Diction, Tone and Style Used in Hermann Hesse's Novel Demian

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It seems rather obvious, but in order to write a decent piece of literature, an author must be able to write well. The best story in the world can be turned into something unreadable if the language is not expertly crafted into something that will capture the reader’s attention and hold it for a prolonged period of time. In addition, the author must fit his or her language to the story they are telling through the use of tone and mood. In the novel Demian, by Hermann Hesse, the language used conveys the story in a strong manner through the use of diction, tone, and style.

The use of diction, or word choice, is important in writing because it expands the language of the story beyond the use of basic vocabulary in order to make the writing more educated and captivating. In addition, some words carry a stronger connotation than their synonym. In Demian, there are several examples of this. “Now it represented a bird of prey with a prod aquiline sparrow hawk’s head, half its body stuck in some dark globe out of which it was struggling to free itself as though from a gi...

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