Kiss Of The Fur Queen Literary Devices

The Road, a post apocalyptic novel,written by Cormac McCarthy, tells the story of a father and son traveling along the cold, barren and ash ridden interstate highways of America. Pushing all their worldly possessions in a shopping cart, they struggle to survive. Faced with despair, suicide and cannibalism, the father and son show a deep loving and caring that keeps them going through unimaginable horrors. Through the setting of a post apocalyptic society, McCarthy demonstrates the psychological effects of isolation and the need to survive and how these effects affect the relationships of the last few people on Earth.

In Tomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen the opening passage transports the reader to the harsh, cold, and intense struggle of the caribou hunter, Abraham Okimasis during a championship husky sled race. Any race often proves to be physically and mentally exhausting for a person. Highway utilizes a fantastic variety of literary devices to dramatize Okimasis’ physical and emotional experience through his last leg of the race by creating a powerfully intense atmosphere through the effective use of descriptive imagery, passionate diction, repetition of words, and a tone of desperation.

For example, after a family has arrived on an unfamiliar environment through a rocket, n the text, it states, “The wind blew, whining. At any moment the Martian air might draw his soul from him, as marrow comes from a white bone.” This means that a party of humans had reached some environment that was unfamiliar because in the text we learn that the humans had emerged from a “rocket” that came from Earth and that they were currently in a “Martian” setting. Further into the text, when the family is told that they cannot return to their home, it states, “For a long time there was only the sound of the wind in the late afternoon. Alone, thought Bittering. Only a thousand of us here. No way back. No way. No way.” This text means that the humans who had approached Mars as their new home would be forever lost there, and this is because in the text we learn that “atom bombs hit New York,” causing all the “space rockets” to explode. This text also means that the silence that was roaming the family was due to the fact that they were speechless because in the text we learn how that their old and favored home was gone. This is important because it shows how the author chose to mention that the wind was whining, how the martian air was threatening, and only the sound of the wind because he wanted to lay out the mood of “foreboding” for the readers. Many of the decisions that the author made involving the mood were to include several minor details that add to the reader’s feelings and signal some upcoming events in the

The literary devices that is consistently used is connotation. The authors use of words such as; syntax(line 3), spring(line

The dogs passing could be seen as a metaphor for the Beth leaving her husband on his own to provide for himself, to take care of any possessions she may have had, and to fight his depression alone. The main character is now having feelings of loneliness and depression. The first paragraph states that "inside is warm", and "outside is cold", This could be tied as symbolism of the fact that he is secluding himself from the world. When the dog passed away the main character said that "it's not my dog, but it's my responsibility", this can make the reader think of all of the other responsibilities that the main character was left with. There are definitely some parallels between the dog and Beth. They both end up being burdens on the main character and leaving behind more for him to deal with. After the dog passes away the main character says "the blood on the carpet of the car is out of sight, and I will pretend it isn’t there. And then there's the touch." The touch can be seen as how the dog emotionally affected him by passing away. The dog did bring sadness to the main characters life due to the memories the main character seemed to have when he interacted with the dog. "I watched my hand volunteer itself and run its finger through the nap of his head". The way this sentence is put together makes it sound as if his caring for the dog was an involuntary action.

Hope in the face of adversity, hope in spite of the depression and mere survival they must endure, hope in the face of death and fear. One of the major themes that Cormac McCarthy emphasizes in The Road is hope: hope for a better world, hope that there are still good people out there. McCarthy uses the son as a symbol of hope throughout the novel to engage and grasp the attention of his readers. Hope is what progresses the novel, therefore without hope there is nothing.

The first page of The Art of Racing in the Rain is enough to get the reader hooked. ”Gestures are all that I have. Sometimes they must be grand in nature” (Stein, 2008). The story is being told from a dogs point of view. Enzo cannot communicate the way he’d like to by using words and sounds, so he must rely on his actions and his gestures to tell him story to his owner. So he pours his heart out into his book. The beginning of the book starts out with the dog, Enzo,

