Rhetoric Study

John Updike's most prominent rhetorical devices used throughout his novel is definitely imagery. As supported in one of my previous posts, Updike uses long descriptions to put the reader into the story. One of his descriptions in the book goes on for about ten pages! He also uses vibrant similes when describing people or places. His simile's were some of my favorite parts of the book, because they were so oddly accurate. In my opinion, not many people would be creative enough to come up with comparisons like John Updike does. Some of my favorites include:

- "The town in the winter, deprived of tourists, settled more compactly upon itself, like a log fire burning late into the evening" (Updike 224).

- "Her S's hurt, stinging like match tips" (Updike 241).

- "Alexandra felt a sliding start within her; an immense slick slope of depression was revealed as if by the sliding upwards of an automatic garage door, the door activated by a kind of electric eye of her own internal sensing and giving on a wide underground ramp whose downward trend there was no reversing, not by pills or sunshine or a good night's sleep" (Updike 252).

- "Insects chewed at the silence; sun light pressed on Alexandra's face and she could feel the hair of her single thick braid heat up like an electric coil" (Updike 291).

- "Alexandra noticed the damp dark earth around it crawling with mites of some kind, reddish specks collected like filings around a magnet, scurrying in their tiny world several orders lower, on the terraces of life, than her own" (Updike 320).

All of the above quotes show Updike's common use of similes. He always comes up with very original similes, one's I can say I have definitely never heard before. They all give the reader an interesting image in their head, with a strong image to compare it to.

With Updike's intricate descriptions and his ingenious similes, the reader can learn about the characters, understand the setting, and understand what is going on. Through his similes, we can learn about the characters motions, and how they go through with actions. Also, we can learn about their personality, or how they are, for example, when Updike compares Jane's pronunciation of S's as a just put out match. His descriptions also add a certain quality to the story. While most of them are pretty lengthy, Updike undoubtedly describes the scenery in more detail than any other author's writings I have read. These give me a stronger sense of what Updike was picturing when he was writing the book, and the confident use of adjectives add to the images he creates. Without these audacious rhetorical devices, John Updike's book would not have the same power as it does now.