One abandons the family to achieve dreams while the other achieves goals to gain the family's acceptance, the main characters of two touching stories intertwine with each other in the experience although they face different situations, hardships and obstacles. During different historical periods, in different age groups, and in different places, Adeline Yen Mah's memoir Falling Leaves and William Somerset Maugham's historical novel The Moon and Sixpence still describe stories with similar elements and ultimately comparable lessons. Both authors describe character growth through peaceful endings that lead to self-realization in their eventful lives. In Falling Leaves, Yen Mah expresses a heartbreaking story based on her traumatic childhood experiences resulting from her abusive relationship with her stepmother. In The Moon and Sixpence, Mangham describes a character's journey to realize his dream as a painter at the expense of abandoning his family and old way of life. Although the novels Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah and The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset Maugham differ from each other in the way the theme and aphorism are expressed, both authors use similar rhetorical techniques in the arrangements, as well as in the voice and tone to create a greater impact. on readers while preserving the purest emotions behind the story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Yen Mah and Maugham incorporate similar structures by intentionally beginning and ending the story narrative with significant events and a unique perspective rather than following chronological orders. In Falling Leaves, Yen Mah uses a distinctive organizational pattern that not only interests the reader but also evokes impactful connections. Instead of starting the novel chronologically, Yen Mah opens the novel with a crucial scene, her father's funeral, in order to establish the tone of the novel and provide family context while grabbing readers' attention. For example, Yen Mah illustrates that although her stepmother Niang declared that her father, who was a wealthy businessman, had died penniless, "No one said anything...No one questioned the legitimacy of the actions of Niang". The characters' seemingly unusual actions and the amount of power Niang possesses compels readers to read further to discover the reasons behind Niang's authority within the family. The use of short syntax in the prologue effectively sets the tone of the entire novel by expressing emotional events in a detached, calm, and calm manner. In addition to the novel's opening, the structural organization of the novel's ending also uses important life events: "day after day, as I sat beside her and watched her fall into a coma from which she never awoke, I believe that My closeness would have helped her on her final journey.” By concluding the novel with the death of Aunt Baba, the only character with whom Yen Mah felt connected, Yen Mah effectively draws the reader into forming emotional connections with ultimate self-realization. of Yen Mah to recognize his past desire for acceptance as inessential. The powerful ending also reflects the painful events experienced by Yen Mah and the theme and title of the book, the falling leaves return to their roots that Yen Mah intentionally implements create a significant impact on how readers perceive the novel and the emotional appeal associated with it. Similarly, The Moon and Sixpence follows the same arrangement by strategically avoiding narrating in chronological order to better reflect the characteristics. ofprotagonist and delve deeper into its emotional impact. Writing in the third person, Maugham begins the novel with the narrator Crabbe's description of the protagonist Strickland after Crabbe goes on Strickland's journey with him. For example, the narrator, Crabbe, points out that in art "Charles Strickland's greatness was authentic" but also "lived in darkness." He made enemies instead of friends." By describing Strickland from Crabbe's later perspective after he had already met Strickland, Maugham establishes a distinct view of Strickland's personality that allows readers to understand Strickland's future actions as the story progresses. Such a unique contrast in Strickland's personality as a person and an artist leads the reader to discover more about this character. Furthermore, Maugham intentionally ends the novel abruptly to connect to the beginning of the novel and form a complete story cycle. For example, Maugham ends the novel with a seemingly irrelevant detail: Uncle Henry “remembered the days when you could get thirteen royal natives for a shilling.” Like Yen Mah, Maugham intentionally uses this organization of the novel to end the novel peacefully but precisely, placing emphasis on family. The overly specific references and images date back to an earlier time in life, when Strickland lacked the warmth of family. Royal Natives symbolizes the longing for a caring family and the desire to return to the brief moment of familial love for both Strickland and the author himself. The way Yen Mah and Maugham efficiently begin and end the novel interests readers to further explore the characters and create emotional connections. Yen Mah and Magham's stories not only share similar structures, but also tones that express the characters' journeys in a detached and emotionless manor. . Throughout the