The Essential Figures of Speech for the French Bac 2026: 30 Rhetorical Devices to Master for the Written and Oral Examinations

The Figures That Betray You at the Oral Examination

The scene is unremarkable, yet it repeats itself every year in hundreds of examination rooms. A candidate in their final year of lycée reads aloud an extract from Maupassant's Le Horla. Their diction is confident, their tone assured. The examiner interrupts gently: "You mentioned the narrator's anxiety. Which rhetorical device precisely reinforces that anxiety in the sentence you just read?"

The candidate pauses. They recognise that something is happening in the sentence — the rhythm accelerates, the commas accumulate, the words seem to bite into one another. They sense the effect. They do not possess the name. "It's… a kind of insistence," they venture. The examiner makes a note. The exact word — accumulation or asyndeton depending on the precise context — would have been sufficient to transform that hesitant response into a demonstration of analysis.

This moment, multiplied across thirty figures, represents the heart of the épreuve anticipée de français. Identifying a figure of speech is not enough: one must also name it with precision, define it without confusing it with its neighbours, and above all show in what way it produces a particular effect of meaning in this specific text, at this specific point. It is this triple competence — recognition, denomination, interpretation — that the examining board evaluates, in both the written and oral components.

Figures of speech are not a catalogue to be memorised mechanically. They are the tools that writers, from Racine to Modiano, have chosen in order to densify their prose or verse, to create meaning where a neutral utterance would produce only information. To understand a figure is to understand a writing decision. It is to enter the author's workshop.

This dossier brings together the thirty indispensable figures for 2026, grouped into five coherent families, each illustrated by an example drawn from French literature and accompanied by a brief rhetorical analysis. A four-step method, a section on frequent confusions, and a reference table complete the whole.

Cluster A — Figures of Analogy

These figures establish a relationship of resemblance between two realities, bringing together what is distinct in order to reveal what direct observation would not perceive.

1. Simile (La comparaison)

Definition. An explicit linking of two terms (the comparé and the comparant) by means of a grammatical marker of comparison: like, as, such as, similar to, resembling. The two terms remain distinct; the resemblance is stated, not fused.

Example. In L'Éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education), Flaubert describes Madame Arnoux at her first appearance: "Ce fut comme une apparition" ("It was like an apparition"). The brevity of the sentence, the simplicity of the word apparition, make the simile a linguistic event as sudden as the visual shock it transcribes.

Rhetorical effect. The simile maintains an analytical distance between the two worlds placed in relation. It invites the reader to measure the gap, to reflect on the resemblance rather than accept it immediately.

2. Metaphor (La métaphore)

Definition. A comparison without a grammatical marker of comparison. The vehicle substitutes for, or is superimposed upon, the tenor, creating an immediate identification. The metaphor may be extended (filée) when it develops across several sentences or stanzas.

Example. Baudelaire, in Spleen et Idéal (Flowers of Evil), deploys an extended metaphor of the albatross to figure the condition of the poet: the bird, majestic in the air, becomes ridiculous on the ship's deck, just as poetic genius remains misunderstood in bourgeois society. The metaphor here organises the entire structure of the poem.

Rhetorical effect. The metaphor creates a semantic fusion that strikes more directly than the simile. It imposes a vision, engaging the reader to accept an equivalence that ordinary logic would refuse.

3. Personification (La personnification)

Definition. The attribution of human characteristics — feelings, speech, voluntary actions — to a non-human being (animal, object, abstraction, natural phenomenon).

Example. In Le Lac (The Lake), Lamartine apostrophises the waters of the lake, asking them to preserve the memory of the night spent with Elvire. Nature thus becomes the custodian of affective memory, substituting a cosmic persistence for human recollection.

Rhetorical effect. Personification projects an interior state onto the external world. It transforms the landscape into an interlocutor, rendering the subjectivity of the speaker or narrator visible.

4. Allegory (L'allégorie)

Definition. A concrete and figurative representation of an abstract idea. Allegory is an extended and systematic personification: an abstract entity takes on body, acts, and speaks within a coherent narrative or description.

Example. In La Fontaine, many fables construct moral allegories: the Lion represents royal power, the Fox cunning and courtly opportunism. Their confrontation in Le Lion et le Renard (The Lion and the Fox) allegorically translates the power relations between nobility and bourgeoisie.

Rhetorical effect. Allegory makes it possible to treat a politically or morally sensitive subject under cover of fiction. It produces a double level of reading: the manifest narrative and the latent signification.

