Fierce, vehement, and feral, Emile Griffith punched Benny Paret 18 times within a mere 3 seconds. These crucial 3 seconds became life-changing for the enduring Benny Paret as he confronted death; unfortunately, Paret could not bear the deep wound inflicted to him by Griffith and has passed away. In the stands, the audience was frightened by what they saw, but one in particular, Norman Mailer, was also appalled and incredulous in what he had witnessed. Afterwards, Norman Mailer published a passage, The Death of Benny Paret, describing the brutal fight and delineating his perspective on the issue. In The Death of Benny Paret, Norman Mailer utilized stylistic devices such as diction, literary devices, and syntax to give the reader an overall dismal mood about the brawl throughout the passage, because that is how Mailer felt that mournful day.
Initially, Mailer used diction through imagery and emotional words to give the reader how the situation felt to him and to describe to the reader the situation. In the passage, emotional words such as “bad maulings”, “three disgusted steps away”, and “referee’s face came a look of woe” pop up. Mailer utilizes these negative emotional words to impose a tone that is solemn towards Paret and a tone that is disdainful towards Griffith. Consequently, the reader’s mood coincides with the tone of the author. For example, the phrase “referee’s face came a look of woe” gives the reader a grievous feeling because of the word “woe”. Another instance where a reader can see this is in the phrase “three disgusted steps away”. Mailer could have just stated “three steps away”, but he wanted to enforce the negative connotation of the story and to show the reader how he had felt. Additionally, imagery is used in...
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...ces to delineate Paret’s eminence. A special case, the quote “As he took those eighteen punches something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event.” shows how life-changing Paret had been to Mailer and Mailer explicates this in detail. Consequently, the reader would have a sense of admiration for Paret.
Throughout the whole essay, Mailer interspersed various stylistic devices ranging from diction to syntax in order to give the reader an overall melancholy mood to reflect how he felt that day when he witnessed Paret die. Since he had utilized these stylistic devices, he had engendered potency for his passage as a whole and he had reinforced the mood throughout the passage with efficacy. More importantly, from this passage, Mailer wanted the reader to remember the significance of Benny Paret and the fact that surprises lurk in every corner of life.
Beard’s tone throughout the essay is reflective and detached. Even at the moments of immediacy--during the shooting, when Beard is talking to her friends and coworkers--Beard’s tone makes it apparent that the events she relates are
The usage of syntax helps create simple yet meaningful ideas that the reader is able to further understand and analyze, thus, allowing the author’s purpose to be better interpreted. Shortly after the murders, a local locksmith describes the great influx of locks being purchased, detailing, “ Imagination, of course, can open any door။turn the key and let terror walk right in” (Capote 88). Short, small phrases are used throughout the character's dialogue in order to show the tense, on edge mood within the town. The sentence contains many pauses, including one long break, going along with the tension surrounding the community. Seeing how the town has become divided, readers are able to see how such an impactful incident can deeply hurt and divide a great number of people. Along with affecting a large number of people, an event of such magnitude not only affects one side, where it was aimed to affect, but it can also hurt those who committed the terrible act. The use of syntax provides short, and quick sentences, revealing the psychological pain and trauma from Dick’s mind resulting from committing his crime. After being arrested and thrown in jail, the undersheriffs wife, Mrs.Meier, describes what she heard from Dick, telling, “I heard him crying...Crying like a child. He’d never broke down before, shown any sign of it” (Capote 308). Along with the short, blunt statements, Capote uses an asyndeton to show the bleak and hopeless outlook Dick views life with. Also, the repetition of crying makes it obvious how damaging the whole experience for Dick, even though he was the one that committed the act. The easy to understand sentence structure allows readers to fully grasp what is conveyed, as Dick’s tough guy person is finally torn down from the great trauma he has experienced. Capote specifically
In scene 1, the author uses imagery to convey a mood that is not important to the story. On page 14 is said, “Jonas and Fiona ride their bikes down a perfectly manicured pathway.” This proves that the mood is not important because the mood of perfection does not contribute to the plot or story. Compared to scene 12, where the imagery created a mood that is important to the plot and story. On page 17 it says, “Jonas speeds toward the wall of Mist and punches through it, disappearing from sight.” This proves that imagery creates a mood that is important to the plot and story. The mood is exited, and it is important to building up the rising action to the climax in the
The literary device, author’s voice, is the individual writing style of an author. It is a combination of diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text. There are many examples of how author’s voice affects the meaning of a text in the classic book, Night, a book about the life and thoughts of a young Jewish boy going through the Holocaust, as well as in “A Spring Morning”, a short story about the results of having a kid while Germany is in control of Poland. These examples include: when the author is foreshadowing, when the author is writing about someone is being told to obey, and when the author is writing about a loved one dying.
