CSEC English B flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Dramatic irony

A device where the audience understands a situation or outcome that one or more characters on stage do not, producing tension, comedy, or tragic inevitability.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, alone on stage, voices private thoughts aloud, giving the audience direct access to motive and inner conflict.

Aside

A brief remark spoken by a character that the audience hears but other characters on stage supposedly do not, often revealing hidden intent.

Stage directions

Playwright's instructions in the script covering movement, gesture, lighting, props, and tone, which guide interpretation of character and mood.

Blank verse

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter, five stressed beats per line, which gives speech a formal yet conversational rhythm.

Free verse

Poetry without fixed metre or rhyme scheme, relying instead on line breaks, rhythm of speech, imagery, and repetition to create form.

Enjambment

The running over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next without punctuation, accelerating pace and linking ideas.

Caesura

A deliberate pause or break within a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation, used to emphasise a word or shift in thought.

Sibilance

Repetition of hissing s or sh sounds in close proximity, often creating a soft, sinister, or whispering effect in a line.

Onomatopoeia

Use of words that imitate the sound they describe, such as crash or murmur, bringing sensory immediacy to description and action.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that states one thing is another, fusing two unlike ideas so that qualities of one transfer to the other.

Simile

A comparison using like or as that keeps both elements distinct, clarifying an unfamiliar quality through a familiar image.

Personification

Ascribing human feelings, actions, or voice to non-human things such as weather, objects, or animals, often to shape mood.

Pathetic fallacy

The technique of giving nature or weather emotions that mirror a character's state of mind, reinforcing atmosphere without direct statement.

Hyperbole

Deliberate exaggeration not meant to be taken literally, used for emphasis, humour, or emotional intensity in speech and description.

Oxymoron

A compressed paradox joining contradictory words, such as bitter sweet, that forces the reader to hold two ideas at once.

Symbolism

Use of an object, place, or action that carries meaning beyond its literal self, often reinforcing theme through recurrence.

Motif

A recurring image, phrase, or idea that accumulates meaning across a text and signals a central concern of the writer.

Imagery

Language appealing to the senses, especially sight and sound, that creates vivid mental pictures and shapes emotional response.

Tone

The writer's or speaker's attitude toward subject and audience, inferred from diction, imagery, rhythm, and sentence structure.

Mood

The feeling created in the reader by a text, produced by setting, diction, sound devices, and pacing rather than stated directly.

Diction

The writer's choice of words, including register and connotation, which establishes tone and reveals character through speech.

Point of view

The narrative perspective, such as first person, third-person limited, or omniscient, which controls what information readers receive.

Unreliable narrator

A narrator whose account is distorted by ignorance, bias, or self-interest, requiring readers to read against the narrative voice.

Foreshadowing

Hints planted early in a text that prepare readers for later events, building anticipation and making outcomes feel inevitable.

Flashback

A scene set earlier than the main narrative time, supplying background that reinterprets present action and character motive.

Frame narrative

A story told within another story, where the outer teller shapes how readers judge and interpret the inner tale.

Climax

The point of highest tension where the central conflict reaches its decisive turn, after which the outcome becomes clear.

Theme

The writer's central comment on a subject, expressed as a full assertion rather than a single topic word such as love.

Character foil

A character whose contrasting qualities highlight traits of another, sharpening the reader's judgement of both figures.

Nation language

Caribbean writing that adapts English vocabulary to local grammar, rhythm, and idiom, asserting cultural identity through voice.

Dialect in dialogue

Use of regional or social speech patterns in character speech to convey class, place, and identity and to distinguish voices.