5. Prosopopoeia (La prosopopée)

Definition. A figure by which an absent, dead, imaginary, or inanimate being takes the floor and speaks in the first person. It differs from simple personification in that it implies a direct discourse attributed to that being.

Example. In Les Contemplations, Hugo gives voice to his daughter Léopoldine, who died by drowning. Prosopopoeia allows the lost voice to cross through mourning and address the one who remains, reversing the ordinary direction of poetic speech.

Rhetorical effect. Prosopopoeia creates a powerful emotional charge by giving voice to absence. It provokes an effect of paradoxical presence that intensifies the feeling of loss or of the ideal.

6. Catachresis (La catachrèse)

Definition. A lexicalised metaphor, integrated into common usage to the point where it is no longer perceived as a figure. When one says "the foot of a table," "the wing of a building," or "a saw tooth," one employs a catachresis: the term borrowed from the human or animal body serves to designate a part of an object.

Example. In Flaubert, stylistic consciousness manifests itself sometimes in the choice to reactivate dead catachreses, restoring to them their primary analogical force. Similarly, Ponge, in Le Parti pris des choses (The Voice of Things), works systematically with catachresis by unfolding it: the "neck" (col) of a bottle becomes an organic throat beneath his pen.

Rhetorical effect. Catachresis reveals the metaphorical dimension buried in ordinary language. To identify it in a literary text often signals a desire to reactivate language, to make it felt once again.

Cluster B — Figures of Opposition

These figures draw their force from a relationship of contrast, tension, or contradiction between two terms or two realities placed in confrontation.

7. Antithesis (L'antithèse)

Definition. The opposition of two terms, ideas, or images of contrary meaning, placed within the same syntactic movement or in two parallel members. The two terms remain distinct, without merging.

Example. Hugo is the master of antithesis. In Les Misérables, the opposition between Javert and Jean Valjean structures the entire novel: law against grace, letter against spirit, social order against moral justice. At the stylistic level, in Hernani, the line "Je suis une force qui va" ("I am a force that moves") is articulated around antitheses between power and wandering.

Rhetorical effect. Antithesis dramatises a conflict, whether moral, political, or sentimental. It imposes on the reader a binary vision that compels them to take a position.

8. Oxymoron (L'oxymore)

Definition. The juxtaposition within a single syntagm of two terms of contradictory meaning, creating a paradoxical and striking formulation. The oxymoron fuses what antithesis keeps separate.

Example. Corneille, in Le Cid, uses the celebrated oxymoron: "Cette obscure clarté qui tombe des étoiles" ("This dark brightness falling from the stars") — the nocturnal light, insufficient yet real, conveys both the confusion of battle and the ambivalence of feelings in a warrior torn between honour and love.

Rhetorical effect. The oxymoron condenses a contradiction into a memorable formulation. It signals that the reality described resists simple categories, that it is paradoxical by nature.

9. Antiphrasis (L'antiphrase) — Irony

Definition. An utterance in which a word or expression takes the opposite of its literal value. Antiphrasis is the fundamental mechanism of irony: one says the contrary of what one thinks, relying on the reader to recognise the discrepancy.

Example. Voltaire in Candide describes the Lisbon massacre following the earthquake with a false benevolent neutrality. The adverb "agréablement" ("pleasantly") applied to scenes of horror constitutes an antiphrasis that the reader decodes immediately, and it is precisely this decoding that produces the satirical effect.

Rhetorical effect. Antiphrasis engages the reader in a critical complicity. It presupposes intellectual connivance, a capacity to read between the lines, which makes it the privileged instrument of satire and the pamphlet.

10. Paradox (Le paradoxe)

Definition. An assertion that appears to contradict common sense or ordinary logic, but reveals, beneath the apparent contradiction, a deeper or more complex truth.

Example. Sartre, in Huis Clos (No Exit), formulates the celebrated paradox: "L'enfer, c'est les Autres" ("Hell is other people"). Taken literally, the statement shocks. Understood philosophically, it designates the way in which the gaze of others fixes us in an identity we no longer control.

Rhetorical effect. The paradox provokes an arrest of thought. It forces the reader to question their presuppositions and rework their understanding of the reality described.

11. Chiasmus (Le chiasme)

Definition. A figure of symmetrical construction in which two groups of words are arranged in inverted order according to the schema A-B / B-A. The chiasmus is a crossing (from the Greek chi, the letter X).

