Southern Literary Messenger

obvious to me when you do, and I’m not interested in what lame internet sites say. I want to know what you think. To analyze anything, consider its function (purpose) and form (design), and how the function and form work together. To apply this to literary criticism: Ask yourself what purposes the author has for writing -- what is he/she trying to show, or argue, or criticize, or question? Ask yourself how the author has formed the work -- what structures and techniques do you see him/her…

The novel was written in 1st person narrator. The book is composed of different letters written by Charlie. The author intended for this book to be this way so the reader knew it was from Charlie’s point of view. When Charlie writes his letters, it is his way of letting out all the pressure he is going through. Charlie, being able to write down what is happening to him, can realize it's not all a dream. It can be also inferred from the motif of the novel that Charlie is writing these letters…

can result in negative consequences. The short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst portrays the narrator’s feelings of deep sorrow in response to Doodle’s tragic death. The author illustrates this painful emotion dramatically through the use of literary elements. He utilizes foreshadowing to disclose future events through clues. Additionally, the writer uses significant imagery in various settings to intensify the narrator’s feelings of sorrow. The author offers hints to foreshadow…

How do I Love to Stop All the Clocks “Stop all the Clocks, Cut off the Telephone” by W.H. Auden and “How do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are both poems that are expressing the author’s love for someone. However, with the aforementioned poems, the poets are in a different point in their experience of love. While Browning is writing for someone in that moment, Auden is writing in mourning for someone. Together, these poems show the power of love through life and after death. In…

strategically by writers such as Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe to give readers a unique perspective. The use of setting and irony also play an important role in helping the audience understand a character. In the short story The Lottery, Jackson uses literary devices such as setting and irony to characterize the dark side of a seemingly innocent town. Irony is the contrast between the readers’ expectation and reality. Shirley Jackson strategically uses the title “The Lottery” to give the…

Joan Turner from Old Dominion University wrote an article about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Babylon Revisited”. In the article, she demonstrates how the frequent time references in the story help support an important theme. Turner begins her article by pointing out what that theme is. She says that Fitzgerald’s use of words relate to time, which in turn reinforces that the past cannot be escaped. This is one of the main themes throughout the story. She continues on by noting each…

Literary devices are perhaps one of the most important elements used in writing. The journey of Suyuan in the historical fiction novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, is characterized through the use of style, plot and motif by establishing tone, emphasizing motivation and characterizing relationships throughout the novel. Tan’s use of style is one of, if not the most, prevalent literary elements used in the selected passage. Style used in the given excerpt of, The Joy Luck Club, helps Tan to…

Mutability and Permanance: An Analytical Exploration of Epigrams 4-6 in Spenser’s Translations of Theatre for Worldlings Reading literature by Edmund Spenser requires a keen eye and a willingness to investigate beyond the text. You are not simply able to read Spenser and somehow acquire what each line means as a first-time reader of his works. Reading Spenser peaks ones’ interest to explore common themes, similarities, imagery, and the allusions which bring forward the meaning behind the text.…

I will be analyzing and comparing how Jose Saramaga and Max Brooks portray multiple perspectives in their novels, Blindness and World War Z, and the importance the literary element had on the work as a whole. The novel, Blindness, was originally written in a different language and had been written much earlier than the novel, World War Z so it is important that we gain an understanding of how different languages display and bring to life different point of views, because both books heavily rely…

Some people say that ignorance is bliss. In some cases, however, that may not be true. In Sophocles’ tragic play Oedipus Rex, the author uses a motif of sight and blindness through foreshadowing, in conjunction with Oedipus, and through irony to convey the idea that when someone thinks they know what is right but are actually ignorant to the truth, that will most likely cause their downfall. Sophocles foreshadows Oedipus’ future using the motif of sight and blindness through prophecies and…