What Are The Literary Devices Used In The Handmaid's Tale

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Enabling the mythical qualities to this literature are the plethora of literary devices spaced throughout the works. These devices give the stories their signature rhythm and meter, allowing us to become entranced in the plot. “Up,up it goes, and yet never grows?” (Tolkien 73), isan example of a rhyming couplet commonly used throughout the Canterbury Tales, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the story. They add an almost romantic style to the stories while also intensifying conflict and the overall suspense of the plot. Similar to the rhyming couplet, is the quatrain. Most common to either tell a riddle or pertaining to a prophecy related to the hero. An example of a quatrain used would be’ “Chip the glasses and crack the plates! Blunt the knives and bend the forks! That is what Bilbo Baggins hates! Smash the bottles and burn the…show more content…
“ … little as it is, it seems less in value, But he who knew what charms are woven in it might place a better price on it.”(Allan et al 239). It seems that the hero is fated to always have the only weapon able to save the ordinary folk. In some cases indirectly used, these weapons are often known to the monster, but through years of waiting become lethargic and fail to remember the only way they may be defeated. This weapon may be brute strength, a certain arrow, or a magic sword. “Black Arrow! … You have never failed me … If ever you came from the true King under the mountain … “(Tolkien 251). Also used indirectly used as a weapon are things such as a secret pathway, or a magic ring. The villains also succome to their own pompous additudes. Macbeth believes that only someone not born of a woman can kill him, which leads him to act arrogantly and eventually leads to his fated end. Smaug refuses to defend his weak spot, and by believing in its secrecy fails to properly defend it and is killed by the arrow of
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