THEME and MESSAGE

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 385.

STYLE

CHARACTERS

§ Consider all the details that are provided about the wife's appearance in the text. In what ways is she similar or different from the typical heroine of a gothic novel?

§ Pick out all the epithets used in the description. Is the wife characterized directly or is it left for the reader to guess about her character?

§ One sentence is almost completely repeated in her description. What is the aim of this repetition?

§ There is no information in the text about the physical appearance of the painter. Why is it left vague, in your opinion?

§ What characteristics of the painter are emphasized through lexical and semantic repetititions.

§ Pick out semantically opposed words establishing cotrast between the painter and his wife. In what aspects are the characters contrasted?

1. Pick out poetic and highly literary words. What do they add to the narration?

2. Underline all sentences with stylistic inversion and comment on their effect.

3. Name the stylistic devices used in the folowing:

· The chateau … was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appenines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs Radcliffe.

· Long, long I read – and devoutly, devoutly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by, and the deep midnight came.

· That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses,and to startle me at once into waking life.

4. Comment on the stylistic peculiarities of the reference-entry.

a) pay attention to the stylistic connotations of the vocabulary

b) identify the following stylistic devices and discuss their functions:

· epithets

· simile

· hyperbole

· metaphor

· antithesis

· inversion

· ellipsis

· parallel constructions

· repetitions

· climax

· polysyndeton.

4. In the closing paragraph identify:

· inversion

· polysyndeton

· parallel constructions

5. How would you describe the style of the story:

· matter-of-fact

· poetic

· other?

How would you formulate the theme of the story?

What is its message?