“Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living”(Harold Pinter). There are many aspects of writing to create a successful piece that readers will become engaged in. Literary devices are one way for authors to express various details in their stories. The more details a writer has, the more likely their writing is to capture readers. Literary devices enhance and better the writing, making it more entertaining for the audience. They help provide the story with important information without stating it outright. Indirect characterization is a way to reveal a character's personality through their speech, actions and appearance. This form of literature is used in the story “Borders” very well, especially shown in this quote. “It would of been easier if my mother had just said “Canadian” and had been done with it, but I could see she wasn't going to do that. " This quote tells readers that the narrator's mother is very proud of who she is and her history as Blackfoot. The reader can come to this conclusion without the statement itself, but by reading about …show more content…
Imagery is visually descriptive, or figurative language in literary work. A clear example of imagery is shown in the story “The Veldt”. "Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odour at the two people in the middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden waterhole, the great Rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. And now the sounds, the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of vultures. A shadow passed through the sky. The shadow flickered on George Hadley's upturn sweating face.” This quote gives you such description that you can picture and almost feel and see what the character is experiencing. Imagery is a strong literary device which receives the author's descriptions into
In the story "The Chrysanthemums," by John Steinbeck, imagery is important in the development of his characters. The man who drives the wagon and fixes things is a perfect example of imagery. "His worn black suit was wrinkled and spotted with grease. The laughter had disappeared from his face and eyes the moment his laughing voice ceased. His eyes were dark, and they were full of the
Indirect characterization is a literary device in which the author reveals information about the character indirectly through his/her thoughts, words, actions, and/or relationships with others. In The Secret Life of Bees,Sue Monk Kidd uses indirect characterization to reveal information about Lily Owens. Through Lily’s actions, thoughts, and words, the reader sees that she is a loyal friend, a young girl with independent thoughts, and a clever and intelligent person.
8. Imagery - The use of very descriptive words to give an image of the setting, characters, or things related to the reader.
Short story fiction is a story that is shorter than a novel, has a few characters, and is about an imaginary event or person. Because short fiction is short the writer must capture and hold the reader’s attention within the first paragraph, which requires a mastery of literary technique. Some of the most helpful tools to use in literature are literary devices. Literary devices are any element, subject, or concept that is present through an entire body of literature. If these devices didn 't exist, literature would be very hard to understand. They define the nature of a story, and they bring the text to life. Literary devices enhance the meaning of literature by establishing the theme, mood, and plot. Devices, such as situational irony, symbolism, and setting, are all helpful when reading short stories.
Authors use literary elements and techniques as tools to convey meaning. These devices are the means by which authors bring richness and clarity to a text. They express moods or feelings that allow the reader to connect with the writing. In On Writing, the author, Stephen King makes use of literary elements to tell his story. The techniques King uses are effective in portraying vivid images and feelings in the reader’s mind.
All throughout history people have been entrapped by issues in their lives and in the lives of people around them. People feel entrapped by their own thoughts, their own issues, or they feel trapped by other people. One way for people to express their thoughts and try to be free from what is trapping them is to write. Writers are able to get and keep the attention of readers because their audience has had the same feeling in their own lives. Imagery is used to describe and explain situations that may not be clear otherwise. This is true for both “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Veldt” written by Ray Bradbury. These stories were written in two different time periods, approximately sixty years apart, and are
We often rely on imagery, a literary device that uses vivid descriptions and appeals to the senses, in our storytelling to point out the important facts in our stories. It helps our audience picture the scene and understand the severity of the situation. In my opinion, a well-written scene can be incredibly meaningful and thought-provoking with the help of imagery, sometimes even more so than a photograph. In literature, this is no different. Authors will describe characters and events in great detail when they feel it is important to the story. They will use imagery to point out character traits, themes, symbols, and motifs. A good author paints you a picture so you can imagine the places, colors, expressions, textures, with all the fine details.
For example, “... did nothing to block the blinding light and searing heat beating down from above. He opened his mouth… and a raw plume of dry warmth shot down his throat, seeming to obliterate any air or moisture in its path.” (94). This displays imagery because it describes how it made Thomas feel. The reader can imagine how bright and how dry it was. Additionally, “It was a wasteland. In front of him, a flat pan of dry and lifeless earth stretched as far as he could see. Not a single tree. Not a bush. No hills or valleys. Just an orange-yellow seat of dust and rocks; wavering currents of heated air boiled on the horizon like steam, floating upward, as if any life out there were melting toward the cloudless and pale blue sky.” (95). This exhibits imagery by describing what the land looked like. It puts a picture in the reader’s mind. To sum up, the imagery in this novel helped understand what the characters
Imagery: “Broadly defined, imagery is any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. Imagery may be described as auditory, tactile, visual, or olfactory depending on which sense it primarily appeals to—hearing, touch, vision, or smell. An image is a particular instance of imagery.”
To explain imagery is a visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work. An example of imagery is, “ the slide was smooth and slick and was painted a bright faded red.” This quote visually explains how the slide looks like. The use of this simile furthers the story because you can feel the story forming around you. To conclude, the use of imagery makes the story more clear for the reader to understand the
Imagery is any piece of language that provokes the readers mind to form a mental picture or image.
Overall using literary devices in helps an author with what they’re writing sound better, help the readers understand what’s happening in the book and what the character does based on their actions using figurative language, or diction. Without it, the story would be plain and the author would have difficult time making the book enjoyable for his/her audience. If Author, Arthur Conan Doyle did not use any literary devices in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the novel would most likely not have the best ratings or reviews and that would lead to people not buying or enjoying the
One example of imagery in the text is the sense sound. The author used the sense of sound to create imagery so that the reader can imagine what is going on. The author reports, "He knew his pursuer was coming; He heard the padding sound of feet on the soft earth." This is an example of imagery because Rainsford described what he heard so that the reader could imagine what sound he heard. This is important to the plot line because the main part of the story revolves on not getting found and to stay alive. If he can hear the padding of his pursuers feet than he might lose "the game.'' Therefore the sense of sound is incorporated into the literature to help develop the plot of the
The author uses imagery to interest the reader in her story that may seem mundane without the imagery. An example of this happening is when Jeannette is going to her new school in Welch it was her first day and the teacher picks on her because she did not have to give the school her records to her not having them as that is happening a tall girl stabs her out of nowhere“I felt something sharp and painful between my shoulder blades and turned around. The tall black girl with the almond eyes was sitting at the desk behind me.
Imagery is a strong element that helps portray a lot of internal feelings for the audience to fathom with, thus creating an experience that the audience can enjoy. Imagery is the language represented by sense experience and a literary device that helps create a mental picture for the reader to understand what the writer is trying to say to the audience (Johnson, Arp 779). The following is the poem by Langston Hughes: “The calm,/Cool face of the river/Asked me for a kiss.” (Hughes 1-3) When examining the poem, “Suicide’s Note”, it is full of imagery with only three lines present. The