The Glass Castle and The Color of Water are two evocative memoirs whose use of literary devices depicts the stories of from troubled childhoods to a prosperous future. The authors of these works use both images and similes to add meaning to the text; however, they differ in their use of diction and humor. Jeannette Walls uses concrete diction and a unique way of conveying humor, while James McBride uses abstract diction and conveys humor in a more traditional way. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay McBride and Walls' effective use of imagery helps reveal their inspiring life stories. Although both McBride and Walls use imagery, Walls's are more detail-oriented than McBride's, making Walls' style of diction more concrete than McBride's abstract style. “That afternoon I was alone in the house, still enjoying the itchy, dry feeling of my chlorine-scrubbed skin and the bone-shaking sensation you get after a lot of exercise , when I heard a knock at the door (page 193).” This is an example of Walls' imagery. His use of such descriptive words leaves little to the reader's imagination. Another example of how Walls uses imagery is "The main street, wide with sun-bleached cars and vans parked at an angle to the sidewalk, but only a few blocks long, flanked by two sides by low, flat-roofed adobe buildings. or brick (page 51). Additionally, “…a dark Spanish dining table with eight matching chairs, a hand-carved upright piano, sideboards with antique silver services, and glass cabinets filled with grandmother's bone china… (page 94)” is another example of how Walls uses images to convey a vivid image to the reader. The use of such pronounced descriptive words illustrates not only his mastery of imagery, but also his prolific method of concrete diction. McBride also uses imagery as shown "It was what made the river flow, the ocean swell, and the tide rise, but it was a silent, intractable, indomitable, incontestable, and therefore completely ignorable power (page 94) . » His imagery is more conceptual in nature. Another example of this is "I imagined her as a wise sage, sitting in a rocking chair, impassively pouring the moving details of her life into my tape recorder waiting for six weeks, maybe two months, with me pushing her , she cooperated, grimacing. , move forward, mother and son, hand in hand, fighting forward, emotionally worked, until you see! (Pages 267-268). Again, McBride depicts his imagery in a broader way; the reader gets a picture of the idea, not an exact representation of the scene as in Walls' work. McBride's use of imagery demonstrates his more conceptual style, making his method of diction abstract. Although imagery is a literary tool frequently used by both authors, it is not the only one that helped them create this worthy memoir. In addition to the use of imagery, both authors used numerous comparisons to help better explain the meaning of the text. . McBride uses numerous comparisons to enhance the reader's understanding of his work. For example: “They were mostly women, insect mothers that I knew and loved, but when the Good Lord climbed into their bones and lifted them..