Larsons’s use of similes from beginning to end of the novel authorizes the reader to see facts in the novel in a different light. During the trial Larson writes that “so many handkerchiefs appeared among the men and women in the gallery that the courtroom looked as if it had just experienced a sudden snowfall.” This simile molds the reader’s mind to take pity Mrs.Pitezel while she sits widowed at the stand. Snowfall can be heavy and incredibly benumbing, an abundantly harsh condition to be under. The reader is able to see how much damage Holmes manufactured with his cruel murders. The comparison with snowfall could also be describing how cold the courtroom itself felt.
While Snow Falling on Cedars has a well-rounded cast of characters, demands strong emotional reactions, and radiates the importance of racial equality and fairness, it is not these elements alone that make this tale stand far out from other similar stories. It is through Guterson’s powerful and detailed imagery and settings that this story really comes to life. The words, the way he uses them to create amazing scenes and scenarios in this story, makes visualizing them an effortless and enjoyable task. Streets are given names and surroundings, buildings are given color and history, fields and trees are given height and depth, objects are given textures and smells, and even the weather is given a purpose in the...
The prologue introduces several of the novel's major themes, the most prominent being that of winter harshness. Hence, it foreshadows the major events in the book and provides insight into the personalities of the characters.
Setting: The book is set in a high school in Syracuse. Just from the way that Melinda explains Syracuse we can understand that she is not exactly thrilled to live there. The winters being long and brutal are what she hates the most. On a snowy day Hairwoman (her English teacher) asks the class what they though snow symbolized in the book that they were studying. Melinda finds it stupid that such a basic thing as snow has to have a symbolic meaning and she just thinks that “Hawthorne wanted snow to symbolize cold”. Now it is ironic that from such a sentence we can actually get a symbolic meaning. In this case Melinda seems to be talking about emotional cold and she always uses snow to talk about silence.
Within “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant, he states “She has a voice of gladness, and a smile/And eloquence of beauty, and she glides/Into his darker musings, with a mild/And healing sympathy (Bryant, 4-6).” The “she” Bryant is referring to is Mother Nature, which makes his statement that nature can take away a man’s pain that much more powerful. By personifying nature, the reader feels as though they can relate to “her” in a different way. A poem that uses powerful metaphors is “The First Snowfall” by James Russell Lowell. Within his poem, he states, “From sheds new-roofed with Carrara/Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow/The stiff rails were softened to swan’s-down/And still fluttered down the snow (Lowell, 9-12).” The line “from sheds new-roofed with Carrara” is referring to how pure and white the snow that had just recently fallen looks. Carrara is an expensive white marble. So, Lowell is comparing expensive items to the snow, which helps put an image of a beautiful snowfall into the reader’s head. By using both personification and metaphors, the reader can relate to the words being said in a completely different way, and thus understand the abstract ideas that the authors are trying to convey in their Romantic
Tobias Wolff is framing his story Hunters in the Snow, in the countryside near Spokane, Washington, where three friends with three different personalities, decided to take a trip to the woods for hunting in a cold, snowy weather. The whole story follows the hunting trip of these three friends. The reader can easily observe that the cold, hostile environment is an outward expression of how the men behave towards one another. Kenny, with a heart made of ice is rather hostile to Tub, while Frank is cold and indifferent to Tub and his pleas for help.The environment is matching the characters themselves, being cold and uncaring as the author described the two from truck when they laughed at the look of Tub: “You ought to see yourself,” the driver said. “He looks just like a beach ball with a hat on, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he, Frank?”(48). Near the beginning of the story the cold and the waiting surely creates an impact in the mood of the character. Tub is restless from the wait and the cold adds on to it. He complains about being cold and Kenny and Frank, his friends tell him to stop complaining, which seems to be very unfriendly. Wolff builds up the story on the platform of cold weather and the impact of the cold on each character slowly builds up.
In “excuse me but lady liberty needs glasses / and so does mrs justice by her side / both the broads r blind as bats / stumbling thru the system" (Lines 1-4) he uses simile to compare them to bats by being blind during the daytime and failing to see what is really going
Another example is when Vonnegut uses a simile to describe one of the ballerinas on TV. A simile is a comparison using ‘like’ or ‘as’. After a newscaster tried to talk on TV, he gave up and let a ballerina come and talk for him. As she started talking, Vonnegut explained, “ And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men” (3). The simile is used to describe how beautiful and strong the ballerina is and how deprecated society is making her. It should make the reader feel sympathy for such a beautiful creature to be constrained like she is. The simile fits into the theme because it’s showing that the more beautiful and strong you are the more punishment you will have. Not everyone will be as strong so they get less of a punishment.
