Many writers use literary devices to give more depth and personality to their work. But what exactly are literary devices, and how can you use them in your writing? In this article, we’ll go through 38 types of literary devices, complete with examples, so you can start applying them to your work!
What Are Literary Devices?
Literary devices are how writers take their work to the next level, helping readers know how to read their stories and giving them new layers of meaning. Applying literary devices can be as straightforward as connecting a simple description to a character’s mood or as complex as creating a tone that sets up the whole mood of the story.
Are Literary Elements and Devices the Same?
Think of literary devices as the architectural details and special features of a house, whereas literary elements are like the major structural parts – the foundation and floors, the windows and doors. These elements, the building blocks of literature, include plot, character, setting, theme, frame, exposition, titling, and more.
Another way to look at it is that a literary element is something like a door, while literary devices are the door’s design or a doorknob in a specific style.
For instance, a mid-century modern doorknob and an elaborate Victorian brass one do the same thing, but they affect the way we look at the door and the impression it gives. As part of a whole house – or a work of literature – specific details can have a big impact!
Are Literary Techniques the Same as Literary Devices?
If literary devices are like the small details, literary techniques are on a larger scale, usually across a more extensive section of a piece or the entire novel or story.
If you read Jane Austen, you probably heard about “free indirect speech,” which is the technique she used to create her distinctive voice. Using the voice of a third-person narrator, Austen revealed her characters’ subjective thoughts and emotions.
This broader technique uses the literary device of juxtaposition between the detached third-person narrator and her characters’ very human first-person thoughts and emotions.
38 Common Literary Devices
What are some of these literary devices? You’d probably recognize many of them, even if you don’t know their names! Let’s learn about 38 common literary devices, how to spot them, and where to use them!
1. Allegory
In an allegory, you can use one specific character or situation to represent something else, usually to make a point about it. Allegory can be useful to make a concept or argument more accessible and entertaining. Sometimes, writers even use it to make a political argument that isn’t safe to make openly!
When to use it: Allegory can be useful to make a concept or argument more accessible and entertaining. In a repressive or dangerous situation, authors sometimes use allegory to make an argument or explore a dangerous theme to discuss in their society.
Example: George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a novella about a farm full of animals who overthrow their farmers. Once they have control of the farm, they use their philosophy of Animalism to justify oppressing each other. The animals are allegories for their human counterparts, and the farm is an allegory for any society that conducts a revolution in a search for justice but becomes just as corrupt and tyrannical itself.
2. Alliteration
Alliteration is using one letter at the start of words throughout a sentence or paragraph. This can cause an emotional reaction or make the writing lyrical and soothing. Alliteration can be obvious, with every or almost every word starting the same. It can also be more subtle, using one or more letters more often than others to draw the reader in or make something more memorable even if they don’t notice the repetition.
When to use it: Use alliteration if you want something to have emotional resonance for your audience or if you want to create a lyrical quality in your work. Alliteration can also help your readers remember something – think of the brand names that use it to make their brands memorable.
Example: In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien uses alliteration. The easiest way to see this is in essential characters’ names: Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, or Gimli, Son of Gloin. It’s not just names, though: in The Lord of the Rings, the Riders of Rohan sing before they go into battle: “spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!” Tolkien studied and taught Old English literature, which uses this ancient technique the same way we might use rhyme.
3. Allusion
Allusion is referring to something briefly but meaningfully. This isn’t a paragraph of analysis explaining a reference. Still, it does refer to something else that the reader can use to make sense of a character, a situation, or an argument. You can also use allusion within the story’s world to establish context within the setting or to show how a character understands themselves or the world.
When to use it: Use it when you want to make a significant impact by referring to something your audience knows and will associate with. You should also consider your audience! If your intended audience doesn’t know the references you’re making, allusion may not have much effect. This is why older literature can sometimes be hard to understand – we may not know the allusions characters are making!
Example: In Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, the narrator and main character introduces himself as invisible, then immediately clarifies that he doesn’t mean he’s like Edgar Allan Poe’s ghosts or the ghosts you see in Hollywood movies. This shows that as a Black man in segregated America, he’s invisible two times over: he’s invisible in society, and the way he is invisible is hard for people to see in books and movies.
