Abstract
The current study explores the use of certain writing devices that appear in the works of Leo Tolstoy and Naguib Mahfouz. The study develops an in-depth comparison of how these two authors implement devices such as original similes; description of characters through the narrator, other characters, and themselves; interior monologue; and metonymy to create real characters in real situations. Though the reality of the two worlds differs because of economic, geographical, social, and religious backgrounds, they both reveal the universal theme of family unhappiness, whether in Russia or in Egypt.
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