In this passage “The Street” by Ann Petry, Lutie Johnson’s relationship with her urban setting is expressed using figurative language. Lutie allows us to walk with her and experience one cold November night near the streets of seventh and eighth avenue. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting is established using personification, imagery, and characterization. In her novel, “The Street,” Petry uses personification in the interest of establishing a relationship between the setting and Lutie Johnson. “The wind grabbed their hats, pried their scarves from around their necks, stuck its fingers inside their coat collars, blew their coats away from their bodies.” (Lines 31-34) The wind is described as “assaulting” people on the street. Personifying the wind as having ‘fingers’ gives it an eerie tone. The wind is shown as an obstacle that the pedestrians must overcome, the wind blocked Lutie path as if it was the difficult situation she is facing. The wind forced her to shiver as “It’s cold fingers...touched the back of her neck, explored the sides of her head.” (Lines 38-40) It was the wind was a dominate male pushing her back to her current living condition. The wind is described negatively through its …show more content…
“The dirt got into their noses, making it hard to breathe.” (Line 24) This reveals more about the hostile and uninhabitable environment. Also, it states “She felt suddenly naked and bald, for her hair had been nesting softly and warmly on the back of her neck.” (Lines 36-38). This gives us an idea how Lutie feels in this new setting. “Fingering it way along the curb, the wind set the bits of paper to dancing Hugh in the air, so that a barrage of paper swirled into the faces if the people on the street.” (lines 15-18). This shows the impact that the surrounding environment have on the people and objects. Lutie sees her surrounding as bothersome and
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
In Ann Petry’s novel, The Street, the urban setting is exposed as an enemy with all who encounter it. This formidable adversary challenges anyone who wishes to brave the city including Luttie Johnson. Luttie forms a complicated relationship with the setting as she fights its challenges in attempt to find her place within it. Through her use of literary devices, Petry establishes Luttie’s relationship with the urban setting. Using selection of detail and imagery, the urban setting is revealed as the antagonist, and through personification, the conflict between Luttie and the wind is illustrated.
In the passage from the novel LUCY, author Jamaica Kincaid dramatizes the forces of self and environment, through her character whose identity is challenged with a move. The new home provided all she needed, but it was all so many changes, she “didn’t want to take in anything else” (15-16). Her old “familiar and predictable past”(40) stayed behind her, and she now had to find who she was in her new life. Kincaid uses detail, metaphor, and tone in the passage to show her character’s internal struggle.
Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is snarling where our [his] doorway used to be” (Baldwin...
As in the beginning of preface he starts with the tragic death scene of Louis Sullivan who was a contributing personality in the city’s development. He describes the old man who was drunk and in comma. He was suffering from kidney disorder, laying on the floor under the light of the bulb while the life in the city went on (Dyja). The author uses the strategy of this visual description to take the readers back in the 20th century. In addition Dyja uses imagery when he describes the life of a regular guy. As he states, “A house and a lawn in a parish full of your kind of people; kids safe and in line, and same with the wife; your nose out of other people’s business and theirs out of yours” (xxvii). This description of the events walks us back to the past. It makes us imagine how ordinary people lived their daily lives. The strategy of imagery helps the reader to imagine the past and makes them realize how Chicago contributed towards the American
As I walked closer to the artwork, the entirety of the artwork’s shape disappeared; leaving me with nothing but uncertainty of the space. Such space resonates with the vast land of the city in which wind flows through at ease, similar to the transparent ease of the artwork. Though, the emptiness is soon filled with the environment; everything on the other side; the woman walking her dog and the police walking on the sidewalk. Such events occur in the city in a daily basis that follows a cycle in which it comes and goes. The hollow space of the artwork resonates the emptiness of the city; defined by the simplicity of life in Winnipeg. Though, the transparency of the space; being hollow, reminds us the occurrences that comes and goes throughout the city; that the empty is and had always been
To Didion,“Imprecise expression was not just sloppy; it was harmful” (Daugherty, 443). This thorough and emotional expression throughout the text leaves the impression that all the memories she makes caused her nostalgia. For example, in the well-written essay “Goodbye to All That,” Didion mainly focuses on place and setting, particularly shedding some light on her experiences and feelings in both New York City and Los Angeles. She exposes the reader to the aspects of New York City that she misses, aspects which made her think twice about living in California afterwards. Specifically, things as small as specific smells, the foods, the random encounters with strange people, and the “young and fresh feeling” of everyday life in New York City, are what made her reminisce on her time there. Traces of different perfumes she smelled in New York brought her all the way back. Didion explains, “For a lot of the time I was in New York I used a perfume called Fleurs de Rocaille, and then L’Air du Temps, and now the slightest trace of either can short-circuit my connections for the rest of the day” (4). Even the mixture of spices which was used for boiling crabs in New York City stuck with her mind. Then, Didion gives a detailed description of the wild parties that took place on Saturday
