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The Perfect Storm Literary Analysis

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In The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, the respective authors address contrasting themes. The Perfecting Storm, a book of nonfiction, explores what happened in 1991 to a sword fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, during what is now known as “the perfect storm.” On the other hand, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a realistic fiction novel, is about a mute boy who investigates the suspicious death of his father, with his uncle as the main suspect. Accordingly, Wroblewski uses the literary devices of allusion, foreshadowing and point of view to illustrate the themes of revenge and justice; in contrast, Junger employs both fiction and nonfiction literary features, such as dialogue, interviews, …show more content…

As a mute boy, Edgar is faced with the difficulty of losing his father and searching for the answers of his mysterious death. Wroblewski’s novel is an extended allusion to Shakespeare's play, Hamlet. Many of the names used by Wroblewski are similar to those used by Shakespeare. For example, Gertrude and Trudy; both the mothers of the protagonist. Also, Hamlet I and Hamlet II are the same as Gar (short for Edgar) and Edgar. In both the play and the novel, the protagonist searches for the murderer of one of their parents, which we find out is someone close in relation. In Hamlet, Claudius, Hamlet II’s younger brother, is the murderer of his mother, the queen and in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Claude, Edgar’s uncle is the killer of is Edgar’s father. Once again, the names are very similar. However, Wroblewski has his own twists; he incorporates dogs. The dogs are Edgar’s closest companions, specifically his house dog Almondine. Almondie stays by Edgar until he runs away from home after he accidently kills Dr. Papineau, the local doctor of the small Wisconsin town. However, when Edgar returns, Almondine is dead, and can no longer be a loyal companion to Edgar. After Edgar returns, he

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