Sample IV Chapter XIX “Ahab” (1) from moby dick

Herman Melville

Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake,(2) when the fire has overrunningly wasted(3) all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped him in an unalterable mould,(4) like Cellini's cast(5) Perseus.(6) Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly(7) whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam(8) something made in the straight, lofty(9) trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning(10) tearingly(11) darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.

Notes:

1.Ahab l'eihaeb] — Ахав (имя героя). Взято из Библии (имя одного из царей Израиля IX в. до н. э.). Все персонажи романа носят необычные имена.

2. stake — костер как способ казни (точнее, столб, к которому привязывали осужденного)

3. waste — иссушить, опалить

4. mould, mold — мульда, форма для отливки

5. Cellini, Benvenuto — итальянский скульптор и золотых дел мастер эпохи Возрождения

6. cast — литой

7. Perseus ['pa:sju:sl — Персей, древнегреческий мифологический герой, 8. сын Зевса и Данаи, убивший чудовище Медузу. Возможно, образ Персея в сравнении навеян тем, что Ахав тоже стремится убить чудовище (как неоднократно называет автор «Моби Дика»).

9. livid— синевато-бледный

10. seam — шов; зд. узкая и длинная полоса

11. lofty — высокий (архаизм)

12. upper lightning — молния, ударившая в верхушку дерева

13. tearingly — разрывая (кору дерева)

TASKS:

1. Find all examples of simile in the text.Comment upon the structure and size of the similes.

2. The text presents two powerful images: the image of a man cut away from the stake and the image of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it. What are the common semantic features of these two images?Are the above-mentioned similes connected only with the appearance of the captain?

3. Read attentively the description of a great tree. What means make this description realistic? Comment upon the meaning of the verbs used in this description. Sample V the picture of dorian grey

Oscar Wilde

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

TASKS:

1. Name all the objects mentioned in the description and divide them into thematic groups. Which group prevails?

2. Find in the text examples of epithets, simile, metaphors. Which thematic group do they mostly belong to? Are they emotionally coloured?

3. Analyze the epithet “jade-faced”. Define its direct meaning and all connotations (shades of meaning, associations aroused by this word).

4. Analyze the word-combinations “the heavy scent of the lilac” and “the dim roar of London”. What are the meanings of the epithets used? Translate the epithets into Russian.

5. What tropes are combined in the word-combination “the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs”?

6. Pay attention to the use of details in the description. Through what details is one of the main characters of the novel, Lord Henry, introduced?

7. Being the description, the analyzed text has a static character. What article prevails in this description? How can the usage of the articles influence the meaning of the text?