1. The use of symbols:

items being symbolized—thesculpture, white velvet, the  way theywalked, the drink, the blindness

2. Simile and metaphor:

his eyeshad been blinded by years in the dark

he waslike a man trying to run a race in iron shoes

3. Simple language:

unadorned, with an exotic flavorof African language and Afrikanns

4. Point of View

Now observe the following sentences carefully.  What is the focus of narration?

Then one night Iwas working late at the Herald, and when I came out there was hardlyanyone in the streets, so I thought I’d go and see the window, and indulgecertain pleasurable human feelings. I must have got a little lost in thecontemplation of my own genius, because suddenly there was a young white manstanding next to me. (Para. 9)

What is point of view?

 Point of view signifies the way a story getstold—the mode (or modes) established by an author by means of which the readeris presented with the characters, dialogue, actions, setting, and events whichconstitute the narrative in a work of fiction.

The first person point of view

 This narrative mode limits the matter of thenarrative to what the first-person narrator knows, experiences, infers, or canfind out by talking to other characters. We distinguish between the narrative“I” who is only a fortuitous witness and auditor of the matters he relates(Marlow in Heart of Darkness); or who is a participant, but only a minoror peripheral one, in the story (Nick in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The GreatGatsby); or who is himself or herself the central character in the story(Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre).

5. Flashback

Nowstudy the following paragraph. What is the function of it?

He saidto me. “This is the second cognac I’ve had in my life. Would you like to hearthe story of how I had my first?” (Para. 6)

This paragraph serves to introduce a flashback.

What is flashback?

Flashbacks are interpolatednarratives or scenes (often justified, or naturalized, as a memory, a reverie,or a confession by one of the characters) which represent events that happenedbefore the time at which the work opened. Arthur Miller’s Death of aSalesman (1949) and Ingmar Bergman’s film Wild Strawberries makepersistent and skillful use of this device.

6. Figurative Language

Nowstudy the following sentences and tell us what figurative speech is used ineach and how it contributes to the expressive effect of the language.

1. It’salso the first time I’ve drunk a brandy so slowly. In

    Orlando you develop a throat of iron.(Para.5)

2. Hesat slumped in his seat, like a man with a burden of

    incomprehensible, insoluble grief. (Para.75)

3. Whathe was thinking, God knows, but I was thinking

    he was like a man trying to run a race iniron shoes,

    and not understanding why he cannot move.(Para. 75)