From Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon

1. Read the extract bellow and. state whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

2. Consider how Mary Beth Warner is portrayed by the author:

1. Is she presented in a negative or positive light?

2. What means of characterization does the author resort to for the purpose?

3. What stylistic devices does he select to achieve the effect?

4. Group the epithets used in the extract and say what purpose they serve.

5. How does the setting contribute to the description of Mary Beth Warner?

6. What is the role of the last sentence of the extract?

The following morning, Jennifer drove out the Saw Mill River Parkway, headed upstate. It was a crisp, clear morning, a lovely day for a drive. Jennifer turned on the car radio and tried to forget her nervousness about the meeting facing her.

The Warner house was a magnificently preserved house of Dutch origin, overlooking the river at Croton-on-Hudson, set on a large estate of rolling green acres. Jennifer drove up the driveway to the imposing front entrance. She rang the bell and a moment later the door was opened by an attractive woman in her middle thirties. The last thing Jennifer had expected was this shy southern woman who took her hand, gave her a warm smile and said, “I’m Mary Beth. Adam didn’t do you justice. Please come in.”

Adam’s wife was wearing a beige wool skirt that was softly full, and a silk blouse opened just enough to reveal a mature but still lovely breast. Her beige-blond hair was worn long and slightly curling about her face, and was flattering to her blue eyes. The pearls around her neck could never be mistaken as cultured. There was an air of old-world dignity about Mary Beth Warner.

The interior of the house was lovely, with wide, spacious rooms filled with antiques and beautifu paintings.

A butler served tea in the drawing room from a Georgian silver tea service.

From Whispers by Dean Koontz

1. Read the extract bellow and formulate its theme.

2. State whether it is narration, description or exposition. Is it the first-person, the third-person or anonymous?

3. Divide it into logical parts. Say whether they are logically connected or set in contrast.

4. Read the opening sentence of the extract again. How does it introduce the author's purport?

5. Analyse the next part of the extract:

1. Whose collective image is portrayed by the author here? What stylistic device does he resort to for the purpose?

2. What is the rank and file's opinion of Hollywood public life?

3. What is the function of segmentation at the end of this paragraph? What effect does it produce?

6. Analyse the last paragraph of the extract:

1. How does the first sentence of the paragraph set contrast to what was described previously? What is the function of anaphora here?

2. What is the real life of people in movie and television industries? Find as much evidence as you can to illustrate the contrast between the established image and the real one.

3. Does the extract end climatically or anticlimatically? What effect does the ending produce?

The public image of Hollywood life had very little to do with the facts. Secretaries, shopkeepers, clerks, taxi drivers, mechanics, housewives, waitresses, people all over the country, in everyday jobs of all kinds came home weary from work and sat in front of the television and dreamed about life among the stars. In the vast collective mind that brooded and murmured from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Alaska, Hollywood was a sparkling blend of wild parties, fast women, easy money, too much whiskey, too much cocaine, lazy sunny days, drinks by the pool, vacation in Acapulco and Palm Springs, sex in the back seat of a fur-lined Rolls-Royce. A fantasy. An illusion. She supposed that a society long abused by corrupt and incompetent leaders, a society standing upon pilings that had been rotten by inflation and excess taxation, a society existing in the cold shadow of sudden nuclear annihilation, needed its illusions if it were to survive. In truth, people in the movie and television industries worked harder than almost anyone else, even though the product of their labour was not always, perhaps not even often, worth the effort. The star of a successful television series worked from dawn till nightfall, often fourteen or sixteen hours a day. Of course, the rewards were enormous. But in reality, the parties were not so wild, the women no faster than women in Philadelphia or Hackensack or Tampa, the days sunny but seldom lazy, and the sex exactly the same as it was for secretaries in Boston and shopkeeper in Pittsburgh.