The Kite Runner:8

"My body was broke-just how badly I wouldn't find out until later-but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed." (page 289) There are multiple literary devices used in this single instance. The first is irony. It is completely ironic that when he is being beaten Amir laughs. Most people would not be laughing. Also, the instance is ironic because Assef just talked about how he laughed at the guy he hurt, and now Amir was doing it to him. Even though he is being hurt, Amir does not care because he is feeling relief. This brings me to my next literary device, which is paradox. This statement is paradoxal because Amir is broken yet healed. Once thought about, the reader can infer that Amir is referring to being healed from the guilt that had long been harping on his life. He had stood and watched Hassan get hurt by Assef. He had begged Hassan to hurt him after. Finally, Amir is feeling the redemption he has long desired. With Assef beating him up, he feels that he is finally getting what he deserves. The redemption is freeing him of the guilt he could not rid of. He is healed.

POUI Blog #1

#13
In the poem "Much Madness is Divinest Sense", Dickinson uses two phrases which cause a paradox when used together. The phrases go hand in hand to understand the meaning and reason for the use of them. The paradoxal phrases are "Much Madness is divinest sense"(line 1) and "Much Sense-the starkest Madness"(line 3). This paradox causes the reader to look closer at what they are reading. Therefore, they find what the true meaning of this poem is. Although it seems to be contradicting phrases used together seem wrong, they in fact are correct once realizing the point Dickinson is trying to get across. The phrases ultimately are addressing people who conform to society. By not conforming, a person may seem insane to society, but they see they are staying true to themselves. A person who conforms is mad because although society accepts them, they cannot accept themselves because they are being something they are not. This is the truth revealed through this paradox. Without the paradox, the poem would not have been as effective.

The Start of Second Book Blogs

I finished reading "The Things They Carried" recently, and this is what my next twenty blogs will cover! I am going to again start with literary terms and then discuss certain scenes or phrases that caught my attention while reading. Sooo let's get started!
Literary Term #1
Paradox

• page 7: "Where things came together but also separated."

This is clearly a paradox. In a letter to Jimmy Cross, Martha brings up this contradictory statement. An ocean's shoreline brings things together from the ocean to the land. It also takes things away, making them separate. In addition, it brings two very different things together that might usually not. I think that this is somewhat mean of Martha to say to Jimmy because this is just adding to his false thinking of her loving him. He might take this as that the two of them are together but separated by the ocean or war. He may also think that the pebble is a way of keeping them together since it was at the shoreline. This is just how I took this paradox. Lastly, this paradox may serve as a way to tell the situation that the soldiers are in. They are in an unknown place. They are together as one, but the war has separated them from family and loved ones. The ocean is the new unknown area they have been taken to. The land was what they knew. I am not sure if this is true, but it was another way I interpreted this.