Thursday, February 11, 2010
Home Run
I’m not sure what possessed me then, but it was just one of those dog day afternoons when I decided not to take the big old red bus; I sprinted across the road briskly, past the rows of swanky restaurants, malls and offices thronged with a sea of well dressed professionals, along the row of shop houses that were overflowing with the delightful scent of saffron and cinnamon, through the empty soccer pitch strewn with tawny leaves and onto a sturdy stone bridge that towered above the bustling highway, leading me to a narrow, helical staircase which I bounded up, inadvertently brushing past a weary old man hobbling with a hefty load of newspapers; Sorry I say, it is just one of those days, and I earnestly burst through the wooden door, only to step into the quietness and eventual realization that once again, I was alone.
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The sentence is a vivid description of a common life scenario: driven by an inexplicable impulse, the author rushes along the road, passing through various settings and finally realizing the aloneness. The author speaks in the first person, which makes audiences easy to follow and the author’s feeling substantial because the semantic meaning of the sentence is gradually revealed as the description develops.
ReplyDeleteBeginning with” I am not sure what possessed me”, the sentence involves a loose syntax with subject “I” and link verb “am” at the beginning. The advantage of a loose syntax is that it can evoke the audiences’ interest to expect the reward of following advancement of a sentence. For example, in this sentence, I will ask myself in my mind, what will happen to the author afterwards when he is driven by an impulse out of no reason? For a long sentence like this, it is sensible to choose such syntax or readers. Had the author begins the sentence with the pieces of description of settings, such as the sea of professionals, scent of cinnamon, tawny leaves on soccer pitch, etc., readers may lose patience to follow because these descriptions do not make sense to them.
But actually, these descriptions of various settings are amazingly vivid because they visualize the language and the stationary scenes that the author witnesses as he/she runs through the road. The sparkling points of these descriptions are the detailed portrayal and the balanced structure. Obviously, the detailed portrayal is manifested in the abundant adverbs and attributive clauses, both serving the function of modifying; these modifying components, such as “along the houses that were overflowing with delightful scent”, “through the soccer pitch strewn with tawny leaves”, “bustling highway” etc., are drawing readers into the scenes witnessed by the author and are converting language into visual pictures. Without these modifying components, however, language like “along the house”, “through the soccer pitch”, and “above the highway” can be very pale and unattractive. Also, the whole description has very balanced structure that differentiates the language from dull and flat style. The three modifying components, “past the row…well dressed professionals”, “along the row of…saffron and cinnamon”, and “through the empty ….with tawny leaves”, all have corresponding words and clauses echoing in each; they all start with preposition, past, along and through; they have the attributive clauses or phrases to modify which give more details to the scenes; It is because of these modifying details and balanced structure that make the sentence very impressive.
After the wonderful details portrayal, the author shows the real idea of the whole sentence: he/she comes into quietness, again realizing the aloneness. From this perspective, I think the sentence is a periodic sentence, which leaves the truth to the end after rewarding audiences so much through drawing them into the scenes. The short ending, “I was alone”, while revealing the emotion of the author, also surprises the audiences the same way a movie unexpectedly ends at its climax. The result is: those wonderful scenes still resonate in audiences’ mind.