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Contents Of The Dead Man's Pocket Literary Devices

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The Night His Life Flashed Before His Eyes Have you ever had your life flash before your eyes? That is how it feels when you read the story, “ Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket” by Jack Finney. In this story the protagonist Tom is in a situation where he realizes his life is flashing before his eyes and how he hadn’t enjoyed it because of his job. Through the use of the Literary elements such as foreshadowing, manipulation of time, and setting we can note that the author uses suspense and tension in the story “Contents of the Dead Man”. To begin with, The literary element foreshadowing is used in this story on multiple occasions. For instance, When Tom was talking to his wife, the loose paper and the open window are mentioned as a form of foreshadowing the fact that sooner in the plot that same paper would fly out the window that is open while he is conversing with his wife. This evidence shows the use of foreshadowing early in the plot of the story to further translate and allow the plot afterwards to be understood. …show more content…

For example, when Tom climbed out of his window to try and retrieve his paper. There was a sequence of events that occurred afterwards that made the story seem like it lasted for a long time. By the point he was dropping coins to try and alert anyone on the ground that he needed help the story had felt like he had lasted at least an hour hanging already. Although, he was there for just a few minutes. The proof provided shows that the author Jack Finney used the literary element of manipulation of time to make it seem like Tom spent a really long time hanging on the side of the building when really it was a few minutes at

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