Figures of speech in "The Sieve and the Sand"

Activity “Fahrenheit 451”, The Sieve and the Sand

Read, identify & write a comment on five of the following literary devices (metaphor, simile, alliteration, irony, sarcasm, understatement, paradox, oxymoron) on the second part of the novel “Fahrenheit 451” The Sieve and the Sand. Make sure you perform a detailed analysis on the effect that the literary devices have on the reader and an explicit explanation of why you perceive that. Annotate and cite the necessary quotes as well as the corresponding pages.

Metaphor: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, metaphor stands for “a form of expression (not using ’like’ or ’as’) in which a quality or characteristic is given to a person or thing by using a name, image, adjective etc normally used of something else which has similar qualities etc”. An example of this is the title of the chapter “the Sieve and the Sand” (pg. 67) because it represents really the desire of Montag to maintain himself and the wisdom of the books inside his head before it fades away. This makes us think that maybe we rush things in life because we hold on to things really hard and we just dislike change. This makes us feel interested in a life that is breaking apart at every second and we don’t have the chance to catch on to that sieve. Its like we are doomed to be stop being remembered and that the people who wrote those amazing books are going to be forgotten as well as their books and all humanity is going to fall apart.

 Simile: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, simile stands for “a form of expression using ’like’ or ’as’, in which one thing is compared to another which it only resembles in one or a small number of ways”. An example of this is  "The old man looked as if he had not out of the house in years." (pg. 80) The words “as if” state that it’s a simile. This simile makes us wonder more about the appearance of the man and how did he live in the past years. That lives a vacant space for self-interpretation and makes us feel curious about his personality. This also makes us think more clearly about the characters and their personal life while living in that strange world that doesn’t allow individuality. It makes us feel like there’s something behind the human nature that not even mass media can destroy it or change it.

Alliteration: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, alliteration stands for “the use of the same sound at the beginning of a series of words in order to achieve a particular effect”. An example of this “The people who had be sitting a moment before, taping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentrifice Dentrifice Dentrifice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three.” (pg. 75) because it replicates de word Denham’s and also uses other words that start with D. The idea of singing a song like this makes it like a tongue twister. Also, it makes us wonder how did they learnt it, it’s like they have a lot of free time and spend a lot of time in meaningless things like that. This makes us feel confused and repetitive because in that society they bombed the people with information and made them think about them with the sound. It makes us feel interested in that brand and that’s not right because it meant that they achieved their purpose so we feel in some way weak. It seems like a catchy song transports a lot of information we didn’t know about and that makes us feel insecure about what we hear everyday and what mass media is telling us to do without us noticing.

Allegory: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, allegory stands for “a story, play, poem, picture, or other work in which the characters and events represent particular moral, religious, or political qualities or ideas”. An example of this is “‘Fill this sieve and you get a dime!’ And the faster he poured, the faster it sifted through with a hot whispering. His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty.” (pg. 74) because it represents the desperation to catch some sort thought but he couldn’t. It represents the actual society in which he lives and how hard is it to catch the most simple and small things because they didn’t actually learnt to think. To catch sand with a sieve is almost impossible but the sensation of filling something feels real for some time. It’s now when they realize that the things they actual thought about was really nothing and what they thought they knew, it’s fading away. This makes us feel in some way lucky because we got the sensation that we know ourselves and we know what we are doing. This causes some kind of stress with the fact that you can’t catch anything but makes us calm because we do, we know how to think and we know about our past.

Analogy: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, analogy stands for “a comparison of the features or qualities of two different things to show their similarities”. An example of this is “The salamander devours his tail!” (pg. 82) because Montag does a comparison between a salamander killing itself and firemen that have books, burning their own houses because they couldn’t have the books for more that 24 hours. This makes us feel like the analogy try to guide us through the story and that the author is trying to do connections with the objective, the purpose, the actions and the methods. It also makes us think about how ridiculous is to burn the only source of actual intellect that is left and it’s as ridiculous as an animal eating itself. It makes us fell like it hurts to leave behind something important like a part of you that you keep on loosing because you don’t have the ability to recover your thoughts. It makes us feel frustrated and bad for the characters of the book and the ones on the society.

Irony: According to the Cambridge Dictionaries Online, irony stands for “a form of deliberate mockery in which one says the opposite of what is obviously true”. An example of this is “The salamander devours his tail!” (pg. 82) because it’s a mockery about how living and knowing are so important but the firemen and the salamander keep on taking them away. It’s obvious that someone wants to keep their identity, their thoughts, they want to be free of thinking but it’s totally ironic that they smash the only opportunity they have to do it. That makes us think that humans can be really confused sometimes because we don’t really understand our priorities or we ignore them. It made as reflex about when and how we made something really dumb without realizing it and how the desire for knowing and for understanding leads to better choices.

Bibliography

Bradbury, R. (1950). Fahrenheit 451. (T. S. Bureau, Ed.) New York, United States: Simon & Schuster.

Cambridge University Press. (1999). American english. (U. o. Cambridge, Editor, & Syndicate of the University of Cambridge) Retreived the 30 of 2015, from Cambridge Dictionaries online: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-english/