Analysis of The Street

In Ann Petry’s The Street, the author illustrates the uproar motion of the modern society using terrifying details for describing a monster, through figurative language. The authorportrays the violent wind as though it is a monster, the wind troubles garbage cans, windowshades, and prevents pedestrians off the street, the wind is a “violent assault” to all. It not only attack people, it also found scraps of paper on the street, and by “fingering its way along the curb, the wind sets the bits of paper to dancing high in the air”. Through personification, the wind uses elements it doesn't have to successfully attack everything on the street. It wraps all kinds of papers and throw them in the air. The author also uses personification to describe the wind as a monster, it “discourage the people” walking on the street and it “found all the first and dust and grime on the sidewalk and lifted it up” to kick the people off the street. The wind blinded people and made people suffer through strings of grit. Additionally, the author uses petrifying details for the monster-like wind, “it wrapped newspapers around their feet entangling them until the people cursed deep in their throats”. The one involves itself in every little part on the street to assault people on the street. The wind again “grabbed their hats, pried their scarves”of the pedestrians to trouble them and make them suffer. The wind is a critical element in the world, but the way it is portrayed in The Street is the dangerous and harmful part of wind. The horrifying aspect of the wind is that it is not something one would be expected to be scared of, it is a nature elements. However, the wind could turn out to be a brutal element, forming fromsociety’s careless usage of the world’s natural contributions. The wind in the novel is an element that uses people’s mistakes, like careless throw aways, to harm pedestrians in return.