The author astonishingly painted a three dimensional scene of New York City. There was a feel of grime as I read, which made me as if I was there in the pizza shop or in the clubs with Caitlin. “- into relief by cigarette butts crushed out on the dirty subway platform-”.(-Banash, page 108)
Petry details gusts of air that “rattled the tops of garbage cans” and “sucked window shades” (2-3). Because words such as sucked and rattled are packed with harsh-sounding consonants, such as t’s and k’s, they illuminate the sense of dreariness and gloom brought about by the frigid chill of the metropolitan environment. The vivid description engendered by the cacophonous words is further enhanced by the onomatopoeia in the rattling of the trash can lids and serves to convey the desolation which tries to dishearten Lutie as she battles against the wind. Later on in the passage, Petry again includes phrases such as “dirt, dust, and grime” which conjure images of filthy streets and abandoned homes or warehouses, images which serve to depict the isolation and untidy nature of Lutie Johnson’s world (22-23). The sign she spots is “streaked with rust” and the paint is “eaten away”: hardly an ideal battleground to wage war on nature (52-54). It is not only the weather conditions which attempt to dampen Lutie’s spirits, but also the city’s state of decay and corrosion. These illustrations craft the idea that the city is far from the desirable tourist haven it would be depicted as on postcards and brochures, but rather one rendered barren by the bitter frost. While the wintry gale renders the streets void of nearly all life, Lutie persists and defies the
In “Queens, 1963”, the speaker narrates to her audience her observations that she has collected from living in her neighborhood located in Queens, New York in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. The narrator is a thirteen-year-old female immigrant who moved from the Dominican Republic to America with her family. As she reflects on her past year of living in America, she reveals a superb understanding of the reasons why the people in her neighborhood act the way they do towards other neighbors. In “Queens, 1963” by Julia Alvarez, the poet utilizes diction, figurative language, and irony to effectively display to the readers that segregation is a strong part of the American melting pot.
As the journey to the destination begun the atmosphere is horrid as they passed cheap motels half deserted streets and sawdust motels it all set a very bleak tone of lifelessness, to support this claim, “like a patient etherized upon a table.” (Eliot 368) although they also encountered a yellow fog most likely caused by industrialism it took a form of animal imagery finding comfort in its surroundings to support this claim, “The yellow fog that rubs t back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” (Eliot
The Street exemplifies an unyielding, and captivating society jumbled with multiple roles that distract the reader from honing in on one person. Hughes regards the majority of Balthus’s themes to be defined within a meticulous and peculiar setting (Marks 49). In accordance to the order of the stanzas, the reader is introduced to the central figure within Balthus’ painting. The carpenter’s stark white clothing, ironically contradicts the story Dobyns infers. The blue collared wo...
In “Summer Elegies II” from Arkansas Testament, Derek Walcott, in a sort of epiphany mood, recollects the speaker uncovering each facade that makes up Los Angeles, California after visiting Venice Beach. To expose LA as a superficial city capable of deceiving people to assume otherwise, Walcott establishes the speaker’s negative stance regarding the City of Angels through motifs, diction, and allusions as he addresses Cynthia. Thus, Walton discourages holding Los Angeles to a high esteem, thereby freeing those who can never achieve the glamorous lifestyle the city falsely portrays.
First, she begins the poem with the word “arrive”, in lower case and paragraph indented. The verb’s drop from the title and lack of proper capitalization diminish the self-important visitors. Then, Brooks’ employs sensual imagery that repels the visitors, such as the “stench; the urine, cabbage, and dead beans”.The faint-hearted “Lover’s of the Poor” are alarmed and finally routed by the poverty, as they state “Oh Squalor!”. The women are also put off by the words “Children, children, children—Heavens!” To the stuck-up visitors, there is something extremely repugnant in the prolific reproduction of the poor. Brooks reveals the ladies’ genuine feelings regarding the poor through references to their “love so barbarously fair,” their “loathe-love,” and their desire to refresh with “milky chill.”. Furthermore, alliteration throughout strengthens the underlying-tone of the poem. It is through these devices that one truly observes the true attitudes the two parties have towards
In Stephen Crane’s novel, “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets”, he paints a picture for his audience that is very vibrant. Maggie is a young woman living in The Bowery of New York’s Lower Manhattan, where poverty and violence resides. Maggie is soon swooned by Pete, a friend of her brother Jimmie. She sees a sort of worldliness and excitement in him. Maggie’s love is soon betrayed by Pete and she turns to prostitution, where she then becomes a scandal in her neighborhood. Crane’s work of literature draws attention to how poverty, bad home lives, and double standards are just some of the causes of prostitution.