Character, as if the two were gladiators, waging war on the sands of the Coliseum in some winner-take-all death battle. Both sides of the debate claim a definitive superiority for their chosen gladiator, and for the most part, the battle splits nicely down the lines of literary and commercial fiction, the commercialists placing the emphasis on plot in the interest of producing “page turners,” while the literati poke up their noses at the thought of anything so crude and artless.
It emphasizes tension
In the passage, Death was personified to show how the old
man seems to have perceived his impending death despite not having seen nor
heard the presence of the murderer in the room. Death had the characteristics
of having the ability to stalk, to have a shadow and to envelop its victim. All
of which are humanistic attributes that death in its real sense could not
possibly enact. It creates the tension on the murder that is about to happen
and the thoughts of the murderer on his victim.
