Verbs are a special part of speech. Although verbs are usually associated with the expression of an action, their functions in the language are much more multifaceted. Writers often use verbs to animate the events depicted. For example, the main thrust of The Heat of the Day by Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen is the chaos of war. One passage deserves special attention. What is the role of predicate verbs here? How do they help bring the picture to life?
It is necessary
Excerpt from the book "The Heat of the Day": "Overhead, an enemy plane had been dragging, drumming slowly round in the pool of night, drawing up bursts of gunfire - nosing, pausing, turning, fascinated by the point for its intent."
Instructions
Step 1
Simultaneously saving language and conveying the inner state of the heroes, Bowen writes: "Overhead, an enemy plane had been dragging …"
The economy consists in the fact that the past accomplished long verb tense is used, which conveys both the present and the past - an action performed up to the present moment. The heroes seemed to have just heard an enemy plane, and in fact it was circling over their heads for a long time. The fact that they were unaware of him before adds horror to their awareness. And, of course, the very verb drag (to drag) alludes to the exhausting, exhausting state that accompanies hostilities.
Step 2
"… Drumming slowly round in the pool of night,.."
Comparing the noise of a motor with a drumbeat and, at the same time, a fish making a noise similar to the sound of a drum, evokes a sense of danger, relentlessness, but at the same time lethargy. On a metaphorical level, the verb turns an airplane into a fish swimming in a pond at night. So, through the verb, personification occurs, however, not without the participation of a circumstance that helps to associate the night with a pond, and an airplane with a fish. Without this pond at night, the plane would have remained a drumming engine.
Step 3
"… Drawing up bursts of gunfire,.."
Alliteration of the verbs dragging, drumming, drawing brings together the first three turns in a sentence. Added to this is the special effect of onomatopoeia conveyed by the repetition of the combination of letters dr. In English, there is a word drip-drop, meaning the sound of dripping water. Given the imagery of the depicted, one can imagine that the sky is a pond with fish, water drips from there. It is clear that this is not an objective reality, but an internal state conveyed by images. The noise of an airplane appears and disappears, and acts on the nerves like dripping water.
Still happening in the past accomplished long time, leaving the reader floating somewhere in the air, creating a powerful and heavy backdrop. The plane attracts cannon fires, and a connection of the heavenly with the earth, but not yet with the human, appears.
Step 4
"… Nosing, pausing, turning,.."
And again, the incompleteness of the action is conveyed by the same verb tense, and the plane continues its movement. And now the verbs are in a sentence one after another, whereas before that each verb opened a whole series of dependent words. This closeness of predicate verbs intensifies the atmosphere of expectation of something dangerous and scary.
Step 5
"… Fascinated by the point for its intent."
Finally, the listing of verbs and their dependent words comes to an end, but the action does not end there. Fascinated is no longer a predicate verb, but a participle, here inside a turnover. Shocked by its own pursuit, the fish-plane that curious, stopped and turned around, acts on the reader like music in a thriller at a moment when the irreparable is about to happen.
This tension is created in this text by the verbs, while adding a special dimension of imagery.
