What are some of the important literary techniques Tom Godwin uses in "The Cold Equations"?

One of the most important literary techniques, also called literary devices, found in Tom Godwin's short story "The Cold Equations" is imagery. Imagery is used to create mental pictures within a reader's mind and developed through using words that pertain to the five senses: touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell. Godwin effectively uses imagery to capture the conflict in the story. He opens with a sight image of the "white hand" on Barton's heat gauge having crept up over the course of an hour, a gauge that tells him a stowaway is on-board who must jettisoned from the ship. The mechanical sight image of the "white hand" helps capture the cold, calculating, scientific nature of the story's conflict—the ship has a limited amount of fuel to complete its emergency rescue mission, so the stowaway must be ejected into space to save others' lives.

Later, the sight and scent imagery of the teenage girl stowaway, Marilyn, capture the more emotional aspect of the conflict. Using sight images, Godwin describes Marilyn as curly-haired, petite, blue-eyed, and smiling. He further uses a scent image to describe that a "faint, sweet scent of perfume" emanates from her. These sight and scent images help portray her childlike innocence, which makes the reader empathize with her plight, making the reader understand why Barton is heartbroken that her mistake must cost her her life to save the lives of many others.

A second important literary technique Godwin uses is a form of parallelism called anaphora. Anaphora occurs when words, phrases, or clauses at the beginning of sentences are repeated. Godwin uses anaphora at the start of his story to introduce the conflict, which is that Marilyn violated a law that can cost many lives if it is not followed, as we read in the following:

It was the law, stated very bluntly and definitely in grim Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations. . .

It was the law, and there could be no repeal.

It was a law not of men's choosing but made imperative by the circumstances of the space frontier.

Here, the repetition of the clause, "It was the law," or "It was a law," creates anaphora that again emphasizes the cold, scientific aspect of the story's conflict.