Where The Crawdads Sing Delia Owens

609 Words3 Pages

Why Choose Dark & White? In the novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens uses the idea of a mysterious upbringing to characterize the protagonist named Kya. Kya appears to be raised by an alcoholic father when her mother suddenly leaves her family, but at the young age of 10, Kya’s father leaves her as well. T Kya is given the nickname “Marsh girl” because of her abandoned home in the marsh and her connection with the marsh wildlife. This detail allows Owens to characterize Kya as mysterious due to the fact that she has no parents and Kya has a weird connection with nature as seen through her home in the marsh. Owens creates a mysterious aura surrounding Kya by using literary elements like tone and characterization. Delia Owens creates an intense character by using tone to display Kya and her …show more content…

Owens uses descriptive words throughout this quote to give an eerie tone. The words “breathing” and “wet” create an uncomfortable tone for the reader, in which Owens then chooses to pair with the descriptive words, used to portray earth, to create an overall creepy tone. By doing so, the tone of the description becomes eerie and uncomfortable which then foreshadows the feelings the reader assumes about Kya. Since Kya is portrayed to be one with the earth, the imposed undertone of a creepy physical earth then correlates to unsure feelings from the reader toward Kya. Owens uses this strategy to display why Kya is viewed as mysterious. The usage of tone is an effective literary strategy because it creates deeper feelings for the reader about a character, which then allows the reader to form opinions. The second literary element utilized to display the dark upbringing of Kya is characterization, which Owens chooses to display through word choice. The quote “She’d given love a chance; now she simply wanted to fill the empty