LITERARY TECHNIQUES

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 416.

STYLE

1) The story abounds in personifications. Identify them in the text. What effect is achieved through recurring personifications? Why is the boat personified and why are the people called things in the opening sentences of the story?

2) What role do similes play in the text of the story?

3) Name stylistic devices and comment on their joint effect in the following:

...nothing was so solid, so living, so hard, red, hirsute and virile as these two bodies for miles and miles of sea and sandhill.

4. Which of the following statements are true? You may tick more than one.

The the bits of glass, china and metal are described :

a. in considerable physical detail

b. in terms of the reactions they provoke in the narrator

c. through association with other objects

d. through words with positive and negative conotations

e. through a series of metaphors and similes

f. through the dialogue.

5. In the third-person narration identify the sentences presenting

- John's unuttered represented speech

- Charlie's inner speech

6. The tone of the narration grows extremely sad by the end of the story. What means create this tone?

7. How is the dreamlike atmosphere maintained in the story ? By the use of:

a) figurative language

b) long complicated sentences

c) detailed descriptions

d) philosophic digressions

e) words with positive connotations?

8. How would you define the style of the text?

- vague –concrete – poetic – complex – abstract – colloquial – simple – figurative – conversational - other

The opening paragraphs of the story have a cinematographic quality. The description shows the figures moving at a great distance as a tiny object gradually increasing in size so that the details become visible.

a) The ‘wide angle' of vision is emphasized by the contrast ‘vast – small'. Which words sustain the contrast? Underine words and expressions in the text which convey the tiny size of the people.

b) What is the effect of such a description from a great distance? It emphasises:

- vastness of the universe

- pettiness of the human characters and their problems

- other effect_____________________?