Chap 2 Eslw
2. Chapter Two - Description
Description1 is like a painting where time stands still. Often a writer’s pen (or a computer!) can be stronger than an artist’s painting brush. While a painting in a museum appeals to one sense – sight - skillful descriptive writing can appeal to all 5 senses - sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. Narrative or story telling is closely tied to description. An effective narrative brings description to life. The things described begin to move about and interact in narrative writing. However, description can exist independent of narrative; narrative cannot exist apart from description. You can write a purely descriptive passage, but you cannot write a narrative passage without description. Narrative depends on description, so we begin our study of rhetorical patterns with description.
Description itself is the record of our five senses in vivid language. Generally, descriptive and narrative writing go hand in hand. For example, read the following opening lines from the famous novel of the American Civil War Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men did not realize this when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. Her eyes were green, and her skin was that soft white skin which Southern women valued so highly, and covered so carefully from the hot Georgia sun with hats and gloves. On that bright April afternoon of 1861, sixteen-year-old Scarlett sat in the cool shadows of the house at Tara, her father’s plantation. Stuart and Brent Tarleton sat at each side of her. They were friendly young men with deep red-brown hair, and were clever in the things that mattered in north Georgia at that time - growing good cotton, riding well, shooting and behaving like a gentleman. They looked across the red earth of Gerald O’Hara’s land, which stretched away as far as the eye could see. The white house was like an island in a wild red sea, the earth blood-colored after the rains of recent weeks.
Description1 is like a painting where time stands still. Often a writer’s pen (or a computer!) can be stronger than an artist’s painting brush. While a painting in a museum appeals to one sense – sight - skillful descriptive writing can appeal to all 5 senses - sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. Narrative or story telling is closely tied to description. An effective narrative brings description to life. The things described begin to move about and interact in narrative writing. However, description can exist independent of narrative; narrative cannot exist apart from description. You can write a purely descriptive passage, but you cannot write a narrative passage without description. Narrative depends on description, so we begin our study of rhetorical patterns with description.
Description itself is the record of our five senses in vivid language. Generally, descriptive and narrative writing go hand in hand. For example, read the following opening lines from the famous novel of the American Civil War Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men did not realize this when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. Her eyes were green, and her skin was that soft white skin which Southern women valued so highly, and covered so carefully from the hot Georgia sun with hats and gloves. On that bright April afternoon of 1861, sixteen-year-old Scarlett sat in the cool shadows of the house at Tara, her father’s plantation. Stuart and Brent Tarleton sat at each side of her. They were friendly young men with deep red-brown hair, and were clever in the things that mattered in north Georgia at that time - growing good cotton, riding well, shooting and behaving like a gentleman. They looked across the red earth of Gerald O’Hara’s land, which stretched away as far as the eye could see. The white house was like an island in a wild red sea, the earth blood-colored after the rains of recent weeks.