FIGURES OF SPEECH

There are three general types of figures of speech.

1. Figures Based on Comparison

a. Simile is used in comparing nouns using as, like, as if, resembles, (Jane is like my mother.)

b. Metaphor is used in comparing nouns without using as, like, as if

ex. The word is a key into my heart.

c. Personification is the attribution of human life and characteristics to inanimate objects.

Ex. The sea waves sobbed with sorrow. (Whittier)

d. Apostrophe is an address to an idea, an inanimate object, or an absent person.

Ex. Oh death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory! (St. Paul)

e. Metonymy is the use of sign for the thing meant or the taking of the part for the whole.

Ex. Thirty hands are employed in that factory.

2. Figures Based on Arrangement

a. Alliteration is the repetition of the initial letters or sounds in a succession of words.

Ex. Some sat, some stood, some slowly strayed. (Sir Walter Scott)

b. Climax is the arrangement of details so that they come in increasingly important positions.

Ex. I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)

3. Figures Based on Contradiction

a. Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration made to produce a startling or an alarming effect.

Ex. She held the world in her embrace.

b. Irony is a statement opposite to what the statement actually means.

c. Paradox is a statement that appears at first glance to be untrue or absurd but on second
thought becomes significant and true.

Ex. Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. (Richard Lovelace)