Affective Value and Novelistic Staying Power in Stay with Me

Abstract

The role of literary devices in literature is well studied from the time of the theorists of antiquity
up until the present time. The twentieth century stands out in literary history as a period of massive
experimentation with devices of form in all genres of literature. The postmodern period witnessed
the use of literary devices by writers to blunt the traditional boundaries which seemed to separate the
genres from one another. The crisscrossing of literary boundaries by creative writing using literary
devices has had a beneficial effect on literature by deepening reader empathy with character and
action in prose fiction. This essay looks at the adroit exportation of the device of melodrama, usually
associated with theatre, into a realist novel, Stay with Me by Ayobami Adébáyò and the implication
for related devices of surprise and suspense, and realism.