During nightfall in a meadow came a dove; a beautiful white slim and fair dove, with eyes bright as the sun and as black as coal. Many animals passed over this spot in the meadow before like the hippocampus, the gryphon, and even a lovely silken swift unicorn. None of those where as important as that one dove Hugh long waited for. The short story “The Hundredth Dove” by Jane Yolen is a wonderful and spiritually written piece which makes it very enjoyable to read. Some of the main reasons this story is enjoyable is because of the metaphors, description, and plotline that the author used.
Jane Yolen had some great metaphors that she put in to this story that really grabbed my attention, they made me want to continue on and finish reading the short story. The author said things in the story like “The trails he followed were narrower than a deer runs”, meaning the paths he used were basically mapped out in his head and he didn’t an actually map to tell him where to go because of how well he knew the forest. Another metaphor that was said in the story was “Hugh sat at the clearing’s edge, still as a stone”, saying he is “still as stone” says that Hugh is like a stone sitting on the clearing waiting still and silently.
Though the metaphors of a story is what keeps a reader interested in the story, description also does every story some good, it helps the reader vision mentally, what is going on in the story, and when a reader does that it keeps he/she even more interested in a story. In this story there were description phrases like “a dove that was slim, elegant, and as white as milk” and “He began to tremble and his heart began to pulse madly. He felt burning in his chest and limbs.” Saying things that compare an object to another, more familiar object, help the reader picture how the dove looks. For example he compares the doves color to milk and explains how Hugh reacted to what the dove had said. If you’re a person that gets into stories you may even be able to feel how the character feels, you may be able to imagine yourself in his position, from a first person point of view because of how well the detail is in this story. A good example of being able to feel how Hugh feels is when the author described his reaction, “Hugh looked into the hearth of the fire, but he felt no warmth”, meaning Hugh was so stuck on what he was thinking about, so concentrated on that one thing that the fire he was near didn’t even give him the warmth that it was producing.
The short story “The Hundredth Dove” by Jane Yolen is a wonderful and spiritually written piece which makes it very enjoyable to read. One thing I don’t understand about this story is; why did Hugh break the dove’s neck why didn’t he just keep it alive? How come the wedding got called off? These are the types of things I thought of at the ending of the short story, and I still do wonder and think about those questions even now.
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