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Literary Devices
Definition of Alliteration
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the “b” sound in: “Bob brought the box of bricks to... read full definition
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the “b” sound in: “Bob brought... read full definition
Alliteration is a figure of speech in which the same sound repeats in a group of words, such as the... read full definition
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Those Antics Were Tactics:
In Chapter 18, Richard joins the John Reed Club to discuss communism with some of his friends from the postal service. Richard is initially hesitant about the communists and sees them more as rabble-rousers than as actual political actors, as his use of alliteration underlines:
One Thursday night I received an invitation from a group of white boys I had known in the post office to meet in a South Side hotel and argue the state of the world. [...] I was amazed to discover that many of them had joined the Communist party. I challenged them by reciting the antics of the Negro Communists I had seen in the parks, and I was told that those antics were "tactics" and were all right. I was dubious.
Richard describes how he is "dubious" of the communists with a clever bit of alliteration. Richard questions his communist friends by pressing them on their "antics," but the communists respond that these are "tactics." The sound similarity of these words—the repetition of t, c, and s sounds—makes the communists' redirection of Richard's skepticism into a quick pun. It seems more likely that this connection was Richard's realization and the communists did not intend any clever word-association. Still, this use of a wordy turn of phrase is emblematic of Richard's changed literary style by this later point in the book: much better read and more thoughtful, Richard's writing changes to include rhetorical flourishes like this one.
Related Themes:
