Term
parenthesis:explanatory words that interrupts the grammatical flow of a sentence through brackets, commas or dashes
example: (Never tell me, by the way,that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen look devilish.) (George Orwell, Shooting and Elephant, Paragraph 6) |
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Definition
| Orwell uses parenthesis to introduce his thoughts, about a dead man that has been trampled by an elephant. He uses tone and diction to give the reader a vivid idea of the feel of the town as they tryed to scatter the crowds of little children away from the "devilish" site. Orwell's point is that the elephant is like imperalism. Killing and not killing would be a bad idea, there was no right choice. Orwell's interjections with the use of parenthesis gives you a look inside the characters head, instead of just narration nd description. |
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Term
appostion: involves placing side by side two coordinating elements, the second of which serves as an explantation or modification of the first.
Ex: The mountain was her earth, her home. (Rudolf Anaya, Albuquerque) |
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Definition
| Anaya uses statment of fact to amplify the fact that the mountains are truley her home and that she loves her home. He uses "her home" to tell the audience that she was comfortable in the mountain that she never wanted to leave because it was her all, her life, and where she wants to spend the rest of her life. |
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Term
asyndeton: the deliberate ommision of a word of conjunctions between a series of related clauses.
Ex: I came, I saw, I conquered. ( Juluis Ceaser, Speech) |
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Definition
| Ceaser uses short, similar phrases to give the fact of his conquering a lightness and almost as conquering was an everyday thing for him and that it was typical for Rome. His tone is non-chalant and he understands that he can conquer anything, giving the people a sense of protection and power to their empire. Ceaser could never be beaten because all he knew was "I came, I saw, I conquered" |
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Term
polysendeton: the deliberate use of many conjunctions. Slows down the sentence.
Ex: On and on she went, across Piccadilly, and up Regent Street, ahead of him, her cloak, her gloves, her sholders combining with the fringes and the laces and the feather boas in the windows to make the spirit of finery and whimsey which dwindled out of the shops on to the pavement, as the light of a lamp goes wavering at night over the hedges in the darkness. (Virginia Wolf, Mrs. Dalloway) |
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Definition
| Wolf uses many descriptive adjective to give the reader a vivid picture of the women walking down the street, she slows down the eratic describing by telling the reader about the peaceful night around the women and takes the reader away from the very descriptive words about the woman. |
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Term
litotes: deliberate use of understatment.
ex: It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor in my brain. (JD Salinger, The Catcher and the Rye) |
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Definition
| Salinger uses litotes to bring a lightness to the fact that the character has a brain tumor. Litotes reveals a sarcastic, whatever kind of voice and lets the reader know the character doesn't take serious thing seriously. Salinger undermines the tumor as to brush over it quickly and keep it from being to heavy. |
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