Comparing O Brian And Vonnegut's Use Of Literary Devices

Comparison of O’Brian’s and Vonnegut’s Use of Literary Devices The usage of literary devices creates depth in novels and gets the audience interested and engrossed. Usinghese elements adds deeper meaning to the story, making the book more than just words on a page. Authors have different ways of incorporating literary elements into their books. Tim O'Brian and Kurt Vonnegut are prime examples of great authors that use these, and each of them use them in different ways. In the Lake of the Woods by O’Brian has several literary devices, as does Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. In each of these novels, symbolism, irony, character change, and foreshadowing are present, but all are used more effectively in Slaughterhouse Five.

Symbolism is the first

In the Lake of the Woods has several instances of dramatic irony, when Kath wonders how “well [John know[s]” her, when readers know that John spies on her (O’Brain, 34). Another situation of dramatic irony is when John sees, “Kathy [stare] up at him from beneath the surface of the…lake”,yet the audience knows she is deceased (O’Brian, 288). Although the reader knows that she is dead, Johnjust had not accepted it, even though he could be the one who killed her, or Kathy had committed suicide. He had previously called her name as she was sleeping, saying, “Kath, sweet Kath” when she was laying right there in front of him (O’Brian, 76). The first time he could see her right in front of him, yet the second time the reader knows she is dead. Situational irony is the main form of irony in Slaughterhouse Five, namely when Billy and his companions are all traveling together. Billy, despite being the youngest and weakest, is the only one who survived, even though he wanted to give up. The "Three Musketeers”, who had agreed to work together and protect one another, all died when they were strong men and skilled soldiers(Vonnegut, 36). Even though Billy was the weakest soldier and the group of soldiers that should have survived, he was the only one who lived through the war. later in life he also survived a plane crash, with many other people with which “everybody was killed except

Each of these books have foreshadowing, yet Slaughterhouse Five has a more qualitative and effective use of foreshadowing than In the Lake of the Woods. Vonnegut’s novel has very small instances of foreshadowing due to the fact that, in his book, time is fixed and incapable of changing. The Tralfamadorians teach that “we are…trapped in…this moment” and time cannot be changed (Vonnegut, 66). The foreshadowing that is present is very vague and hardly indicates future events, since everything happens and will always stay the same. Billy learns that there are “things he cannot change”, therefore he has to accept his fate and everybody else’s (Vonnegut, 181). There is little room for direct foreshadowing, especially with dealing with this concept of time, so Vonnegut does not reveal much about the future. On the other hand, In the Lake of the Woods contains great amounts of very obvious foreshadowing. O’Brian has many examples of foreshadowing in his novel, starting with John Wade’s dreams of “...going for something big. Lieutenant governor, maybe”, which later becomes reality (O’Brian, 34). O’Brian also foreshadows Kathy’s death when John kills plants with boiling water, watching their “leaves blanch and curl downward…and stink” (O’Brian, 50). His killing of plants foreshadows him killing Kathy, in which he later does also with boiling water. Even though he loved her, he “couldn’t stop the teakettle