Language is a powerful device that can shape any reader to react a certain way. In Warren Fellows’ The Damage Done, figurative and descriptive language have been used to get a shocked and sympathetic response from the reader. The Damage Done narrates Fellows’ life imprisonment in a Bangkok Prison. It depicts the horrific events he had to withstand, the unfair treatment he received and the poverty in third world countries. These events shape the audiences response to the novel and manipulate how we perceive these issues.
Figurative language has been used in this text to portray the horrific scenes depicted in the prologue. Fellows’ most gruesome experience is illustrated through similes which enables the reader to visualise the horrid experience. He explains how the “wound opened up like a flower… worm-like creatures oozing and wriggling out of it like spaghetti” which compares this unthinkable experience to items we are more familiar with. By incorporating this simile, Fellows is able to manipulate the audience into being shocked and disgusted by the conditions of this prison. This demonstrates how language has caused the audience to be shocked at the nightmarish events experienced by Fellows.
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He does this so the audience will sympathise with him and agree with his viewpoint on his monstrous experience. This shaping process begins in the prologue when he states “if, by the end of this, you still think i deserved what i got then you to are a monster.” This moves some of the blame onto the reader and aims to suede their opinion of him. This perspective of Fellows continues throughout the novel causing the reader to perceive his experiences as unfair and