Figurative Language in The Story of an Hour

As you read The Story of an Hour, look for these figures of speech. Mark them and comment on their effect in the margins of the page.

Figures of Speech or Figurative Language

Alliteration- the repetition of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration's artful aid or she sells seashells by the seashore.

Metaphor- a term or phrase is applied to something or compared to something in order to suggest a similarity; a direct comparison as in “A mighty fortress is our God” or “You are my rock”

Simile - a figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared using like or as, as in “she is like a rose.”

Personification- giving personal or human characteristics to inanimate/ nonliving objects or idea, as in “Dawn with her rosy-fingers” or “The night crept into morning.”

Paradox - A figure or speech in which a seemingly self-contradictory statement is nevertheless found to be true. Example: standing is more tiring than walking. “Some things are simultaneously knowable and incomprehensible.”

Oxymoron- A figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear side by side; a compressed paradox, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly” or “there was deafening silence” or “jumbo shrimp”