Literary Devices

Allegory-By showing the mistreatment of the prisoners Egger's acts as an allegory and slows down the speed of the story to describe how the victims treatment should change.
"'If you touch the fence I'll fuck you up!'"(220)..."Chain-link fences, topped by razor wire, had been erected into a long, sixteen-foot-high cage extending about a hundred yards into the lot. Above the cage was a roof, a freestanding shelter like those at gas stations. The barbed wire extended to meet it."(218)..."A few feet a way, they dropped him on the pavement, and with the help of two more guards, they tied his hands and feet with plastic hand-cuffs. He did not resist."(233)

Dramatic Irony- Zeitoun did not know that the levee's would break. The reader did making the scene fairly predictable yet scary. "He sat up up and looked down through the window that faced the backyard. He saw the water, a wide sea of it. It was coming from the north. It flowed into the yard, under the house, rising quickly.

Ethos-The ethos (projected character) of Zeitoun shows how his own personal morals are outweighing the dangers that he is facing. Though there is no one quote to pin this to Zeitoun the fact that he satays to feed dogs and save people show the ethos that he poseeses. (Noun: The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as seen in its beliefs and aspirations)

Motif- The idea of discrimination(mainly Muslim) is a motif throughout the creative novel. "Zeitoun had long feared this day would come. Each of the few times he had been pulled over for a traffic violation, he knew the possibility he had been pulled over for a traffic violation , he knew the possibility existed that he would be harassesd, misunderstood, suspected of shadowy dealings that might bloom in the imagination of any given police officer. After 9/11 he and Kathy knew that many imaginations had rum amok."(212)

Climax- The Climax of Zeitoun is when the police officers enter the house and arrest Zeitoun.
“‘I live here,’ Todd said. ‘I have proof. It’s inside the house.’ ‘Get in the boat,’ the officer said” (207). This quote shows the scene where the officers cam in and arrested the men, despite the fact that these men are doing nothing wrong, they are in their own homes.

Simile- A simile used by Dave Eggers is, “Ahmed and Abdulahman built more homes for them,until they had assembled complex that looked not unlike the stone and adobe structures in their neighborhood, homes stacked upon each other, rising up from the ocean, interlocking like a crude Mosaic” (161).

Metaphor- A metaphor in the novel is “They Repeated Mayor Nagin’s assertion that the city had devolved into an ‘animalistic state’” (183). This is a metaphor because they compare a city to a animal.

Tone- The tone of this novel is very sad. Kathy is a good example of the tone because she is sad for a good portion of the story because she is afraid that she has lost her husband. A quote to show this is “twenty-five thousand body bags have been brought into the area, they noted” (183).

Imagery:
“the water, now green-grey and streaked everywhere with oil. It smelled dirtier every day, a wretched mélange of fish and mud and chemicals.”

“The sky was muddy, the wind cool.”

Symbolism:
“There were three horses, chewing happily. They were free, with no riders or saddles.”
The horses are symbolic of the normality of life that exists in some places despite wide-spread destruction and confusion.

Alliteration: “happy to help”
“blue blouse”
“to talk to Todd”

Circumlocution: Wednesday September 7th - Saturday September 17th could have been cut down to one chapter of Kathy worrying.