Lauren Oliver Literary Techniques

The meaning of life from a teenage perspective is explored through Lauren Oliver’s “Before I Fall”. The journey of the main protagonist, Sam Kingston, is one that everyone can relate to in some way. Through continually repeating a day, she learns about people’s views on life and reflects on her own. She also loses her superiority towards additional characters and changes her outlook of life because of death. Through the complicated and brilliant use of literary devices Oliver presents the experience of a typical teenage life, giving an idea and beliefs to other teenage readers. She uses first person narration to communicate to the audience from the teenage perspective and also has use of narrative structure which allows Oliver to separate various

The main character, Sam as the narrator allows the audience understand the perspective of a teenager. The tone of this novel is brutally honest. Sharing with the reader the thoughts and feelings of Sam, ‘They say your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that’s not how it happened for me.’ (pg. 1) This statement is an eye catching technique that captures the reader’s attention and explains what is to happen in the novel. Sam is a typical American high school student who is one of the more popular students (at the top of the social pyramid with her three best friends and the perfect boyfriend) but there is always a foundation and flaws to this life. The author explains what she is really thinking and feeling especially when her life is close to the end. This novel is aimed at teenage females who are able to relate more to the journey that Sam went through and understand the informal and familiar language used amongst teenagers. Written in present tense to exaggerate that it was happening at the time the audience experiences the journey with Sam. Therefore, Oliver uses first person narration to communicate to the audience from the teenage

Oliver uses characterisation to express the character’s personality which allows the audience to understand Sam. Oliver never describes Sam’s appearance, only presents her as one of the popular students in her school. She is compared to others and vice versa which is what teenagers typically do, they don’t recognise their own beauty because they are too busy comparing themselves to other people. Not describing the main character is a technique used because it is written in first person as the character can’t look at herself but only at others. This allows the teen audience to imagine what she would look like based on stereotypes. This makes the readers include themselves as the character. Foreshadowing, is a commonly used novel technique, as the days repeat it’s already predicted what will happen in the near future this connects to the theme ‘think before you act’. The novel is divided into descriptive paragraphs and dialogue to explain what is happening and what is being said. “Now my heart feels like its being squashed between my ribs, and it gets harder and harder to breath.” (pg.164) clearly describes what Sam feels like. This is where she has been pushed to the point where she can’t take it anymore or she’s anxious but when written like this explains the true feeling and presented as imagery. Another technique used throughout the book is similes and