A Separate Peace: Rhetorical Strategies

Blog Entry #1 Rhetorical Strategies

Imagery/ Personification: “His voice soaring and plunging in its vibrant sound box, his eyes now and then widening to fire a flash of green across the room” (21-22).

Assonance: “turning a look of mock shock on me” (29).

Verbal irony: “we spent that summer in complete selfishness, I’m happy to say” (30).

Implicit metaphor: “the world, through its unleashed emotions, imprinted itself upon him, and he carries the stamp of that passing moment forever” (40).

Simile: “like sunshine seen through rough burlap” (49).

Dramatic irony: “and that was the most false thing, the biggest lie of all” (71).

Explicit metaphor: “every bulletin board was a forest of notices” (74).

Personification/alliteration: the river “threw itself with little spectacle over a small waterfall beside the diving dam” (76).

Allusion: “I detected no Sherlock Holmes among them, nor even a Dr. Watson” (91).

Euphemism: “he might have to move his bowels until at last we came” (131).

Antithesis: “the wind knifed at face, but this sun caressed my back” (141).

Throughout the novel, Knowles enriches his writing by using a variety of rhetorical strategies.  In some cases, for instance when he uses eloquent imagery, it adds to the mood of the scene he is describing. In other cases, for example, when he uses and alliteration, assonance, or antithesis, it draws attention to the strategy by emphasizing similar sounds, spelling, or sentence structure.  By using metaphors and allusion the author provides a tangible comparison for the reader, something they can relate to, in order to make his descriptions realistic and increase the audience’s appreciation of his writing.  Overall using rhetorical strategies make the novel more interesting to read and progresses the plot by assisting in character development, illustrating the scene, and by adding to the sophistication of the book in general.