My following essay will be about the figurative language and mood in Neil Gaiman’s "The Graveyard Book." I will explain how Neil Gaiman effectively uses figurative language to establish a mood, build excitement, and add detail to the story. There are four strong examples of figurative language in The Graveyard Book that I will focus on, and these examples contribute to setting the mood of the book. The book opens with a creepy mood, common in horror movies. “The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.” This quote is an example of Gaiman using imagery. Imagery is the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively. Neil Gaiman obviously knows how to make one believe in what he is saying. He explains to you how he actually saw the knife. Its amazing how when you read just two sentences, you can imagine it in your head; it's almost like you are there. The way he describes it is infact quite terrifying, because Gaiman is using figurative language. In Chapter One, Gaiman uses more figurative language, “A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy.” This quote is an example of a Metaphor. A Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Neil Gaiman explains how each of the dead has a voice, and an opinion as to whether the living child should be allowed to stay, and how they were each determined to be heard, that night. That is hilarious to me because since when has a bunch of ghosts has been able to raise a child? This metaphor shows how and what this novel is about. The effects of metaphors help me understand something similar like the one that Neil Gaiman is trying to compare with. For example if I compare someone's messy blond hair with a bir