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Literary Analysis : Cherry Bomb By Maxe Clair

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Page 1 of 2 ZOOM Prose EssayIn, “Cherry Bomb”, Maxine Clair uses dialogue through indirect characterization, point of view through indirect characterization, as well as the flashback structure to help the reader. Through the use of these literary techniques, the reader can better understand why these memories in particular stand outher in head. Through the use of dialogue, Maxine's interactions with her childhood friends help show the relationships she had with the people mentioned in this excerpt. “...and Mr. Calhoun still came around with that-old-thing of an ice truck. Our mother still bought a help-him-out block of ice to leave in the backyard for us to lick or sit on.” This quote from lines 9-12 illustrate for the reader that Mr. Calhoun was a friendly man trying to make ends meet by selling blocks of ice. We can also look at lines 19-25 for another prime example of how the author uses dialogue to help convey to the reader her relationships with various people during her childhood. “I kept a cherry bomb and a locked diary in the closet under the back steps where Bea, restrained by my suggestion that the Hairy Man hid there, wouldn’t try to find them. It was an established, Daddy-said-so fact that at night the Hairy Man went anywhere he wanted to go but in the daytime he stayed inside the yellow house on Sherman Avenue near our school.”, shows the reader Clair's younger cousin Bea was someone she couldn't share her cherry bomb with. It can be inferred that

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