Practical assignment

In the excerpts that follow find figures of combination used. Explain their stylistic functions in the given excerpts:

1. A fog rose over the valley, she saw it marching like an army of ghosts (K.A.Porter).

1. She had beautiful long white hands with skin as smooth as the breast of a dove (G.Atherton).

2. “Mr. Witte’s method of paying off debts would be a form of feeding a dog with bits of its own tail” (Nesfield).

3. His strangely taut, full-width grin made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light (J.Jones).

4. There is Mr. Guppy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close midnight (Ch.Dickens).

5. It was dawn. The mist had rolled down from the moors and the higher fells to spread across the meadows like a mantle of gray lace, partially obscuring the trees and the dry stone walls and the cottages nestling in the folds of the fields (B.T.Bradford).

6. Sometimes Mrs. Ryan was terrific, like when she got them all dancing lessons <…> Sometimes Mother was horrible – when she had asked Father to leave the bar the night he won eighty-five pounds on a greyhound. (M.Binchy).

7. According to Maggie, Lena was not in love. She was suffering from an obsession, an infatuation. It wasn’t healthy for someone who was twenty-six to develop this kind of crush on a man who didn’t return it and wasn’t even aware of it. And however unwise it might have been to have allowed a temporary fascination to take over, it was positively dangerous to let it continue the way Lena had (M.Binchy).

8. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came quick and sharp (M.Twain).

9. He’s a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-nosed peacock (Ch.Dickens).

11. He was an actor and a clever one, but he was difficult to suit and so was often out of work. He was about thirty, a man with pleasantly ugly face and a clipped way of speaking that made what he said sound funny (W.S.Maugham).

12. Sprinting towards the elevator he felt amazed at his own cowardly courage (G.Markey).

9. He caught a ride home to the crowded loneliness of the barracks (J.Jones).

10. He was sure the whites could not detect his adoring hatred of them (R.Write).

11. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way (Ch.Dickens).

12. At a sign from him, Nelson knew, that, notwithstanding his love, his tenderness, his sympathy, his generosity, she would leave him without a moment’s hesitation (W.S.Maugham).

13. I am sorry, I am so very sorry, I am so extremely sorry (G.K.Chesterton).

14. She stopped being twenty-six and became twenty-seven, and twenty-eight and twenty-nine. Soon she would be thirty years of age, and what had she to show for it? (M.Binchy)

15. She disapproved of many things; some people went as far as to say that she disapproved of most things (Saki).

16. That’s a nice girl; that’s a very nice girl; a promising girl (Ch.Dickens).

17. I was well inclined to him before I saw him. I liked him when I did see him; I admire him now (Ch. Bronte).

18. She felt better, immensely better, standing beside this big old man (W.Deeping).

19. Jupiter was an anomaly. His retrieving instincts and his high spirits were out of place in Shady Hill. He was as black as coal, with a long, alert, intelligent, rakehell face. His eyes gleamed with mischief, and he held his head high. It was the fierce, heavily collared dog’s head that appears in heraldry, in tapestry, and that used to appear on umbrella handles and walking sticks (J. Cheever).

20. No tree, no shrub, no blade of grass that was not owned (J. Galsworthy).

21. This was appalling – and soon forgotten (J.Galsworthy).

22. “Be careful,” said Mr.Jingle. “Not a look.” “Not a wink,” said Mr. Tupman. “Not a syllable. Not a whisper’ (Dickens).

23. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious (O.Wilde).

24. He took his hat and his leave (Ch.Dickens).

25. At noon Mrs. Turpin would get out of bed and humor, put on kimono, airs and the water to boil for coffee (O.Henry).

26. – I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?

– Engaged ?! She's married.