Ten Literary Devices from The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Alliteration
“…her voice sounded strident, shrill, as if she…”
(Edwards 341)

Simile
“Strange swirling shapes, like petrified flowers”
(Edwards 215)

Personification
“…their headlights playing on the wall”
(Edwards 95)

Metaphor
“Until Caroline, startlingly, had arrived, a flower blooming up through snow”
(Edwards 23)

Repetition
“…then surely, surely, it was the worst…”
(Edwards 69)

Allusion
“‘What if I could be the next Segovia?’”
(Edwards 201)

Paradox
“A moment was not a single moment at all, but rather an infinite number of different moments…”
(Edwards 214)

Hyperbole
“'It just about killed my mother, losing her'”
(Edwards 219)

Oxymoron
“‘But Caroline, it’s so bittersweet’”
(Edwards 225)

Onomatopoeia
“…the soft touch of her hands or the cooing sounds she made when she was happy”
(Edwards 95)