Figures based on Construction

 Figures based on Construction 

1. Interrogation or Erotesis : In this figure a strong affirmation, or often a strong affirmation of the contrary , is implied under the form of an earnest interrogation. In this figure the question is asked not to get an answer but to create a dramatic effect. 

This figure of Speech is often used for following purposes : 

i) for expressing doubts or difficulties that is not quite easy to remove 

Examples: 

A. Was I not born in the realm? Were my parents born in any foreign country? Is not my kingdom here? Whom have I oppressed? Whom have I enriched to other's harm?

B. "To be, or not to be, that is the question;

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them?"

ii)For expressing wonder 

Examples: 

A. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium"

B.And is this—Yarrow?—This the stream

Of which my fancy cherished,

So faithfully, a waking dream?

iii) For making a conditional statement

Examples 

A. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely, Unostentatiously? In all probability he is not a king. 

B. Can we make men immortal ? Or the world eternal? Then not to talk of human power. 

2. Exclamation: This figure consists in the abrupt expression of emotion,the language of wish or of contemplation.

Examples:

i) "But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!"

ii) “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

3. Chiasmus : Chiasmus is a figure of speech in which the grammar of one phrase is inverted in the following phrase, such that two key concepts from the original phrase reappear in the second phrase in inverted order to make a statement more impressive and emphatic. 

Examples: 

i)Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

ii) And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

4. Zeugma :Zeugma is a figure of Speech in which one verb is connected with two nouns, to each of which a separate verb should probably be supplied. 

Examples: 

i) The feast and noon grew high.

ii) The moment and vessel passed.

• Difference between zeugma and the condensed sentence 

In a condensed sentence a sort of common structure joins two different words producing a comparatively comic effect than zeugma, whereas in zeugma the effect is not comic and the ideas are not absurd. 

Examples: 

i) Some kill partridges and others only time. (The Condensed sentence)

ii) He opened his mind and his wallet every time he went. (Zeugma) 

In the former example a common structure joins two words, producing a comic effect whereas in the later sentence two nouns mind and wallet are joined with a verb opened but not to have a comic effect. 

Exercises 

1. "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?”

2.What a piece of work man is! 

3. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

4. My God! Those are some wonderfully great dictators who cannot dictate their fortunes! 

5. The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

6. Oh my God! What a brilliant catch!

7. He carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men.

8. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

9. How sad it is to cry alone!

10. "Another thing that disturbs me about the American church is that you have a white church and a Negro church. How can segregation exist in the true Body of Christ?”

11. You are free to execute your law and your citizen as per your wish. 

12. "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"