Skip to main content

What are examples of anaphora in chapters 1-15 of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

Anaphora is a literary device in which the writer or speaker deliberately repeats the first part of a sentence in order to create artistic emphasis. The Literary Devices dictionary gives us the following example of anaphora found in a biblical psalm:



O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me... (Psalms 6:1-2, King James Version)



Here, the repetition of "O LORD" creates anaphora.

In the early chapters Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, one example of anaphora can be found in Scout's early description of Calpurnia, the Finches' cook:



Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was as wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen (Ch. 1).



Since Scout dislikes Calpurnia at the beginning of the novel, Scout uses anaphora to emphasize Calpurnia's negative qualities in an effort to elicit empathy from the reader, in order to help the reader see Calpurnia as the tyrant Scout perceives her to be.

A second example of anaphora can be found in Chapter 4. Scout's very first school year is just about to end, and she expresses her elation at the thought of approaching summer vacation in the following:



Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill (Ch. 4).



Here, Scout creates anaphora through her repetition of both "summer was" and "it was" to describe summer as a wonderful time and thereby make the reader empathize with her anticipatory, happy emotions.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.