Literary devices
Non-fiction texts can use the same literary devices as fiction texts. These include:
- A comparison made without using 'like' or 'as', eg 'sea of troubles' and 'drowning in debt'.
- A comparison using 'like' or 'as' to create a vivid image, eg as big as a whale; float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
- A question asked just for effect with no answer expected.
- repetition
- parallelism (repeated sentence structures)
- listing
- groups of three (or ‘triadic structure’)
- irony
- adopting a persona
- A type of metaphor where you use part of something to refer to the whole. For example, in the phrase ‘all hands on deck’, the hands are people and the deck is the ship.
- Technique where the environment (usually the weather) reflects the emotions of the main character.
- variation in sentence length and structure
Non-fiction texts are more likely to use direct address, talking directly to the reader, and second person pronouns like ‘you’ and ‘yours’.
Example
This extract is from My Family and Other Animals, a memoir by Gerald Durrell, of the five years he and his family lived on Corfu. See how many literary devices you can recognise.
For some time the Rose-beetle Man would turn up at the villa fairly regularly with some new addition to my menagerie: a frog, perhaps, or a sparrow with a broken leg. One afternoon Mother and I, in a fit of extravagant sentimentalism, bought up his entire stock of rose-beetles and, when he had left, let them all go in the garden. For days the villa was full of rose-beetles, crawling on the beds, lurking in the bathroom, banging against the lights at night, and falling like emeralds into our laps.
The last time I saw the Rose-beetle Man was one evening when I was sitting on a hill-top overlooking the road. He had obviously been to some fiesta and had been plied with much wine, for he swayed to and fro across the road, piping a melancholy tune on his flute. I shouted a greeting, and he waved extravagantly without looking back. As he rounded the corner he was silhouetted for a moment against the pale lavender evening sky. I could see his battered hat with the fluttering feathers, the bulging pockets of his coat, the bamboo cages full of sleepy pigeons on his back, and above his head, circling drowsily round and round, I could see the dim specks that were the rose-beetles. Then he rounded the curve of the road and there was only the pale sky with a new moon floating in it like a silver feather, and the soft twittering of his flute dying away in the dusk.
My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell (1956)
Analysis
Gerald Durrell:
- Gives a metaphorical name to a character – ‘the Rose-beetle Man’ – named after what he sold.
- Uses precise adjectives to describe the colours, like the ‘pale lavender’ sky.
- Uses similes to create an artistic effect: ‘a new moon floating in it like a silver feather’. The word ‘feather’ also fits with the pigeons which have just been described.
- Lists all the places the beetles were found, building to a dramatic climax. They are precious – like ‘emeralds’.
- Creates striking visual images like the man ‘silhouetted’ against the sky.