To conclude the art of the short story, we must pay due attention to rhetorical devices. Writers employ a wide range of rhetorical devices for contrast and emphasis, including paradox, metaphor, patterns of imagery, repeated motifs, symbolism, and irony. The power of Katherine Anne Porter's Flowering Judas derives in part from her overt use of symbolism. Irony provides the reader with a contrast between reality and the fallibility of human perception, which is at the heart of most modern fiction.