Examples Of Figurative Language In The Yearling

Superior Essays
There are thousands of novels written every year, and only a select few win awards. It’s a competitive market, and the Pulitzer Prize is one of the toughest to win. Back in 1939 (wikipedia.com), The Yearling won this prestigious award. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings deserved the Pulitzer Prize for her novel for many reasons, including her creative uses of figurative language, syntax, and sensory details. Her several uses of figurative language enhanced her writing by describing the situations in the novel in creative ways. Throughout the book she used many different types of figurative languages, and here’s an example. Paragraph three on page seven states, “The world was all a gentle gray, and he lay in a mist as fine as spray from a waterfall.” …show more content…
The second part of the sentence is a simile, comparing the mist to a waterfall. This simile helped enhance the writing because instead of using a boring statement like “it was misty”, the author got creative with her writing and used figurative language to describe the situation exactly as it is. Also, this simile and hyperbole helped set the tone of how Judy was feeling during this scene, showing signs of sadness and confusion, but also contentment. He’s a content little boy, just taking it all in and seeing the world from his point of view. The author’s use of figurative language helps capture how he’s feeling, and she executed it very well. Another example of figurative language is in paragraph one on page 224. “In the night, a gust of wind move through and slammed both doors.” Through this simple personification of giving the wind the ability to shut doors like people can, the author is able to foreshadow what’s going to happen farther along in the book. It helps tell about how a tornado will soon come, and how it will affect the relationship with the yearling and Jody. Marjorie’s use of personification enhanced her writing by keeping it from being a boring …show more content…
The second paragraph on page six is a good example of this. “He threw himself on the weedy sand close to the water and abandoned himself to the magic of motion.” She uses two different senses within this sentence, touch and sight. The use of the touch sense allows the reader to physically be in that scene with Jody, and helps the story come alive. By vividly describing his actions, the reader can infer that he was jumping down to the riverbank to watch the flutter mill do its thing. Also, the idea of using the description of the “weedy sand” gives the sense of sight not only to the reader, but also to Jody. He’s not just a character anymore, he’s a human because he can touch and feel things, and Rawlings did an amazing job trying to portray that in her writing. Another example of using sensory details can be found in paragraph three on page 224. “The pines whistled. The rain followed.” Sight was also used in this quote, but more importantly the sense of hearing was used. The author didn’t just say “it was windy and rainy”, instead she used her five senses (probably from experiencing this situation firsthand) to portray exactly what she was feeling and observing around her. By using her senses to write a vivid description of this storm, helping the story be that much more realistic to the reader. It makes them feel like they’re

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