Literary Devices in Great Expectations

Literary Devices used by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations

• 1. Parallelism - The use of identical grammatical constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases.
     • In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him (both phrases have adv, past tense verb, prepositional phrase), pulled my hair, slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it (past tense verb, direct object) into my stomach.
  2. Anaphora - The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several parallel clauses or paragraphs.
     • A man with no hat and with no shoes and with an old rag tied around his head.
  3. Epistrophe - The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several parallel clauses or paragraphs.
  4. Antithesis - Placing contrasting ideas side by side using parallel structure.
     • So new to him; so old to me; so strange to him; so familiar to me.
  5. Polysyndeton - Using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where they are usually replaced by commas.
     • A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, andstung by nettles, and torn by briars.
  6. Asyndeton - a style that omits conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.
     • The winking lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a marsh of fire on the horizon.

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