Schemes and Tropes for PRE AP

Style Analysis: Rhetorical Embellishment 

A CATOLOG OF SCHEMES AND TROPES 

 

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a rhetorician and teacher of oratory in Rome. His most important work is his 

On the Training of an Orator in which he proposes to give an educational schedule for the training of the 

ideal orator (public speaker). Throughout he emphasizes the importance of persona1 integrity and honest 

conviction in the art of public persuasion. It is a valuable resource for us today because it specifically 

identifies many of the figures of speech, which make writing interesting and effective. Quintilianus divided 

figures or speech into two kinds: 

!" Tropes- in which MEANING is altered from the usual or expected 

!" Schemes- in which WORD ORDER is altered from the usual, or expected 

 

Tropes include: 

Pun   Metaphor  Simile    Personification   

Hyperbole  Litotes  Synecdoche   Metonymy 

Oxymoron  Paradox   Onomatopoeia  Rhetorical Question 

  Apostrophe Euphemism Irony 

 

Schemes include: 

  Balance - parallelism, chiasmus, climax, antithesis 

Word Order - anastrophe 

Addition - apposition. Parenthesis, polysyndeton 

Omission – asyndeton, zeugma 

Repetition – anaphora, epistrophe, epanalepsis, anadiplosis, polyptoton,  

Sound - alliteration, assonance, consonance 

 

 

TROPES 

Tropes involve alterations in the usual meanings of words or phrases 

 

PUN: a play on the meaning of words 

 Three types of puns: 

1) Repetition' of a single word in two different senses 

"But if we don’t hang together, we will hang separately.” -Benjamin Franklin 

2) A play on words that sound alike but are different in meaning 

He couldn't get his bearings straight in the Bering Straight 

3) Use of a single word with two different meanings within the context of the sentence 

The photograph that appeared in the London Times caused a royal flush. 

The ink, like our pig, keeps running out of the pen. 

 

METAPHOR: An implied comparison between two unlike things [TYFA P.212] 

!" "True art is a conduit between body and soul, between feeling unabstracted and abstraction 

unfelt” -John Gardner, On Moral Fiction 

 

SIMILE: An explicit comparison between two unlike things signaled by the use of LIKE or AS  

!" "Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies,. but 1et wasps and hornets break 

through.” -Jonathan Swift. "A Critical Essay Upon the Faculties of the Miner” 

!" "...a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is too much for him. " 

 

PERSONIFICA TION: attributing human qualities to an inanimate object 

!" “ The grass is green and neatly cut, and the buildings cast a watchful eye over the clean, quiet 

campus.” 

!" “ High blood pressure is very real and dangerous, snatching the lives of many people.” 

 

HYPERBOLE:  exaggeration; deliberate exaggeration for emphasis [TYFA P.122] 

!" "You might have to go back to the Children's Crusade in AD 1212 to find as unfortunate and 

fatuous an attempt at manipulated hysteria as the Women's Liberation movement. 

  -Helen Lawrenson. "The Feminist Mistake" 

!" "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” 

  -Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte 

 

LITOTES: opposite of hyperbole, litotes (lit-o-tees) intensifies an idea by understatement. [TYFA P.57&175] 

!" “It wasn't my best moment”. 

!" “Jim is not the best student in the Western World.” 

 

SYNECDOCHE: uses a part to describe a whole [TYFA P. 213] 

!" "bread" stands for food, "hands" refers to helpers, and the slang expression "wheels" means a 

car. 

 

METONYMY: designation of one thing with something closely associated with it [TYFA P. 213] 

!" Thus we call the head of the committee the CHAIR, the king the CROWN and the newspaper 

the PRESS. In the common expression "man of the cloth,” the reference designates a priest 

because of the customary cloth collar associated with the position. 

 

OXYMORON: contradiction; two contradictory terms or ideas used together 

!" Parting is such sweet sorrow. 

!" Extremes meet, and then is no better example of haughtiness than humility. 

 

PARADOX: a statement that appears to be contradictory but, in fact, bas some truth 

!" He worked hard at being lazy 

!" Frank and explicit-this is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to 

confuse   the minds of others. 

!" Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor. 

