Literary Devices-Onomatopoeia-Poetic Devices-Figures of Speech

 

1.Onomotapoeia: 

It is a figure of speech very much used in literary works to create an illusion of the actual sound of the things being described.

 For example, the word ‘thunder’ creates the illusion of the sound produced by the clouds. Similarly, we have the words used for the illusion of the sound/voice/noise created by the words like ‘roar’ for by the lions, ‘howling’ by the wolves, etc., buzzing by the bees, ‘boom’ by an explosion of some fireworks, etc., thud by the falling of a thing, grumbling by human beings, ‘tick-tick’ for the clock, ‘gong’ for the hitting on a big-bell, ‘ding-dong’ for some musical instrument, etc.

We have a long list of the words used under the name of this literary device. But a few of them are mew, moan, groan, mumble, mutter, whisper, whooping, knell, hush, churning, throbbing, screech, chatter, etc.

Examples:

 (i)‘He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his heart pounding and then he heard the clack on stone and the leaping, dropping clicks of a small rock falling.’

(Taken from Ernest Hemingway’s ‘For whom the Bell Tolls’

 

(ii) They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. (From Robert Frost’s Birches)