David Levithan Every Day Figurative Language

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In order to entice readers and enhance their experience while reading a piece of literature, authors use literary devices. Literary devices present the potential to illustrate moments for the reader through vivid descriptions and comparisons. In David Levithan’s Every Day, figurative language significantly adds to the story, as it provides the reader with a lucid understanding of the meaning below the text’s surface, while sometimes connecting other literature and forms of art.
Levithan diffuses modern musical lyrics into his text to connect with the reader on a personal level and to express his broader picture of the novel’s true meaning. Using Placebo’s “Running Up That Hill” lyrics, “And if I only could, I’d make a deal with God…” (10), Levithan uses an epigraph, which is a succinct piece of outside text that relates to the current literature, to demonstrate how A, the main protagonist, is constantly enveloped by a feeling of powerlessness that he can never control his own life. He is distraught because he cannot be with Rhiannon, he cannot live a normal life …show more content…

An allusion is defined as a brief or unexplained reference to a person, place, or thing of historical or literary significance. Near the novel’s end, the author utilizes allusion, writing “There’s a quiz in English class. It’s Tess of d’Urbervilles, which I’ve read. I think Rhiannon does well.” The main protagonist, A, has been moving around from school to school his entire life. The author’s use of this outside text enhances the story by demonstrating how over the years, he has received an education like all other students his age. Because the outside text is not explained by the narrator, it is assumed that he comprehends the advanced text that is Tess of d’Urbervilles, adding to the previously claim that A is a sufficiently educated as the rest of his peers. The author’s use of this helps the reader to better comprehend the character and his

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