Literary Devices In Sharon Olds My Son The Man

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In Sharon Olds’, My Son the Man, Olds uses the literary device of allusions to illustrate the inevitability of her son growing old by comparing his aging to Houdini, the doubted magician who was able to makes his way out of any restraint. This is evident in lines 1-3 when she writes, “Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider, the way Houdini would expand his body while people were putting him in chains” (Olds). Since the son is now becoming a man, she compares him to Houdini expanding himself to illustrate the fact that he is growing and able to get out of those chains; in this case, to leave the mother. The allusion strengthens the poem by referencing a man who people doubted which gives the reader a sense of the son’s motives and characteristics.

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