1. And yet I am no freak of nature, nor of history. An abnormal person 2. I was in the cards, other things having been equal eighty-five years a go. To seem likely to happen
3. But my grandfather is the one. Is an exception 4. All my born days. All my life 5. Learn it to the younguns. Tell this to the young ones. 6. He had been the meekest of men. Too submissive 7. It was on the occasion of a smoker. Informal gathering only for men 8. Our bare upper bodies touching and shining with anticipatory sweat. Transferred epithet 9. We were pushed into place. In the correct place. 10. But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. A very strong and uncontrollable emotion;
transferred epithet
11. I lay prone, pretending that I was knocked out…. Be defeated or become unconscious.
12. The boys groped about like blind, cautious crabs…hypersensitive snails. Similes to feel about
with the hands
13. The blood spattering upon my chest. To send out small particles or drops 14. Knock his guts out. Hyperbole
15. He kept coming, bringing the rank sharp violence of stale sweat. Transferred epithet 16. I felt myself bombarded with punches. To attack with or as with bombs metaphor
17. I lunged for a yellow coin lying on the blue design of the carpet… . to make a sudden forward
thrust,
18. I could contain the electricity. To check the power of something 19. I was seared through the deepest levels… to burn something with a sudden powerful heat, etc 20. I was limp as a dish rag. Simile
21. I gulped it down, blood, saliva and all. To swallow hastily in large amounts
22. …brass pocket tokens advertising a certain make of automobile. A particular type of product, made by one company
23. I would fall of weariness. To be killed
24. and one of the things that came to mind was an anecdote that Robert Oppenheimer used to tell about himself. To be remembered
25. …I will elaborate. To explain in great detail
26. However, he was, and remained, an enigma. A perplexing or seemingly inexplicable person 27. Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were… to set in
competition against
28. She was finding it pretty rough going… progress toward a goal 29. She had resigned a lucrative job … profitable
30. …where she might have a chance to talk with other people who were in the same boat. Share the same adverse circumstances
31. I became fascinated by Spender’s obsession with Auden. Captivate
32. ….before Dirac came on one of his perennial visits. Recurring; constantly
33. Spender’s journal entry on his visit is fascinating both for what it says and for what it does not say . records or register
34. …after I …had been summoned to the interview while still covered in grime… sooty or dirt 35. …one of those skulls which were specially elongated by the Egyptians. Stretched
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36. His expression is radiant and at the same time ascetic. Self-denying
37. …Oppenheimer’s eyes, which had a kind of wary luminescence. Any cold or glowing light 38. Oppenheimer appears in Spender’s journal as a disembodied figure… soul or spirit separated
from the body
39. like Einstein, he had no school or following … people to follow him or students 40. I have cobbled something together abut physics and writing. Put together crudely 41. He …left as soon as it was over, along with the minuscule audience… very small, tiny 42. I was now thoroughly out of sorts ,,, unhappy, angry 43. Finally, after one particularly egregious “list”, I raised my hand. Remarkably bad; irony
44. For in his late poetry there is a rather crotchety persona into whose carpet slippers some
ambitious young man with a technique as accomplished could slip. Eccentric or bad-tempered, metaphor
45. Now is the time to look at the van Gogh. Metonymy
46. Both are swept along by the tide of unanticipated genius as it rushed past the merely very
good. metaphor
47. It was a long journey toward the dawn, and it led to a golden age. Pun
48. They acquired horses, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground. Metaphor
49. The Rockies is luxuriant with flax and buckwheat… be rich in 50. The oldest deity ranging after the solstices. Metonymy
51. they must wean their blood from the northern winter…Metaphor, withdraw gradually from 52. However tenuous their well-being, … thin
53. In order to consummate the ancient sacrifice- … make it perfect
54. …of something that is, and is not, like urgency in the human voice. Paradox
55. Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room,… entranced, Metaphor, 56. All colors wear soon away in the wind and rain, and then the wood is burned gray …Metaphor, exhausted by time
57. The windowpanes are black and opaque; not transparent
58. There were frequent prayer meetings, and great nocturnal feasts. Of night 59. Anthrax panic sends Congress running from its chambers. Metonymy
60. …a growing chorus of dissenting voices who reject paranoia and hubris and question the rush toward becoming a security state. Arrogant pride or presumption
61. There is a dialectic afoot in the country, a stirring of peaceful purpose … in operation
62. The new zeitgeist even has Ally McBeal registering concern about world events. To show as by facial expression
63. The most visible symptom of our profound psychological trauma is a zealous new patriotism.
Irony
. Not only do such activities compromise the nation’s integrity at home but they are sure to
undermine American credibility abroad. Moral uprightness
65. Would it not be wise, patriotic even, for said nation to cut back on its oil consumption?
Rhetoric question; reduce
66. There was a relaxing of the rampant materialism, along with its ugly stepsisters isolation.
Widespread; Metaphor,
67. This Frankensteinian creation asserts that consumption is an American value, extols the
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nepenthean powers of the dollar and in effect. Antonomasia; praise highly 68. But not everyone is content to shut up and shop. Alliteration ;
69. We tend these images like poisonous flowers in a nightmare garden simile
70. From insecurity to confidence, from national paranoia to collective poise? Alliteration;
contrast
71. He and his fellow passengers did not let what must have been abject fear prevent them from acting… of the most contemptible kind 72.
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