Stephen King Rhetorical Analysis

686 Words2 Pages

Would you add artificial juice to freshly squeezed juice? You would not because that would destroy the purpose of the natural juice. Just as we wouldn't destroy a natural drink, Stephen King in his book On writing on pages 198 and 200, wouldn’t want us to force symbolism into a story. Forcing symbolism makes the book feel artificial, rather than allowing the writing to convey itself naturally. King uses diction, metaphors, and imagery to convey the purpose of adding literary symbolism. The diction and imagery help to enhance his point of artificial symbolism and the way it can hinder your book for success. King writes “Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create a sense of artificial profundity” (200). The use of the words “adorn” and “enrich” start the sentence off on a positive note. However …show more content…

Only the story is about story”(200). King demonstrates the statement “only story is about the story” when he gets right to the point in the sentence. He does not add “bells” and “whistles” as he likes to say, to the sentence and he certainly does not make a one sentence statement into a whole paragraph . King finishes off the paragraph by saying “if it’s clearly a part of the fossil you’re working to unearth—go for it. Enhance it. You’re a monkey if you don’t”(200). He refers to the story as a “fossil” and refers to the artificial writing that can be added to a story in the earlier quotation as “bells” and “whistles”. In this context, a fossil is original, created by nature and something people work to unearth and keep safe, just like a story you are trying to create and discover what the potential of the story could be. Bells and whistles are manmade and artificial therefore adding bells and whistles to a fossil would be uncanny. Just as it would be unsuitable to add artificial symbolism to a

Open Document