A reader often feels tension when stories include foreshadowing. “The Flowers” by Alice Walker and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell both use foreshadowing. In “The Flowers”, Walker foreshadows the protagonist, Myop, finding a dead body. During “The Most Dangerous Game”, Connell foreshadows that the protagonist, Rainsford, will be hunted. In both shorts stories “The Flowers” by Alice Walker and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, the authors use foreshadowing to establish suspenseful moods.
A good example of dramatic irony occurs when Montresor explains to Fortunato that he is also a mason. Then, Fortunato asks for a sign. Next, Montresor replies, “It is this, I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire trowel.” (239). Although Fortunato does not understand that Montresor has lured him into the catacombs of his home with the intentions of murdering him, but the reader knows
In Jack Finney’s “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets” Tom Benecke makes the right choice when he decides to chase after his wife after he manages to re-enter his apartment. Out in the cold New York air, Tom was beginning to lose hope. He had the paper, but encountered unexpected complications attempting to enter his apartment. Tom realized that, were he to fall, the community would have no way to judge him besides what he was carrying. Their thoughts, he imagined, would be “Contents of the dead man’s pockets… a wasted life” (Finney 14). Tom knew that if people found his body they would (correctly) assume he led a desolate life. He is blunt with himself in calling his life wasted, but this is the moment where he changes his mind about everything. Tom has an
The short story “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets” by Jack Finney is a story full of suspense. In the story, the main character, Tom Benecke, faces a challenging task. Throughout the story, Tom goes on a daring journey to recover a piece of paper containing information that will change his future. On his quest, Tom experiences a wave of emotions as events unfold.
Irony is the most powerful literary device used in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First, a good example of irony in the story is “They were burdened with sashweights sand bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” (P,2 Line, 11-13) This quote is Ironic as it tells how this system was designed to hide beauty, yet beauty was still shown by the amount of restraints on the person. Second, another good example of irony is, “The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.”(P,11 Line,4) This is an example of how gifted people’s lives were harder than
The symbols present in “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, depict the economic and social injustices faced by specific members of society, specifically the children in the story. The characters in the story are being mentored by Miss Moore, a woman from their block who has taken up the role of taking them out on weekly outings. The story touches on the situation of the children that are stuck in living in almost poverty. “The Lesson” focuses on the socioeconomic disparities between the different racial groups and how. Bambara uses several techniques such as irony, othering, and second person point of view to make the story meaningful and demonstrate the characteristics of the characters.
Irony is defined as the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite. In the short story, “The Story of an Hour,” there are several examples of irony. In fact, the title itself is ironic in that so many unexpected accounts happen in the life of Louise Mallard in the small amount of sixty minutes.
For instance, when the protagonist, Harrison escapes from jail and crashes the live ballerina broadcast Vonnegut uses situational irony. Once Harrison escapes, the reader develops a conclusion that Harrison will rebel when he says, “I am the Emperor!” When Harrison and his Empress, the ballerina “shifted their weights to their toes” the reader assumes Harrison will take over and over throw Diana Moon Glampers but, the Handicap General shoots them both dead. This is situational irony because it is the exact opposite of what is anticipated. With this scene Vonnegut is implying that equality is dangerous.
Certain events in life can affect people in many different ways, such as causing them to change their priorities. In Contents of a Dead Man’s pocket, written by Jack Finney, Tom’s priorities are set on work first and family later, but those soon begin to shift after a dramatic event takes place in his life. People’s priorities can be focused on something as simple as work like in Tom’s case, and sometimes they need a close to death situation to give them a wake up call. When people’s priorities are misaligned they tend to know but not accept the fact, they may even have a hot guilty conscience just like Tom. One 's life events can transform their priorities, it can cause them to look differently at the life they’re living. Such as in Tom’s case when work came first but a close to death situation caused him to put his wife before it all.
“Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket” by Jack Finney is an excellent short story. Finney’s main character, Tom Benecke, is an ambitious young man married to Claire, tom spends a lot of his free time working rather than with her. One evening while Tom is alone , working, a valuable piece of paper flies out the window. He makes the terrible decision to go out on the ledge after the piece of paper, and a nerve-wracking adventure ensues. The three most important literary elements to “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket” are external conflict, internal conflict, and suspense.
One evening, Tom Benecke the man who misplaced his priorities, decided to stay home and work while his wife went to the movies. As he walked back, from seeing her out the door, his most precious sheet of paper flew out the window. Fretfully, Benecke crawled out the window, handing off an eleven-story building to fetch the paper. Did he make it back in one piece? Did he plunge to his death? Did his wife make it back home unharmed? In this story “Contents of The Dead Man’s Pockets”, author Jack Finney uses satire, situational irony, and dramatic irony to show how on unimportant thing can come between you and someone who should be a higher priority, as Tom Benecke did with a little piece of paper.
Before Tim Piazza’s night begins, he reaches in a closet that “his mother will soon visit to select the clothes he will wear in his coffin.” After the night of “torture”, Tim’s family will be reunited one last time with “the redheaded boy they have loved so well” so he does not “die alone”. These pieces of wording are prime examples of the instrumentality of emotionally involving the audience in any piece of writing. When simple statistics and bland facts don’t seem to push Flanagan’s stance quite far enough, she turns to powerful, almost agonizing wording to complete the task. The language may be exaggerated at times, but it’s undoubtedly effective. However, the poignant wording of the article serves as just a portion of the emotional tactics in this piece. As readers soon find out, every statistic has a
Suspense is very popular and used in a lot of things, such as music, tv shows, and movies, etc. In literature suspense and foreshadowing are the feelings the author gives off to add a creepy vibe to the story. The author Conell inputs these things into his story “The Most Dangerous Game”. In the story, there are two main characters, Rainsford and General Zaroff. In the beginning, Rainsford his two crew members, Whitney and Captain Nielsen, come across an Island called “Ship-Trap Island” Whitney warns Rainsford about the island but he is unconvinced that there is anything wrong or suspicious with or about it. Later in the story Rainsford falls off of the ship and comes into contact with the island and its owner, General Zaroff. There are many
Situational irony is shown in multiple areas of this book. First, when Jack’s dad is pointing out criminals: “Dad’s keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was impressive. But it wasn’t perfect. ‘He never had me pegged for being one of them” (7). The situational irony is in the fact that Gantos was, in fact, a criminal, yet his dad failed to see that reality when he was pegging criminals on the streets. Furthermore, situational irony is shown when Jack reflects on his experience: “Ironically, in spite of all the fear and remorse and self-loathing, being locked up in prison is where I fully realized I had to change my life for the better, and in one significant way I did” (7). Rather than pouting and feeling sorry for himself while in
Irony: Situational irony used when Sammy quits his job to defend the three girls in the bathing suits from Lengel. The moment is ironic because the girls leave and they do not see what he has done for them. Sammy feels like a hero and is proud but then in the end he mentions “…my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was