Example. Racine, in Phèdre, constructs numerous chiasmi that convey the enclosure of passion: "Je ne suis que langueur et que souffrance / Et ce n'est que souffrance et que langueur" (a paraphrase of the inverted structure characteristic of his versification). The inverted return of terms mimics the obsessional circularity of passion.

Rhetorical effect. The chiasmus creates a mirror structure that produces a feeling of equilibrium or, on the contrary, of enclosure. It highlights a reciprocity or a paradoxical inversion.

12. Litotes (La litote)

Definition. An attenuation of expression by which one says less in order to signify more. The litotes affirms something strong by means of a minimised or negative formulation.

Example. In Corneille's Le Cid, Chimène replies to Rodrigue "Va, je ne te hais point" ("Go, I do not hate you") — a formulation that has remained celebrated precisely because the negation of hatred expresses, within the code of classical restraint, a love that overflows.

Rhetorical effect. The litotes leaves to the addressee the task of reconstructing the full measure of the feeling. This interpretive delegation reinforces the intensity by making it felt rather than stating it.

Cluster C — Figures of Amplification

These figures work by excess, accumulation, or development: they amplify an utterance in order to reinforce its impact on the reader or listener.

13. Hyperbole (L'hyperbole)

Definition. A voluntary and manifest exaggeration, which magnifies a reality well beyond its actual proportions in order to produce an effect of force, grandeur, or ridicule.

Example. Hugo, in La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages), uses epic hyperbole to figure mythic combats: giants whose feet crush mountains, heroes whose voices make the gods tremble. In Zola, naturalist hyperbole serves to describe the omnipotence of the industrial machine in Germinal: the mine is presented as a devouring beast of cosmic dimensions.

Rhetorical effect. Hyperbole suspends disbelief in order to impose an image that strikes the imagination directly. It is also the instrument of lyric grandeur and of satire through excess.

14. Gradation (La gradation)

Definition. A series of terms or expressions arranged in ascending (climax) or descending (anticlimax) order of intensity, force, or significance. Unlike accumulation, gradation implies a directed movement.

Example. Bossuet, in his Oraisons funèbres (Funeral Orations), uses ascending gradations to figure the approach of death: each successive term brings the horizon of the end a little closer. In a different register, Racine constructs the rising arc of passionate confession through gradations that convey the resistance and then the capitulation of Phèdre.

Rhetorical effect. Gradation produces an effect of dramatic or lyric tension. It guides the reader towards a summit or an abyss, rendering the fall or the apotheosis inevitable.

15. Accumulation (L'accumulation)

Definition. The juxtaposition of a large number of terms belonging to the same grammatical or semantic category, without their order mattering as clearly as in gradation. The effect is one of profusion, of a catalogue.

Example. Rabelais, in Gargantua, draws up proliferating lists of dishes, games, and scholastic subjects: the accumulation here conveys an encyclopaedic and Rabelaisian appetite for the world, a carnivalesque vision in which abundance itself is meaning. In Madame Bovary, Flaubert accumulates the details of the Vaubyessard ball to restore the sensory saturation experienced by Emma.

Rhetorical effect. Accumulation can signify richness or excess, disorder or plenitude. Its interpretation always depends on context: what is festive in Rabelais becomes suffocating in Flaubert.

16. Anaphora (L'anaphore)

Definition. The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive sentences, verses, or clauses. Anaphora rhythms the discourse and gives it an incantatory force.

Example. Aragon, in La Rose et le Réséda (The Rose and the Reseda), repeats the anaphora "Celui qui" ("The one who") to draw up the list of Resistance fighters, indifferent to their religious or political beliefs. The repetition creates a fraternal litany, a catalogue of the dead that accumulates in force of evocation.

Rhetorical effect. Anaphora imposes a rhythm, an insistence. It transforms discourse into prayer, incantation, proclamation. It is the privileged instrument of political eloquence and committed poetry.

17. Epiphora (L'épiphore)

Definition. The repetition of the same word or group of words at the end of successive sentences, verses, or clauses. Symmetrical to anaphora, it creates an effect of conclusion, of final emphasis.

Example. In certain poems by Verlaine, the return of the same sound or the same syntagm in the closing position of a verse produces an effect of melancholic refrain: the final word returns like a knell or a chorus, enclosing the poem within its own resonance.

Rhetorical effect. Epiphora insists on the conclusion, on what remains after the movement of the sentence. It is often more discreet than anaphora, but its final repetition leaves a lasting sonic and semantic imprint.

