The 5th Wave Style and Structure Analysis
In the science fiction novel The 5th Wave, author Rick Yancey constructs a distressing scene with style devices, diction, and structural elements that establish a mood of action, fear, and loneliness.
Yancey sets the readers in a scene with vivid imagery, similes, metaphors, and hyperboles that bring the readers into the scene. Yancey’s narrator, Cassie talks about her life before as, “It was the sea we swam in,” (29). This metaphor is used right before the flashback of what happened during the previous waves where everyone was alive. The sea is this vast place always hustling with life, and that was how her life was before the others came. This proves how lonely she is since everyone she knew was gone. This isn't the only time she has talked about being lonely. She stated, “Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky. That’s how quiet it is,” (29). This hyperbole gives the readers a mental picture of how lonely she must be. She may be exaggerating how quiet it is, but it really shows us that there is no one else around. It gives us an image of how lonely and fearful she is, since she’s all alone. Lastly, during the flashback there is a simile showing the panic as the power was cut off, “It’s like someone cut off our oxygen,”(30). No one actually had their oxygen cut off, but everyone was in this mass paranoia. Since this abnormal thing happened, everyone was panicking and no one was thinking straight. The style used in Yancey’s The 5th Wave helps clarify the loneliness and fear during the story.
Yancey also chooses strong, specific diction to help establish this mood of fear and loneliness. She uses the word symphony when talking about the once constant hum of life. The sounds the reader considers boring or part of everyday life were an electronic symphony to the narrator. This word choice gave a positive view on the mundane, everyday sounds of life. Yancey was imply...
