Stylistic devises

Stylistic devises

To make the story brighter the author used a lot of stylistic devices.

Symbolism: The last leaf is the symbol of 'hope' that empowers a person for having the strength to fight death. Johnsy's believe that the last leaf would make her life too cease with its fall was so firm that no miraculous drug could save her against her rigidity. Behrman's wait for the right time to make his master-piece that he had fancied for so long was over the moment he realized that he had the ability to save a life by inflicting 'hope' in that person's mind. The Last Leaf of the ivy vine had the power to sustain Johnsy's life and Berhman had the power to sustain the last leaf by creating it. This art gave Johnsy the power to sustain her 'hope' to live and indeed, until hope persists.

Lexical devices.

Personification: “One street crosses itself a time or two. Here the features of a person were ascribed to the street.

“The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks”.Here the features of a person were ascribed to the autumn.

“The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.” In this sentence the features of a person were ascribed to the branches.

“In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.”- In these sentence the features of a person were ascribed to the disease.

“ But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.” In this sentence the features of a person were ascribed to the disease.

Epithet:  “ cold stranger, icy fingers, chivalric old gentleman, red-fisted, greedy-self, a jew’s harp twang, a mite of a little woman”

These devices were used to make the text more emotional and reinforce the impression about  a person who is described with the help of epithets.

Simile: “ as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above ,as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock ,she was just like one of those tired leaves, she was lying white as statue ”. Here the simile is used to show the objects, described here more clearly. The comparison of two objects helps us better imagine and understand described object or a person.

Zeugma: “So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents”, “ They had met at the table d'hte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.” Zeugma is used here to create humorous effect.

Irony: “Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony.”, “Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature”- here irony shows a positive attitude of a speaker to the objects, but at the same time expresses a negative evaluation of them.

Comparison: “Why, that’s almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building”. Is used to point out some events.

Oxymoron: “Magnificent scorn”- used by the speaker to show some irony.

Periphrasis: “Ravager, hemmitdunderhead”- used to stress the individual perception of the object.

Parallel construction: “I’m tired of waiting”, “I’m tired of thinking”

Syntactical.

Polysyndeton: “"Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.” It was used to make the sentence more rhythmical.

Repetition: “Old-old, down-down, counting-counting”-used to show the strong emotions of the speaker.