Figurative Language In Boy's Life By Tom Mackenson

Throughout Boy’s Life, the author uses figurative language to emphasize theme, setting and character transformation. Without the incorporation of literary devices, such as: simile, metaphor and personification, the novel would lose its intricacy.

In the novel, figurative language played an important role in emphasizing the theme of change. As the novel progresses, readers witness the changes that both Tom and Cory experience. From the beginning of the novel, readers are aware of the murder, but as the story progresses the author stresses the deep effects it had on Tom Mackenson. On Page 30, Tom said the murder “...is eatin’at me and its only getting worse.” In this quote, Tom uses personification to emphasize the extent to which he was being haunted by the murder and the phrase “eating at me” to suggest that the nightmares

Cory on the other hand, is worried about his dad’s unusual behavior and says that “.... [murder] had hurt [his] father in a deeper place than the bottom of the Saxon’s Lake” (P.31). Cory uses a metaphor to form an analogy between Tom’s ineffable grief and the extreme depth of the Saxon’s Lake. This analogy also serves to further elaborate on Tom’s feelings of dismay. Later on in the novel, Cory began hallucinating. During the flood, Cory said he saw the man with the green-feathered hat “...on his way to the riverbank for an appointment with [his] father” (P.97). However, when he decided to follow the man, he slipped and fell into a hole. On Page 97. He said, “I lunged forward, fighting the river, and that was when my feet slipped out from under me and I went down, the muddy water closing over my head” (P.97) After wards he says, “I searched for the mysterious figure. Vanished”