Prose essay

•McCarthy writes of a boy losing a friend who was close to him. Losing this friend of his impacted this main character by having him remember the beauty and grace in the animal, which comes with pain. With McCarthy's use of imagery, his diction and syntax, it creates a tone that makes you really feel what the main character is feeling. The imagery helps you imagine what the main character is imagining, and soon you feel like you have lost a close friend of your own.
• His syntax and diction not only help describe what the main character is feeling, but without McCarthy's style with those techniques, the imagery would not have as big of an impact. Using words like "grace" and "starlight" create an understanding of the image the main character is seeing thought their own eyes. When you can see what the character is seeing, it takes you right out of the reader position and puts you right in the main characters shoes, there is no misunderstanding a single feeling when put in the same situation.
•McCarthy's imagery came to great use when he started using similes and trying to get the reader really feel and see the picture, beyond just understanding and seeing for your own eyes, but really feeling the situation as your own, taking one picture, and comparing it to the situation given, and really seeing it not only in your mind, but now it's almost like it's right in front of you. "What already ran amount the mountains with once terrible and of great beauty, like flowers that feed on flesh." What an image created. You see this beautiful graceful flower and is quickly turned to a beautiful mess, eating on flesh. It's that imagery with that simile that really pounds home the message that this kid is missing his friend, and he will always miss her with that pain.
•McCarthy really shows the affects on the main character through his use of syntax, diction and imagery. These techniques really brought home the feelings of the main character, and what he saw. Feeling the same thing and seeing the same thing as the main character Mack's the reader understand the impact on the main character because McCarthy puts you in the same situation and makes you feel it just as if you were the main character.