Friday, April 9, 2010

Literary Devices of The Scarlet Letter

SYMBOLISM:
The title, The Scarlet Letter.

ALLUSION:
"pearl of great price" (ch. 6).
"...the kingdom of heaven is like a... man... Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it" (Matthew 13:45-46). 

ALLITERATION:
"separated from them by a series of six or seven generations" (ch. 2).

DRAMATIC IRONY:
“People say... that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation” (ch. 2).

APPOSITION:
"It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist..." (ch.6).

SITUATIONAL IRONY:
The reader expects that Hester will stay in England because there, she was able to forget about all troubles she had back home, but instead, she chooses to return, and even willingly wears the scarlet letter once again.

VERBAL IRONY:
“Hester Prynne...If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace...speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him" (ch. 4).

SIMILE:
"But it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea" (ch. 4).

REPETITION:
"As at the waving of a magician’s wand, uprose a grisly phantom,—uprose a thousand phantoms" (ch. 11).

PARALELLISM:
"His intellectual gifts, his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing and communicating emotion" (ch. 11).


* I couldn't find my book, and used an online version, so there are no page numbers. *

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