Closed Promt 2 #2

In the introduction to Ann Petry's novel, The Street, she uses personification, imagery, and figurative language to show Lutie Johnson's relationship to the weather and urban setting. Perty's use of musical devices throughout her introduction gives the reader a sense of if they were reading lyrics to a song or lines of a poem. The beautiful language juxtaposes the ugly weather and bleak city setting, by emphasizing how unpleasant it is outside on the street.

Throughout the introduction, Perty uses an abundance of personification to give the scene movement and life. A couple of the many examples are phrases such as: "Fingering its way along the curb, the
wind set the bits of paper to dancing high in the air", "stuck its fingers inside their coat collars", and "It found every scrap of paper along the street". All of these examples are discussing the biting wind on the street, and by calling the wind "it," Petry gives a sort of life to the wind as it plays with the passers-by on the street. Personification is an important tool that allows the author to turn the wing into something more than just that: something meaningful, and alive.

Secondly, Ann Petry uses imagery to paint concise pictures of the screen on the street and the weather affecting the passers-by on the street. As the reader reads, "A few hurried pedestrians who bent double in an effort to offer the least possible exposed surface to its violent assault" they gain a feeling as if a memory of having to cover all their body so the biting wind outside will not be able to rip the warmth off of their skin. "Her eyeballs were bathed in a rush of coldness and she had to blink in order to read the words on the sign swaying back and forth over her head," is another example of Perty using distinct feelings such as being cold to paint such a vivid picture of the screen. The most vivid of all sentences in this excerpt would have to be, "because its original coat of white paint was streaked with rust where years of rain and snow had finally eaten the paint off down to the metal and the metal 55 had slowly rusted, making a dark red stain like blood," due to the scenes graphic description of the slowly receding pain and the stains that were left in the original paints place.

Finally, Petry used an abundance of figurative language in this excerpt of The Street, by doing so it makes the scene feel like that of one that would be in a song or poetry. The abundance of figurative language can be seen in sentences like, "It even took time to rush into doorways and areaways and find chicken bones and 20 pork-chop bones and pushed them along the curb." The wind did not literally rush into doorways and find chicken bones and exactly 20 pork-chop bones, Petry simply wrote this to explain how strong the wind was, in that it could have picked up and taken away the bones. Another example is, "It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk," because yet again the wind did not literally lift up all of the dirt. Although the wind pay of scooped up plenty of dirt and make it swirl throughout the air, the figurative language allows the reader to imagine a scene of chaos and whether attacking the streets of this city.

The Street, by Ann Petry is a beautiful literary work that shows an abundance of musical devices such as, personification, imagery, and figurative language to paint the picture of a cold and windy day in the city. With that being said, Petry did a wonderful job of showing the reader exactly what she wanted them to see on that unpleasant November day in the city.