Mr. Know-All

Mr. Know-All is a story about Mr. Kelada, origin Oriental, and his cabin-mate, a British citizen who is the nameless narrator of the story, dislikes Mr. Kelada even before he sees him. However, at the end of the story Mr. Kelada proves to be a real gentleman when he sacrifices his own pride and reputation to save an American lady’s marriage. We will analyze some literal devices’s aspects of this story such as symbolism, imagery and irony.

The first aspect is symbolism, a symbol is an image of an event or a physical object that is used to represent something invisible or abstract. In this story, the author uses two symbols typical which is the ship and the pearl. First, the ship is in international water, which is a neutral place. The ship becomes the symbol of the world with people who are prejudiced and even racists. Second is the comparation between the real pearls and culture pearls. They look the same but only a closer inspection can reveal what is real and what is imitation.People from the same nationality seem the same but only when we get to know them, we see that each person is different.

The second aspect is imagery, refers to a collection of images which are created through words that appeal to readers’s senses.The narrator is presented as a typical upper-class Englishman: He likes formality; he wants to be addressed with mister in front of his name. He is snobbish, wanting only to associate with English people. Max Kelada is presented as a typical Levantine: His appearance and behavior are Middle Eastern. He has “flashing teeth", might be used to describe clean, shining teeth, but in the story it emphasizes the contrast to Mr. Kelada's skin color. "Chatty" indicates friendliness and openness, but in the story it is used to mean overly talkative. Mrs. Ramsay is presented as a sweet, modest woman: She is quiet, unassuming and does not get involved in the arguments at the dinner table.

The last aspect is irony, appears when author uses language