To Kill A Mockingbird Literary Devices Essay

In books similes and metaphors are used to compare two unlike things in a way which makes the reader more interested. Harper Lee uses these tools to create more flavor in her writing and make people laugh and understand. “The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light-pole on the corner, a safe distance from the Radley gate.” Scout uses this simile to compare Dill’s interest in the Radley place to the way that the moon’s gravity attracts the ocean. “As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something.” This metaphor, used by Scout is saying that she is comparing her schooling to a very slow treadmill. We can guess that this means that Scout does not like school, and she is bored, and every day is a stretch and feels like it is never going to end.

An allusion is a literary device that references something or a piece of writing from the past sometimes without saying what it is. “Hours of winter-time had found me in the treehouse, looking over at the schoolyard, spying on multitudes of children through a two-power telescope Jem had given me, learning their games, following Jem’s red jacket through wriggling circles of blind man’s bluff, secretly sharing their misfortunes and minor victories.” This is an allusion to “Blind man’s bluff”. Blind man’s bluff is a game that children used to play, it is similar to a game of tag, where someone is it but for this game the person that is it wears a blindfold. So, it is a bit more like Marco polo. In To Kill a Mockingbird allusions are used a total of twenty-six times to reference things of the past.

Foreshadowing, hinting that something is going to happen, for suspense. It was the coldest day since 1885 and there was snow, this is unheard of, the children do not realize but this reflects on the summer ahead, an unusual one. “Jem broke his arm when he was almost thirteen... I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.” When Scout uses the words “it all” it tells us that the story behind Jem’s broken arm is complicated and where the accident started was open to interpretation. In this statement Scout also mentions several important characters, The Ewells, Dill, and Boo Radley. On the next line Scout says, “if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson,” This foreshadows one of the main themes, being the history of the south of North America. All throughout the story the is lots of foreshadowing especially linked to Jem’s accident.  

Profanity is swearing. In a book profanity can be used to build character and to show what was socially accepted at the time. In To Kill a Mockingbird there is two main examples of swearing. All throughout the book the N-word is used. At the time this was socially acceptable. It can be considered offensive when somebody as young as Scout uses it but as the book goes along Atticus continues to teach Scout to refrain from using such racist terms even if she hears others around her use them. The other main use of profanity is when Burris says “Ain’t no snot-nosed slut of a school ever born can make me do nothin’”. This helps show and build Burris’s character because a little bit after this statement he just walks out of class. He is rude to his teacher and as he is an Ewell he will only come on the first day of each year if you are lucky. These all help show what he is like and what sort of person he is. Altogether To Kill a Mockingbird uses profanity to build the story and make it better.

Personification is used in To Kill a Mockingbird. Personification is when you make an inanimate object do something human like. One example being “The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard”. This is personification because a picket cannot be drunk. By this it means that the remains of the picket are barely holding up and they are not really guarding the place as you would expect a picket fence to do so. Personification could also be used to describe the look of an object.

Vernacular is the way that a group or a person actually speaks, this means that letters might be removed or added to show how they are speaking. “Nome, thank you mam.” This is Lee showing the southern vernacular but this may change based on economic and social status/ class. “Hidy do”. This sort of vernacular builds character and creates a sort of small town country feel. The way people speak can affect the way we view them and their character.

To build scenes and foreshadow we can use suspense. The gate “squeaked”, “beckoning in the moonlight”. These were used to foreshadow what was about to happen at the Radley place. We “leaped”, “galloped” “flung [the gate open]”, “tripped”, and “dived”. These are all used to build fear and nervousness for the characters in the story. Suspense can help build tension and nervousness.

Malapropism is a mistaken word. In To Kill a Mockingbird malapropism is used when it says “I don’t care what you do, as long as you do something,” Said Atticus. “ You can’t go around making caricatures of the neighbors.” “Ain’t a characterture,” said Jem. “It looks just like him”” Jem doesn’t realize that he is saying the word wrong. It is caricature not characterture. This is likely because of immaturity and lack of knowledge because he is young. In this case malapropism is used to show immaturity.