Roger Rosenblatt's The Man In The Water

Courage is defined as the ability to do something that frightens one. All children dream of finding themselves in dangerous situations and rising above everyone else in the situation to become a hero. Heroes can be defined a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. In 1982, Roger Rosenblatt, an award-winning journalist, wrote an article for Time Magazine about a man who risked his life in order to save his fellow passengers from the icy waters of the Potomac River. In the end, this man lost his own life in the process of saving others. This man was deemed a national hero after his involvement in the famous crash of Air Florida Flight 90. Rosenblatt’s article, “The Man in the Water,” uses a variety of literary techniques to describe several major themes throughout the text. These literary devices include similes, metaphors,

Personification can be defined as the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. Rosenblatt uses this literary device to describe the unknown man’s struggle against the water. This stands as an example of personification do to the fact that it personifies the water with which the man is fighting. “So the timeless battle commenced in the Potomac. For as long as that man could last, they went at each other, nature and man: the one making no distinctions of good and evil, acting on no principles, offering no lifelines; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles and one supposes, on faith.” Through this, it is clear that the author was personifying the water, while also using other literary devices such as similes, metaphors, symbols, or other figurative