Question

Kate Chopin vividly describes how quickly and powerfully the Aubignys fall in love through the use of which figurative device?

"It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all obstacles."

Kate Chopin vividly describes how quickly and powerfully the Aubignys fall in love through the use of which figurative device?

A)
Chopin uses hyperbole to exaggerate how quickly the Aubignys fall in love.


B)
Chopin uses alliteration to describe the pistol shot in a memorable manner.


C)
Chopin uses a metaphor to show that the Aubigny's do not fall in love easily.


D)
Chopin uses a simile to compare how quickly the Aubigynys fall in love to a pistol shot.

Answer 1

D) Chopin uses a simile to compare how quickly the Aubigynys fall in love to a pistol shot. Similes are comparisons using the words “like” or “as” in order to give readers a better sense of understanding when there may otherwise be little understanding or not the understanding a writer wishes to convey. What this means is that authors will compare something that may not be known to readers to something that most likely will be known in order to present the best image understood by the most readers. Because not everyone may have the same perspective of just how quickly the Aubigynys fall in love, the use of a simile would work well. As such, to describe something that might be known to readers (a pistol shot) and compare that to the quickness of their falling in love, the readers may begin to understand just how quickly they fall in love.

Answer 2

Answer: D) Chopin uses a simile to compare how quickly the Aubigynys fall in love to a pistol shot.

Explanation: A simile is a figure of speech that consists in making a comparison between elements that aren't obviously related, this comparison is made using the words "like" and "as." In the given excerpt, Kate Chopin uses a simile to compare how quickly the Aubigynys fall in love to a pistol shot, in the phrase "That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot."