Analysis Stephen Lawhead

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Analysis Paper: Stephen Lawhead There are many great authors in the world. These authors use devices such as amplification, allusion, personification, hyperbole, metaphors, similes, and many other rhetorical devices to enhance their writing. Good writers use rhetorical devices to make their writing come alive in the mind of the readers, for that reason one author that stands out is Stephen Lawhead. Lawhead uses a rich vocabulary, similes, amplification, anaphora, and allusion to bring his writing to life as one reads through his books. Lawhead’s writing is superb. He employs an expansive vocabulary to describe his scenes, allowing the reader to visualize what he or she is reading. In The Endless Knot, the main character, Llew, explains how he sees Albion; he says it was “Ablazed with color and light: rich greens of the tree-filled glens and the delicate mottled verdure of the high moors, the dazzling blue of the sun-washed sky, the subtle grays of stone and the deep browns of the earth, the sparkling silver of water, the shimmering gold of sunlight” (The Endless Knot 88). This passage uses colors along with other descriptive words to illustrate the breath-taking scene before him. In The Iron Lance, he describes the sounds the Crusaders hear as they meet the enemy on the battlefield, “…and heard the deep jarring bone-rattling thump of the drums, the strident, sense-numbing blare of the huge, curved battlehorns, and the defiant cries of the warriors as they swept towards them with quickening pace” (The Iron Lance 32). One can almost hear and feel what the Crusaders must have experienced as they prepared to meet their adversaries. His rich use of language gives his writing depth and clarity, allowing the reader to visualize the story, allowing the reader to see it play in his or her mind. Lawhead utilizes similes in several of his works. The simile parallels two
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