Mailer also says “he went down like a large ship which turns on end and slides second by second into its grave.” giving an image of Paret falling down hard and fast like a ship. The use of diction is actually in those sentences too. Mailer uses words like “large ship” and “psychic” that gives an emotional feeling of being scared and sad of Paret going down. As you can see Mailer uses many different strategies to explain the effect of Paret’s death. The use of diction, details, and imagery is so strong in this article that it allows the reader to feel sad, mad, shocked that Paret died in the
book. Connell uses this to have an effect on the reader in a way that will show the purpose of
The example of syntax present is especially effective at portraying characters’ thoughts and feelings; Fitzgerald’s use of ellipsis
The author Mr. London shows us conflict and nature in the beginning of Paragraph 4 when he say “As he turned to go on, he spat
The author uses clear hyperbole to emphasize her wrongdoings with lines like three, “What a cyanide surprise you have left for my eyes,” and then by comparing the ‘love’ she showed him to being hung before an audience of the dead in line twelve, “If this is love I don't wanna be hanging by the neck before an audience of death” which both show that her actions were extreme and could just as well have been death therefore deserves revenge done unto her. However he also uses lines like “You've got me shaking from the way you're talking” (one) and “If I had common sense I'd cut myself or curl up and die” (four) to allow the reader to be let in on his mocking of the audience’s actions because Matthews’ had obviously gotten over the initial pain of the incident and was now plotting revenge. The hyperbole Nicholas Matthews used when describing his current emotions toward the audience is evidence of how he wanted to demonstrate that revenge is just in terms of loss of love because those that commit evil deserve evil done unto
Death can both be a painful and serious topic, but in the hands of the right poet it can be so natural and eloquently put together. This is the case in The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, as tackles the topic of death in an uncanny way. This poem is important, because it may be about the poet’s feelings towards his mother’s death, as well as a person who is coming to terms with a loved ones passing. In the poem, Poe presents a speaker who uses various literary devices such as couplet, end-stopped line, alliteration, image, consonance, and apostrophe to dramatize coming to terms with the death of a loved one.
Hardy uses strong meaningful diction to convey his thoughts of the sinking of the Titanic. Words such as “vaingloriousness”, “opulent”, and “jewels in joy” illustrate Titanic for the reader so that he/she can picture the greatness of the ship. Phrases such as “Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind” describe what the Titanic looked after the sinking, loosing all of its great features. Hardy’s use of strong, describing diction depicts his view of the ship, before and after.
Lye, John. The ‘Death of the Author’ as an instance of theory. Brocku.ca. Department of English Language and Literature, April 30, 2008. Web. Feb 14. 2011.
In Thomas Nagel’s “Death,” he questions whether death is a bad thing, if it is assumed that death is the permanent end of our existence. Besides addressing whether death is a bad thing, Nagel focuses on whether or not it is something that people should be fearful of. He also explores whether death is evil. Death is defined as permanent death, without any form of consciousness, while evil is defined as the deprivation of some quality or characteristic. In his conclusion, he reaffirms that conscious existence ends at death and that there is no subject to experience death and death ultimately deprives a person of life. Therefore, he states that Death actually deprives a person of conscious existence and the ability to experience. The ability to experience is open ended and future oriented. If a person cannot permanently experience in the future, it is a bad or an evil. A person is harmed by deprivation. Finally, he claims that death is an evil and a person is harmed even though the person does not experience the harm.
Throughout his career, Ernest Hemmingway’s writing style has brought many questions from critics all over the world. These questions mainly emerged due to his writing being different from anyone else during that time. Hemmingway’s writing was simple and direct unlike other fellow writers. This made it easier for people to comprehend and it made connections to his ideas straightforward. In works such as Old Man and the Sea and For whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway uses his style of writing to convey his purpose and ideas of literary elements, such as plot, mood, character, symbolism, and theme, which can be analyzed with New Critical Theory and Iceberg Theory.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...