EXPOSITIONBackground information presented in a literary work.

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . . [s]omehow it was hotter then . . .”

From To Kill a Mockingbird:

EXPOSITIONBackground information presented in a literary work.

Figurative Language

The body of devices that enables the writer to operate on levels other than the literal one. "Figures are as old as language. They lie buried in many words of current use. They occur constantly in both prose and poetry."(Joseph T. Shipley, Dictionary of World Literary Terms, 1970)

Figurative Language

Types (not limited to these):

Simile

Metaphor

Hyperbole

Synecdoche

Metonymy

SIMILEA comparison of one

thing with a different thing

METAPHORThe application of an

idea or object to something that’s not literally applicable

HYPERBOLEAn exaggerated claim

“I’m so obsessed. My heart is bound to

beat right out of my untrimmed chest.”

SYNECDOCHEA reference to

something as one of its parts or vice versa

METONYMYReference to something

more loosely associated with what it represents

“Skirt”- disparaging slang for a woman