ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour... Settle into your favorite chair, hit pause,

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and read the following passage...

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Which literary device is used in lines 31 to 37?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Okay, so this question wants to know if we can define and identify each of the literary

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devices it's throwing at us.

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Or... at least the one being used here... First let's zero in on the lines in question...

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Lines 31 through 37.

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So it's all the "happy this, happy that" silliness. Now... what device is being used here?

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Let's take 'em one by one.

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A -- Ellipsis. An ellipsis isn't just a noncommittal way to finish a sentence in an email.

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In a narrative, it usually replaces a word or event that’s implied by the surrounding

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text, and can be just a single dot rather than three.

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We don't see any place in these lines where dots are being used to replace an event...

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so let's nix A. B -- Parallelism. Ooh -- could be.

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The speaker is talking about how the nation is happy, and then how the people are happy, and then

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how the struldbrugs are happy... whatever they are.

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Forgive us for jumping subjects for a moment here, but... remember parallel lines in algebra?

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Each is its own line,

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but each is oriented similarly to every other line that is parallel to it.

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Same thing when talking about parallelism in literature. So B is a definite contender.

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What about C -- Metaphor? A metaphor is a kind of comparison...

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...and while you could compare each of the things the speaker is calling happy...

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...he isn't doing any comparing himself. So it can't be C.

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D -- Metonymy is out, too, because nothing in this part of the passage is being referred

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to by something closely associated with it.

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And E -- Alliteration -- can get scratched as well.

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Alliteration is the repeating of sounds at the beginning of words... and we don't have

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that here. Shucks... sure is a shame, Shmoopers. Get it?

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So B -- parallelism -- that's our guy.

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Sorry... we'll try to go a few more problems without bringing up algebra again.

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