Stylistics test

Bielikova Elyzaveta 43a

1. Onomatopoeia

 “Peleus moved to stare out the open window; the sea was hidden by the house’s curve, but
we could both hear it, the distant hiss of waves against sand.”
 “I heard the great hall before I saw it, the sound of hundreds of voices banging against stone
walls, the clatter of goblets and armor.”
 “I heard the rustle of groundcover, from the wind or an animal’s careless weight.”

2. Graphon
 “A young man, too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable”.
 “I won’t say anything. But only because I don’t want my best friend to know that you just
risked your life for a doll”.
 “’Exactly WHAT do you think you’re doing?’ she cried, finally losing her rag.”
 “’I will sell this house.’ She stared up at him. ‘What?’ There’s no other way that will make it
possible. I have had the house valued. ‘When?’”
 “’Because he likes her!’ ’He likes her. I have seen this happen before, Nella. This interest
from men who look like him, in young women who look like Thea. I have seen this liking of
which you speak, and what happens with it, and I do not trust it.’”

3. Affixational repetition
 “Sails are freshly rigged, seat cushions re-stuffed, re-stitched, grateful Amsterdammers
taking to their vessels to fell God’s beneficence.”
 “Timbre is dignified, self-assured, concerned and personally involved.”
 “Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with hissatchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail”
 “Utterly enchanting…Cheering, compelling, charming.”

4. Root repetition

Housewife,
fishwife, bad wife, good wife, what’s
the word for someone who stares long
into the morning, unable to even fix tea
some days

5. Occasional words
 “Her beloved – her betrothed! – smells of painting oils and soap, and his own indefinable
scent, clean cotton and Walter-ness, and it stops the breath in her throat.”
 “’You’ve read the report,’ Otto replies. ‘It is full of promise, and we’re pioneers.’ ‘Or
pineappleers,’ says Caspar.
 “And what Hendrickson doesn’t say, but which Nella wonders, is that the vibrancy of their
colours – blush pinks, blood reds – will hopefully detract from Thea’s un-sunned face, her
 continued thinness, and the fact that there is no money to buy new bolts of fabric for a
wedding dress.”

6. Metaphor
 “Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation”
 “I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.
 “But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be
advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and, moreover, for coming into
Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did.”
 “He is such a flood, I thought.”
 “The slightest tremor, over the still water of her face.”

7. Metonymy
 I ask, as he scoops some Nescafe into my mug.”
 He likes to read the Marquis de Sade.
 We need some new faces around here.
 There are a lot of good heads in the university.
 Acrylic has taken over the art world.

11. Hyperbole
 “My pulse jumps, for no reason I can name. He has looked at me a thousand thousand
times, but there is something different in this gaze, an intensity I do not know.”
 “A thousand thousand times I had seen it, but I never tired of it.”
 “You must not go. I almost said it, a thousand times.”
 “He was a short man, as most of us were, and built like a bull, all shoulders.”
“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”

17. Rhetorical question

“I was angry at how foolish we had been. Of course she would do this; why had I thought we
would be safe?”
“What is she doing, sitting down here in the bowels of the house, with a man she barely knows?”
“How could she have been so mistaken?”

20. Chiasmus
 “And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you
can do for your country.”
 “Labour say that to solve the country's problems, we need more government. Don't they
see? It is more government that got us into this mess.”
 "I'm always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met.”

21. Inversion
 “You're dumb, Miss Eyre?”
 “You hiding from him, too?”
 “You leaving?”
 “You are here because you killed a boy. You understand this?”
22. Detachment
 “Quickly, I became a disappointment: small, slight. I was not fast. I was not strong. I could
not sing.”
 “Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.”
 “Everywhere, hears shuddered with spontaneous emotion. Bereavement. Fear. Wonder.
Belief.”

24. Aposiopesis
 “I came on my own. He did not know that I would. I did not think—” I stopped myself. “I
hoped she would not notice.”
 “He said, “I did not think—” And stopped. There was nothing in the world I wanted more
than to hear what he had not said. “What?” I asked him. If it is bad, let it be over quickly. “I
did not think that we would ever—” He was hesitating over every word, and I could not
blame him.”
 Anger flashed over her face. “Don’t be an idiot,” she spat at me. “I wasn’t—” She slapped
me.

26. Climax
 “I was not a prince, with honor at stake. I was not a soldier, bound to obedience, or a hero
whose skill would be missed. I was an exile, a man with no status or rank.”
 “My visits to the field faded to five days, then three, then once every week. Then only
when Achilles asked me.”
 “His kingdom was half, a quarter, an eighth the size of my father’s, and I had killed a boy
and been exiled and still he did not know me.”
 “Oh, I was your equal, Miss Eyre. Quite your equal.”
 “Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you all very, very much.”

28. Simile
 “Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be
as light as a feather.”
 “He was a short man, as most of us were, and built like a bull, all shoulders.”
 “Hair lit like honey in the sun, and within it, glints of gold—the circlet of a prince.”
 “Our friendship came all at once after that, like spring floods from the mountains.”
 “I started groping around in front of me, like a blind guy, but without getting up or
anything.”
 “As if he heard me, he smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
 “As sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor. You are like a little
bird trapped in a cage vivid, resolute, restless, but a captive.”

30. Antithesis
“But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright where they were dull.”
“But in truth, it had been less a presence than an absence, a laying aside of dread: my father was
not near, nor boys.”
“There is something quietly but truly inspiring about that – that someone staring death in the
face should be looking to life, the life of others”

Metonymy
He is in dance
The White house isn’t saying anything.