Passage
“The seaside smell of rain is quite like a dog’s breath. The place is not all that suitable as a rain shelter, for the drizzle is directionless as if expelled from an atomizer. The bridge girders are too high. This entire location is unsuitable. Everything—being at a place like this at a time like this—is unnatural and not like a box man. For example, using an electric flashlight is a terrible waste. People like us, who live on the road, make do almost completely with items we pick up from the streets. It is an extravagance to use an electric flashlight only for the purpose of writing notes. With the number of new streetlamps, there’s plenty of light to read a newspaper while taking shelter from the rain” (Abe 15).
Analysis
The use of language in this passage is meant to portray the imagery but relay the tone of the environment and the feelings of the narrator. It is written as if erratic, demonstrating tension and worry. It becomes evident that the narrator is in a place where they do not want to be, it is “unnatural” to them. Considering the narrator is a box man, this is ironic because his whole existence as a person who “lives on the street” and reads newspapers under streetlamps is unnatural. The tone of the language is jagged, seemingly unhappy, which can be seen through the attitude expressed by the narrator and their word choices. When it comes down to the facts, “being in a place like this at a time like this” seems either dangerous or extremely uncomfortable to him, and to him, it is a precious waste of resources to use the electric flashlight in this situation.
The whole tone and context of the situation are built up by the imagery of the language. It is amazingly descriptive, such as the first line, “seaside smell of rain,” compared to a “dog’s breath.” It immediately brings up the atmosphere of nasty, wet, potentially cold weather, which creates humidity with that pungent smell that everyone knows. One imagines a dark, cold evening, potentially foggy. The narrator then builds up the negative environment around him, “bridge girders are too high” and location unsuitable, leading one to imagine some urban city bridge and the narrator is under it, in the depths where crime and insolence occur. At the same time, it is unclear whether he is a man of a higher class or just a homeless man to consider an electric light in such darkness an extravagance.
This passage, although so short, and taken out of context, tells a significant amount about the protagonist, the environment in which he is located, and some of his values and attitudes. A reader can derive these by paying attention to the language, the syntax, the tone, and of course, when combined, the meaning. As for the author, this style of writing, it intrigues me. If one does not read the book, one becomes immediately interested in what happens next. Who is a box man and why is he waiting near a bridge in such horrible weather, why is he living off the things he finds on the road? However, some clues can already be drawn, such as that he is likely poor or chooses to live this way. Somehow the box has some significance as he entitles himself as the box man. The use of language can have a lot of impact on storytelling, even in a short form like this, which readers often process subconsciously, but the author is able to achieve the emotional and cognitive response necessary by masterfully utilizing that language.
Work Cited
Abe, Kobo. The Box Man. New York, Penguin Random House, 2001.