Retorical Question. Paralell constructions. Chiasmus.

THEORY REVISION

1. Comment on the length of the sentence and its stylistic relevance.

2. What do you know about one-word sentences?

3. Is there any correlation between the length and the structure of the sentence?

4. Can syntactical ambivalence be put to stylistic use?

5. What punctuation marks do you know and what is their stylistic potential?

6. What is a rhetorical question?

7. What types of repetition do you know?

8. Comment on the functions of repetition which you observed in your reading.

9. Which type of repetition have you met most often? What, in your opinion, makes it so popular?

10. What constructions are called parallel?

11. Have you ever observed chiasmus? What is it?

Exercise I. From the following examples yon will get a better idea of the functions of various types of repetition, and also of parallelism and chiasmus:

1. I wake up and I'm alone and I walk round Warley and I'm alone; and I talk with people and I'm alone and I look at his face when I'm home and it's dead, (J.Br.)

2. Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he did not practice, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, - though he did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding. (S.L.)

3. "To think better of it," returned the gallant Blandois, "would be to slight a lady, to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the sex, and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my character." (D.)

4. Halfway along the righthand side of the dark brown hall was a dark brown door with a dark brown settie beside it. After I had put my hat, my gloves, my muffler and my coat on the settie we three went through the dark brown door into a darkness without any brown in it. (W.G)

5. I might as well face facts; good-bye "Susan, good-bye a big car, good-bye a: big house, good-bye power, good-bye the silly handsome drearns. (J.Br.)

6. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. (O.W.)

7. I wanted to knock over the table and hit him until my arm had no more strength in it, then give him the boot, give him the boot, give him the boot - I drew a deep breath. (J.Br.)

8. Of her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. (D.)

9. Now he understood. He understood many things. One can be a person first. A man first and then a black man or a white man. (P. A.)

Exercise II. Find and analyse cases of detachment, suspense and inversion. Comment on the structure and functions of each:

1. She narrowed her eyes a trifle at me and said I looked exactly like Celia Briganza's boy. Around the mouth. (S.)

2. He observes it all with a keen quick glance, not unkindly, and full rather of amusement than of censure. (V.W.)

3. She was crazy about you. In the beginning. (R.W.)

4. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting places under the free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden-how many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind - how many visions of what had been and what he hoped was yet to be - rose up before him in the old, dull, silent church! (D.)

5. It Was not the monotonous days uncheckered by variety anduncheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary eveningsor the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easypleasure for which young hearts beat high or the knowing nothing ofchildhood but its weakness and its easily wounded spirit, that had wrungsuch tears from Nell. (D.)

6. Of all my old association, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me. (D.)

7. Corruption could not spread with so much success, though reduced into a system, and though some ministers, with equal impudence and folly, avowed it by themselves and their advocates, to be the principal expedient by which they governed; if a long and almost unobserved progression of causes and effects did not prepare the conjuncture. (Bol.)

Exercise III. Discuss different types of stylistic devices dealing with the completeness of the sentence:

1. In manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind. (D.)

2. Malay Camp. A row of streets crossing another row of streets. Mostly narrow streets. Mostly dirty streets. Mostly dark streets. (P. A.)

3. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side. (D.)

4. A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman cautious and Mr. Miller timorous. (D.)

5. He, and the falling light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust, and ruin! (D.)

6. She merely looked at him weakly. The wonder of him! The beauty of love! Her desire toward him! (Dr.)

7. Ever since he was a young man, the hard life on Earth, the panic of 2130, the starvation, chaos, riot, want. Then bucking through the planets, the womanless, loveless years, the alone years. (R.Br.)

8. H. The waves, how are the waves? C.: The waves? Lead. H.: And the sun? C.: Zero.

H.: But it should be sinking. Look again. C.: Damn the sun. H.: Is it night already then? C: No.

H.: Then what is it? C: Grey! Grey! GREY! H.: Grey! Did I hear you say grey? C.: Light black. From pole to pole. (S. B.)

9. I'm a horse doctor, animal man. Do some farming, too. Near Tulip, Texas. (T.C.)

10. "I'll go, Doll! I'll go!" This from Bead, large eyes larger than usual behind his hornrimmed glasses. (J.)

11. A black February day. Clouds hewn of ponderous timber weighing down on the earth: an irresolute dropping of snow specks upon the trampled wastes. Gloom but no veiling of angularity. The second day of Kennicott's absence. (S.L.)

12. And we got down at the bridge. White cloudy sky, with mother-of-pearl veins. Pearl rays shooting through, green and blue-white. River roughed by a breeze. White as a new file in the distance. Fish-white streak on the smooth pin-silver upstream. Shooting new pins. (J. C.)

13. This is a story how a Baggins had an adventure. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained - well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end. (A. T.)

14. "People liked to be with her. And —" She paused again, " - and she was crazy about you." (R.W.)

15. What I had seen of Patti didn't really contradict Kitty's view of her: a girl who means well, but. (D.U.)

16. "He was shouting out that he'd come back, that his mother had better have the money ready for him. Or else! That is what he said: "Or else!" It was a threat." (Ch.)

17. "Listen, I'll talk to the butler over that phone and he'll know my voice. Will that pass me in or do I have to ride on your back?''

"I just work here," he said softly. "If I didn't —" he let the rest hang in the air, and kept on smiling. (R.Ch.)

18. I told her, "You've always acted the free woman, you've never let any thing stop you from —" He checks himself, goes on hurriedly. "That made her sore." (J.O'H.)

19. "Well, they'll get a chance now to show -" Hastily: "I don't mean - But let's forget that." (O'N.)

20. And it was unlikely that anyone would trouble to look there -until - until - well. (Dr.)

21. There was no breeze came through the door. (H.)

22. I love Nevada. Why, they don't even have mealtimes here. I never met so many people didn't own a watch. (A. M.)

23. Go down to Lord and Taylors or someplace and get yourself something real nic&to impress the boy invited you. (J. K.)

24. There was a whisper in my family that it was love drove him out and not love of the wife he married. (J. St.)