Epiphany |Literary Devices
Epiphany |Literary Devices
A moment of sudden revelation or awareness that changes the course of life of the major character of a novel or short story. James Joyce defined epiphany as the moment when the "soul of the commonest object .......seems to us radiant."
Example
Stephen, the hero of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, once saw a young wading girl on the shore of the sea.
The girl looked like a seabird. "She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird." (Chapter 4, pl71)
The image of the wading girl manifested to him as a hawk like seabird soaring high. In a flash, the sight created in him awareness of ımagination-the real vocation of an artist.
An artist's imagination soaring higher and higher also reflects absolute freedom. So, later in the novel (Chapter 5) Stephen rejects all that dominated him so far- his family, homeland and religion-in order to be an artist.
The wading girl is an epiphany that finally changes the course of Stephen's life.
An epiphany signals a turning point in the plot. Sometimes it is used to change the opinion of one character about other characters, events and places after a sudden awareness of the situation.It may also be a sign of a conclusion in the story.
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