Title: What Are the Effects of Figurative Language on a Short Story? | Education - Seattle PI
Headings: What Are the Effects of Figurative Language on a Short Story?
What Are the Effects of Figurative Language on a Short Story?
Figurative Language Creates Mood
Figurative Language Develops Characterization
Figurative Language Advances the Plot
Figurative Language Enhances Everyday Language

Content: Figurative Language Creates Mood
Figurative language can affect the mood of a short story. The term mood refers to the atmosphere that envelopes the reader and evokes certain feelings. While novelists are able to expound for pages to create the mood, a short story writer’s parameters are significantly condensed. Figurative language is used to draw the reader into the story quickly. For example, Edgar Allan Poe utilizes the simile "His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness" to construct a dreadful and eerie mood in his short story "The Tell-Tale Heart." Figurative Language Develops Characterization
Figurative language can enhance characterization in a short story. Characterization refers to how the author chooses to reveal a character’s personality, virtues and faults. Short story writers often use similes and metaphors to reveal more about their characters in fewer words. For example, in Richard Connell’s "The Most Dangerous Game," Ivan, the large bodyguard to General Zaroff, is described as "a gigantic creature." This hyperbole reveals Ivan’s large stature and force, but it is also reflective of his actions in the story, as Ivan is less human and more animalistic in nature.