How Does Michael Bauer Use Of Figurative Language

In the novels ‘Don’t call me Ishmael’ and ‘The pain, My mother, Sir Tiffy, Cyber boy & Me’ the two main characters are represented by the use of figurative language. The author Michael Bauer used a male and female protagonist to illustrate some of the differences between their personalities. Maggie, the main character in ‘The pain & Me’ is represented as an aggressive and selfish person who had hardship in her life and is struggling to deal with it however towards the end of the book she becomes less judgemental and has a better outlook on life. Bauer uses capitalisation and hyperbole to highlight these traits. In the book ‘Don’t call me Ishmael’ the main character Ishmael is a quiet person who is lacking self-confidence however finds his voice

As an example of this when describing a bad haircut Maggie says ‘When I say ‘professionally cut and styled’ please read ‘massacred to within an inch of its life.’6. Maggie also gets annoyed with Danny singing and describes it this way

‘When he did this CRAZY AND ANNOYING THING. And the crazy and annoying thing he did was… HE STARTED SINGING.’10.

In contrast to Maggie’s outgoing personality, Ishmael in ‘Don’t call me Ishmael’ is a quiet and reserved character who lacks self-confidence, some techniques Bauer has used are similes and metaphors. This is illustrated in the very first chapter of the book where Ishmael laments his very name Ishmael Leseur, he uses a metaphor to compare his name from Leseur to

By having this kind of outlook on himself it shows that he has a significant lack of confidence and is ashamed of himself.

Towards the end of the novel Bauer changes the way he represents Maggie and does this by making her less aggressive and more considerate of other people. An example of this is

‘It was sad having to say goodbye when our session came to an end. But I made a promise that I would come and see him on the weekend.’(193)

This shows that Maggie is becoming less judgemental of Bert whereas at the start of the novel she made a judgement that just because he was old and alone that he was boring and hadn’t done anything with his life. Once Maggie learned that Bert had spent his life saving children’s lives it made her want to be a better person to him and do something nice for him.

Bauer’s representation of Ishmael also changes at the end of the book as he become more outgoing and gains confidence. An example of this is

‘So that was the other thing I vowed to do that day, make sure that Barry Bagsly paid for every lousy thing he’d done. It was just a matter of figuring out how I was going to deliver the bill.’