Although this text speaks of factual events and situations of misery, it transforms these situations with an almost poetical prose into a literary experience. How does it do so? Here are some literary devices:
• Hyperbole is a way of speaking or writing that makes something sound better or more exciting than it really is. For example: Garbage to them is gold.
• A Metaphor, as you may know, compares two things or ideas that are not very similar. A metaphor describes a thing in term s of a single quality or feature of some other thing; we can say that a metaphor “transfers” a quality of one thing to another. For example: The road was a ribbon of light.
• Simile is a word or phrase that compares one thing with another using the words “like” or “as”. For example: As white as snow. Carefully read the following phrases and sentences taken from the text. Can you identify the literary device in each example?
1.Saheb-e-Alam which means the lord of the universe is directly in contrast to what Saheb is in reality.
2.Drowned in an air of desolation
3.Seemapuri, a place on the periphery of Delhi yet miles away from it, metaphorically.
4.For the children it is wrapped in wonder; for the elders it is a means of survival.
5.As her hands move mechanically like the tongs of a machine, I wonder if she knows the sanctity of the bangles she helps make. shoulders.
