Personification In The Seventh Man

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Is it possible to overcome a tragedy? In the story “The Seventh Man” a boy looses his best friend in a typhoon, and it might have been his fault. Author Haruki Murakami uses personification, foreshadowing, and imagery to portray the theme that tragedy can be overcome. The author uses personification to portray the theme that tragedy can overcome. When describing the tragedy, the seventh man said, “it swallowed everything that mattered most to me”. The impact of the personification of the wave shows that the wave is like a living, moving thing, destroying everything in its path. This shows the extent of the seventh man’s tragedy and the fear he felt has his world was washed away. When the narrator and K were on the beach at the climax of the story, was this line: “The wave swallowed him”. The narrator described the wave as a person, blaming all of his struggles on the wave and portraying how he felt when K died. This reveals the tragedy and shows the narrator’s pain, the main conflict of the passage. Some may say that the author …show more content…

One example of foreshadowing is: “i'm sure he would have become a famous painter if he had continued with his art into adulthood”. The line was foreshadowing K’s death early into the story, adding a bitter tone to the seemingly nostalgic flashback. Foreshadowing shows that the author still feels regret for K’s death, and that if the wave had not ended K’s life, he could have grown up to become a famous painter. “But something ominous about them-something like the touch of a reptile's skin-had sent a chill down my spine”. This statement foreshadows the tragedy to come, it has an eerie tone. Some may that foreshadowing has no effect to the text, however, without it the tone of the story would change and would be deprived of suspense and fear. The use of foreshadowing adds suspense and strikes fear into the audience as the book leads up to the tragedy of K’s

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