Essay on Corkscrew
Essay on Corkscrew
In this extract, from the short story of “Corkscrew” by Dashiell Hammett, we are conveyed a sense of harshness and loneliness of the area as well as from its inhabitants, and so the main character seems to have difficulties in adapting to the new environment which he clearly has not previously faced.
First of all, the main character is brought up to the Arizona desert, and immediately we are suggested that the character we’ll strongly face the difficulties that arise form an extreme weather desert, and so the use of description and first person narration, “we”, chosen by the author strongly brings up this idea. The passage already starts by reflecting the idea of the weather “boiling like a coffeepot”, which is a powerful simile describing the suffocating atmosphere of the Arizona desert as everything appears to be ready to explode. Moreover, the writer contributes on creating this atmosphere by the use of cacophonous sounds when referring to the “cactus-spiked sage-studded” that is not poetic at all, with an absence of a melodious tone, creating a mini explosion sound as well as the strong diction referring to the heat “blowing up” everything into “one explosive flash”, which suits the aggressive tone of the location. Also, the use of the superlative contribute on emphasising the hotness of the place as it highlights how the sun and its position harshen the atmosphere of it since “the higher it got, the larger and hotter it got”. Besides, the journey appears to seem eternal when a transition stage takes place between the lines 14 and 15, as the journey seems to have no ends due to the writer using long sentences with more than two verbs and so implying that we are being guided as a tourist, explaining his way through step by step.
Secondly, the image we get from both the desert as from the town is that of an isolated area, with no signs of life except those of the main character, the driver and some flora randomly dispersed. Right at the
In this extract, from the short story of “Corkscrew” by Dashiell Hammett, we are conveyed a sense of harshness and loneliness of the area as well as from its inhabitants, and so the main character seems to have difficulties in adapting to the new environment which he clearly has not previously faced.
First of all, the main character is brought up to the Arizona desert, and immediately we are suggested that the character we’ll strongly face the difficulties that arise form an extreme weather desert, and so the use of description and first person narration, “we”, chosen by the author strongly brings up this idea. The passage already starts by reflecting the idea of the weather “boiling like a coffeepot”, which is a powerful simile describing the suffocating atmosphere of the Arizona desert as everything appears to be ready to explode. Moreover, the writer contributes on creating this atmosphere by the use of cacophonous sounds when referring to the “cactus-spiked sage-studded” that is not poetic at all, with an absence of a melodious tone, creating a mini explosion sound as well as the strong diction referring to the heat “blowing up” everything into “one explosive flash”, which suits the aggressive tone of the location. Also, the use of the superlative contribute on emphasising the hotness of the place as it highlights how the sun and its position harshen the atmosphere of it since “the higher it got, the larger and hotter it got”. Besides, the journey appears to seem eternal when a transition stage takes place between the lines 14 and 15, as the journey seems to have no ends due to the writer using long sentences with more than two verbs and so implying that we are being guided as a tourist, explaining his way through step by step.
Secondly, the image we get from both the desert as from the town is that of an isolated area, with no signs of life except those of the main character, the driver and some flora randomly dispersed. Right at the