Throughout the centuries doubles in literature create or intensify certain themes. In The Visit, doubles signify change and bring out the truth through dialogue, imagery, symbols, and characters. Characters function as doubles through dialogue, while symbols work to represent the characters. Settings enhance a character’s duality or employ them as doppelgangers. Doubles also show the irony within a work and how it makes a theme more important.
Dialogue is the most prominent form of doubling in the Visit. Dialogue doubles in two ways, when characters speak simultaneously and when characters repeat one another. The pair, Koby and Loby, is first introduced when Claire is stating her case for justice. She says that Ill impregnated her and bribed Koby and Loby so Ill would not have to claim the child’s paternity. When they admit to this crime, they say the dialogue together and repeat it. The dialogue is doubled by them speaking it together and doubled again by them repeating it. Doubling twice intensifies their message and shows the justice that was served to them for committing the crime, foreshadowing the justice that will be served to Ill. The simultaneous repetitions of lines show the guilt and Claire’s vengefulness especially when the Pair describes how Claire punished them. Toby and Roby, her past husbands, “castrated and blinded [them] castrated and blinded [them]” (Durrenmatt 34)
Durrenmatt employs another multiple through two women that visit Ill’s store. They enter the store to purchase goods, repeating after one another to double the order. First, they double the order starting with milk, then butter, bread, and finally chocolate. Each order gets increasingly more expensive by getting white bread and even splurging on cho...
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...acter or by being apart of the physical appearance of a character. The doubling symbols of the pair of yellow shoes and the black panther form the themes of corruption and ignorance in The Visit. Settings show a characters duality, like with Claire and the Golden Apostle. Through settings, symbols, and dialogue themes of corruption and ignorance are realized, and the change in the community is signified. The doubling within each of these literary elements upholds the change of morals. Doubles and pairs in the Visit prove that a simple dollar sign can improve the physical community but harm humanity’s standards. Durrenmatt warns the audience a character, like Claire, is someone that can change a society’s morals with the waving of a bill and the promise of justice.
Works Cited
Durrenmatt, Friedrich. The Visit. Trans. Joel Agee. New York: Grove Press, 2006. Print.
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In order to understand what changes happen to twist the views of the 2 main characters in both novels, it is important to see the outlook of the two at the beginning of the novels in comparison ...
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introduce and emphasize the notions of doubles and tangible abstractions without ever revealing the true identity of Wilson’s double. Finally, despite, culminating in the most direct and paramount manifestation of the abstraction of William Wilson’s conscience in the prank incident, the reader is still unaware of the story’s conclusion, but is well aware of the complications and notions that lead to the conclusion. In his book “Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style”, Brett Zimmerman details the critique of other authors that Poe’s style “in his Gothic tales, stylistic qualities [are] considered excessive, obnoxious … [and that] Poe’s ‘writing smells of the thesaurus’ and that his ‘vocabulary tends to be abstract’” However, this outwardly excessive
Throughout the novel, Lafayette uses signs to represent different motives and objects. She conveys honesty and truth for the part where M. de Clèves wants the Princess to reveal the name of her lover. Lafayette also shows dishonesty and fidelity in her novel where the Princess and Nemours attempts to write the fake letter. This show how Lafayette combines signs with the plot and the characters to structure her novel.
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Tan, Amy. “A Pair of Tickets”. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing.
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The Book Thief Short Essay: The Use of Foreshadowing, Irony, and Symbolism in The Book Thief
Oftentimes, the life of an author is reflected in his works. This is due to the fact that the experiences of the writer can serve as the foundation of his story line. Some of the famous authors who are known to have utilized this technique, which is also dubbed as Roman Clef, include Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Even in an unconscious manner, the author’s life is an inspiration to his writings and hence having a big impact on the entire work.
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In The Visit the author Friedrich Durrenmatt revolves around the theme of the corruption of money because it plays an important part in the progression of the story. Friedrich Durrenmatt is using Claire, a powerful billionairess to show how money can affect behavior, moral principles and politics. Claire gives the people of Güllen a big decision to make in exchange for money and the choices they are given leads them to commit murder. Claire is able to manipulate an entire town and play with the law because of her wealth. Durrenmatt shows the toll money takes on society.