation that is the exact opposite of what the reader would expect, often creating humor or an eerie feeling. For example, in Steinbeck's novel
The Pearl, the reader may think that Kino and Juana would become happy and successful after discovering the "Pearl of the World", with all its value. However, their lives change dramatically for the worse after discovering it. Similarly, in Shakespeare's
Hamlet, the title character almost kills King Claudius at one point but resists because Claudius is praying and therefore may go to heaven. As Hamlet wants Claudius to go to hell, he waits. A few moments later, after Hamlet leaves the stage, Claudius reveals to the audience that he doesn't mean his prayers ("words without thoughts never to heaven go"), so Hamlet could have killed him after all.
Dramatic irony Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something important about the story that one or more characters in the story do not know. For example, in
William Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet, the drama of Act V comes from the fact that the audience knows Juliet is alive, but Romeo thinks she's dead. If the audience had thought, like Romeo, that she was dead, the scene would not have had anywhere near the same power. Likewise, in
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the energy at the end of the story comes from the fact that we know the narrator killed the old man, while the guests are oblivious. If we were as oblivious as the guests, there would be virtually no point in the story. ==Schemes==