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Question

Difficulty: MediumLiterary Devices, Diction, and Style in Prose

Match each prose excerpt on the left with the primary literary device it demonstrates on the right.

  • The heavy iron gates grumbled on their rusty hinges as the intrusion broke the night.Personification
  • He spent decades accumulating mountains of gold, only to die with empty hands.Hyperbole
  • The news of his unexpected acquittal brought a quiet tempest to the courtroom.Oxymoron
  • Her voice was a sharp blade, cutting through the murmurs of the gathered crowd.Metaphor

Answer

The excerpt describing gates grumbling matches Personification; the passage referencing mountains of gold matches Hyperbole; the phrase 'quiet tempest' matches Oxymoron; and describing a voice directly as a sharp blade matches Metaphor.
Each excerpt correctly corresponds to its defining stylistic device: attributing human traits to iron gates is personification; describing wealth as 'mountains of gold' is hyperbole; placing 'quiet' and 'tempest' together is an oxymoron; and equating a voice directly to a 'sharp blade' is a metaphor.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Examine the key figurative expressions in each prose extract.
Identify human actions attributed to non-human objects, extreme exaggeration, contradictory word pairings, and direct non-literal comparisons.
Literary classification requires isolating the dominant stylistic feature of each passage.
2
Pair each excerpt with its exact literary term.
Excerpt 1 uses personification ('gates grumbled'); Excerpt 2 uses hyperbole ('mountains of gold'); Excerpt 3 uses oxymoron ('quiet tempest'); Excerpt 4 uses metaphor ('voice was a sharp blade').
Matching each extract against formal literary definitions confirms correct classification.

Key Concept

Identification of Literary Devices in Prose
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Topics

Literary Devices, Diction, and Style in Prose

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