Reference no: EM133434240
Case Study: As you read the following essay, highlight the literary devices that the author uses.
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness -- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
Questions: Read the five-paragraph essay carefully and then answer the following questions.
1. Tell what this essay is about in a sentence or two. Explain how the structure of the essay relates to the topic.
2. Underline the topic sentence of each paragraph.
3. In paragraph 1, why is the Simile "like great winds" a good comparison?
4. (a) In paragraph 2, Bold the transitional words or phrases.
(b) Summarize, in your own words, the three reasons the author sought love.
(c) Why does the last sentence of this paragraph have a great deal of emphasis?
5. How is paragraph 3 like paragraph 2 in its structure?
6. Show that the concluding sentences of paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 relate to each other.
7. Is the concluding paragraph a good one? Why or why not? Explain.
8. Berrand Russell has used the principle of "3s" often in this essay. Find as many examples as you can of 3-fold structure, in paragraphs or in sentences, in this essay.
(use the highlighter tool in your answer for number# 8. Different colours if necessary)