Literary Devices In Jack London's To Build A Fire

Mood is what draws a reader’s emotion to a story. The mood sets the scene for a story to play out on. In “ The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe there is a strong mood that drives the story. The mood is dark, angry, and mysterious. Key details and scenes help illustrate the mood.

The warmth symbolizes this struggle of survival, and the flame itself symbolizes the kindling of life. In Jack London’s story, the presence of fire represents life, and the absence of it saying life is running out. When the man's fire gets blotted out by falling snow, he feels "as though he [had] just heard his own sentence of death" (24). A human needs fire in the harsh

The excerpt from The First Betrayal by Patricia Bray conveys a mood of suspense through her word choice and use of [figurative] language. She creates a mood of suspense by choosing words such as “consume,” “engulf,” and “swallow,” among others. These words provide a feeling of frailty and powerlessness. All of these words as well as many other expressive ones are used to portray the darkness. Bray offers vivid imagery [and figurative language(personification)] that causes darkness to be more prevalent in the story.

In Jack London 's "To Build a Fire," he reveals how a man goes through a harsh winter in the forest facing multiple obstacles along the way. He has to depend on what he thinks he should do when problems arise instead of thinking intuitively and beyond the obvious. Before the unnamed man left on his expedition he was warned by an old timer "that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below" (London 238). If the man would have listened to the old timer in the beginning of the story he would have never had to be in any of the situations. But because the man likes to think for himself, it costs him his life.

Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost both write about darkness, structuring their poems in an uncertain and cynical tone stringing along the reader by using consistent rhyming and vague details. The authors also use extended metaphors and fearful imagery to implement the ominous feel that comes with darkness. Although both poems use different devices to achieve their purpose, the message is almost parallel. In Emily Dickinson's “419” she grabs your attention by using the pronoun “we”, in doing this she relates to the reader and makes the poem more personable. Her point of view allows her to describe just how vast her darkness is, all the while putting us at the center of the action.

Suspense, in most darker stories, specifically “A Rose for Emily” is a result of the foreshadowing that the author incorporates into the story, intentionally of course. For instance, Faulkner

Gothic literature is often characterized by an atmosphere of mystery, horror, and dread. Desolate or sinister settings common in Gothic literature are also crucial to plot development through their influence on characters. Additionally, the characters bear burdens which they often withhold as a result of their physical or emotional isolation. Gothic writers present a dramatic and ominous approach to developing the greater meaning of their work. The writers explore the duality of human nature with these literary elements, exposing the audience to darkness and evil.

For example, the author’s word choice in the sentence, “. . .graffiti-scarred building to the grim shadows.” The author wants the reader to understand the mood as eerie, creepy, and dark by describing the setting. Also, the sentence, “His father’s brows knitted over deep brown eyes.” allows the reader to comprehend how the author is trying to convey the character as. By doing so, the reader is able to infer the character as angry.

(Connell). Similarly, in "The Cask of Amontillado," Poe establishes the mood with "I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors" (Poe). Essentially, these quotes are setting up the stage of where, ultimately, the "final battle" between characters, or, where their climax will take place. These quotes show that when done correctly, the mood set by these authors create a sinister mood, almost as if warning the characters in the story to stay away, or to run; this causes the reader to develop a shrill tickling on the back

This is because they are in the different type. However, they are same in the using of suspense to capture the readers and to allow the reader feel how the author felt which can portrays the imagery of the suspense. Inherently, in ‘The Signalman’ Dickens uses an unfamiliar setting to build suspense by using gloomy words to make a tunnel horrendous, deadly and isolated. Which can be seen in “his post was in a solitary and dismal a place”. The using of the words such as ‘solitary’ and ‘dismal’ construct the imagery of being abandoned and a lonesome place.