12: Figurative Language

    Multiple examples of figurative language are prominent throughout The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The given passage shows quite a few of these language tools. Personification is used in line 8, when the narration is describing the gusts of wind and said they "...set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild..." This gives human-like characteristics of having movable limbs to the trees, which are obviously inhuman, inanimate objects. Another tool used is repetition, as Twain writes that the thunder crashed and then went "...rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world...," which is also followed by another tool, a simile, "...like rolling empty barrels down-stairs-where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know." A simile is also used when the sky is depicted as being "...as bright as glory..." and "...dark as sin..." A small example of onomatopoeia is found when Huck narrates "...when it was just the bluest and blackest-fst!" The unreal "fst" word is used to create the sound that the trees are making as the wind blows in them.These are merely a few of the ways Mark Twain enriches his work.