The tragic and regretful tone of the excerpt of O’Brien’s “Good Form” is set using specific word choices and stylistic devices. The author used emotionless, straightforward words to describe the scenes and let the reader draw the conclusion and resonate with the main character. For example, the dead young man was described as he looked, slim and almost dainty. In this excerpt, the author used anaphora several times to emphasize the importance of the image that he sees, for example, “real bodies with real faces” and “faceless responsibility and faceless grief.”
Amy Tan wrote “Fish Cheeks” about a memorable Christmas Eve gathering and a cultural conflict. The main character of the excerpt is embarrassed by her family and her own culture in from of guests. Her embarrassment is displayed by the word-choice used to describe the actions of her relatives, followed by the reaction of her guests and her own desire to disappear. For example, the girl compares her relatives licking the ends of their chopsticks to her guests patiently waiting for the plate to be passed to them. Such words as plucked, poked, and belched are used to describe her father’s moves, viewing them as disgusting and embarrassing.
The except of Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It” describes the images and thoughts that occur to a veteran looking through the names on a memorial. Reading some of the names flashes terrifying scenes of those people dying before the main character’s eyes. The flashes take one line of the poem, symbolizing how quickly they come. For example, by touching the name of Andre Johnson, the veteran shares a vision of the booby trap’s white flash with the reader, meaning the death of his comrade. As such, the reader is able to go through the same thoughts and images as the veteran, as if they lived through the same horrors and terrors of war.