Question

Elect the lines from "Fable for When There's No Way Out" which have alliteration in them.

Answer 1

Answer and explanation:

Alliteration is a literary device in which sounds or letters at the beginning of words that are close to each other in a structure are repeated. Such repetition creates mood and rhythm. It often conveys a message, since the sound can evoke an image or a feeling, for example. Plosive sounds (b, p, d, t), for instance, are repeated when the speaker intends to convey something abrupt or violent.

As for the poem "Fable for When There's No Way Out", the lines that present alliteration are the following:

his strength's inside him now

 but his beak's too soft;

if you break your head

Barely old enough to bleed

in this round room.

Still, stupidly he pecks

Rage works when reason won't.

We can see there's a sort of alternation between plosive and non-plosive sounds. That helps with the imagery of a bird trapped in an egg, pecking, then stopping, then pecking again until it's able to free itself. The alternation of sounds conveys that alternation between trying, stopping, and trying once more.