Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction Literary Elements

A short story

The events of the story take place in New York in 1942. Buddy attends Seymour’s wedding.

The story is told from the first-person point of view. Buddy Glass is the narrator.

Buddy’s tone changes from contemplative to amused, from irritated to thoughtful. Mood is mysterious.

Buddy is the protagonist of the story. There is no antagonist, but one might assume that the Matron of Honor is the one, for she is overly judgmental of people she hasn’t even met.

Person vs. society is one of the main conflicts. Seymour challenges people’s idea of normality. Person vs. self is the second biggest conflict, it is as clear as a day that both Seymour and Buddy have inner conflicts.

“I said I talked to everybody. Everybody but the blushing bride. She and the groom've eloped.”
Seymour’s reappearance is the climax of the story.

“He committed suicide in 1948, while he was on vacation in Florida with his wife....”
Buddy hasn’t even started the story, but readers already know how it ends and what awaits poor Seymour in several years.

“I'll never forgive you if you don't.»
Boo Boo has to get her priorities straight. Buddy is sick, the doctors could forbid him attending the wedding, yet she doesn’t ask how her brother feels.

The story alludes to World War II.

N/A

“I'm so hot I could die.”
The paradox is that upon uttering these words she lights up a cigarette, right there in a car full of people, stuck in a traffic jam. It is definitely not the best decision.

“I think, though, that I can dispense with them, and just reiterate that the year was 1942, that I was twenty-three, newly drafted, newly advised in the efficacy of keeping close to the herd-and, above all, I felt lonely.“
With the help of parallel construction the author draws attention to the subject discussed.

“The car was silent.” (The car is synecdoche that means passengers in it.)

“The June sun was so hot and so glaring.”