Literary Devices in Life of Pi and Twelfth Night

This article explores the use of literary devices in Life of Pi and Twelfth Night, including the themes of truth, emotions, and human condition. It discusses the impact of personal and societal truths, the influence of emotions on perception of reality, and the lessons that can be learned from the fictional characters. The article also provides insights on how these lessons can be applied in real life.

Running head: LITERARY DEVICES
Literary devices
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1LITERARY DEVICES
Life of pie:
1. Is truth absolute? How might personal truths vary from societal truths?
While defining truth it can be mentioned that the truth has two different meanings.
One is the exact sayings of the reality and the other consists of the things of reality said in an
accurate or in an inaccurate manner. There is however a difference between the personal truth
and the societal truth. The idea of the personal truth and the societal truth is the key factor of
the novel. It reminds the readers of the quotes in the novel where it is said, “if we, citizens, do
not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we
end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.” In other words it justifies the fact
that if the individual does not support the classical concept of truth then there are chances to
end up in believing the fact that nothing is true and they are unable to differentiate between
fact and fantasy or right and wrong. It is difficult to state the novel as an absolute truth. It is
considered to be a story which is fictional are they are different from personal as well as from
societal truth (Rios-Diaz et al. 2017).
2. How do emotions affect the perception of reality?
Life of pie is the story that concentrates on the struggle of surviving through
seemingly insurmountable odds. The novel plays around with the emotions of the protagonist.
The perception of reality was affected by the emotions. Pie who was a vegetarian in his entire
life was found to have fish in the struggle of surviving. The protagonist finally was left with
the Tiger on the ship but there was a change in the emotions of the relationship between the
both. It brought out a turn in the reality of the existing relationship between a man and a wild
animal.
3. What truths can be learnt about the human condition from the fictional characters
studied in the novel? Consider: love, hope, fear, loss and hardship?

2LITERARY DEVICES
The novel witnesses the hardships throughout in the novel. The idea of struggle and
hardship plays a central role in the novel. The hardship is related to the process of survival.
This challenge has been operated on several levels. The hardship remained for the physical
survival, the emotional or the spiritual survival and the biological survival. Apart from this
while talking about love, hope and fear it can be said that Pi had to face the reality by keeping
up his spirit high in order to avoid the option of despair. Pi commented that Richard Parker
helped him endure. This was possible because of the companion that offered mental strength
to Pie. He was prevented from thinking about his fate and his fear of loss by caring for the
Tiger (Wagner 2016).
4. What lessons have you learned from this characters and how can you apply them in
your life?
There are few lessons that an individual can learn from the novel. The first and foremost
lesson include the fact that there was a difference between being alone and being lonely.
Apart from this it can be learned that forgiveness is the right choice. In the real life one
should not take things personally and they can forgive others instantly. The final thing an
individual can do is take some moral from these kind of stories as they are the biggest
teachers.
Twelfth night
1. Is truth absolute? How might personal truths vary from societal truths?
The truth of foolishness is absolute in the play written by Shakespeare. He used a unique
device in order to explain that foolishness was an unavoidable part of everyday life.
Shakespeare tries to prove that there was a similarity between the personal truth and the
societal truth. Shakespeare initiates a humorous approach in order to expose the ways the
people of the society fall prey to the, ‘pride, vanity and self-deception’. It is rightly

3LITERARY DEVICES
commented that, “the most common type of fool in society is usually the simpleton or a
natural fool” (Callaghan 2016).
2. How do emotions affect the perception of reality?
In the play Shakespeare brings out the perception of reality. While doing so he took help
of the emotions like, love, deception, hated and foolishness. It accurately represents the
scenario of the society. Though the play is a fictional one, it leaves no chance to offer the
exact scenario of the 16th century life. Desire is an active emotion that is experienced by all
human beings. Shakespeare in his play presents the desire of the multiple characters. The
Sixteenth century society presents a barrier in the class system in order to acquire the desire
(Richard et al. 2014).
3. What truths can be learnt about the human condition from the fictional characters
studied in the novel? Consider: love, hope, fear, loss and hardship?
The play is completely a fictional one and it presents certain emotions like love, hope,
fear, loss and hardship. It consists of romantic relationship. Apart from this it consists of the
feelings of attachment, enthusiasm and devotion. In this play the love has been subdivided
into three categories, they are true love, love for one’s self and friendship. It showcases hope
and despair without which an individual cannot survive. The hope is concentrated to the
sexual hope and the hope of getting affection and tenderness. It also consists of the feelings
of fear of loss. These are the counterpart of love and hope. The individual constantly suffers
from the fear of losing out the near ones (Nancy 2018).
4. What lessons have you learned from this characters and how can you apply them in
your life?
The moral of the play is love and it teaches the readers and the audience about the
concept of love. The love expressed in this play is true but the love sometimes turns out to be

4LITERARY DEVICES
fickle, irrational and excessive. In real life true love should be practiced so that the hope of
the lover gets satisfied. The most effective lines of the play that justifies the concept of love is
(Jang 2017):
“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die….”

5LITERARY DEVICES
References
Jang, S.Y., 2017. Twelfth Night: Political Emotions, Sexual Energy, and Women. Quest and
Encounter: Interdisciplinary Studies on Shakespeare, p.58.
Nancy, J.L., 2018. Addicted Love in Twelfth Night. Addiction and Devotion in Early
Modern England, p.50.
Richard, I.I., John, K., Henry, V., It, A.Y.L. and Night, T., 2014. William Shakespeare. King
Richard III.
Callaghan, D., 2016. A feminist companion to Shakespeare(Vol. 97). John Wiley & Sons.
Wagner, R., 2016. Screening Belief: The Life of Pi, Computer Generated Imagery, and
Religious Imagination. Religions, 7(8), p.96.
Rios-Diaz, A.J., Olufajo, O.A., Stinebring, J., Endicott, S., McKown, B.T., Metcalfe, D.,
Zogg, C.K. and Salim, A., 2017. Hospital characteristics associated with increased
conversion rates among organ donors in New England. The American Journal of
Surgery, 214(4), pp.757-761.