Literary Devices In The Leap By Louise Erdrich

From the hundreds of writing skills, authors around the world are capable of writing a story that connects to thousands of people around the world. Even short stories, which are a couple of pages long can leave the reader with profound thoughts. This is definitely the case for the story The Leap by author Louise Erdrich, which is about the tragic past of a former trapeze artist told in her daughter’s point of view and all the different obstacles that she overcame in life. With the use of clear and effective characterization, adding suspense that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat with the use of foreshadowing and by using effective literary devices used to make the story more engaging author Louise Erdrich has written a stunning story …show more content…
The Leap is definitely no exception, with small use of literary devices author Louise Erdrich has made the story very intriguing. To clarify, some of the literary devices used in The Leap are simile, flashback, and analogy. In the story, the literacy device simile is used to compare one element to another. An example of simile used in The Leap is when the story reads “they loved to drop gracefully from nowhere, like two sparkling birds” (2). Without doubt the author has used simile in a delightful way to compare Anna & Harry Avalon to sparkling birds to give the reader the sense of being suspended in air and, similar to birds the two trapeze performers liked to drop themselves from nowhere without caring about what will happen next, as they say the two performers liked living in the moment. This quote, even though it does not have important relevance to the story plot, is used to make the story more entertaining. Besides the use of simile, Erdrich uses flashback to strongly connect the story and make each part related to one another. An example of flashback is when the narrator says “I know that she’s right. I knew it even then. As you fall there is time to think” (7). At this point the author is connecting this phrase to when the narrator repeats what her mother said about having time to think when falling. This example of flashback will make the reader to think back in the story and wonder if what the protagonist said is true. Flashback brings unity to the story and will make the reader to think and make them interested in reading more. Other than simile and flashback, the author also uses analogy in The Leap. An example of analogy in the story is when the narrator says “my mother asked him to unzip her dress. When he wouldn’t we bothered, she made him understand” (6). To rephrase it, this quote is to make the