Examples Of Figurative Language In The Street By Ann Petry

To see the wind, with a man his eyes, it is unpossible, the nature of it is so fine, and subtle; yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago: I rode in the highway betwixt Topcliff-upon-Swale, and Borowe Bridge, the way being somewhat trodden afore, by wayfaring men.

In this excerpt from Ann Petry’s 1946 novel, The Street, the wind is portrayed as a force that tests one’s perseverance. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting is established with the use of imagery, personification, and selection of detail. In her novel, Petry gives the “cold November wind” human-like qualities to portray the wind as the central antagonist. Petry developed the relationship by opening with a description of the actions of the wind as “violent assaults”. Although the wind had created a hostile environment, Lutie Johnson was able to persist through the obstacles it had thrown at her.

The wind sent dirt into the air, “making it difficult to breathe” as wells as blinding the innocent walkers of the street. The wind did everything to “discourage the people” from walking outside, sending most, except for the brave, indoors. Furthermore, the wind rattled garbage cans, opened and closed windows and doors, and dislodged hats off the walkers heads and “pried

Didion personifies the wind as almost an unknown epidemic. Similar to when an unknown disease goes viral, all walks of life are affected. Didion clearly states how teachers, students, doctors, to physicists, to generally everyone becomes unhappy and uncomfortable during the winds. She does not write of how the wind caused fire to ravage the shrublands, but she writes of the symptoms it inflicts on the people. Didion mentions all the after effects of the wind and the harm it can do like inflict paranoia. She mentions how the fear-stricken victims of southern California are paranoid like her neighbor that refuses to leave the house and her husband who roams with a machete. Didion’s personification of the wind focuses on a fearful and distant light.

wind”. While the wind is blowing in Lutie Johnson’s face, she is trying to read a sign but inapt to

Lutie Johnson has an incredible experience throughout her walk, and what she sees throughout it, when she is in the urban city. She has lots of surprises, as tons of different events occur that make her realize that, maybe, the wind and other types of debris may be against her, starting to pick up its pace to draw into her, and other peoples’ tracks. In addition, there are multiple rhetorical devices that control the different occurrences in the world around her. Lutie Johnson observes, and is introduced to the urban setting, in which the way she feels, what similar experiences occur with the other citizens, and by the challenges nature forces her to face.

A person's character depends heavily upon the environment in which they live. In the novel, The Street, by Ann Petry, the residents of Harlem, specifically those living on 116th Street are influenced by their surroundings. The street especially affects Lutie, Bub, and Mrs. Hedges; they all struggle to maintain their well-being while living in such poor conditions. 116th Street represents a gloomy atmosphere. It acts as a debilitating prison for its residents and illustrates acts of physical violence, “It did everything it could to discourage the people walking along the street.

The setting in many works of literature can represent more than just where the story takes place. In the fictional novel The Street, the author Ann Petry reveals Lutie’s relationship to the urban setting through literary devices such as imagery, personification, and details to show how the character Lutie Johnson persists in achieving her goals despite the hostile and daunting urban environment. Ann Petry uses imagery to establish how the environment is brutal for all. For instance, when the wind is doing “everything it could do to discourage people walking along the street” such as finding “ dirt and dust. and lift[ing] it up so that the dirt gets into their noses, making it difficult to breathe.”

Due to this, the family steals food in order to cure their hunger. This shows the theme beacuse it shows that in times of need, sometimes people have to do what is best for themselves instead of thinking about others. The Street also shows the same theme by using the wind as an annoyance to the people in the street, an event in the excerpt. “It wrapped newspaper around their feet entangling them until the people cursed deep in their throats, stamped their feet, and kicked off the paper.” (Petry 2). Due to the wind, the people are inferior and are becoming annoyed with everything that is being thrown at them. This annoyance causes the people the make violent remarks. Because of the wind, the people were forced to do these things even if some of them didn’t want to. Overall, both McCourt and Petry used events to help tell the theme.

The city, Toronto in this case, presents a web of streets and geographical space that threatens to lock its citizens in a certain demarcated way of life and conduct. The four key characters in this narrative - Tuyen, Carla, Jackie, and Oku - each feel blocked in by the constrained locality that they have been born into and each attempts to escape it in his own way.: Tuyen by being an artist, Carla by being a courier; Oku by being a student and Jackie by working in a store. The first two not only attempt to escape by means of their profession using their profession to either flee the spaces and squares (by bike) or transcend it via imagination (by art) but they also adopt profession that go against societal expectations. These societal expectations were created by, and exist within the geographical space they live in. Toronto of the late 20th century had an internalized set of expectations for immigrants and its citizens. The parents of the characters succumbed to it. The protagonists, however, resolved to step out of their boundaries and most of them succeeded.

Richard Connell uses figurative language in the story to add richness and spark by using metaphors and similes. Part of the American Culture is slang which is metaphors and similes. It’s just how we talk and communicate. Even in a story with a scary, mysterious type of mood we can still have slang. I will explain some of the metaphors and similes throughout the story and how they add the richness the story’s needs.

Along with Angela's Ashes, The Street shows how poverty provokes actions not usually committed by showing the weather conditions they were forced to live in on a daily basis, like how in Angela's Ashes Frank's family was constantly cold because of the lack of heat. The setting is represented when Ann Petry shows the reader how violent the storm was, "The wind lifted Lutie Johnson's hair away from the back of her neck so that she felt suddenly naked" (Petry 3). This quote shows how external conflict affects Lutie Johnson's hair.

Malmar McKnight’s frightening story, “The Storm”, weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the horrific fears that engulf Janet Willsom. “The Storm” is a combination of Mother Nature, Janet’s emotions, and her heartbreaking dilemmas. The eerie mood is revealed throughout the story. Figurative language helps the reader bring the story to life in his/ her mind. The author’s use of irony is devolved through Janet’s changed perception of the storm.

Judith Wright extensively uses the structure of her poems to convey many ideas and themes. The structure of a poem is crucial to delivering its key message as it determines both the tone and how the poem is read. She shows the reader throughout the poem how the dust, which is symbolic of the barren emptiness that has “overtaken… dreams” of beauty and comfort as well as financial dependence, will consume the earth if the current environment is not conserved and protected. Wright’s use of title emphasizes this point in the clearest way she can and re-enforces her major concept to the audience. Another example of how structure is used in this poem is juxtaposition. The first and second stanzas are strategically placed next to each other because of their greatly opposing descriptions. In stanza one, the new world of dust and wind, many negative adjectives are used, such as “harsh”, “grief” and “steel-shocked”. Stanza two, which talks about the past, contains a wide range of positive adjectives such as “good”, “kinder” and “beautiful”.