BUTTERFLIES - Shaun Tan

Society is characterised as a collective whole group using:
- Unnamed narrator.
- Repetition of "we" and "our".

An interesting feature of this short narrative is that we don't have individual characters constructed in this text.  Instead, characters are constructed in terms of the collective society as a whole.
This is mainly shown through the personal, inclusive pronouns such as "us", "our", "we".
Other phrases that construct this colelctive conscience of society include "people in the street" and "everyone, literally everyone".  The repetition of "everyone" here shows that all epople are in this moment together.
"Friends and family, on everyone we knew and everyone we didn't" has a similar effect, grouping people together as a whole.
Finally, "the whole city" includes every person as part of this collective moment.
We get no individual information about characters - only the way all of society stops and functions together as the utterflies arrive.

The urban setting is shown using:
- Description of constant movement/busyness.
- Explicitly stating that the setting is a city.

An urban, busy, man-made city -> contrasts with the beauty of the natural butterflies.
Cumulation: Creating a list - adding detail.
e.g., "not millions, billions, or even trillions, but beyond the concept of counting" - the effect is that it increases the intensity and shows how the butterflies outweigh even the people in the city.
e.g., "everyone, literally everyone" - the effect is that it increases intensity and shows how many people went outside to see the butterflies.

Visual imagery:
e.g., "To flush out...hospitals..." - everything listed is man-made and urban.

Hyperbole:
e.g., "none had every experienced such inexplicable" - something you can't even imagine.

Emotive language: Anything that identifies a specific emotion.
e.g., "joyful urgency" - shows the happiness and excitement.

Simile:
e.g., "like spring blossoms of every imaginable colour and pattern" - butterflies are being compared to flowers that arrive in spring, connotating nature blooming and life growing / butteflies are a work of art.

Verbs:
e.g., "gliding, skipping, fluttering" - soft verbs describing soft movement - 

Topic explored:
- How as a society we don't live in the moment.
- How as a society we don't appreciate nature as much as we should.