Red Herring - Literary Device

Literary Device

In literature, a red herring is a false clue that leads readers or characters towards a false conclusion. For example, the character of Bishop Aringarosa in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is presented for most of the novel as if he is at the centre of the church's conspiracies, but is later revealed to have been innocently duped by the true antagonist of the story. The character's name is a loose Italian translation of "red herring".

Read more about this topic:  Red Herring

Famous quotes containing the words literary and/or device:

    There is no calm philosophy of life here, such as you might put at the end of the Almanac, to hang over the farmer’s hearth,—how men shall live in these winter, in these summer days. No philosophy, properly speaking, of love, or friendship, or religion, or politics, or education, or nature, or spirit; perhaps a nearer approach to a philosophy of kingship, and of the place of the literary man, than of anything else.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
    Will he not let us alone,
    And think that there a loving couple lies
    Who thought that this device might be some way
    To make their souls, at the last busy day,
    Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
    John Donne (1572–1631)