If On A Winter's Night Analysis Essay

Literary Analysis of If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler

Chapter 2 of If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler talks about the Reader’s reaction after finding out misprinted pages in the book that he is reading. In first two introductory paragraphs of chapter 2, the Reader’s lack of patience is developed by the author’s use of interplay through point of view, by hyperbole in the text, and by continuously evolving dictions and contrast of them, to show the Reader’s desire to read the complete book and bring back his pleasure of reading books. Calvino uses second person’s point of view to establish the relationship between the readers and the Reader. “You fling the book on the floor, you would hurl it out of the window, even out of the closed window, through the slats of the Venetian blinds.” Beginning from the first sentence of the chapter, the narrator uses the word “you” to convey the Reader’s actions and thoughts to the audience. Although the narrator does not take an action, the interplay between two readers

“The thing that most exasperates you is to find yourself at the mercy of the fortuitous, the aleatory, the random, in things and in human actions—carelessness, approximation, imprecision, whether your own or others.” Calvino uses the series of words having the similar meanings to display that the thing that disappoints the Reader most about this problem is that it is based on a completely random error. The readers can conceive that the Reader seeks pleasure in reading because there is a order in it, and he doesn't like when something random interrupts his well-ordered pleasure. Throughout the text, Calvino uses different literary devices to show the Reader’s frustration. The Reader is disappointed because of his love of logic, and these characterization all helps Calvino to suggest that it is not the right way to read a