Questions for Discussion

The author builds up the excitement and the feeling of breathlessness in this extract in several ways:

1. By using a forceful rhythm which reminds us all the time of the pounding of the horses’ hooves and the fact that Reynard is always on the run. Each line has four strong beats:

The fóx was stróng, he was fúll of rúnning,

He could rún for an hóur and thén be cúnning,

As you see, the strong beats do not always come at the same point in every line; sometimes there is just one weaker beat between them, while at other times there are more.

Now take a few more of the lines from the extract and see if you can detect the four strong beats in each case, and if you can feel the pounding of hooves as you read them.

2. By making some of the lines rhyme on both syllables of a two-syllable word; for example ‘running’ rhymes with ‘cunning’. Sometimes the author even makes a rhyme on more than one word – as with ‘to run him’ and ‘to stun him’. What other lines in the piece have rhymes like these?

3. By using the word ‘and’ frequently. This gives a great feeling of excitement to the extract. Count up the number of times ‘and’ appears altogether.

4. By using words which begin with the same letter of the alphabet close together – there are quite a few examples of this: ‘nearer now’, ‘back bent’, stones to stagger and yells to stun’ and so on. See how many more you can find.

5. What other stylistic means are used to create the acoustic image of the pounding of hooves and reveal the tension and the excitement of the moment? Pay attention to phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactical peculiarities of the extract.

6. Whose eyes is the chase presented through? What can you say about the emotional state of Reynard? Who do you think will win in the chase? Prove your opinion.

1.2.

Diana woke to an unaccustomed sound. She lay on her bunk, half awake, trying to collect her thoughts, and listened to the low drumming on the roof of the caravan. The window was a dim square of greyish light, and she peered around, reassured by the familiar shapes of the fittings; the heap of bedclothes, straggle of black hair, that was Pamela asleep on the bunk opposite; but always the persistent muffled noise continued, drumming, drumming. Then, unmistakeably, a large drop of water fell from the porch to the wagon steps, just outside the door, and listening intently, Diana heard the whisper of rain on the grass slope.

Rain! How extraordinary that it should be raining; suddenly grey and wet after the steady sunshine of the last few days! The sky yesterday evening had been clear as glass, blending from yellow to the deepest blue, and the stars and the half-moon had given no hint of any change. Had they left anything lying about outside? she wondered. They might so easily have overlooked something in the dusk, when they had crawled sleepily each to the tent or car or caravan. She pulled her knees up to her chin, wriggled out of the bedclothes, tip-toed to the door which was ajar, and pulled it wide open.

Bother the creak! But Pamela never stirred, and Diana gazed outside, shivering a little in the damp air, to find that the familiar shapes of the hills had disappeared, shut away from them by a grey-white mist. It was as if the sky had dropped and was resting in the valley. Everywhere she saw the same thick pall of cloud and the rain was coming down steadily; sweeping in frail white curtains across the valley from the west. Drum, drum, drum on the wagon roof; drip, plop as the drops fell from the eaves; sigh and swish as the rain smothered the trees, the grass and the bracken, and every frond and leaf bowed a wet head, heavy with a trembling chain of water.

from 'Hermit in the Hills' by David Severn

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.004 сек.