The use of language can have a lot of impact on storytelling, even in a short form like this, which readers often process subconsciously, but the author is able to achieve the emotional and cognitive response necessary by masterfully utilizing that language. Somehow the box has some significance as he entitles himself as the box man. Who is a box man and why is he waiting near a bridge in such horrible weather, why is he living off the things he finds on the road? However, some clues can already be drawn, such as that he is likely poor or chooses to live this way. If one does not read the book, one becomes immediately interested in what happens next. As for the author, this style of writing, it intrigues me. A reader can derive these by paying attention to the language, the syntax, the tone, and of course, when combined, the meaning. This passage, although so short, and taken out of context, tells a significant amount about the protagonist, the environment in which he is located, and some of his values and attitudes. At the same time, it is unclear whether he is a man of a higher class or just a homeless man to consider an electric light in such darkness an extravagance. The narrator then builds up the negative environment around him, “bridge girders are too high” and location unsuitable, leading one to imagine some urban city bridge and the narrator is under it, in the depths where crime and insolence occur. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Box Man (Penguin Modern Classics). Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. One imagines a dark, cold evening, potentially foggy. The Box Man (Penguin Modern Classics) - Kindle edition by Abe, Kobo, Saunders, E. It is amazingly descriptive, such as the first line, “seaside smell of rain,” compared to a “dog’s breath.” It immediately brings up the atmosphere of nasty, wet, potentially cold weather, which creates humidity with that pungent smell that everyone knows. The whole tone and context of the situation are built up by the imagery of the language. When it comes down to the facts, “being in a place like this at a time like this” seems either dangerous or extremely uncomfortable to him, and to him, it is a precious waste of resources to use the electric flashlight in this situation. The tone of the language is jagged, seemingly unhappy, which can be seen through the attitude expressed by the narrator and their word choices. Considering the narrator is a box man, this is ironic because his whole existence as a person who “lives on the street” and reads newspapers under streetlamps is unnatural. It becomes evident that the narrator is in a place where they do not want to be, it is “unnatural” to them. Kobo Abe, the internationally acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes, combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett.In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. It is written as if erratic, demonstrating tension and worry. The use of language in this passage is meant to portray the imagery but relay the tone of the environment and the feelings of the narrator. 308 qualified specialists online Learn more Analysis an invention with its own crazy pull, it gnaws at the reader. As he becomes obsessed with spying on a young nurse, his identity slips away, in Kobo Abe's eerie, disorienting and seductive masterpiece of unease. At first repulsed by the strange phenomenon of people who have decided to abandon society and live in boxes on the Tokyo streets, he has found himself drawn into the anonymity and voyeurism of their life. Anonymous and alone, the box man peeps out of his cut-out eyeholes and watches the world from behind his four cardboard walls. 'A spellbinder from beginning to end, an edgy masterpiece' Chicago Sun Times
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