4. Anachronism
Anachronism comes from a Greek word that means “against time.” It’s using something that doesn’t belong in a story’s period, sometimes to make the story more relatable and to create a startling effect or make a point.
When to use it: If your story is a historical piece with a time travel twist or if you want to add humor.
Example: In John Keats’ poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, he uses the old-fashioned “ye” where a person of his time would usually use “you”:
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes play on."This anachronism shows that Keats sees the urn’s link to the past and shows how it affects him. But this is an anachronism twice over: “Ye” is not a word for “you” from the urn’s time period or culture, but from the past Keats would have learned about in school.
5. Analogy
Analogies compare two unrelated things to make a point. Writers use it to make a character or a setting more vivid. Analogies can be literal or figurative.
When to use it: Use a literal analogy to compare two things that are alike – humans’ hands and monkeys’ paws, for instance. Use a figurative analogy to point out when different things have similar characteristics.
Example: One of the most famous analogies in popular culture is from the movie Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
6. Anaphora
Anaphora is using the same word or phrase multiple times in a series of sentences, clauses, or lines of a poem, usually to make a point and emphasize what is important.
When to use it: Use anaphora to make a powerful point or help a particular passage stand out.
Example: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech uses the phrase “I have a dream” six times when King talks about his vision for an equal and just America. It reinforces the importance of this dream and makes this the most memorable part of the speech.
7. Anagram
An anagram is a rearranged or respelled word or phrase, often revealing a hidden meaning. Anagrams are a form of wordplay, and as such, they’re usually more informal.
When to use it: Use an anagram to add another layer of meaning. Showing an audience what an anagram means can create a dramatic moment of revelation – use it for the climax of a story!
Example: J.K. Rowling uses an anagram in the Harry Potter books. The villain, Lord Voldemort, found his new name after he created an anagram from his old one, Tom Marvolo Riddle: “I am Lord Voldemort.”
8. Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the literary device of giving human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects.
When to use it: Use it to make something inanimate or abstract understandable to your audience in more human terms.
Example: In Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods, the new gods are personifications of things like media, technology, or even railroads! Gaiman gives these non-human things personalities and even human forms.
9. Antithesis
An antithesis is a pair of statements in which one is the reverse of the other, with similar sentence structures to highlight their difference. You can use it to clarify or reinforce a concept.
When to use it: An antithesis can clarify what something means by showing what it is not.
Example: In “An Essay on Criticism,” the poet and writer Alexander Pope writes, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” This poem was published in the 18th century, but people still use this expression today!
10. Chiasmus
Chiasmus is using the same phrase again, but in a different order. This can be used for emphasis or to explore a concept more deeply. It can be helpful to explore a complex truth and make it simpler.
When to use it: Use chiasmus for emphasis or to explore a concept more deeply.
Example: In John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, he writes, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This emphasizes one of the points the poem makes, that all artistic beauty reveals something true and that the truth of art is part of what makes it beautiful.
11. Colloquialism
Colloquialism is using a familiar and conversational word in dialogue or narration instead of a more formal or academic one. In narration, it makes the whole tone of the piece less formal. In dialogue, it tells you something about the character and where they come from.
When to use it: Use it to make a character’s speech more realistic and to place them in a specific region or culture.
Example: In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Mrs. Joad talks about her experience in the Great Depression and her sense of pride using the informal local dialect she learned growing up in turn-of-the-century Oklahoma:
"We're Joads. We don't look up to nobody."
"These folks is our folks—is our folks. An' that manager, he come an' set an' drank coffee, an' he says, 'Mrs. Joad' this, an' 'Mrs. Joad' that—an' 'How you getting' on, Mrs. Joad?'" She stopped and sighed. "Why, I feel like people again."Her colloquial speech shows us where she comes from and shows us something specific about the story and her character.
12. Consonance
Consonance is repeating the same consonant sound multiple times in a sentence, passage, or paragraph. It’s kind of like alliteration, but the sound doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the sentence.
