5.7 Self-Test on Rhetorical devices

Passage A

The stranger stood at the top of the ill-lit street. It was after midnight and the alley cats were roaming their usual haunts like beachfront strollers on a Sunday afternoon. The towering hulks of apartment blocks offered no clue to the man as to where his friend might be. Moreover, the street lights were no help either, mere pools in an immense blackness. Suddenly out of the thick coat of darkness covering the buildings emerged a slight figure in a dirty raincoat and cap, coming towards him from the opposite side of the street.

1. The simile used to describe the movement of the alley cats indicates their:
(a) sneakiness
(b) rowdiness
(c) nonchalance

Answer: (c)

The cats have no fear of the dark and are in familiar territory so they are like people walking leisurely along a beachfront as a recreational pursuit on a Sunday afternoon when they are free from work worries and free to enjoy themselves.

2. The metaphor, ‘the towering hulks of apartment blocks’ adds:
(a) an ominous tone to the scene
(b) more to the scene
(c) simply tells what the scene contains

Answer: (a)

The word, ‘towering’ gives the idea of buildings up a great height over the street, while ‘hulks’ are very large transport vessels which, when finally unseaworthy, were formerly used as prisons. Comparing the large buildings in the darkness to ‘towering hulks’ the writer insinuates a warning that something unpleasant may be on hand. The atmosphere does not seem a safe one for the stranger.

3. The metaphor, ‘mere pools in an immense blackness’ stresses the:
(a) dark state of the buildings
(b) dark state of the street

Answer: (b)

The writer is here putting emphasis on the dark street by showing the contrast of the darkness with only ‘pools’ of light.

4. With the metaphor, ‘thick coat of darkness’ the writer:
(a) implies that it is cold
(b) implies that the darkness has been imposed over all
(c) implies that the darkness is depressing

Answer: (b)

A coat is something that, if placed over or put on a body, completely covers it. The darkness was so deep in the street it covered the features of the street otherwise so readily seen in daytime. It was as if it had been deliberately placed over it.

Passage B

There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley. Menacingly, the grim watch towers, stark and four square, at due intervals stood at their posts. Ruthlessly, for it was built at the cost of a million lives and each one of those great grey stones has been stained with the bloody tears of the captive and the outcast, It forged its dark way through a sea of rugged mountains. Fearlessly, it went on its endless journey, league upon league to the furthermost regions of Asia, in utter solitude, mysterious like the great empire it guarded. There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent, and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China.

5. The passage above is actually:
(a) an extended metaphor
(b) an extended personification
(c) just descriptive prose

6. Maugham in this passage intends to show the Great Wall as:
(a) assuming monstrous power as it stretches out over the land
(b) being an effective border control
(c) a famous historical feature

Answer: (a)

Maugham wishes to engender fear and respect and he does so by creating this monster figure. It is symbolising the absolute power of the Chinese Empire with its mysterious, fearful presence so foreign to the rest of the world.

7. What effect does Maugham achieve in this passage?
(a) detached objectivity?
(b) emotional emphasis?
(c) seriousness/respect

Answer: (b)

There is no doubt that Maugham is involved with his subject and wishes to convey the feeling he experienced on seeing the Great Wall.

Style and the use of language

5.7 Self-Test on Rhetorical devices