Denne study guide indeholder hjælp til at analysere novellen "Born of Man and Woman" af Richard Matheson. Teksten findes i Wider Contexts (s. 183) under temeaet "Evil".
Fakta om novellen
Titel: "Born of Man and Woman"
Forfatter: Richard Matheson
Genre: Novelle
Udgivelsesår: 1950
Richard Matheson (1926-2013) var en amerikansk forfatter med norske aner. Novellen "Born of Man and Woman" var det første litterære værk, han solgte til et ugeblad. Det er også titlen på en samling af noveller, der udkom i 1954. Richard Matheson skrev primært science fiction og hans værker forlader sig ofte på psykologisk spænding. Mange af hans romaner er blevet filmatiseret.
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Similes and metaphors
The narrative features several similes. For example, the child uses the simile “it sucked up the water like thirsty lips” (p. 183, l. 6) to describe how rainwater soaks into the ground, highlighting the child’s ignorance of basic concepts.
Metaphors are also used when the child talks about the things it cannot name otherwise, since it is kept isolated and has no knowledge of the outside world. For instance, the sky is called “upstairs” (p. 183, l. 3), the sun is called “goldness” (p. 184, l. 7), while snowflakes are called “jewels” (p. 184, l. 19). When the child describes its father’s anger, it says that “he saw (…) and grew big” (p. 184, l. 28), which is a metaphor for the man’s anger and shows that the child is intimidated by its father when he gets angry. The metaphors “little mother” (p. 185, l. 3) and “little fathers” (p. 185, l. 3) are used when the child describes the children it sees from the window, not knowing how to say that they are girls and boys. The child’s only reference points are its parents, who are apparently the only people with whom the child interacts.