When to use it: Use consonance to create a musical quality, reinforce an idea, or make something memorable.
Example: A perfect example of consonance is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, in which T.S. Eliot writes about metaphorical mermaids who sing at the beach but will not sing to him:
"I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black."This gives the passage a musical quality and makes it memorable.
13. Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the characters don’t. It’s a type of irony that involves reversing expectations.
When to use it: Dramatic irony is a great way to create suspense in your writing, but you can also use it for humor!
Example: Alfred Hitchcock is a master of using dramatic irony to create tension. In the film Psycho, the audience realizes that the character Norman Bates is dangerous, while the characters staying at his hotel have no idea. This creates legendary suspense.
14. Epigraph
An epigraph is a quote from another text used right after a title. It usually hints at the meaning of the text and often puts the work in conversation with the source of the quote.
When to use it: Use an epigraph when you want to help set an audience’s expectations or when you think a quote might help illuminate your writing’s meaning.
Example: Ernest Hemingway used a quote from his friend and fellow writer Gertrude Stein as the epigraph for The Sun Also Rises: “You are all a lost generation.” This tells us something about the novel’s themes, but we also call Hemingway and his literary friends “The Lost Generation” because of this epigraph.
15. Euphemism
A euphemism is a polite phrase we use as a substitute for a harsher or more unpleasant statement. This can be for politeness, to avoid censorship, or even to serve propaganda purposes.
When to use it: You can use euphemisms for a younger or more formal audience or to make learning something unpleasant easier for your audience. You can also use euphemism in dialogue to show us something about your characters.
Example: In The Godfather, the phrase “sleeps with the fishes” describes someone who has been killed and disposed of in a body of water. This scene also uses symbolic language – the killers send one of the victim’s garments with a dead fish wrapped inside!
16. Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is dropping hints, warnings, or suggestions throughout the early parts of a narrative that something might happen later.
When to use it: Use foreshadowing to build suspense and create running themes.
Example: In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein writes about his early reading in alchemy and mysticism, which his father had dismissed as unscientific nonsense. This foreshadows how Frankenstein will break the laws and norms of science in reanimating his monster.
17. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the practice of exaggerating something for emphasis. This isn’t like your overdramatic friend who takes himself too seriously – this is a deliberate technique used to make a point.
When to use it: The exaggeration can make a strong point. However, make sure to write it purposefully so your audience knows you’re purposely exaggerating and that you know it, too!
Example: In his satirical essay A Modest Proposal, the writer Jonathan Swift suggests that Irish children should be used as food to alleviate hunger in England. Don’t worry – he didn’t mean it! Swift was using hyperbole to write about the injustice of the way the English government was treating Irish people at the time.
18. Imagery
This literary device uses physical and visual descriptions to help the reader imagine things or understand a concept. This is because we understand the world in part by seeing it, so imagery is an effective way to tell a story or make an argument. You can also use it to create analogies and metaphors.
When to use it: Use imagery to describe a character or a setting. How you use imagery can also help develop the tone of your writing.
Example: In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator has been confined to a room on her doctor’s orders for a long time. She describes the wallpaper, telling us something about the room but also about herself and how she sees her situation: “The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.”
19. Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition is placing two different things side by side in a text to emphasize their difference. This is not a direct comparison – juxtaposition lets you see the differences for yourself instead of listing them or pointing them out.
When to use it: Use juxtaposition when you want to show how two things, places, ideas, or characters are different but don’t want to make an overt comparison.
Example: In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen juxtaposes two different love interests, the charming but dishonorable and dishonest Mr. Wickham and the awkward and sometimes rude but steadfast and good-hearted Mr. Darcy. She doesn’t list these characteristics; instead, she emphasizes their differences by putting the characters side-by-side and showing their different reactions to specific situations.
20. Metaphor
A metaphor compares two unrelated things, showing ways they are alike. This can be an imaginative way to describe things or show how a character feels about a situation.
When to use it: When you want to describe something vividly and imaginatively, a metaphor can be useful. It can help your audience see something in a new way.