18. Periphrasis (La périphrase)

Definition. The indirect designation of a being or thing by a group of words that describes one of its essential properties, instead of using the direct term.

Example. Apollinaire, in Alcools, uses periphrases to designate realities whose exact name would rupture the poetic fabric. The moon is not named but designated by its attributes of whiteness and nocturnal journey. In a more classical tradition, Racine sometimes names gods or monsters by periphrasis in order to reinforce their majesty or terror.

Rhetorical effect. Periphrasis delays the identification of its referent, creating an effect of expectation or solemnity. It highlights a specific quality at the expense of the name, which says much about what the author wishes to emphasise.

Cluster D — Figures of Construction

These figures play on syntactic structure itself: they create or break symmetries, add or remove expected elements, disturbing the ordinary schema of the sentence.

19. Ellipsis (L'ellipse)

Definition. The omission of one or more grammatically expected elements from a sentence, without the understanding being fundamentally altered. Ellipsis accelerates the rhythm and densifies meaning.

Example. Camus, in L'Étranger (The Stranger), constructs Meursault's style through an accumulation of ellipses: subordinating conjunctions, causal nuances, and logical articulations are systematically suppressed. "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." ("Today, mother died. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.") The absence of any explicit emotional reaction is carried by the syntax itself.

Rhetorical effect. Ellipsis produces an effect of dryness, speed, or restraint. It forces the reader to fill in the blanks, to read the implicit, which actively engages them in the construction of meaning.

20. Asyndeton (L'asyndète)

Definition. The omission of coordinating conjunctions between terms or clauses that would normally be connected. The elements are juxtaposed without explicit grammatical link.

Example. In Germinal, Zola sometimes describes the miners' gestures through asyndeton: actions follow one another without conjunction, creating a broken, mechanical rhythm that mimics the exhausting cadence of work in the mine. Grammar itself becomes realist.

Rhetorical effect. Asyndeton creates an effect of speed, dry accumulation, or violence. It can also figure dissociation, the absence of logical connection in a disarticulated world.

21. Polysyndeton (La polysyndète)

Definition. The excessive repetition of coordinating conjunctions (above all and) where ordinary usage would suppress them. The inverse procedure of asyndeton.

Example. Flaubert, in certain passages of Salammbô, uses polysyndeton to figure the ritual enumeration or the inexorable accumulation of elements in a landscape or rite. The repetition of and creates an effect of psalmody, of litany, or of progressive oppression.

Rhetorical effect. Polysyndeton slows the rhythm, creating an effect of heaviness or ceremonial insistence. It can also signify the inexhaustible, the overflow, the list that never ends.

22. Hypallage (L'hypallage)

Definition. The attribution of an adjective or qualifier to a term to which it does not logically refer, but whose quality in fact belongs to another term in the sentence.

Example. Virgil in Latin offers the canonical example ("ibant obscuri sola sub nocte" — they walked in darkness beneath the solitary night): obscuri (dark) qualifies the travellers, sola (solitary) qualifies the night, but the qualities seem interchangeable. In French, Baudelaire sometimes employs this adjectival displacement to convey that the exterior and the interior contaminate one another.

Rhetorical effect. Hypallage blurs the boundary between subject and environment, between felt interior and exterior reality. It produces a feeling of osmosis or confusion of the senses.

23. Zeugma (Le zeugme)

Definition. A syntactic construction in which a single term (verb, adjective) is placed in relation with complements of heterogeneous nature, creating an effect of surprise or semantic displacement.

Example. Prévert, in his poems, readily employs zeugma to produce effects of humour or tenderness: an ordinary verb may govern at once a concrete object and an abstract feeling. Stendhal, for his part, sometimes constructs zeugmata that reveal the absurdity of worldly conventions, placing on the same plane objects and values that social hierarchy pretends not to confuse.

Rhetorical effect. Zeugma creates a comic or poetic displacement by treating realities of different natures on an equal footing. It implicitly denounces false equivalences or celebrates unexpected rapprochements.

24. Anacoluthon (L'anacoluthe)

Definition. A break in syntactic construction within a sentence: the speaker engages in a grammatical structure and does not bring it to its conclusion, setting off on a new construction. This is not a stylistic fault in a literary text: it is a deliberate effect.

Example. Proust, in À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), uses anacoluthon to mimic thought that catches itself, bends, and sets off in a new direction, reproducing the hesitant movement of consciousness. The Proustian sentence is not a straight line but a spiral that corrects itself.

