Literary Devices In Katharine Brush's Birthday Party

In many situations, it is very difficult to gain a deep understanding through a cursory glance. Sometimes, it is imperative to take a closer look to truly understand what is occurring. In the short story Birthday Party, by Katharine Brush, a married couple is at a restaurant celebrating a special occasion. To help the reader understand the situation, the author employs various literary devices. Some literary devices utilized are irony, imagery and diction, and point of view and perspective.

The author employs the use of irony through the use of a hat. The wife is wearing a hat which is described as gay, which paints a picture of a happy couple. The dinner should have been a happy, joyful event to celebrate a special occasion. Instead, it turned out to be the exact opposite with the wife softly crying under

the brim of her gay hat. The scenery paints a cheerful and carefree moment while upon closer examination it is evident that all is not as it seems and the husband is actually frustrated with the wife and the wife is “heartbroken and heartless.” What was meant to be a nice and loving gesture ended up causing discomfort and misery for both the husband and the wife.
Another literary device used in collaboration throughout the short story is imagery and diction.

In the beginning, the author describes the scene as one during which a married couple in their late thirties are going out to eat at a restaurant to celebrate a special occasion. The imagery is used to describe the setting and what is going to take place in the story. Toward the middle, the author begins describing the story in greater detail. The author does this by describing the look of the birthday cake, the sound of the orchestra, and the reactions of those in the restaurant. By doing this, the reader is able to place themselves in the scene as if they are watching the event unfold. At the end of the story, the diction is used to elicit a reaction from the reader. The husband was described as being not pleased and instead as “hotly embarrassed and indignant.” The wife is described as being heartbroken and hopeless. By describing the situation in this way, the reader is meant to feel disgusted with the husband and sympathetic toward the wife. By describing the scene in a certain way through imagery and diction, the author is able to control the reader’s

reaction.
Point of view and perspective are employed skillfully throughout the piece. The story is told with a third-person point of view which keeps the reader removed from the events unfolding. The thoughts of the husband and wife are unknown but their actions are evident to all in the restaurant. The narrator is a casual observer in the restaurant who feels poorly for the wife and wants to do something but is not able to.
The author’s use of irony, imagery and diction, and point of view and perspective enable the reader to gain a better understanding of the event unfolding in the restaurant. Irony is present through the wife’s hat; imagery and diction are used to control the progression of the story and the readers reaction; and point of view and perspective are used to elicit a reaction from the reader. The aforementioned literary devices allow the author to convey the theme and message of the story quickly and easily. Literary devices, if used properly, can turn a mediocre work into an amazing one.