How Does Updike Use Figurative Language

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Updike begins his piece using diction to describe the setting and place. The vivid words and phrases used to describe the apple and maple trees, the skies, above them (3-8) ae in sharp contrast to the stanza’s end. It is peculiar that he gives a somewhat mundane elusion to the events to come next. His monotone explanation brings the imagination back to the reality and normality of the golf game before beginning the first sighting of the birds.

Using figurative language, Updike describes something “out of the Bible / or science fiction”(14-15). He continues on with figurative language up until line 19, giving the reader a vision of some mass of individual objects that one can only assume to be the birds. He ues diction again to describe how

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