English 10-1 · Devices
Naming it is the easy half
Identifying a metaphor is worth almost nothing on its own. What is marked is whether you can say what the comparison does to a reader, and why the writer chose that one rather than plain statement.
- 1. The words, first
- 2. Devices by family
- 3. Writing about effect
- 4. The three ironies
- 5. What costs marks
The words, first
The idea: Grouping devices by what they do makes them far easier to use than an alphabetical list.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Simile | A comparison using like or as. |
| Metaphor | A comparison without the connective, so it asserts rather than suggests. |
| Extended metaphor | A comparison developed consistently, so each detail corresponds to something. |
| Personification | Human qualities given to something not human. Ask which quality. |
| Hyperbole / understatement | Deliberate exaggeration and deliberate restraint. Both work by the gap between what is said and what is meant. |
| Imagery | Language appealing to the senses — not only sight. |
| Alliteration / assonance / consonance | Repeated initial consonants, repeated vowels, repeated consonants elsewhere. |
| Verbal irony | Saying the opposite of what is meant. |
| Situational irony | An outcome opposite to what was expected. |
| Dramatic irony | The audience knowing something a character does not. |
| Symbol | A concrete thing standing for an abstract idea. |
| Motif | A recurring element that accumulates significance by repetition. |
| Allusion | A reference to another work, importing its associations in a few words. |
Devices by family
The idea: Four groups, and each produces a characteristic kind of effect.
| Family | Typical effect | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Comparison | Changes how the reader sees something | What does the second thing bring with it? |
| Sound | Controls pace and feel | Does the sound agree with the sense? |
| Structure and syntax | Controls what is learnt, and when | Why revealed here rather than earlier? |
| Irony | Creates distance, judgement or suspense | What does the reader know that someone does not? |
Writing about effect
The idea: Technique, place, effect, link to meaning. Four parts, one sentence.
Build it up.
- “The author uses a metaphor.” — a label.
- “The author compares the city to a machine.” — the comparison named.
- “Comparing the city to a machine strips its people of agency.” — an effect.
- “Comparing the city to a machine strips its people of agency — machines have parts, not participants — which prepares the reader for the narrator's later indifference to a stranger's collapse.” — effect connected to meaning, and this is the one that earns the mark.
The most useful single question: what else could the writer have said, and what changed by not saying it? Choosing scrawny over slender is a judgement, and naming the judgement is analysis.
A test before you write. If you cannot finish the sentence “…which makes the reader…”, do not write about that device.
The three ironies
The idea: These get confused more than anything else on the list, and the distinction is easy once stated.
| Type | The gap is between | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal | What is said and what is meant | “Lovely weather,” in a downpour |
| Situational | What was expected and what happens | A fire station burns down |
| Dramatic | What the audience knows and what the character knows | The audience knows the drink is poisoned |
Not everything unexpected is ironic. Coincidence and bad luck are not situational irony; the reversal has to run against an expectation the text deliberately set up.
What costs marks
The idea: All four are versions of stopping too early.
- The device list. Six named, none explained.
- “This creates imagery.” Of what, to which sense, producing what?
- “This makes it more interesting.” True of every device ever used, therefore says nothing.
- Calling every comparison a metaphor. With like or as it is a simile.