Personification

'Fire silently devoured...'

'...eaten it's way to the roof...'
'...roaring house...'

The quotes above are from chapter 8 of To Kill A Mockingbird and are examples of
personification.

Harper Lee uses personification to create the feeling of drama and fear while describing the
house fire. She also uses it to demonstrate that the fire isn't in the children's control. Just like you
can't control a person, you can't control a fire easily.

Harper Lee uses words such as devoured and eaten to create a threatening effect to the house fire.
It gives the impression that the house is being attacked or eaten by a monster. This idea would be
scary to the children because they are young, and are most likely afraid of things such as
monsters.

Similes
'... looks like a pumpkin-'
'... like fog off a riverbank.'
'... like a fly in amber.'

The quotes above are examples of similes from the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee
uses these similies to give a camparison, allowing the reader a better understanding of the
situation or scene she is describing.

'...looks like a pumpkin-' was used when describing the house fire. Scout uses this similie to
describe the vivid colour of the fire. It allows us to imagine how bright the orange colour was
and creates an accurate image in our head.

'...like fog off a river bank.' This phrase was used during the fire, describing the smoke that was
pouring everywhere. Harper Lee has used this to help us understand the way in which the smoke
was rolling onto the surrounding houses and engulfing them in smoke.

'...like a fly in amber,' is used while Jem and Scout are cleaning up the yard after the fire. They
find Miss Maudie' hat lying in a layer of ice and use this phrase to describe the way it looks.
Using this phrase gives the impression of the hat once being full of life, but now trapped, lifeless,
in 'amber' (or the snow).

Imagery
'...window-frames were black against a vivid orange centre.'

The sentence above demonstrates Harper Lee's literary device of imagery in To Kill A
Mockingbird. Harper Lee uses imagery to create drama and encourage the reader to imagine the
event in a more vivid sense. In the sentence above, she uses contrast between the black window-
frames and bright orange fire to help the reader understand the intensity of the fire.

It adds depth and understanding to the situation so that as a reader, we create a mental image of
the fire and it's strength. The imagery used adds another dimension to the writing, making it
more interesting and more easily understood. Without this description and other examples of
imagery Harper Lee uses, we may not get the same level of visual understanding.