“Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life”. (Barbara Kingsolver) Fiction is an imaginary thing or event, postulated for the purposes of argument or explanation as defined by Dictionary.com. There are many literary devices that writers incorporate into their works. The main reason literary devices are used is to connect with the reader. When we read, we want to truly enjoy what is written we need to become a part of the story. And literary devices help us to better see and feel the storyline. A good storyline captures all of our senses, these devices draw the reader in, paint a picture, heighten the senses, and pull at us emotionally. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story The Birthmark, some of the key literary devices used were irony symbol and theme. …show more content…
It describes him as “Proficient in every branch of natural philosophy”, (Hawthorne, 365) to the extent that he even discovered an elixir that he could determine if a man would drop dead instantly or linger out years after only of a breath of this substance. We see a great irony in how intelligent Aylmer is, and yet how many scientific mistakes he makes. When he uses the elixir of life upon the flower, it grows beautifully but also self-combusts. He then tells Georgiana he will need to use a much stronger substance on her, in order to fix her birthmark. The flower very obviously foreshadows Georgiana’s death, and the result proves that Aylmer’s science can produce extremely unpredictable results. Yet, Aylmer fails to recognise that he must proceed with caution, such an irony considering his large bank of