Epithet

Epithet

Epithet

1. Still watching the student nurses, Mc.Neil saw that two were deathly white, a third had gasped snd turned away; the other three were stoically watching.

The author uses the above mentioned epithets to give better picture of the inner state of the characters. The word “pale” is rather neutral, while “deathly white” is emotionally coloured. It gives a vivid picture.

2. The golden strain of Polynesia betrayed itself in the sun-gilt of his skin and cast up golden sheens, and lights through the glimmering blue of his eyes.

The author uses reversed epithets in the above extract to touch the reader’s imagination. With the use of epithets, J. London makes emotionally coloured description of the character.

3. On the bottom of the huge and glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from the deck of the schooner, across the slender ring of the atoll, the divers could be seen at work.

The author uses simple epithet “glassy” to show that the water in this lagoon was pure.

4. The sun had disappeared, and a lead-coloured twilight settled down.

1. He steeled himself to keep above the suffocating languor that lapped like a rising tide through all the wells of his being.

The author uses hyperbole to show that the hero was unable to say a single word at that moment.

2. “You couldn’t win from me in a thousand years”, Danny assured him.

The author uses the above-mentioned expression to show that there were no chances to win from Danny. J. London makes us see, that the hero considers himself to be a very good player.

3. He saw the perambulating corpses, the ghastly death’s heads of men who laborated in the dye rooms.

Using expression “the perambulating corpses” the author points out that these men are exhausted with their hard and hazardous work.

1. Jim Cardegee awoke, choking, bewildered, starting down the twin wells of steel.

The author uses the above-mentioned metaphor to describe shot-guns. A word denoting one object is applied to another for the purpose of suggesting a likeness between them.

2. Young puppies and old gray dogs who ought to have known better – oh, they all came up and crawled around her skirts and whined and fawned when she whistled.

The author uses the above-mentioned metaphor to describe old and young men.

3. “To me he is power – he is the primitive¸ the wild wolf, the striking rattlesnake, the stinging centipede”, said Arrellano.

The author compares the hero with the wild creatures.

4. In the whole atoll not two stones remained one upon another.

The author uses metaphor to stress that nothing safe remained in the whole atoll.

1. At times his mind wandered farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automation, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms.

The simple simile. The author draws a comparison between two different things “minds” and “worms”.

2. He threw off his pack and went into the rush grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine creature.

The sustained simile. The author draws the suggestive analogue.

3. His joints were like rusty hinges.

4. Again the rifles of the soldiers of Porfirio Diaz cracked, and again he dropped to the ground and slunk away like some hunted coyote of the hills.

1. The present storm had been born five days ago in the lee of the Colorado.

The author personificates the storm.

2. Just as daylight laid its steel-gray fingers on the parchment window, Jacob Kent awoke.

The author compares the daylight with a human being.

3. A see swept up the beach, licking around the trunks of the coconuts and subsiding almost at their feet.

1. The sight of his meekly retreating back must have further enraged Patsy Horan, for that worthy, dropping the table implements, sprang upon him.

2. The French, with no instinct for colonization, futile in their childish playgame of developing the resources of the island, were only too glad to see the English company succeed.

3. “Well”, thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs. How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house”(Which was very likely true)

4. “…if you drink much from a bottle marked “poison”, it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.”

1. They grew frightened, sitting thus and facing their own apprehensions and a callous, tobacco-smoking audience.

2. He returned with an easier air to the table and his meal.

H.G. Wells

3. The one martyr who might, perhaps, have paid him a visit and a fee did not show herself.

 A. Bennett

4. She broke off under the strain of her illiteracy and an overloaded stomach.

5. “What are you guys doing – having a supper and ladies’ night.”

A. Hailey

1. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and conversed in American with a policeman off duty. (sort of beer)

2. I made off up the roadway to Bloomsbury Square, intending to strike north past the Museum and so get into the quiet district. (British Museum)

3. The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney Cooper. (ripped a canvas)

Oxymoron

1. The thought was like some sweet, disarranging poison to Clyde.

Oxymoron is a specific type of an epithet, which is always contrary to the verb or noun it modifies. With the use of the above-mentioned oxymoron the author shows that this thought was pleasant to Clyde, but at the same time dangerous.

