Water For Elephants Figurative Language

The Book and Movie Water For Elephants is Quite Moody
Bernhard Schlink once said, “As an author, you hope for a director and a cast that will make something wonderful out of your book” The director, Francis Lawrence, did just this for the author, Sara Gruen, and her book, Water for Elephants. Water for Elephants is a thrilling romance about a man named Jacob Jankowski, who jumps on a train and joins the circus. He then falls in love with a girl who has a crazy husband. This plot that pulls on the audience’s heart strings has a wide range of moods that help the story be such an emotional roller coaster for the audience. The author and director both do a beautiful job of showing the different moods: romance, nostalgia, and intense that helps

enrich the story.
Romance is one of the main moods in both the book and the movie. The author and director both wanted to emphasize this mood. This mood is shown throughout the story, but there are two scenes in that the book and movie have in common that truly emphasizes this mood. During the hotel scene, the author uses a lot of adjectives while the director uses dark lighting, soft music and over the shoulder camera angle to help show the mood during this scene. “She says. “I need you.” After the slightest pause, she traces my features--tentatively, softly, barely grazing my skin. I catch my breath and close my eyes… Every hair on my body is standing on end (271).” The author uses these very descriptive adjectives to help you feel what the character is feeling which makes you understand the mood. The director uses soft piano music to start setting the mood of romance. Then he makes the set darker to help show the feelings of love and lust the characters are feeling. Using the over the shoulder shot while they are kissing really brings it all together because it helps you feel understand what the main character is feeling and seeing but you can also see their reaction to it. In the other scene that shows romance as the main mood the author and director use similar techniques to the hotel scene. “She drags me onto the dance floor, jiving and snapping her fingers...then we’re off, floating around the dance floor in a swirling sea of people. She’s light as air--doesn’t miss a step” (151). The author’s use of adjectives here shows how the main character pays a lot of attention to her every move and shows how attractive he thinks she is. The director again uses soft, light piano music to set the mood. He also uses the spin technique to follow the characters as they dance really close together. The spin technique helps to give the scene the light, airy feel as the author describes. Love is sometimes described as a feeling of walking on clouds and it’s a really light feel and this is the goal that both the author and director were aiming to accomplish. After having such an amorish past the main character is nostalgic when he is ninety and alone.
The author and director show the main character’s nostalgia for his with flashbacks and other techniques.

The author uses figurative language and onamonapias to show how fast it felt that time went by to the main character. “I tell him about our years with Ringling and how we left after the birth of our third child… We bought a rural property… but it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were in it up to our eyeballs, and the next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college”(327). The figurative language exaggerates the feeling of how fast the main character felt that time was moving. It also helps readers to connect with the character because when a person thinks about the past it feels like it was a lot shorter than it actually was which is what the author is trying to demonstrate by using figurative language. The use of the onamonapia, zipped, also helps the reader to understand how fast it felt because when someone thinks of something that is zipping, the noise is related to something moving fast. In comparison, the director uses flashbacks and black and white videos of his past with circus music to show the character’s nostalgia. The black and white videos from his past are short and brief to show the passage of time between the story of the circus and now when he is old. The director put old circus music softly in the background of these videos to show how light and happy they were. The director shows flashbacks by having the old

man’s voice fade into his younger voice when narrating to show that the time setting is changing. The fast passage of time shows that he wishes his time with Marlene was longer because he is the one telling the story. The most intense parts of the story are the most important, however, because this is where these are the parts of his life where his choices affect the rest of his life and lead to the times he misses the most.
Intensity is a very common mood to have in any story and in this book both the author and the director do it very well.

The author uses adjectives and onamonapias to make the mood intense. An intense mood done well makes the reader anxious about what is going to happen and really pulls the reader more into the story. This author does it by highlighting and emphasizing what would make the reader anxious. “The train is closer now, rattling and thumping toward me: CHUNK-a-chunk-a-chunk… I start running… I fumble flailing and trying to regain my balance...I reach for the iron grab bar and fling myself upward...I claw the floorboards so desperately the wood peels off, under my nails… I scrape my way inside and collapse on the floor” (25). In this scene the reader is anxious about whether or not the character is going to make it onto the train or fall out to his death. The author has emphasized how tightly he must hang on with adjectives but in the end provides a sense of relief. The onamonapia that shows the sound of a train starts off the mood, it provides build up to let you know what is about to happen and start to make the reader nervous. The director also creates the mood of intensity by emphasizing what in the scene makes the viewer nervous. However, the director must do it differently because he can’t use words. Instead, he emphasizes noises and parts of the scene. The noise of the train was highlighted by the sound of the train cutting out background noise and music.

When Jacob is clutching to the side of the train the sound of the train and Jacob’s heavy breathing is the only thing heard in the scene. He is emphasizing Jacob’s fear and exhaustion which increase the viewer’s nervousness because they see the character’s fear. Another scene that both the author and the director do very well is when Jacob wants to kill August and he almost does. This is a very intense scene that really makes the stand of edge anticipating Jacob’s decision. The author uses adjectives to make the scene intense and the director uses sound, zoom and shot reverse shot. The author describes the knife in great detail which increases anticipation. He also shows how nervous the main character is by telling you his body language. “I raise the knife, holding it in both hands, its tip poised to feet above his throat… The knife is still gleaming, catching and throwing light… my hands are shaking”(297). The knife is the most important part of the scene so whatever it is doing, any change in its actions is mentioned. The author is also, in a way, stalling so that the reader doesn’t know what happens yet and therefore increases anticipation of the reader. When the author describes the character’s body language he is telling the reader what the character is feeling. Shaking hands tells us he is nervous which makes the reader more nervous. The director does the same thing as the author by showing us the knife up close using the zoom camera technique. The camera is also zoomed in on the character’s shaking hands which has the same effect on the viewer as what the author did. The director adds to the mood by adding dark music that tells the viewer something bad is about to happen in the scene. In conclusion, the author and director both show the intense mood by highlighting certain parts of the scenes to make the audience feel nervous and to create anticipation.