This detail of this quote allows readers to create a true meaningful background. The way the author achieves this is by using the physical conditions around him to describe the emotional conditions inside of him. One can interpret an "Ice cold sea, whirled in sorrow" as a storm that is actively occurring in his soul. This makes him feel frigid and unattended as he then comments as being alone in the world. A world ,nevertheless, "hung with icicles" which can be depicted as being covered in complications. Complications that never stop due to it being a "hailstorm." Likewise, being able to create a visual during the story is critical as it allows the reader to start seeing the overall picture as well as understanding
The simile in the closing paragraph of this chapter underlines the correlation between hunger and anger by showing how all the migrants are scrambling around from place to place because they are being pushed off their camps. Steinbeck makes the simile, “On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment” (284), to show how the anger grows from having too much on their plate (which isn't food). Not only do the migrants have to worry about getting jobs and feeding their families, but they also have worry about where they are camping out. Over time, these migrants will be so fed up with scurrying around that their hunger will also bring frustration and anger with it.
(6) The suddenness of the winter storm caught people by surprise. A roar “like an approaching train” was all the warning the storm gave. (130) The roaring wind and snow brought darkness and dropping temperatures. The people who were inside when the blizzard struck faced a dilemma. Staying inside and doing nothing seemed “heartless,” but going into the storm “on a rescue mission was likely to be fatal to the rescuer and useless to the lost.” (143) The people who were unfortunate enough to be away from home, whether they were at school or working with their livestock, had to make a difficult decision. They could either risk trying to make it home or chance it out and stay where they were. Schoolteachers had to decide whether to send the children home or keep them at the school. If anyone ventured outside, he or she risked frostbite, hypothermia, and likely
“We are in a remote country house, toward evening, a cold blizzard rages.” [Cite] The short, simple, and beautifully written murder mystery play The Blizzard, written by David Ives, begins in a somewhat cliché state. Inside the secluded house in a forest, with the predictably unfavorable weather outside, and no access to technology primarily no external communications. The starting leads to a feeling of unremarkability, that soon the play may become another no name story that hardly leaves a dent in your memory. This dreary beginning in part fits into the themes of the play and in some ways better compliments the more creative middle and end. Ultimately, The Blizzard is a meta play primarily referential to murder mysteries on a whole rather
Using a simile gives the reader more of a visual on the situation. Instead of just stating Walters appearance, the extra mile is made which shows the audience a comparison of how Walter truly looks. It also gives the writing more of a realistic set up, sometimes its difficult for the reader to visualize whats being said just by a description.
“The snow man” is a poem about two realities —the reality of winter , and the reality we create when we bring our own perspective.Stevens describes the snow man who can identify his own emotional baggage and and see that the world is not really nothing without the emotional baggage.According to David Perkins “ the poem posits two types of listener. One would hear a "misery in the sound of the wind." Through his own imaginative creativity he would project a human emotion into the scene and locate it there. Thus, he would make the landscape one with which human beings can feel sympathy. The other listener would hear nothing more than the sound of the wind. He would exert none of this spontaneous and almost inevitable creativity. The poem
Through the open window she sees many other symbols furthering the feelings of goodness in the reader. She sees the tops of trees that "were all quiver with the new spring life" symbolizing a new life to come, something new happening in her life. The setting of a "delicious breath of rain" in the air refers to the calmness after a storm when the sun comes back out. Kate Chopin is using this to refer to the death of Mrs. Mallards' husband and the new joyous life she may now lead that she is free of him. Also to be heard outside are the singing of birds and the notes of a distant song someone was singing, symbolizing an oncoming feeling of wellness, a build up to her realization that she is now free of the tyrannical rule of her husband.
Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” is far from the modern day fairy tale. It is a dark and twisted version of the classic tale, Snow White. His retelling is intriguing and unexpected, coming from the point of view of the stepmother rather than Snow White. By doing this, Gaiman changes the entire meaning of the story by switching perspectives and motivations of the characters. This sinister tale has more purpose than to frighten its readers, but to convey a deeper, hidden message. His message in “Snow, Glass, Apples” is that villains may not always be villains, but rather victims.