novel, Yen Mah uses the first person and a detached tone to portray an authentic story and appeal to ethics. Yen Mah, for example, begins his childhood narrative with the prologue statement: “to explain our collective docility that afternoon, I must go back to the beginning. A Chinese proverb says that luo ye gui gen”. The use of first person directly represents his actual experiences and memories, thus making the story appear more realistic to directly illustrate to readers the purest capture of experiences in the novel. The use of the first person pronoun “we” has the most important effect of indirectly illustrating Yen Mah's respect for her family and her desire to be accepted. Furthermore, Yen Mah expresses the story with a detached tone even during the high-impact events and low points of his life. For example, Yen Mah's tone is emotionless even after her mother's death: "The headache and fever started three days after I was born... Her condition worsened." The overall emotionless monotony is in direct contrast to the dramatic changes that have occurred in his life and the calmness of tone when he recounts these changes. He also appealed to ethics by focusing on telling the details of the story in a placid tone in order to preserve his most authentic life experience. Similarly, Maugham also uses first-person point of view as well as a detached tone to present a unique point of view and adds an additional layer of progressive understanding between two characters. For example, after telling Strickland's story, the narrator reflects that “my study of Strickland's character suffers from a more serious flaw than my ignorance of many facts… I wrote of his reactions to women; yet they were but an insignificant part of his life.” Usingfirst-person point of view to describe another person's life, Maugham makes the story richer and more complex by including the narrator's opinions and growth, thus ultimately revealing the progress of the narrator's ability to understand Strickland on a Deeper. Maugham also makes great use of the advantage of the first-person point of view, to illustrate opinions and judgments throughout the journey of the protagonist Strickland. Furthermore, like Yen Mah, Maugham also uses a detached tone to hide the strong emotions gained from lived experiences, expressing messages of revealing meanings behind the emotionless tone. While Dirk helped heal Strickland of his illness, Strickland had an affair with Dirk's wife, Blanche, and led her to leave Dirk and ultimately commit suicide after Strickland rejected her. Even after such a painful event, the narrator calmly sums it up: “As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day, but men only sometimes.” In an emotionless tone, Maugham matter-of-factly highlights the painful principle that indirectly causes Blanche's death, while at the same time generalizing this contrast between men and women to humanity. More importantly, the calm tone makes fun of Strickland's actions of not being firm, so Blanche's death seems more sorry to the readers. The use of the first person and a detached tone by both Yen Mah and Mangham make the stories more authentic and increase their impact on readers by employing a contrast between the emotionless tone and the unfortunate events. Although there are clear similarities between Yen Mah and Mangham's use of rhetoric, their style differs mainly in the way themes and symbolisms were expressed as Yen Mah illustrates them explicitly through Chinese titles while Mangham does so explicitly. In Falling Leaves, Yen Mah cleverly titles each chapter with a lesson learned from her experience in order to form a network of interconnected elements that all contribute to the overall theme and teaching of the book, the falling leaves returning to the roots. After receiving the sad news of her grandmother's death, Yen Mah describes that "her life had evaporated like yi chang chun ment (an episode of a spring dream)." The simile effectively portrays how her grandmother's death marked the end of an era of happiness and foreshadows an era of darkness under Niang's regime. The word “evaporate” artfully expresses the loss of the grandmother and creates a connection with a Chinese aphorism. Ultimately, Yen Mah ends with the final anaphora “Life had come full circle. Luo ye gui gen.(The falling leaves return to the roots)”. The explicit restatement of the theme that serves as a guiding principle throughout the novel allows readers to fully understand the importance of such lessons and further highlights his identity shaped by his culture and experiences. The symbolism reveals Yen Mah's growth as she now fully understands that she no longer needs to seek acceptance from the people around her; instead she found Aunt Baba because they are her roots and will always be there for her even if the cycle of life continues in the future. In contrast to the direct exposition of themes and lessons, Mangham uses the details of the story to reflect the impact of the theme and the novel's title, the moon and sixpence, implicitly. Strickland's decisions serve as a direct reflection of principle and lead to a more significant moral lesson to be learned. For example, after Strickland left for Paris, Mrs. Strickland anxiously told the narrator, "'He's gone to Paris... He's left Amy penniless!" The statement serves as a representation of the symbolism and title, the moon and the six.