Schemes and Tropes: The Moon

Tropes about the moon

metaphor:

The full moon is a silver dish floating in the dark pond of space.

Obviously the moon is not a dish, but the metaphor makes the reader think of the perfectly round shape and the brightness that accompanies it.

paronomasia

"The full balloon of the moon quickly deflates to a silver sliver."

Balloon and moon have similar sounds making them related and brining the image if the moon “deflating” instead of waning.

anthimeria

“Please stop mooning the neighbors.”

Luckily for me there is already a pretty defined anthimeria concerning the moon. The noun of the moon has been turned into a verb. If you don’t know what I mean when I say, “mooning” please don’t google it.

hyperbole

“The moon has to be taking up at least half of the night sky!”

This is an extreme exaggeration of the size of the moon, in essence it’s expressing that the moon appears larger than usual.

oxymoron

"The dark light of the full moon filled the forest"

"light" and "dark" are placed together. This oxymoron leaves the reader to interpret what “dark light” could possibly constitute.

Schemes about the moon:

parallelism

"Tonight the moon is as bright as it is old."

Both words “bright” and “old” are one syllable adjectives preceded by “as is” creating two parallel statements.

anastrophe

"Such a moon I haven’t seen in a while.”

This is the exact way a Lithuanian would say this sentence. In English, it is an example of an anastrophe which gives the statement a different emphasis.  

ellipsis

“Last night the moon shone bright, tonight it doesn’t.”

The nights are different because on one the moon was shining, on the other one it was not, but in the 

sentence was only mentioned once.

alliteration

“The mute marble moon might mime for me tonight- marvelous!”

The repeated M sounds make the sentence feel more witty and lively.