Watchmen: Chapter 6: The Abyss Gazes Figurative Language

1. Watchmen: Chapter 6: The Abyss Gazes Figurative Language Team: Ilse, Martha, Maryam, Luis, and Daniel

2. Idiom Pg 5:8:Yeah, But you’re gonna be our woman first, Rorschach… Gonna Cut you sissy. Gonna hold you down an’ peel you like a grape.” Pg 5:9:”Tick it in til you scream. Cut your throat Rorschach.” Pg 14:4: “Very Naïve. Very Young. Very Soft.” Idiom: Referring to his state of mind. He didn’t have the conviction to kill. He didn’t have the vision and understanding the true Rorschach held. Pg 16:2: “They’re not what sent him over its [the world] edge.” Idiom: there is no edge to the world Pg 17:4: “I thought you might have been holding back before and I wanted to try it again” Idiom:

3. Simile Simile “Peel you like a grape”  rip off his skin Pg 6:3: “Bone you like a fish” Simile Pg 7:7: “Like an animal. Like a mad dog” Simile: Walter is being compared Pg 16:4: “If only I could convince him that life isn’t like that. The world isn’t like that.” Simile: Dr. Malcolm is trying to make a conjecture that the world isn’t grim, or like the interpretation that Kovacs has made. Pg 21:6: “Jet of warmth spattered on chest, like hot faucet.”  Simile Pg 26:1: “Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent.” Simile: no new continent

4. Symbolism • Pg 8:2; 3: “Even in 1956, when informed of his mother’s brutal murder, he restricted his comments to one word: ‘Good’.” • Symbolism: Forms the basis of what deep recesses Walter’s mind had already fallen into. He could no longer hold sympathy for his mother, thus, he had began to see the word as his current definition: BLACK OR WHITE; BAD OR GOOD; he had classified his mother under bad, and felt no remorse for his death as he could see nothing wrong with evil being purged from the planet. • Pg 8:7: “Are you sure you’re safe with this Kovacs guy?” • Symbolism: Gloria, Dr. Malcolm’s wife means both mentally & physically. Dr. Malcolm only takes her meaning in the literal sense, but she is talking about • Pg 10:8; 9:“I took the remains of her unwanted dress… and made a face that I could bear to look at in the mirror.” Symbolism: the mask represents Rorschach and Walter Kovacs other self

5. Synecdoche, personification, methaphor • Pg 7:6: “That filthy little animal!” • Metaphor: Walter=animal • Pg 8:1: “…He was removed from his Mother’s custody and put into care.” • Synecdoche: “care” was a safe word for foster homes because at that time, it was less “offensive” in a sense • Pg 18:3; 4: Put fourteen in hospital needlessly. Fifteen gave me an address. • Synecdoche: referring to people • Pg 18:7: “went in through front, like respectable visitor.” • Hyperbole: destroyed the door knob • Pg 26:5: “This rudderless world is not shared by vague metaphysical forces. • It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds • them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.” • Personification: Kovacs realizes that the above statements can’t be as people • think it is

6. Synecdoche, personification, methaphor Pg 26:6: “Streets stank of fire.”  Metaphor Pg 26:6: “The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them.” Personification: the void can’t breathe, or etc Pg27:2: “Bought paper. Russians claim that fighting spilling into Pakistan was accidental.” Metaphor Pg 27:5: “So, Mal, how are things going with this famous masked maniac of yours?” Hyperbole Pg 28:2: “The front door slammed.” Personification Pg 28:7: “We are alone. There is nothing else.”  The Dr. Malcolm’s fall into the abyss of darkness has opened his eyes to the reality of the true world, a place where it is a fight to survive in a hell hole of abominations.