 

ONOMATOPOEIA: refers to the use of words whose sound reinforces their meaning 

!" Drip, cackle, bang, snarl, pop 

 

RHETORICAL OUESTION: commonly defined as those questions that do not require an answer. Classical 

rhetoricians recognized that there are different kinds of rhetorical questions, and that each serves quite a 

different function. Four kinds of rhetorical questions are: 

1) Asking the Reader - The Greeks saw this kind of question as a way of taking counsel with the reader. You 

address the question to your reader expecting the reader to consider the answer. 

!" What would you have done under the circumstances? 

!" Have you ever felt so much like crying that you actually felt a real lump in your throat? 

!" (In this way, you directly involve the reader in the subject and guide that reader's attention to 

what you are talking about.) 

2) Asking the Writer- In this figure, the question is addressed to the writer, thus suggesting the writer's 

thinking process. 

!" Was it really what I wanted? I knew it was not what I expected when I enrolled in this program.  

!" (With this kind of rhetorical question. you review with the reader the questions that you raised 

in thinking about your subject. It is a way of talking through an idea with your reader.) 

3) Criticizing - In this kind of question, the writer is making a criticism in the form of a question. 

!" How can you be so intolerant? 

!" How can citizens fail to vote?  

!" (You can often make a statement or a request by putting it in the form of a question. Such a 

device varies the monotony of a series of statements or requests and gives them added 

emphasis.) 

4) Asking and Answering - In this kind of rhetorical question the writer asks a question and then proceeds to 

answer it. This is a common device in prose, and may serve as a way of organizing a paper or making the 

writer's method of development clear to the reader. [hypophora - TYFA P.39 & 212] 

!" Why has the incidence of rape increased in our society? Studies show that rape has increased 

as the portrayal of violence and sex on television has increased 

 

APOSTROPHE: "A turning away." You "turn away" from your audience to address someone new - God, the 

angels, heaven, the dead, or anyone not present. 

!" Death, where is thy sting? 

 

EUPHEMISM: You substitute less pungent words for harsh ones, with excellent ironic effect. 

!" The schoolmaster corrected the slightest fault with his birch reminder. 

 

IRONY: a discrepancy 

 Three types of irony: 

1) Verbal (difference between what is said and what is meant) 

2) Dramatic (difference between what is believed and what is true) 

3) Situational (difference between is expected and what happens) 

 

 

 

SCHEMES 

 

Schemes are arrangements of ideas, words, or phrases that arc stylistically effective. Often, as in parallelism, 

the pattern of the words effectively serves to reinforce the meaning. Cicero defined the schemes as the 

"gestures of language." 

 

BALANCE 

In the following schemes of balance, the syntactic structure of each sentence supports its meaning. Similar 

ideas are expressed in similar grammatical structure, contrasting ideas in contrasting grammatical structure, 

or a series of ideas in climactic order. 

 

PARALLELISM: expresses similar or related ideas in similar grammatical structures  

!" “…for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine 

Protection, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” 

-from The Declaration of Independence 

!" He tried to make the law clear, precise and equitable. 

 

CHIASMUS: derived from the Greek letter CHI (X); grammatical structure of the first clause or phrase is 

reversed in the second, sometimes repeating the same words [TYFA P.66 & 215] 

!" “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do, ask what you can do for your 

country.”    -John F. Kennedy 

Reversing the syntactical order emphasizes the reversal in meaning. Such a device is useful in writing to 

emphasize differences in meaning. 

 

CLIMAX (also called a Periodic Sentence): writer arranges ideas in order of importance 

!" I spent the day cleaning the house, reading poetry, and putting my life in order. 

 

ANTITHESIS: the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas [TYFA P.217] 

!" '.Our knowledge separates as well as unites: our orders disintegrate as well as bind; our art 

brings us together and sets us apart.” 

 

WORD ORDER (Syntax) 

In English, standard word order usually follows the subject-verb pattern. Adjectives ordinarily precede 

nouns. Deviation from normal word order signals emphasis. 

 

ANASTROPHE: word order is reversed or rearranged. Anastrophe in Greek means a "turning back" and in 

this figure the usual word order is reversed.  

!" “Unseen in the jungle, but present are tapirs, jaguars, many species of snake and lizard, 

ocelots, armadillos, marmosets, howler monkeys, toucans and a hundred other birds, deer bats, 

capybaras, and sloths. Also present in this jungle, but variously distant are Texaco derricks and 

pipelines, and some of the wildest Indians in the world, blowgun-using Indians, who killed 

missionaries in 1956 and ate them.” 

