Magic Realism Although Calvino’s work does not fit neatly into existing categories of literature, ‘‘The Garden of Stubborn Cats’’ is perhaps best described by the magic realism . Magic realism is literature that depicts a realistic setting and characters but also contains some fantastical or inexplicable elements. These fantastical elements are treated by the characters…
Tag: Literary Devices
The Fence by Hamsad Rangkuti – Literary Devices
Allegory ‘‘The Fence’’ can be read as an allegory, a story with a moral, ethical, or religious lesson in which the characters represent things or abstract ideas. Mother and Father represent two opposing attitudes about society’s responsibility toward those who are different or less fortunate. One attitude is a clear ‘‘us and them’’ division between…
End of the Game – Literary Devices
First-Person Point of View: Nameless Narrator Cortazar makes a strategic decision when he writes ‘‘End of the Game’’ in the first-person point of view. A first-person narrator tells no more than he or she knows—and in fact, in this story there are many things the reader never learns, such as what Letitia writes in her…
A Devoted Son – Literary Devices
Climax The climax is the point in the action of a story when the conflict reaches its peak. In ‘‘A Devoted Son,’’ the conflict between Varma and Rakesh builds through Varma’s illness as he desires to eat what he wants and to be allowed to die but is kept alive by his son and his…
Daughter of Invention – Literary Devices
Autobiographical Fiction Autobiographical fiction is a story based on the life of the author. While events in the story closely follow events in the life of the author, the author is free to embellish or create events to further the themes in the story. Alvarez based the stories in How the Alvarez Sisters Lost Their…
By the Waters of Babylon – Literary Devices
Science Fiction ‘‘By the Waters of Babylon’’ is considered science fiction by most definitions of the genre. Science fiction is literature that focuses on how science and technology affect humanity and the world around us. Although no single definition is widely accepted, science fiction in general depicts a world different from our own, but different…
Where Have You Gone Charming Billy? – Literary Devices
Metafiction Metafiction is fiction that takes fiction itself as one of its subjects. That is, metafictional texts not only tell a story but tell a story about the nature of storytelling. Metafictional texts often use this technique to explore the relationship between fiction and reality, as O’Brien does in ‘‘Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?’’…
Suzy and Leah – Literary Devices
Diary Entries Yolen tells her story ‘‘Suzy and Leah’’ through diary entries. Both protagonists, Suzy and Leah, write separately while they are alone. Their thoughts, therefore, are supposed to be very personal and unfiltered, since both girls assume no one will read them. This provides Yolen with a chance to get inside the girls’ heads…
A Problem by Anton Chekhov – Literary Devices
Antihero Sasha is the main character and protagonist of ‘‘A Problem.’’ The story is largely told as if he is eavesdropping on the meeting being held on his behalf. Much of the narrative is also concerned with his thoughts on the matter. But Sasha is not the story’s hero (that distinction is reserved for Ivan)….
The Pit and the Pendulum – Literary Devices – Gothic Elements – Point of View
Gothic Fiction Gothic fiction is characterized by a preoccupation with death, mystery, decay, madness, and terror. Gothic writers strive to stir the reader’s emotions, be it a feeling of the sublime or horror. The gothic tradition began in England around 1764, when Horace Walpole published his novel The Castle of Otranto, which concerns a doomed…