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.

1. Hailey

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.

1. 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.

J. London

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.

1. 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.

J. London

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

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

J. London

Hyperbole

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

J. London

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

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

J. London

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.

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

J. London

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

Metaphor

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

J. London

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.

1. 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.

J. London

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

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

J. London

The author compares the hero with the wild creatures.

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

J. London

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

Simile

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.

J. London

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

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

J. London

The sustained simile. The author draws the suggestive analogue.

1. His joints were like rusty hinges.

J. London

1. 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.

J. London

Personification

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

1. Hailey

The author personificates the storm.

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

J. London

The author compares the daylight with a human being.

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

J. London

The author shows similarity between the sea and the animal

Irony

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

J. London

1. 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.

J. London

1. “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)

L. Carroll

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

L. Carroll

Zeugma

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

J. London

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

H.G. Wells

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

A. Bennett

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

A. Cronin

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

A. Hailey

Metonymy

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)

H.G. Wells

1. 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)

H.G. Wells

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

H.G. Wells

Oxymoron

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

T. Dreiser

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.

1. 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.

T. Dreiser

1. You baddie, good boy.

T. Dreiser

1. It tortured and flustered him.

T. Dreiser

Pun

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.

L. Carroll

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

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

L. Carroll

1. “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)

L. Carroll

1. “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”.

. Carroll

Antithesis

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

A.J. Cronin

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

A. Hailey

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

A. Hailey

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

1. Hailey

Detached construction

Parenthesis

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

A. Bennett

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

A. Hailey

1. 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.

A. Hailey

1. 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.

A.J. Cronin

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

1. A. J. Cronin

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.

1. 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.

1. Cronin

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

Anadiplosis (linking, reduplication)

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

1. Bennett

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

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

K. Mansfield

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

1. 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.

1. Hailey

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

Ellipsis

1. “You see these three teeth?”

1. Bennett

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

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

1. Hailey

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

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

1. Hailey

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

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

A. Hailey

Asyndeton

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

A.J. Cronin