Use Of Figurative Language In Of Mice And Men

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When reading novels, one of the many things the reader will notice is the author’s use of literary elements. Literary elements bring life to what the reader reads by adding detail that the reader may not have been able to notice without the literary elements. John Steinbeck is one of the many writers that uses literary elements in his writing. One of his famous novels, Of Mice and Men is a great example for the use of literary elements. The reader can see the use of imagery, dialect, and figurative language in John Steinbeck’s novel. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses imagery to give the reader a detailed idea of the setting. At the beginning of the novel, to know what is around Lennie and George, the reader reads, “On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan Mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees- willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter's flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over …show more content…
Using figurative language helps give detail and better understanding to things going on in the story. Steinbeck writes, “The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line. . .” this is a simile the helps the reader get the idea that when Lennie grabbed Curley, Curley was wiggling all over the place trying to get free (63). The use of personification is used when detail is being given to the setting because Steinbeck writes, “The shade climbed up the hills toward the top” (2). When Lennie says, “An’ live off the fatta the lan’,” he is using a metaphor because there is not really fat on the land he is just expressing that they will use the land to raise their animals and crops. Steinbeck using figurative language better expanded the detail to his setting and characters and gave his characters more options in their