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Literary Devices In Columbine

Decent Essays

Terror, shock, desperateness, all feelings of the Columbine victims. Through the narration of the encounter between Patti Nielson and the shooters during the beginning moments of the Columbine shooting in chapter 11 of Columbine, a memoir, Dave Cullen adopts an informative tone in order to focus young adults’ attention to the ruthlessness of the Columbine shooting. Before realizing the true reality of the situation, Patty Nielson’s action’s depicted in the passage infuriate the reader as a result of Cullen’s word choice in chapter 11. By contrasting theory and terrifying reality Cullen keeps the reader aggravated and informed with intentional word choice in Chapter 11. Nielson didn’t understand the severity and instead assumed the shooting was “a prank, obviously” (50). Although Nielson at the time believed she was witnessing an everyday prank by a few delinquent teenagers, the reader knows that the guns were real and other students were being killed. Because of the dramatic irony in this passage, the reader feels irritated that Nielson had the opportunity to help end the mayhem instead of letting herself feel annoyed. Because Nielson thought the events were clearly a prank, Cullen used the word obviously to help the reader understand Nielson’s actions for approaching the gunmen. The word “obviously” reveals how Nielson didn’t give the appearance of a gun a second thought of being dangerous, but because the reader knows the reality of the actions occurring, the reader feels

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