Rhetorical effect. Anacoluthon mimics the flow of consciousness, hesitant speech, the improvisation of thought. In a carefully crafted text, it signals a moment of rupture or emotional intensity.

Cluster E — Figures of Sound and Substitution

These figures work on the sonic signifier, or substitute one term for another by contiguity, inclusion, or attenuation.

25. Alliteration (L'allitération)

Definition. The repetition of the same consonantal phoneme (or consonantal cluster) in closely placed words, producing a perceptible sonic effect.

Example. Racine, in Andromaque, gives Hermione a line of striking sonic violence, in which sibilants and dentals clash, mimicking the jealousy consuming the character. The verse most often cited for its alliterations in Racine is "Pour qui sont ces serpents qui sifflent sur vos têtes" (Andromaque, V, 5): the repetition of the [s] sound creates an effect of hissing that is properly ophidian.

Rhetorical effect. Alliteration produces an effect of sonic cohesion, of musical density. It can mimic a noise, reinforce an emotion, or simply create a formal beauty that holds the reader's attention.

26. Assonance (L'assonance)

Definition. The repetition of the same vocalic phoneme in closely placed words. It differs from alliteration in that it concerns vowels rather than consonants.

Example. Verlaine is the poet of assonance par excellence. In Chanson d'automne (Autumn Song) (from Poèmes saturniens), the sounds [ɑ̃] and [ɔ̃] repeat in rhymes and within the verses, creating a melancholic sonic layer that carries the elegy as much as the images do. Assonance makes language a music before it is a discourse.

Rhetorical effect. Assonance envelops the reader in a sonic atmosphere. It creates an impression of depth, of emotional resonance, often associated with nostalgia or reverie.

27. Paronomasia (La paronomase)

Definition. The juxtaposition of words whose sounds are very close but whose meanings differ. Paronomasia plays on near-homophony to create an effect of surprise, humour, or semantic density.

Example. In the French poetic tradition, formulations such as "qui perd gagne" ("who loses wins") and the wordplay of Diderot in Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew) exploit paronomasia to make a double signification heard in phonetically neighbouring terms. Aragon uses paronomasia to link words whose sonic proximity reveals an unsuspected semantic kinship.

Rhetorical effect. Paronomasia draws attention to the signifier, recalling that words have a sonic materiality independent of their meaning. It can produce a comic effect, but also a poetic density proper to Surrealism.

28. Metonymy (La métonymie)

Definition. The substitution of one term for another on the basis of a real relationship of contiguity: cause for effect, container for content, place of production for the object produced, instrument for agent.

Example. Zola, in Nana, names the world of the theatre by its most concrete elements: the "planches" (boards), the "coulisses" (wings), the "loges" (dressing rooms) designate by metonymy the totality of a social universe. In L'Assommoir, "le zinc" (the zinc counter) designates the bar counter, then by extension the tavern itself and everything it represents as a space of perdition.

Rhetorical effect. Metonymy anchors discourse in the concrete, in sensory detail. It reveals the gaze of an observer attentive to the particular rather than to general categories.

29. Synecdoche (La synecdoque)

Definition. A particular case of metonymy founded on a relationship of inclusion: the part for the whole (pars pro toto), the whole for the part, the species for the genus or conversely.

Example. Hugo, in Les Châtiments (The Punishments), designates enemy soldiers by their equipment or by a part of their body — the synecdoche of fer (iron) for the sword or the army, of bras (arm) for the warrior. This figure condenses violence into a synecdochic element that strikes more directly than a general designation.

Rhetorical effect. Synecdoche operates a focusing: it chooses a part that says everything about the whole, or a whole that eclipses the part. This choice reveals a hierarchy in the author's perception.

30. Euphemism (L'euphémisme)

Definition. The attenuation of a difficult, painful, or shocking reality through the choice of a softened formulation. Euphemism avoids the direct term that might offend or shock.

Example. Maupassant, in his short stories, frequently uses euphemism to speak of death, sexuality, or poverty, in conformity with the conventions of the bourgeois society he observes and critiques. But euphemism can also be a source of irony: when Voltaire has characters in Candide die in a few anodyne words, the lexical attenuation creates a comic and bitter contrast with the violence of the reality described.

Rhetorical effect. Euphemism may signal authentic modesty or social hypocrisy. In a literary text, it is rarely neutral: its presence reveals what society or the character refuses to name directly.

