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    Cherry Bomb

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    Maxine Clair uses literary techniques such as imagery, allusion, and diction to characterize a young girl's memories of her fifth grade summer in the short story "Cherry Bomb". The story follows the girl as an adult reflecting on her childhood during a time before widespread air conditioning. Clair describes the "putrid-colored jacket" the girl's father wore to war and references to buying blocks of ice, alluding to the time period. Phrases used also provide context clues, indicating the story takes place in the early 1900s or 1940s-1960s. These techniques help the reader understand the time period and give life to the characters and events in the girl's memories.

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    Cherry Bomb

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    api-305926198
    2K views2 pages
    Maxine Clair uses literary techniques such as imagery, allusion, and diction to characterize a young girl's memories of her fifth grade summer in the short story "Cherry Bomb". The story follows the girl as an adult reflecting on her childhood during a time before widespread air conditioning. Clair describes the "putrid-colored jacket" the girl's father wore to war and references to buying blocks of ice, alluding to the time period. Phrases used also provide context clues, indicating the story takes place in the early 1900s or 1940s-1960s. These techniques help the reader understand the time period and give life to the characters and events in the girl's memories.

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    cherry bomb

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    Maxine Clair uses literary techniques such as imagery, allusion, and diction to characterize a young girl's memories of her fifth grade summer in the short story "Cherry Bomb". The story follows the girl as an adult reflecting on her childhood during a time before widespread air conditioning. Clair describes the "putrid-colored jacket" the girl's father wore to war and references to buying blocks of ice, alluding to the time period. Phrases used also provide context clues, indicating the story takes place in the early 1900s or 1940s-1960s. These techniques help the reader understand the time period and give life to the characters and events in the girl's memories.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views2 pages

    Cherry Bomb

    Uploaded by

    api-305926198
    Maxine Clair uses literary techniques such as imagery, allusion, and diction to characterize a young girl's memories of her fifth grade summer in the short story "Cherry Bomb". The story follows the girl as an adult reflecting on her childhood during a time before widespread air conditioning. Clair describes the "putrid-colored jacket" the girl's father wore to war and references to buying blocks of ice, alluding to the time period. Phrases used also provide context clues, indicating the story takes place in the early 1900s or 1940s-1960s. These techniques help the reader understand the time period and give life to the characters and events in the girl's memories.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Sarah Herschelman

    Mrs. Bernhard
    AP Literature
    24 November 2015
    Cherry Bomb
    In the short work, Cherry Bomb, Maxine Clair uses literary techniques to characterize
    the main characters memories of the summer of her fifth grade year. The story revolves around a
    young girl recounting stories from her childhood and what life was like for her then. As an adult,
    she is thinking back on what the times were like for her then. Clair uses imagery to describe,
    allusion to reference the times, and diction in order to reference the time as well.
    In Cherry Bomb, there are uses of imagery and symbolism such as, the putrid-colored
    jacket my father wore when he got shipped out to the dot in the Pacific Ocean (37-38). The
    putrid colored jacket offers a sense of sickness in the army greens that her father had to where
    when he went to war. The color shows a distaste for her father going to war. The dot that she
    mentions represents the island that her father is staying at. The dot almost gives less meaning
    to where he is. It shows how she as a child would not understand where her father was actually
    stationed at, so she uses this imagery to symbolize where her father actually was.
    Clair uses allusion to represent what time the character grew up in. She mentions, Our
    mother still bought a help-him-out block of ice to leave in the backyard for us to lick or sit on,

    (10-12). This alludes to the fact that there were still ice trucks giving out ice for people to cool
    themselves down with since there was probably no air conditioning. This shows the readers that
    this girl's fifth grade summer was from a time before air conditioning or at least not much of it.
    Another example of imagery that is used includes the Hairy Man. She describes him as woolyheaded and bearded, hollering things we dared not repeat, (28-29). Hes used as a sense of
    forbidden and scary. It also shows how nave she was since hes obviously a man with mental
    issues but the kids looked at him as if he were a monster.
    The author uses diction to help display the times as well. Clair uses phrases such as,
    that-old-thing, help-him-out, and God-is-whipping-you in to display what kind of time
    period she came from. Its context for the reader to understand that this character grew up in the
    early 1900s or at least the 40s or 50s, perhaps the 60s. Clair wants the reader to understand that
    this is how the people talked in this time period and in the authors memories. These details give
    character to her memories.
    Clair uses these literary techniques in order to give character to this little girls memory. It
    helps the reader gain context clues from this work and get an understanding of what the times
    were like for her. The little girl gives life not only to the story but to the other characters of the
    time and the story.

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