Cacophony

What is cacophony? A literary device The intentional use of unpleasant sounds for effect in literature, poetry, and music The use of words that produces harsh, discordant sounds Translates as bad sound in Greek

The purpose of cacophony To produce fear, distress, or disgust in the reader about the literature’s subject matter To develop the mood or tone The use of cacophony should be appropriate to the subject matter – War – Death – Madness – Noise

Identifying cacophony The use of words with consonants like b, k, d, t and p produce harsh sounding words when combined in a sentence or word. These consonants can be internal or at the beginning of a word.

Example of cacophony And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea-fights… from Gulliver Travels The author’s use of words beginning with sharp consonants contribute to the overall tone that war is destructive.

Example of cacophony The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling from Walt Whitman’s The Dalliance of the Eagles The author’s use of words like gyrating, clinching, beating and swirling contribute to the tone that this fight between two eagles is dangerous and fatal.

Example of cacophony 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky The author’s use of harsh consonants and nonsense words contribute to the overall noise of this excerpt.