Literary and rhetorical devices are essential to effective writing and produce a specific effect. They add color, interest, and power to writing, making it more interesting and memorable. When used correctly, they can also make your point clear. There are many different literary devices, and they can be used to achieve various effects from enhancing the plot to creating a more vivid description. Some devices are more commonly used than others, but each has the potential to create a powerful impact on the reader.
Some of the most commonly literary and rhetorical devices include alliteration， onomatopoeia， allusion, and personification. These devices are often used to create vivid images in the reader's mind or to make the story more interesting. Other devices include irony, symbolism, and stream of consciousness. Each device can be used to convey a different message or emotion. These devices are often used to create a more poetic or expressive effect in the text. Other devices, such as irony and satire, are used to create a specific effect on an audience. Irony is used to create humour, while satire is used humorously to make a political or social point
The irony is often used in advertising, where the product or service being sold is completely different from the message being sent. For example, an ad for a funeral home that says "We're here for you when you're gone" is using irony to create humour.
Satire is often used to make a political or social point. For example, an article that takes a satirical approach to climate change might be titled ‘’How to Stop Worrying and Love the Climate Change‘’
Lets look at some of the many literary devices there are;
1) Rhetorical question:
These are questions that do not need (expect)an answer. They are meant to sway the emotions of the audience, to persuade or to impress.
For example, Derek Walcott’s poem,
‘parades, parades’
The rhetorical questions in Walcott’s poem communicate bewilderment and hopelessness.
2) Euphemism.
Euphemism is the use of a polite, pleasant, mild and indirect words or phases in place of more direct ones e.g. My father has died or my father kicked the bucket.
3) Cacophony.
Cacophony is the use of direct words or phrases without an attempt of making it mild and indirect. For example, my father was slaughtered last night. I am going to defecate.
4) Parody.
Just as she would suggests, parody is imitating one’s style of singing or writing (artistic style of speech and writing). Example: Timothy, Wangusa’s poem ‘Psalms 23 part II’.
Original Psalm 23.
The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever.
PSALMS 23 PART II
The state is my shepherd, I shall not want;
It makes me to lie down in a subsidized house.
It leads me into political tranquility;
It restores my faith in a lucrative future.
It leads me into paths of loans and pensions, for its international reputation’s sake.
Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Kivvulu I will fear no Kondos;
For the state is with me, its tanks and guns comfort me.
It preserves for me a bank account, in the presence of devaluation;
It fills my pocket with allowances, my salary over flows.
Surely increments and promotion. Shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in senior staff quarters for ever.
- Timothy Wangusa (Uganda)
5) Paradox; -
A paradox is a self-contradictory statement which may seem absurd, but expresses a felt truth, for example:
a. Eloquent silence
b. A good wedding without food
c. Sweet odor (smell)
d. Ugly beauty.
6) Spoonerism.
Spoonerism is a faulty speech usually accidental whereby there is changing of initial sounds of words, for example, instead of saying oiled bicycles, one says boiled bicycle or coiled bicycle, instead of saying; district one says biscuit.
7) Ambiguity.
Ambiguity is when words, statements or phrases have two or more possible meanings compressed into this one word, statement, or phrase or even a whole poem. All the meanings may be important for example, spacious house (can mean, has a good or disorganized arrangement) it can also mean, the house is very large.
8) Apostrophe/apostrophize.
This is an exclamatory address to a person or thing that may even be death as though they are present. It is also a direct address to a thing as if it were a person (human begin) For example the poem,
“Death be not proud”
Refer also to the, ‘Obituaries.’ In the news papers….
9. Oxymoron
This is a combination of contradictory or incongruous worlds such as cruel kindness, “…to make haste slowly”, “open …” Jumbo shrine’. They are used for a variety of purposes to create drama for the reader, to make a person stop and think, to reward a paradox.
10. Metonym.
This is when a thing a concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept e.g. use of capital cities to represent nations, chain to ref. to chairperson.
11. Synecdoche
In this, a part of something is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Uganda lost by six wickets (meaning ‘the English Cricket team’ It is used to add to visual imagery of the passage/poem and enhance vendors experience. e.g calling a car “wheels”, skirt walking.
