| A | B |
| apprehensive | fearful; anxious; unsure |
| brusque | abrupt; blunt in manner or speech |
| cadence | a rhythmic sequence |
| callused | hardened |
| character | a person or animal who takes part in the action of a literary work |
| characterization | the act of creating or describing a character |
| defiant | resistant; bold; unyielding |
| demeanor | behavior toward others; outward manner |
| figure of speech | writing or speech meant to be understood imaginatively instead of literally |
| gaunt | excessively thin |
| illumine | make bright or shining |
| image | language that creates a concrete representation of an object or an experience; a vivid mental picture created in the reader's mind by that language |
| imagery | the images in a literary work when considered altogether |
| impotence | powerlessness, helplessness |
| jovial | jolly, merry |
| metaphor | figurative language in which one thing is spoken or written about as if it were another |
| monotonous | marked by unvarying pitch and intensity |
| pallid | dull, lacking liveliness or color |
| pandemonium | a wild uproar |
| personification | figurative language in which something not human is described as if it were human |
| prologue | preface, introduction |
| pulsate | throb rhythmically |
| quavery | trembling |
| rhythm | the pattern of beats in a line of poetry or prose |
| saunter | move in a leisurely manner, stroll |
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| sullen | gloomy, somber |
| theme | a central idea in a literary work |
| undulate | move in waves |