A Four-Step Method: Analysing a Figure of Speech in Writing and at the Oral Examination

Identifying a figure of speech in a commentary or at the oral examination does not reduce to affixing a label to a passage. The examining board expects an analysis in four stages, applicable to any figure.

Step 1 — Identify

Read the passage attentively, paying simultaneous attention to the level of meaning and the level of form. Ask the question: is there, in this formulation, something that resists a neutral paraphrase? A word that seems in excess, or in deficit? An unusual juxtaposition? A departure from ordinary usage?

This first stage is a stage of sensitivity, not yet of analysis. It is sharpened through practice with texts and familiarity with the authors on the syllabus.

Step 2 — Name with Precision

Once the figure has been identified, name it using the exact technical term. Avoid approximations: "a kind of metaphor" or "something that resembles an anaphora" signals a hesitation that the examining board penalises. If two names seem relevant (simile or metaphor? metonymy or synecdoche?), choose the more precise one by briefly justifying the choice.

It is acceptable to name two complementary figures present in the same passage: "One notes here a gradation doubled by an anaphora which…"

Step 3 — Define Briefly

In one sentence, recall the definition of the figure by applying it to the precise passage. Not the abstract definition from a manual, but the definition embodied in the text: "The author establishes an explicit simile between X and Y by means of the term like." This stage anchors the analysis in the text and shows that the candidate is not reciting a revision card but reading.

Step 4 — Interpret the Effect of Meaning

This is the decisive stage. What is the function of this figure in this text, at this point? What feeling, what idea, what vision of the world does it contribute to constructing? In what way does it reinforce the movement of the text, the author's project, the dominant register?

This stage must be linked to the thesis or analytical axis within which it is inscribed. A figure analysed in the abstract, without connection to the overall interpretation, contributes nothing to the demonstration.

Frequent Errors and Confusions to Avoid

Mastery of figures of speech is also built through awareness of common confusions. Here are the principal ones.

Metaphor and Simile

The most widespread confusion. The distinction rests on a simple formal criterion: the presence or absence of a grammatical marker of comparison. With like, as, such as, similar to: simile. Without an explicit marker: metaphor. However, the presence of like does not always imply a simile (he runs as if the devil were at his heels may be a simile or a fixed locution depending on usage).

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a type of metonymy (and not a separate figure of the same level). Synecdoche is founded on a relationship of inclusion, part/whole; metonymy on any relationship of contiguity (cause/effect, container/content, producer/product). Every synecdoche is a metonymy; not every metonymy is a synecdoche.

Anaphora and Epiphora

Anaphora repeats a term at the beginning of a member; epiphora at the end. If the repetition is both initial and final (anadiplosis, epanalepsis), other terms apply. The important thing is to specify the position of the repetition.

Hyperbole and Gradation

Hyperbole is a punctual exaggeration. Gradation is a directed progression across several terms. A gradation may culminate in hyperbole, but the two figures are not interchangeable.

Catachresis and Metaphor

Catachresis is a lexicalised metaphor, entered into ordinary usage. Metaphor is a live figure, perceived as such by the reader. If the context reactivates a catachresis by playing on its primary meaning, it once again becomes an active metaphor — but the author must clearly invite this re-reading.

Hypallage and Zeugma

Hypallage displaces an adjective from one term to another within the same noun phrase. Zeugma applies a verb (or adjective) to semantically heterogeneous complements. In both cases, heterogeneity is at the heart of the figure, but the syntactic structure differs.

Asyndeton and Ellipsis

Asyndeton suppresses conjunctions. Ellipsis suppresses grammatical elements of any nature (subject, verb, complement). A sentence may combine both, but they are two distinct mechanisms.

Reference Table: 30 Figures of Speech

Five Reflexes to Take into the Examination

• Name with precision. An approximate identification is worth no identification at all. If two figures seem to be in competition, justify your choice by a formal criterion, not by an impression.
• Anchor in the text. Every analysis of a figure must cite the exact passage (quotation marks, line or verse number). The figure exists only in the text, not in your commentary.
• Interpret, do not describe. Stating that there is an ascending gradation is not analysis. Stating in what way this ascending gradation constructs the feeling of the inexorable in this particular character — that is analysis.
• Distinguish local effect from overall effect. An alliteration in a single verse may be a formal detail. The same alliteration repeated across ten verses reveals a writing intention that the interpretation must articulate to the project of the text.
• Work through the confusions before the examination. Prepare a distinction card for each problematic pair: metaphor/simile, metonymy/synecdoche, hyperbole/gradation. These pairs will recur in both the written and oral components.