Literary Terms

As an English teacher, I love reading and using literary techniques. I love to learn, and whilst I am learning all about wax melt making, I thought it would be useful to put together a page for anybody who, like me, is interested in some of the techniques used by writers and why. We will add to them as we go along.

If there are any quotes or techniques you think would look great on our Literary Wax Melt Bars, reach out to us!

 

Literary Techniques:

Pathetic Fallacy

Writers use this to create a specific mood or to reflect how a character is feeling. It involves attaching human emotion to things in nature to set the tone, particularly the weather. For example, when Dr Frankenstein beholds his 'accomplishment of his toils', the weather is described as dark and dreary to set the tone of horror and further misery to come. 

Oxymoron

This is where two words are put together that appear to be opposites in meaning. It is intended to highlight their differences and we are able to look for deeper meaning because of their unexpected nature. Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth use oxymoron to establish the idea that they are here to cause chaos and have negative intentions.

Metaphor

This is when a writer says that something is something else, but this cannot be literally true. It is intended to create a specific image for the reader. For example, if we said the clouds were cotton candy swirls in the sky, we know that the clouds are not made of cotton candy (as amazing as that would be) but it does create the image of big, fluffy clouds!

Dual narrative

This usually involves different parts of a story being told from two different perspectives and these perspectives tend to be from two different people. It is an interesting technique to use to see how different characters perceive the same situation. Mary Shelley uses a dual narrative in Frankenstein to depict the experience of creating life, both from the creator and the creation. 

Novella

Prose that tells a narrative, but is shorter than a novel, but a bit longer than a short story! A Christmas Carol is a perfect example of a novella. They tend to be around 60-140 pages and are less complex than a novel in the sense that the complexities of characters isn't there or subplots/back stories. 

Stave

Whilst this is a musical technique, not a literary one, Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in staves instead of chapters! In music, staves are the set of horizontal lines that represent the different pitches. Staves can also pierce music, so interestingly, Dickens chose staves to pay homage to his title, but also perhaps to represent the need for his audience to stop and think about his message. Dickens said he wrote this novella as "a sledge-hammer blow on behalf of a poor man's child", demanding that the voices of the poor and their suffering would be heard through his words.