literary devices

Settings: Phoenix, Battle Mountain, Blythe, Las Vegas, Sanfransisco, Welch

Point of view: 1st person, Jeannette

Style/tone: The tone changes throughout the book. Sometimes it it happy, sometimes it is angry or sad, and sometimes it is funny.
Mood: one way that Jeannette Walls creates mood is by using imagery to describe important scenes. This adds more drama, especially to scenes that she wants to be dramatic. An example of imagey that she uses is "in the narrow rays of light that shot through the shed, I could see rings of dirt around his skinny neck" (Walls 87). When she goes into detail to describe a scene it adds more drama because it gives the reader a clear picture of the scene and makes them wonder what is going to happen next.
Simile/metaphor: An example of a metaphor from the book was when Jeanette’s mom said "Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy"(Walls 129). This comparison describes the experiences of the Walls family perfectly because they have had many moments that are both funny and sad. This is like a movie or a play because some parts are happy like a comedy, but other moments are sad like a tragedy. If you combine them it is like a drama because it has both comedy and tragedy.
Irony: An example of irony from the book was when Rex decided to go on the camping trip with his family because he thought that it would be good to distract him from his drinking problem, but instead the trip ended up so badly that Rex went back to drinking. This is situational irony because the camping trip accomplished the opposite of what it was expected to do.
Symbolism: One example of symbolism from the book is Buster the vulture. At first Jeannette doesn't like Buster because he is ungrateful, but then she realizes that "with his broken wing and a lifetime of eating road kill, he probably had a lot to be ungrateful about"(Walls 120). This is symbolizes her parents because they have had hard lives, especially her father, so they aren't very great people all the time, like Buster. Another example of symbolism is the Joshua tree. The Joshua tree is twisted and its branches are all knotted. Jeannette thinks that the Joshua tree is ugly but her mother thinks that it is beautiful. This Symbolizes the Walls family because their family is messed up and has a lit of problems like the Joshua tree. Some people might see their family as a good thing and others might see it as a bad thing.
Themes: One theme in the book so far is forgiveness is important. Jeannette's family makes a lot of mistakes, but Jeannette rarely ever gets mad at them. She usually has to forgive them instead of creating more problems. An example of this is how her father gets drunk a lot. When he gets drunk he causes a lot of problems and makes a mess. But when it is over neither Jeannette nor her family members stay mad at him about it, instead they forgive him.