Allegory of Corkscrew

The excerpt of “Corkscrew” by Dashiell Hammett, dramatizes the trip and arrival of the narrator to a town called Corkscrew, however, in reality the narrator finds himself amidst an allegorical journey to hell. In the opening passage, in order to emphasize the representative setting the author uses a simile to reveal the excruciating, unendurable, and discomforting heat. Along with the implementation of an allusion the writer affirms that people must confront hell alone. As the speaker arrives to Corkscrew the author depicts the narrator with a poignant tone due to hyperbole voiced as he wished for the end of his life. Notably, Hammett also integrates visual imagery in order to represent the final arrival to hell. Hammett exhibits the inhabitants of inferno, utilizing alliteration, satire, and a symbol to embody the people’s unhealthy morals. Therefore, in “Corkscrew” by Dashiell Hammett, the allegorical aspect of the journey becomes clear due to the setting of the harrowing journey and profligate Corkscrew. Through the characterization of the narrator and Corkscrew’s citizens, Hammett accentuates that immoral people constituting his pandemonium.

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Hammett starts his work with an unbearable, solitary, and unconventional trip to Corkscrew, illustrating the narrator’s symbolic setting. The excerpt starts with complaints from the narrator that he was “boiling like a coffeepot,” in the “white dust of the Arizona desert.” The usage of the simile “boiling like a coffeepot” transmits the unbearable condition of the day; metaphorically presenting the image of the narrator burning in flames, distinctive of a journey to hell. Afterwards, the narrator pronounces his solitary journey when he utters that “[he] was the only passenger,” in the bus to Corkscrew. Considering the usual depiction of hell, ...

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