Sad Boy
Have you ever seen such a quiet child that “it usually took strangers a while to notice him even when they were in the same room with him?” In this non-fiction passage, the author exhibits the unfortunate life of a silent boy called Estha in 3rd person limited with a sympathetic and poignant tone. As for the purpose, the author engages the sympathy of the audience by presenting Estha’s difficulties with an informal register.
Paragraph One narrates how Estha became quiet in childhood. “Quiet” and “silence” are repeated twice perspectively to highlight Estha’s reticence. “Never awkward. Never intrusive. Never noisy” is not only a repetition but also an irony, because if someone keeps silent for a long time others ought to feel uncomfortable and strange. However, the author depicts Estha’s silence as so negligible that nobody cares and therefore evokes the sympathy of the audience. Moreover, the author compares Estha’s “stopped talking altogether” to “a gradual winding down and closing shop” in a metaphor to indicate Estha’s quietness is a process of accumulating that others hardly notice. Thus, this intensifies Estha’s miserable experience and persuades the audience to feel sorry for him.
Paragraph Three expresses Estha began to do housework instead of going to college and delineates his experience of buying vegetables. The author wrote an ellipsis in “he did the sweeping… and all the laundry” to imply that Estha does a great amount of housework and underline his tiring and tragic life. Consequently, this can arouse the readers’ sorry for Estha’s pitiful life. In additional, “a quiet bubble floating on a sea of noise” is a short
sentence which uses metaphor and oxymoron together. First, the author compares Estha to “a quiet bubble” and “the crowded tram” to “a sea of noise.” Second, the author puts two opposize words, “quiet” and “noise” together to form an oxymoron and make a sharp contrast. Both language features emphasize that Estha is always quiet even
Paragraph One narrates how Estha became quiet in childhood. “Quiet” and “silence” are repeated twice perspectively to highlight Estha’s reticence. “Never awkward. Never intrusive. Never noisy” is not only a repetition but also an irony, because if someone keeps silent for a long time others ought to feel uncomfortable and strange. However, the author depicts Estha’s silence as so negligible that nobody cares and therefore evokes the sympathy of the audience. Moreover, the author compares Estha’s “stopped talking altogether” to “a gradual winding down and closing shop” in a metaphor to indicate Estha’s quietness is a process of accumulating that others hardly notice. Thus, this intensifies Estha’s miserable experience and persuades the audience to feel sorry for him.
Paragraph Three expresses Estha began to do housework instead of going to college and delineates his experience of buying vegetables. The author wrote an ellipsis in “he did the sweeping… and all the laundry” to imply that Estha does a great amount of housework and underline his tiring and tragic life. Consequently, this can arouse the readers’ sorry for Estha’s pitiful life. In additional, “a quiet bubble floating on a sea of noise” is a short
sentence which uses metaphor and oxymoron together. First, the author compares Estha to “a quiet bubble” and “the crowded tram” to “a sea of noise.” Second, the author puts two opposize words, “quiet” and “noise” together to form an oxymoron and make a sharp contrast. Both language features emphasize that Estha is always quiet even