Analyze literary device - Essay Example

The two writers use contrasting imagery, irony, and comedy to convey a theme of hypocrisy, an underlying weakness and evil nature of human kind. The writers use contrasting imagery to emphasize how grave the situations are. In his first line of The Bull Moose, the author says the moose comes down the mountain through the purple mist, symbolizing that it is from above or a powerful position. From the description of stumbling through swamps and lurching through the forest, the reader gets a feeling of the great freedom the moose enjoyed in its natural habitat.

The image drastically changes when a pole fenced pasture stops the moose, ending its freedom. The fence marks the limits of civilization, indicating how it sharply contrasts with nature. The moose has come through a purple mist, which is representative of royalty and has a magical feel, only to be trapped by an intimidating fence that is supposed to mean civilization. In The Lottery, Mr. Summers presides over the ceremony which took place on a beautiful summer day. The writer craftily chooses a beautiful day for an event run by a man whose name also reflects the beautiful season.

However, these aspects are in sharp contrast with the purpose of the event, which ends up with the brutal murder of one of the villagers by family and friends. Mr. Summers is assisted by Mr. Graves, who is always eerily present but not in the limelight. The threat in Mr. Graves name is not very obvious, but it foreshadows ordinary people’s wickedness that is ever present in them, but, just like his name, not in the limelight. The writers use irony to show human hypocrisy. As Mr. Summers calls up the villagers to collect their “ticket” in The Lottery, he greets them jovially by name.

The jovial mood is a show of insincerity, because he is fully aware that he will soon be stoning to death any one of the people he is greeting. The event is also given a name in which winners are usually rewarded with money and other prices, but the irony in this one is that each year a villager picks their own ticket to death. The villagers pick an innocent victim through a lottery, whom they subject to ritual murder, ironically, in the name of having abundant harvest. Tessie has always been a favorite housewife in the village but, ironically, the moment she picks the wrong ticket, the whole village immediately turns against her, including her husband who was keen to show the village that she had indeed picked the marked paper.

In The Bull Moose, the people mock the dying animal and even force its mouth open to pour beer down its throat. Beer is usually taken in a celebratory mood, but here people are celebrating the pain of the dying moose. The crown of thorns that is put on its head, just like the biblical story, symbolizes the moose’s innocent suffering. Nowlan also shows irony when he uses the fence to depict that humans have used it to shut themselves away from the qualities that make them true human. The fence symbolizes the snobbish self righteousness humans hold toward nature.

The writers use comedy to show the cowardly nature hidden in humans while they display feigned courage. In The Bull Moose, when it was obvious that the moose was finally dying, the people said it looked cuddlesome like the type of pets mothers would put in bed with their children. Even the wardens joked that it was a shame to shoot such a