Example: In Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare has Romeo say: “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.” He’s not talking about Juliet, though! This is about Romeo’s unrequited love Rosaline, who he barely knows. This metaphor works on two levels: it shows us how Romeo feels about love and provides a contrast to his future, mutual love with Juliet.
21. Mood
Mood is the general feeling of a piece of writing, the impression it gives a reader. Lots of different devices and techniques can contribute to mood!
When to use it: You can’t avoid creating a mood in your writing! You can make sure that the vocabulary, technique, and devices you’re using serve the mood you’re trying to create.
Example: In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses lots of things to create the dark, Gothic mood of the novel: descriptions of landscape, ominous foreshadowing, a focus on memory and confusion, and even a ghost!
24. Motif
A motif is a recurring element in a story: a word, a phrase, a symbol, or a structural tool. It helps reinforce themes and dynamics within the story. A motif is not a theme, but it can help support it.
When to use it: Use motifs to help reinforce your story’s themes and ideas. If your motifs work together, that will strengthen your writing.
Example: In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, he reinforces his story’s Gothic mood and themes of emotional and moral decay with a motif of physical decay. The skeletons in the catacombs aren’t just skeletons.
25. Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that brings together two words or ideas that contradict each other. Sometimes, it’s for entertainment, but it can also be for making a deeper point or introducing a novel idea.
When to use it: Use an oxymoron to get the reader’s attention! It can also be a useful literary device when you want to explore the tensions in an idea.
Example: Andy Warhol once said, “I am a deeply superficial person.” This tells us a lot about his art, which is concerned with surfaces but addresses them over and over again.
26. Paradox
A paradox looks like a contradiction at first, but it makes sense on further thought – you can use it to reveal a deeper truth! Plus, it can be playful, profound, or both!
When to use it: Use this to catch a reader’s attention and make them see an idea in a new way!
Example: According to Plato, Socrates said, “I know one thing: that I know nothing.”
27. Personification
Personification is talking about something that is not human, as if it has human characteristics or a human perspective. It lets us recognize human behavior and emotions in animals, objects, or ideas.
When to use it: Use it when you want your reader to think about something that is not human as a human. You can also use personification to create sympathy!
Example: Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree personifies the generous, self-sacrificial tree.
28. Perspective
All writing has a perspective. Is your story written only from the perspective of the protagonist? Will you also shed light on the antagonist’s perspectives?
When to use it: You can’t avoid using perspective! Choose a perspective based on how close you want to get to your main character’s point of view and how much you want the audience to know about all your characters.
Example: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a first-person novel told from the title character’s point of view and limited to her perspective. This gives her narrative an intense focus on her emotions and subjective experience. Jane Austen writes from a third-person omniscient perspective in her novels, which means that social interactions and dynamics come into closer focus, and we know more about what her different characters are thinking and feeling.
29. Point of View
Like perspective, point of view refers to the angle from which you tell a story. Point of view is complex but essential for a writer to master. It relates to who is telling the story – a narrator who is not part of the story or a character who is. In the first-person point of view, the main character or someone close to them tells the story as they witness it. This incorporates some of their emotions and personality into the narrative. In the second-person POV, the narrator talks directly to the reader. This can be powerful, but it’s very hard to master! The third-person point of view gives the author the most flexibility as they tell their story. We also have a fourth-person POV, which uses “we” and “us.”
When to use it: You must choose a viewpoint for your story, so choose carefully. Think about your genre and the story you want to tell.
Example: Suzanne Collins chose the first person point of view to focus her novel The Hunger Games on her protagonist, Katniss. In Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerny used a second-person point of view. Jane Austen wrote from a third-person point of view. This meant she could write about different characters’ thoughts and emotions. Ayn Rand used a fourth-person point of view in her novel The Anthem.
30. Repetition
Repetition is just what it sounds like! It’s repeating a word or phrase to emphasize or establish tone, rhythm, and overall style.
When to use it: Use repetition to emphasize something or to establish a specific style. You can use repetition to make prose deadened and monotonous or musical. You can even use it to make a word seem less familiar – think of when you repeat a word over and over again and it seems like it loses all meaning.