2. When Clyde appeared to be the least reduced in mind she most affected this patter with him, since it had an almost electric, if sweetly tormenting effect on him.

3. You baddie, good boy.

4. It tortured and flustered him.

1. “I had not!” Cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

“A knot!”said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her.

“Oh, do let me help to undo it!”

“I shall do nothing of the sort”, said the Mouse, getting up and walking away.

2. “…You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis -”

“Talking of axes”, said the Dormouse, “chop off her head!”

3. “No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly: “I won’t interrupt you again. I dare say there may be one” (pronoun)

“One, indeed!” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. (numeral)

4. “Take some more tea”, the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had nothing yet”, Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more”.

“You mean, you can’t take less”, said the Hatter: “It’s very easy to take more than nothing”.

1. Most of the children here have had measles. Those that haven’t are sure to have it sooner or later.

2. His cigar bobbed up and down, discharging ash partly on himself, partly on the polished linoleum floor.

3. It was a signal of tuberculosis; whether old or recent they would know in a moment.

4. “Storm or not, contracts decreed that air freight perishables must arrive at destination fresh, and swiftly”.

1. His place of business – whatever high-class dentists choose to call it – was quite ready for him when he arrived at Hanbridge.

2. She had a warmth of spirit – he had once described it to himself as a strong kindness – that was at once soothing and restoring.

3. As he watched her now – she had stopped to speak with one of the interns – he saw her raise a hand and push back her hair from the side of her face.

4. After tea, while Mary had gone to wash the dishes, - she insisted that Christine looked tired, - Andrew detached the baby from Mrs. Boland and played with it on the hearthrug before the fire.

5. He ran up the porch steps, threw open the front door and there, in the hall, he found Llewellyn.

The author inserts the phrase “in the hall” into this statement to give additional information. This sentence is logically and grammatically completed even without this phrase.

6. Next he constructed, very simply, a dust chamber in which for certain hours of the day the animals were exposed to concentrations of the dust, others being unexposed – the controls.

With the word “the controls” the author gives explanation of other animals being unexposed.

1. He asked her to step in, and in she stepped.

The author uses the same phrase both at the end of a clause and at the beginning of the successive one.

2. “There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses opposite.”

The author uses the same word “sad” both at the end of a sentence and at the beginning of the successive one.

3. With one hand, Danny was using a red telephone; with the other, leafing through emergency orders – Mel’s orders, carefully drawn up for occasions such as this.

The author uses the same phrase both at the end of a clause and at the beginning of the successive one.

1. “You see these three teeth?”

The author uses ellipsis to show that the character speaks in familiar colloquial tone.

2. “They should be through, or almost.” “They might be – if we could find the frigging truck”

The word “through” is omitted, though the context of the sentence does not suffer.

3. “You can have your bit of snap straight off to-night. No surgery. Dai Jenkins done it.”

Omission of link verb – “Dai Jenkins has done it”

4. “A pause, then more aggressively, “Any other damnfool stupid notion?”

1. With a laugh he would rise, stretch himself, swing round his lenses, put the slides away.

A.J. Cronin

The author writes without conjunctions in order to speed up the action.

2. “Bicket did not answer his throat felt too dry.”

Galsworthy

Here we can see the absence of the conjunction “because”.

3. He glanced up, laid down his cigarette, went into the hall.

A.J. Cronin

4. His shoes were black laced boots, good boots, honest boots, standard boots, extraordinarily uninteresting boots.

S.Lewis

1. The children began upon the chocolate biscuits and ended with a fight for the last piece of bread.

The author creates a comic effect with this unexpected ending of the sentence.

2. They were going to give him a free hand, back him up with their immense authority, turn him loose on his clinical research. “But, gentlemen”, Billy suddenly pipped, shuffling himself a new deal from his coat pockets, “before Doctor Manson goes on with this problem, before we can feel ourselves at liberty to allow him to concentrate his efforts upon it, there is another and, more pressing matter, which I feel he ought to take up.”

