How The Other Half Lives By Jacobs Riis Figurative Language

The descriptive passage above taken from, How the other Half Lives by Jacob A. Riis, demonstrates the isolation of the Chinese community from the rest of New York. Riis uses figurative language such as hyperbole, metaphor, and quotation, as well as other literary devices, to depict the Chinaman as an embodiment of Chinatown itself, where the cultural aspects are portrayed through the man and his doings. The descriptive passage I wrote as an imitation demonstrates how the eyes take in factual information which is then distorted by perception and outside influential factors. I used the same types of figurative language to depict vision as an embodiment of truth as well as trickery. The concept is displayed through the eyes and what they see. Riis uses hyperbole to depict the Chinese community in a descriptive way that both mocks them and

The first hyperbole I used is, “The eyes that, with the clarity to see all the atoms that produce the particles of the universe,” which functions similarly to Riis’s hyperbole by giving vivid description of the subject; in Riis’s passage the Chinaman, and in my passage the eyes. The exaggeration is used emphasize the clarity of what the eyes see, making them more reliable in seeing the truth. The hyperbole I used in a sarcastic tone stated “. . . with bright eyes shining stronger than the stars, looking purposely into those returning the gaze . . .” dramatizes the effect of that a child’s eyes can have on a mother. It is sarcastic because the hyperbole usually refers to something good, shining bright with value, but in the context of the passage, it means to shine with deceitfulness, presenting the brightness only to achieve the desired outcome of getting out of