IB English Literary Analysis: Stylistic Features

The repetition of a consonant sound in the first syllable of a series of words: "Peper picked pickled peppers"

Either when characters or plot elements represent ideas; or when one thing is a metaphor of another completely unrelated to it

Makes reference to a place or person or thing, either directly or by implication; it is often up to the reader to make the connection explicitly.

Describing an inanimate or non-human object by reference to human characteristics

The repetition of a vowel sound to create internal rhymes either within or between words or sentences: "proud round cloud"

The omission of conjunctions from a series of clauses: "without looking, without making a sound, without talking"

A pause on a line of poetry

An extended metaphor, governing the logic of an entire passage or work: "This flea is you and I (...)" -- often surprising/shocking

Carry-on lines; the continuation of a syntactic unit over a line break, signified by the absence of punctuation

The opposite of enjambment; the indication of syntactic closure at the end of a line by punctuation

Exaggeration

To evoke a visual experience for the reader

Simple repeating of words

Describing something by asserting that it is similar in some way to something else, unconnected to it

When a thing is not called by its own name, but rather by the name of something associated with it

The combination of contradictory temrs. Linked to paradox

Juxtaposition of contradictory terms designated to create insight from the contrast

Representing a thing through a symbol

A flashback

An anti-climax

A plot that resolves difficult issues in one immediate way (sometimes unrealistically)

A trope when a character comes to a sudden realization accompanied by strong emotions, often transcendral. (In modernism, these are often bathetic)

A stroy which frames another story; a-story-within-a-story

When a plot begins in the middle of the action, presupposing a history leading up to these events

Treatment of an inanimate object as if it had human emotions (especially with the weather)

Emotional appeal

Flasforward

Where the shortcomings of people or a society are held up to ridicule (using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule)

The narrative mode that attempts to capture a subject's internal thought process

Imitation

Emotional purging: that experience of horror or pleasure gained through literature

The 'fall' in drama, often the tragic descent of the character or their fortunes

Self-knowledge: the realization of the character as to their own issues or tragic flaw. (Related to epiphany)

Tragic flaw: a personal error in a protagonist’s personality that brings about his tragic downfall in a tragedy.

Incongrunity between literal and implied meaning

When the reader has information the character does not

Placing two things close to one another

A work or character which imitates and mocks another