3. “Perhaps it’s a call, Chris! Think of it! My first Aberalaw case.”

He dashed into the hall.

It was not a case, however, but Doctor Llewellyn, telefoning his welcome from his home at the other end of the town.

A.J. Cronin

4. The gray suit was well cut, well made, and completely undistinguished. His shoes were black laced boots, good boots, honest boots, standard boots, extraordinarily uninteresting boots.

1. He told her she was a sweet, exquisite child. He told her he had been a brute to her but that for the rest of his life he would be a carpet – not red, since she interjected her objection to that colour – on which she might tread. He told her much more than that.

Here the author uses a serial repetition of the phrase “he told her” at the beginning of 3 consecutive sentences.

2. She laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. She laughed so hard that he sat up, concerned.

3. Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than a woman who sat at it?

The author uses repetition of the phrase “could a man own anything prettier than”  at the beginning of the sentence and at the beginning of the clause.

1. Dear God, he had done it! He had done it! He was through, he had done it!

Repeated unit is placed at the end of consecutive sentences.

2. “The reports are taking too long. Much too long.”

3. “I haven’t got a job. I’m not looking for a job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job.”

The author repeats a word “job” at the end of consecutive sentences.

1. “Good afternoon”, said Mr. Cowlishaw “Have you…Can I…”

The character is worried, this why he can’t end his statements.

2. “But, George, maybe it’s very important for you to go and learn all that about – cattle judging and soils and those things… Of course, I don’t know.”

The author uses aposiopesis to show the nervousness and worry of the character.

3. “Listen, Emily, I’m going to tell you why I’m not going to Agriculture School. I think that once you’re found a person that you’re very fond of… I mean a person who’s fond of you, too, and likes you enough to be interested in your character… Well, I think that’s just as important as college is, and even more so. That’s what I think.”

1. “I know there was a bit of misunderstanding between your Tom and me. But it’s Christmas – and – oh, well, I want – ” he broke down lamely, - “I mean, I’d be awfully pleased if the three of you would come round and help us eat our Christmas dinner.”

A.J. Cronin

The author uses hyperbaton to show the high-strung state of the speaker’s mind.

2. “The fact is I’d begun to ask myself if you weren’t too slight, too much of a kid ever to – oh, well, I’m delighted. But we’re not going to get sentimental. Slushy, I mean. No,no! Let’s leave that sort of thing to Mr. And Mrs. Smith.”

A.J. Cronin

3. “I slipped in. Nobody knows I am here. I wanted to see you. I came to tell you I have been very foolish. I came because I could no longer stay away, because my heart compelled me to come, because…because I wanted to come.”

1. A mistake had been made, and yet it was not a wanton mistake.

The author reiterates the same word “mistake” at the beginning and at the end of a sentence.

2. He was no speaker and he knew that he was no speaker.

The author reiterates the same phrase “he was no speaker” at the beginning and at the end of a sentence.

3. A bubble of mucus came from one tiny nostril, a joyful iridescent bubble.

4. “My brain is the same old brain.”

Detachment

1. “Perhaps it’s a call, Chris! Think of it! My first Aberalaw case.”

He dashed into the hall.

The author makes detachments to enhance their emphasis.

2. “Well, well! This is splendid. Delighted to meet you. Come along in here.”

3. “But we’re not going to get sentimental. Slushy, I mean. No,no!”

1. Ping! Went the door again. Before Andrew could answer, Doctor Philip Denny and Hawkins disappeared into the wet darkness.

Direct onomatopoeia.

2. It sometimes amused outsiders to see snow removal groups, plow blades down, blowers roaring, on a hot, sunny day.

Direct onomatopoeia.

3. “Krr – krr – krr – ki – ki – ki – krr.” “Damn!” said Christine concisely. Only one motor horn in Aberalaw could sound like that.

Direct onomatopoeia. The author imitates natural sound of the horn of the car.

Coupling

1. Heavily, like a dying man, he took stock of them: his patients, gathered, despite the fine summer evening, to pay tribute to his manner, his personality.