 

 

 

ADDITION 

Effective writers can add words or phrases to a sentence to vary the style and draw emphasis to certain parts 

of the sentence. 

 

APPOSITION: the placing next to a noun another noun or phrase that explains it  

!" Pollution, the city’s primary problem, is an issue.  

!" John, my brother, is coming home. 

 

PARENTHESIS: the insertion of words, phrases, or a sentence that is not syntactically related to the rest of 

the sentence. Such material is set off from the rest of the sentence in one of two ways. Either is acceptable.  

!" By dashes: He said that it was going to rain – I could hardly disagree – before the game was 

over. 

!" By parentheses: He said that it was going to rain (I could hardly disagree) before the game was 

over. 

 

POLYSYNDETON: the use of many conjunctions has an opposite effect; it slows the pace [TYFA P.___] 

!" I kept remembering everything, lying on the bed in the mornings – the small steamboat that had 

a long round stern like the lip of a Ubangi, and how quickly she ran on the moonlight sails, 

when the older boys played their mandolins and the girls sang and we ate doughnuts dipped in 

sugar, and how sweet the music was on the water in the shinning night, and what it has felt like 

to think about girls then. 

 

 

 

OMISSION 

Not only can words be added in stylistically effective ways, they can also be omitted for emphasis. 

 

ASYNDENTON: conjunctions are omitted, producing a fast-paced and rapid prose. [TYFA P.224] 

!" I came, I saw, I conquered. 

!" But in a large sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 

 

ZEUGMA: A term used in several ways, all involving a sort of "yoking": (1) when an object-taking word 

(preposition or transitive verb) bas two or more objects on different levels, such as concrete and abstract, as 

in Goldsmith's witty sentence, "I had fancied you were gone down to cu1tivate matrimony and your estate in 

the country," wherein figurative and literal senses of the transitive cultivate are yoked together by and; (2) 

when two different words that sound exactly alike are yoked together, as in "He bolted the door and his 

dinner," wherein bolted is actual1y two different concrete verbs yoking a literal and a figurative idea. 

 

 

Diazeugma [TYFA P.211] 

REPETITION 

 

ANAPHORA: the regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or 

clauses. [TYFA P.211] 

!" We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields 

and in the streets. 

!" The Lord sitteth above the water floods. The Lord remaineth a King forever. The Lord shall 

give strength unto his people. The Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace. 

 

EPISTROPHE: repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses 

(opposite of anaphora).  

!" Shylock: I’ll have my bond! Speak not against my bond! I have sworn an oath that I will have 

my bond! 

 

EPANALEPSIS: repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning.  

!" '.Blood hath bought blood, and blows answer’d blows: Strength match 'd with strength, and 

power confronted power.” 

  -Shakespeare, King John, II. I. 329-30 

 

ANADIPLOSIS: builds one thought on top of another by repeating last word of one thought as the beginning 

word of the next thought [TYFA P.104] 

!" “The love of wicked men converts to fear, That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both to 

worthy danger and deserved death.” – Shakespeare, Richard II 5.1.66-68 

!" “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to 

suffering.” - Yoda 

   

POLYPTOTON: repetition of the same word root in various forms.  

!" The suburbs are the American Dream realized, and the suburbanite . . . 

!" With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. —John of Gaunt in Shakespeare's Richard II 2.1.37 

 

SOUND 

Another kind of repetition that is particularly effective in the oratory is the repetition of certain sounds within 

a paragraph or a sentence. Such use of sounds reinforces meaning not only in orations, but in written prose as 

well. However, sounds must serve a purpose, Meaningless repetition of sounds would be monotonous, and to 

be effective sounds must reinforce the meaning in some way. 

 

 

ALLITERATION: the repetition of the same sound at the beginning of successive words  

!" Even though large tracts of Europe have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo, we 

shall not flag or fail. 

 

ASSONANCE: involves the repetition of sounds within words  

!" From nose to toes, the body is beginning to sag. 

!" No pain, no gain. 

 

CONSONANCE: words at the ends of verses in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but 

the words that precede them differ; sometimes called half rhyme  

!" A quietness distilled, / As twilight long begun, / Or Nature, spending with herself / Sequestered 

afternoon