1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Literary Terms
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Why is Jeannette’s glass castle more like a sand castle? (metaphor)
The glass castle represents the hopes of a positive future for the family. Those hopes can be represented in a sand castle because it can be built but it can easily be washed away, just like the children’s hopes are often washed away.

2. Figurative Language/Literary Terms Review
Also known as descriptive language, or poetic language, figurative language helps the writer paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

3. Allusion
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature.
Example: "Fluffy" -- the three headed dog in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
In Greek Mythology, Cerberus guards the gate to the underworld.  He is "a three-headed, dragon- tailed dog, who permits all spirits to enter, but none to return."
--  from Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Hunger Games names

4. Colloquialism
A word or phrase used in everyday plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing.
Example: The opening line from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
"You don’t know about me without you having read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter."

5. Colloquialism cont’d
Another example: The first sentence of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

6. Hyperbole Exaggeration or overstatement for an effect.
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
“This test is going to take forever to finish.”
Now you write one:
Begin with “My dog is so ugly…” and finish the sentence using hyperbole.
(example: My dog is so ugly we had to pay the fleas to live on him!)

7. Idiom
An expression in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word- for-word in another language.
“tough nut to crack”
“piece of cake”
Now you write one.

8. Verbal Irony
An implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant
Example: From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Mercutio (Romeo's best friend) receives a wound which he calls “a scratch,” but he knows it is fatal.

9. Symbol
Using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning
Example: From The Glass Castle
The Joshua tree is a concrete object, but it represents the abstract concept of family relationships and Jeannette’s life experiences.

10. Metaphor. A comparison of two unlike things,
Metaphor A comparison of two unlike things, but does NOT use the words "like" or "as".
“She was an ice cube before the
heat kicked on.”
“They are two peas in a pod.”
Simile
A comparison of two unlike things
using the words "like" or "as".
“She is as cold as ice.”
“The stars shine like diamonds.”

11. Theme
the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express
Example: From Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird,:
“Even if one person stands up for what is right, when all others are against him or her, it can make a positive difference.”
Examples from The Glass Castle?

12. The Appeals Appeal to character: Ethos
To make an argument that is a persuasive appeal to someone’s moral and ethical nature.
Example: Charity commercials. “Just 5 cents a day will help end hunger in Africa.”
Makes you feel ethically/morally responsible for helping if the cost is so low

13. The Appeals cont’d Example: Dr. Martin Luther King's speech
Appeal to reason: Logos
To use rational thinking to persuade by means of an argument “suitable to the case in question.”
Also known as rational appeal or logical proof
Example: Dr. Martin Luther King's speech
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Dr. King opens his speech with a historical background of the situation of African Americans in America. He explains that 100 years ago Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation setting slaves free.

14. The Appeals cont’d Appeal to Pity: Pathos
To make an argument with emotional appeal that targets the audience’s altruism and mercy.
Example: From Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle
“Quixote landed with a screeching meow and a thud, Dad accelerated up the road, and I burst into tears” (18).

15. Pathos cont.