In Lytton Strachey’s essay on the life of Florence Nightingale, he uses imagery and diction to tear down the traditional view of the founder of modern nursing science. He then replaces this romanticised view of Nightingale with the historical, less known view of her life. Strachey uses the first paragraph of his essay to describe this romanticised view of Nightingale’s life, of the “saintly, self-sacrificing woman,”, claiming that “the truth was different.”. Strachey follows this by shocking the reader, claiming that Nightingale was possessed by a Demon. This is effective because never would the reader compare the “Lady of the Lamp” with an evil entity such as a Demon. However, as the reader continues through Strachey’s essay, we begin to
