Regarding this passage from The Brief Wondrous
Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz, there are some important literary devices
of which to make note.
The first line makes use of
href="http://www.wordreference.com/definition/infer">inference, which is
when you "read between the lines," or find meaning by using evidence or reasoning,
rather than coming to a conclusion " href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explicitly">explicitly"
stated. This passage says that the words being spoken do not seem to be the kind this
person is generally known for. The inference is that this person is somehow surprisingly
able to use language in a way far superior to the manner in which he/she usually does.
That there is a positive association is seen with "good for once." The passage
is:
The words
coming out like they belonged to someone else, his Spanish good for
once.
Next, there is
which is defined as:
...a figure of speech in which an
attribute of a thing or something closely related to
it is substituted for the thing
itself.
This literary device
is sometimes difficult to understand. It is when some aspect of a thing is used
to describe the thing itself. I.e., looking at brownies, someone
says, "I could eat the whole plate;" it means one could eat all of the
brownies, NOT the
plate.
We see the use of metonymy
in:
...they
were going to take a great love out of the
world.
Here the speaker means
that "they" would remove a person of great love from the world, but
he refers to that person as love itself.
Another device we
find is href="http://www.reference.com/browse/paradox">paradox. In the following
sentence, there seems to be a contradiction when first reading it. The quote
is:
Love was a
rare thing, easily confused with a million other
things...
The paradox exists
because if love is a rare thing (not found everyday), how can it be confused with a
million other things? However, a paradox is a statement that seemingly contradicts
itself, but is not something that never make sense. It means that
with study, and/or perhaps within the context of the story, it takes on a new meaning.
In this case, I take it to mean that love is rare, and perhaps many people mistake other
things with love, like thinking love can come from someone with money, or good looks or
a sense of humor. While all of these things might be aspects of some person that is
loved, the speaker would argue that they are not that
of which love is made.
We note the presence
of conflict: man vs society, it seems. The quoted passage
is:
He told
them that it was only because of her love that he’d been able to do the thing that he
had done, the thing they could no longer
stop...
The speaker talks of
his love, and mentions that "they" can no longer stop whatever it is that he has done,
as they might want to.
There is also a href="http://www.reference.com/browse/theme">theme present, which is an
important message the author of the writing is trying to get across through his/her
writing. It is defined as:
...the unifying subject or idea of a
story
That theme speaks of
how anyone can make his or her dreams come true.
Because anything you can dream (he put his hand
up) you can be.
Finally, the
tone of this passage, how the author feels about his subject, seems
to reflect triumph in the face of tragedy. It sounds as if the subject of the passage is
to be killed. "He" says people are making a bad decision, but there will be
retribution.
...if they killed him they would probably feel
nothing [or] their children...not until they were old and weak...and then they would
sense him waiting for them on the other side and over...over there he’d be a hero, an
avenger...
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