Example: Dr. Seuss uses repetition a lot! Consider the childhood favorite One Fish, Two Fish:
"One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish,
Black fish, Blue fish, Old fish, New fish.
This one has a little car.
This one has a little star.
Say! What a lot of fish there are."31. Satire
Satire is the practice of ridiculing something – often human foolishness – to call attention to it and inspire correction. Using humor, a writer engages in social criticism while holding the audience’s attention.
When to use it: To put it simply, you can use satire when you want to make a moral or argumentative point, but you want to be funny and entertaining.
Example: In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde makes all kinds of jokes about Victorian England’s moral and social norms, especially around marriage and social class. The jokes are genuinely funny, but Wilde’s criticisms are serious.
32. Simile
A simile compares two dissimilar things using “like” or “as.” This is always an explicit rather than implied comparison. It’s like a metaphor, but metaphors don’t use “like” or as to build the comparison.
When to use it: Use it when you want to compare two things, especially if you want to help the reader see one in a new way.
Example: In A Red, Red Rose, the Scottish poet Robert Burns writes:
"O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune."33. Situational Irony
Situational irony is a form of irony in which the opposite of what you expect in a story happens. It’s different from dramatic irony in that situational irony means that the audience isn’t in on it – situational irony is as much of a surprise to the audience as it is to the characters.
When to use it: Use situational irony to surprise your reader. This can be dramatic, funny, or both.
Example: In the Harry Potter books, Harry spends seven books believing that he has to kill Lord Voldemort. In the end, though, he can only defeat Lord Voldemort by letting Voldemort kill him.
34. Soliloquy
A monologue is a speech delivered by one character, usually expressing their inner thoughts and feelings. Sometimes, especially on stage, the character may not be physically alone, but the soliloquy is still only for them and for the audience.
When to use it: Use a soliloquy to give your reader or audience access to a character’s inner state and thought process.
Example: One of the most famous soliloquies is from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
35. Sonnet
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem with a rhythmic structure called Iambic pentameter. It came from 13th-century Italy, but you’ve probably read English sonnets by William Shakespeare.
When to use it: Try a sonnet when you’re considering a far-ranging concept or theme and want to consider it within a structure.
Example: Shakespeare probably wrote more sonnets, but only 156 survived, exploring emotional experiences and the contradictions of life. You’ve probably read Sonnet 18, which begins:
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate."36. Symbolism
Symbolism is using concrete symbols to depict abstract ideas. It’s a type of imagery that uses something that we can understand from the world around us to convey complex or abstract ideas.
When to use it: Use symbolism to make something abstract or complicated accessible to your readers.
Example: In The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum uses the Yellow Brick Road to symbolize the promise of riches and success in America – think of the phrase “the streets are paved with gold.” The road leads to the Emerald City, full of illusions and false promises.
37. Tone
Tone means the mood or textual style a writer’s word choice and stylistic choices establish. It can reveal a writer’s attitude or be a deliberately affected style for an artistic purpose.
When to use it: Any time you write, your writing has a tone. Consider your word choice, sentence length and rhythm, and subject matter. Do you want a terse and straightforward tone, something rich and detailed with lots of description, or something light and humorous?
Example: In his novels like The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway used simple sentences and straightforward descriptions reminiscent of journalism for an honest, direct, down-to-earth tone. His friend F. Scott Fitzgerald’s more elaborate and nostalgic prose choices in The Great Gatsby, with longer and more elaborate descriptions, evoke a tone of glamour, mourning, and cynicism all at once. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee also uses the right tone for the story.
38. Verbal Irony
In verbal irony, the speaker’s words don’t align with their intent. They say one thing and mean another. This can be abrasive and sarcastic or more playful and benign.
When to use it: Use verbal irony for humor, to make a point, or to highlight inconsistencies and contradictions.
Example: In A Modest Proposal, the writer Jonathan Swift builds a whole essay on verbal irony, suggesting that the children of poor Irish families should be a food source to solve hunger in England! Since the essay’s intent is to criticize how these poor families are being treated, his words and intent don’t match, resulting in a scathing critique of dehumanizing political policies.
