Synecdoche

[gethenian]

****O HAI SPOILER WARNING!****

Synecdoche. It's a literary device utilized by referring to something by naming only one part of it... i.e., let's say John Doe is a businessman who wears a generic suit and maroon tie ensemble and has three moles on one cheek and a titanium ring in one ear. Any of those details would be substituted for the character

Comments

[aberranteyes]

"I once knew a madman who thought the end of the world had come. He was a painter-and engraver. I had a great fondness for him. I used to go and see him, in the asylum. I'd take him by the hand and drag him to the window. Look! There! All that rising corn! And there! Look! The sails of the herring fleet! All that loveliness! (Pause.) He'd snatch away his hand and go back into his corner. Appalled. All he had seen was ashes. (Pause.) He alone had been spared. (Pause.) Forgotten. (Pause.) It appears the case is... was not so... so unusual."
- Hamm, in Endgame by Samuel Beckett

"Hey, Inception? This is Charlie Kaufman speaking. Go back to kindergarten and keep playing with your flea circus and LEGO sets. My shit [is] so far our of your league you can't even fucking smell it."

Can I quote you on that to my mom, who saw Inception in the sinny and immediately called it to win the Long Form Dramatic Presentation Hugo (which it did)? At least the first three sentences?

[gethenian]

I think I need to read that now.

Quote away.