How Does Jesmyn Ward Use Figurative Language

This is about three stories that all use Figurative language to help readers understand the differences and similarities to each story on how place and setting can help shape a person overall based on their natural surroundings and how it can impact one's person.

Jesmyn Ward uses the setting in Mississippi ``My True South: Why I Decided To Return Home” to deepen the reader’s understanding of the importance of how the past can haunt you. “I fantasize about living in that fabled America and then I remember that one cannot escape an infinite room.'' In this quote the figurative language represents a metaphor that she cannot escape racism simply by moving around the country. This is about an African American woman who returned hometown. The

I carry every slur, every slight, every violent malign within me; they have become a part of me,”(Ward 9). This shows that words stick to people and others act on their words without thinking about the effect it causes. However, her surroundings in the south are not all negative as she reflects on her past and childhood on what things were like and she will have to be strong and overcome it. Ward writes “One of my best friends from high school, a white woman with two toddlers, who stops her car when she sees black people and pulled over by the police, pulling out her phone and filming in an attempt to belay disaster, to hold authority accountable, fussy children be damned.”

The author reflects on what happened in the long history of racism as she returns to the South she utters her feelings about things relating to what occurred during the civil war as they go into detail of what it must have been like within her surroundings. The speaker uses imagery to convey the theme of slavery by things Trethewey states “left sacks and fields of cotton”( ). The narrator used strong figurative language such as metaphors indicating slavery using negative connotations, as this is illustrated in the quote, the author writes “marking and vanquished land I returned to a field of the cotton hallowed ground” (15). As their legacy and memories are exclaimed as they talk about how the south was a consistent reminder of slavery given that this is the location in which everything occurred. Based on the connotative meaning of the words used in the text such as “old field ”imagining a war” it expresses how living In the South will always stick with them as their memories have a wired connection attached, as Mississippi will always be a constant reminder for