In the novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, Highway explores important themes by the use of Cree mythology. The Weetigo who is known as “the cannibal spirit” in Aboriginal cultures which continuously appears throughout the novel. Highway uses allusions to this figure represent the negative impacts and dangers the colonizing Euro-Canadian culture has on a traditional identity. It appears when a clash between aboriginal culture and colonizing culture becomes established. The Weetigo prominently connects certain scenes and people by relating them to the Weetigo’s characteristics. In other words the Weetigo is a useful figure as it appears in scenes that are viewed as negative and relates characteristics to those particular instances .The Weetigo appears

In Kiss of the Fur Queen, the story begins with forty-three year old Cree hunter Abraham Okimasis winning the "1951 Millington Cup World Championship Dog Derby." (6) The victory is seen to have a significant effect on the Cree hunter's Native identity, as he becomes the first-ever Indian to succeed in the Derby. As time goes by, Abraham becomes the father of two sons, Jeremiah and Gabriel. When the Cree brothers leave their small northern Manitoba village and enter the hostile environment of a residential school, their lives take a turn for the worse. Estranged from their Native culture, Jeremiah and Gabriel are forced to assimilate into the predominately white Canadian society. During their stay at the residential school, the brothers

Thomson Highway’s The Kiss of the Fur Queen has a core theme of art. In this novel, art is integrated into the lives of the characters. The modernist movement would indicate that art has the ability to plainly exist “art of arts sake”. Peter Lamarque notes “To value a work for its own sake is to value it for what it is in itself, not for the realization of some ulterior ends.” (par. 19) This commonly accepted view, that art is valued because it is great art, not for the role or function that it has in society, restricts arts impact. This perspective limits and does not allow for the surfacing of profound effects that art creates. In the Kiss of the Fur Queen, art has power it does not simply exist but has function. The observable function

The Road portrays the journey of the father and son across a black and white world that is analogous to my experiences of the quest of survival in Afghanistan and the refugee camp in Pakistan. Where many have abandoned their beliefs and morals to survive the hellish situation. Those who survive with their beliefs and values still in intact are constantly challenged on a day-by-day basis. Their survival must be persevered to keep the fire burning, however small for their own children. There must be some goodness that remains for their children to carry into the next generations. They must always remain

We often consider the world to be filled with core truths, such as how people should act or what constitutes a good or bad action. In The Road, McCarthy directly challenges those preconceptions by making us question the actions of the characters and injecting a healthy dose of uncertainty into the heroes’ situation. From the very beginning, the characters and their location remain ambiguous. This is done so that the characters are purposely anonymous, amorphously adopting all people. While on the road, the order of the day is unpredictability; whether they find a horde of road-savages or supplies necessary for his son’s survival is impossible to foretell. While traveling, the boy frequently asks “are we the good guy” and the father always replies with “yes” or “of course,” but as the story progresses this comes into question.

The horses however, try as hard as they can, much like the narrator, to roam free for as long as possible, seemingly unaware of the forces acting against them in an attempt to deny them their freedom. For the horses, this force was the narrator’s father, who felt that they had a purpose to be served, in the narrator’s case, it was her mother’s thought that she had a place to be served as well; inside the home. In the case of the foxes and horses, neither win, as they both die in the end, much like people. However, although the horse’s lives end much sooner, they get to experience something that the foxes do not, and that is freedom. The protagonist’s desire for freedom is clearly desirable as she expresses her resistance to conform to societies ideals by continuing to do things against the norm, “thinking that by such measures [she] kept

Langston Hughes uses beautiful symbolism and imagery in his literary work “On the Road”. Hughes offers up the idea that if one is to open ones heart; life will provide unlimited abundance. In this literary work, Langston Hughes uses nature to demonstrate and symbolize the unwillingness of his main character, Sargeant, to participate in life. Hughes also demonstrates the use of a person’s anger and instinct to survive and how they both can be used as powerful forces in breaking down racial barriers. Another more impacting symbol Hughes uses is Jesus Christ as a metaphor. Hughes uses this to show how people experience life and how the traditional church values contradict each other when it comes to the acceptance of human beings. Therefore

In a desolate world ravaged by fire, a boy and his father trudge across the countryside. They encounter people in their most desperate times where their motives are unpredictable and noone can be trusted. The boy and his father try to maintain their morality while facing starvation and having to deal with unpredictable people they encounter on the road. Cormac McCarthy in his novel The Road, uses the theme of hope to demonstrate the human trait that purpose is essential to survival.