Clavis Libri

Literary device

Sensory imagery

Description that appeals to the senses (what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched) and makes the reader perceive the scene, not just understand it.

In One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand

The name, so be it: ugly to the point of cruelty. Moscarda. The fly, and the spite of its harsh, nagging buzz.

"Harsh, nagging buzz" makes the reader hear the name: the irritating sound of a fly that will not go away. The image carries weight in meaning, because through it the surname stops being a label and becomes a physical nuisance.

Book III: The Father and the One Hundred Thousand, Vitangelo Moscarda, on his own surname

I wasn't myself, I can assure you. So much so that a moment later, before going out, I barely turned my head to look at him again in that mirror, and he was already another, also to me, with a diabolical smile in his sharp, shining eyes.
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Book VI: Saying "I" to whom, Vitangelo Moscarda to the reader, before the wardrobe mirror on the morning of his father-in-law's visit

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