Catastrophe In Literary Works: A Multi-Sensory Experience

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Catastrophe in Literary Works: A Multi-Sensory Experience Catastrophe is something that can not only be seen physically with your eyes, as a bystander or survivor of a catastrophic event, but also through spectacle in literary works depicting catastrophes. Through the different literary devices used in a work displaying catastrophe, writers further enhance this spectacle of catastrophe as something that is not only seen, but also can be subjectively felt and heart by the reader. In Dulce et Decorum Est and The Convergence of the Twain, imagery and choice of diction are used specifically to enhance this subjective vision, feeling, and auditory experience of a catastrophe for the reader. These three senses work together in these poems to help humanize the event that occurred and give readers a multi-sensory experience, greatly enhancing the reader’s …show more content…

The next best thing, however, is to present it through literature. In both poems, Dulce et Decorum Est, and The Convergence of the Twain, the imagery and diction used help to provide three specific experiences for readers: a visual one, one of feeling, and an auditory one. Without these experiences present in literary works of catastrophe, there would be no real way to actually feel what is occurring, and the humanity of these catastrophic events would be lost. Readers would no longer be able to relate to what is happening, and it would become just a story. Distance would form between the reader and the event, so much so that it is okay to pretend it never actually happened, which is something that modern society easily does when a catastrophe is presented on television in the news, or through objective pictures. The subjective experience of catastrophic literature will keep the humanity in what occurs, so that our society does not brush it off as “just a

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