The Goldfinch - Figurative Language

Time and time again Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch, manages to impress her audience with her masterful use of figurative language. I often find myself reading her work and trying to emulate her style in my own. On page 115, Theo begins to talk about how hard it is for him to fall sleep and how it "was like tumbling into a pit" (Tartt 115).
           To me, this metaphor quite profoundly resonated with the rest of the story because of the earlier events. In the first chapter, the art museum that Theo and his Mom are in explode. He is knocked on to the dusty and hard ground. When he tries to stand up, he breaks through the extremely friable floor onto a lower level of the building. This metaphor of "tumbling into a pit" is the authors way of alluding to Theo's experience in the art museum. This metaphor may also allude to why he is having sleeping problems. This metaphor shows that he is not able to fall asleep because he keeps reliving a traumatic moment of his life. As exemplified by this quote, metaphors always connect two seemingly unrelated sections of the text on a higher level.

After reading this section of the text, I was prompted to learn more about metaphors. I found the section about "dead metaphors" and "mixed metaphors" very interesting because it was new learning for me. I used this website. Click the link below to visit it yourself.

http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/figures-metaphor.htm

The Goldfinch - Best thing about my book

The best thing about the book The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is the voice that she shows. I really love how she manages to connect with the reader. She talks like she lives in New York as a thirteen year old. Many times, she connects with the reader by using casual diction. She uses the vernacular of the area she is in. She also explores issues that the main character would face as if she herself were facing them. This allows the reader to think about these issues in a deeper way.
            In other passages she decides to use upper level/ elevated diction to convey an idea in the text. She says "That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.". This diction makes the passage much more meaningful. The use of words such as grovel, immerse, cesspool, midst, and ignominously let the message of the passage sink in and resonate with the reader.

The Goldfinch recently won a Pulitzer Prize! Read the Story here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/donna-tartt