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Analyzing Katharine Brush's Birthday Party

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Birthday Party by Katharine Brush is a unique short story that captivates the reader in little words. Brush’s purpose with this story is to bring emotion to the reader, not their own, but a specific emotion, and vivid imagery that seems literal and realistic to the reader. She wanted to put the reader right in the middle of a realistic scene and she does that with few, but clever, literary devices: bland adjectives, the point of view, imagery, and the absence of metaphors and similes. Blunt description and the “dropping off” of the reader into the story without any detailed exposition drives the author successfully towards her purpose for the reader.
The point of view within this short story is interesting; it shifts from third person to second, and then to first all in a short paragraph. This use puts the reader in some sort of “emotional chokehold” from this point of view strategy. The start with third person gives the reader time to take in the descriptions of everything and keep an image in their head, they can start to feel emotions. But, the abrupt second person point of view smacks the reader in the face, forcing them to feel bad for the wife and hate the husband. Once the reader is forced into this emotion, it changes to first person where the reader is now manipulated to side …show more content…

The author makes the descriptions of such things easy to comprehend and imagine, like a “small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle burning in the middle.: The description is simple but detailed enough to create a vivid image that feels like reality. By the narrator saying what they are seeing rather than describing it in excessive detail, it gives room for the reader to interpret and gives the piece some subjectiveness since they are already trapped in the emotional aspect of the

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