A. J. Cronin

The author sets side by side two analogous phrases: “his manner, his personality” in order to reinforce the point.

2. Mel, airport general manager – lean, rangy, and a powerhouse of disciplined energy – was standing by the Snow Control Desk, high in the control tower.

A.Hailey

3. He spoke very angrily and pitterly, and looked straight ahead while he talked.

E. Hemingway

Anastrophe

1. Here she would sit, sewing and knitting, while he worked at the table.

A.J. Cronin

The author uses a purposeful reversal of the natural order of words with a view to heightening their effect.

2. With all this behind them surely they would not starve.

A.J. Cronin

3. Gone now was his pretence of indifference.

A.J. Cronin

Polysyndeton

1. “A diputation from the Committee, five of them, including Ed Chenkin, and escorted by Parry – you know, the Sinai minister – and a man Davies.”

A.J. Cronin

The author uses polysyndeton to bring out every detail and to slow down the action.

2. It was possible to buy fruit and fish and vegetables cheaply there.

A.J. Cronin

3. He brought his arm down and stopped smiling and looked at the fire hydrant and beyond the fire hydrant the gutter and beyond the gutter the street, Ventura, and on both sides of the street houses and in the houses people and at the end of the street the country where the vineyards and orchards were and streams and meadows and then mountains and beyond the mountains more cities and more houses and streets and people.

W. Saroyan

Chiasmus

1. “If they’d done anything to you – after all you’ve done for me I’d – Oh! I’d have killed that old President.”

A. J. Cronin

The author juxtaposes two ideas.

2. “It looks to me,”continued Soames, “as if she were sweeter on him than he is on her. She’s always following him about.”

J. Galsworthy

3. Gratitude was no virtue among Forsytes, who, competitive, and full of commonsense, had no occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense of exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not own her as it was his right to own her, that he could not, as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of her heart.

J. Galsworthy

4. “In the days of old men made the manners; Manners now make men”

J. Byron

This is a famous epigram by Byron, the author, who favoured chiasmus.

5. “Surely they don’t want me for myself, for myself is the same old self they did not want.”

J.London

Climax (Gradation)

1. He was sick, shattered, on the verge of a complete collapse.

A. J. Cronin

The author gives gradual increase in emotional evaluation of the condition of the character.

2. His startled sisters looked, and before the servant girl could get there, the bread plate wobbled, slid, flew to the floor, and broke into shivers.

K. Mansfield

3. “They looked at hundreds of houses; they climed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens.”

S.Maugham

Here the climax is achieved by simple numerical increase.

Alliteration

1. “So he sat and jawned, and gazed at the crowd crowding to the match at two o’clock, crowding back in the gloom at four o’clock…”

A. Bennett

Alliteration is the repetition of similar consonants at the beginning of neighbouring words.

2. She wrinkled her brows in a puzzled frown.

J. Galsworthy

The articulation of “r” is used to reinforce the expression.

3. “Forget and forgive”, she cried passionately.

J.London

4. But he was angry now, his nervousness lost in a swelling indignation at the ignorance, the intolerant stupidity of Chenkin’s accusation, and the acclamation with which the others had received it.

A.J.Cronin

Assonance

1. He wrote and wrote, never looking at the clock, filling sheet after sheet, until his head reeled.

A. J. Cronin

[   u –    u – u –     –  I: – I: – e – I:]

Assonance – deliberate repetition of like sounding vowels in neighbouring words with a view to heightening their effect.

2. When he opened his eyes again he started, seeing something creeping swiftly up a tree.

D.H. Lawrence

[ai – a: – I: – I:]

Rhetorical Question

1.  Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than a woman who sat at it?

J. Galsworthy

Rhetorical question is a question which requires no answer, and is used merely to emphasise a point.

2. “Please, my dear fellow - ” Llewellyn entreated – “who could help an accident like that? I beg of you – go up and console your wife.”

A. J. Cronin

3. She took the vase of roses and left the room. Soames remained seated. Was it for this that he had signed that contract? Was it for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds?

J. Galsworthy