from "In Another Country"* In Another Country - by Ernest Hemingway
In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains. We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.
(bold added for emphasis) In The Art of Fiction (Viking, 1992), David Lodge notes that "repetition on this scale would probably receive a black mark in a school 'composition,'" but that Hemingway "breaks the rules" deliberately--to convey a sense of experience as it was experienced, "using simple, denotative language purged of stylistic decoration."
As observed by David Lodge, Hemingway doesn’t concentrate on composing a grammatically perfect and eloquent passage in this text. Rather he focuses on producing a clear picture of the scenery through his use of imagery. Furthermore, the repetition and polysyndeton in this passage (especially with the word and) serves to provide a quick, continuous flow between ideas and sequences. In this way, Hemingway’s writing isn’t bogged down unnecessarily with complex phrasing or extravagant words. The author expresses his thoughts plainly but effectively.
The Grapes of Wrath - by John Steinbeck
“In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet. The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people, lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust hung like a fog, and the sun was red as ripe new blood. All day the sun sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees. The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, dying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men’s faces secretly, for the corn would go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in their dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women know that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, What’ll we do? And the men replied, I don’t know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still—thinking—figuring.”
The novel The Grapes of Wrath is set during the Dust Bowl period of America, lasting roughly from 1930 to 1936. The Dust Bowl was a period of terrible drought and dust storms throughout the Great Plains. In this excerpt from the first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck is expressing the effects of the Dust Bowl on the common Midwest farmer.
The author makes use of polysyndeton to emphasize his style of realism throughout the chapter. Steinbeck repeats the word “and” instead of inserting other conjunctions or phrases between ideas. Steinbeck tends to use polysyndeton in the context of cause-and-effect, as in the three highlighted examples. This furthers the author’s simplistic style. In effect, all he is doing in this passage is describing a scene in a farmer’s life in Oklahoma. He is not analyzing actions or explaining why events are taking place in this passage – all he is doing is painting a portrait with words.
The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter 3)
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.
By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.
In this passage, the narrator Nick is describing the extravagant party hosted by Gatsby at his house. The author’s use of polysyndeton serves to express the overwhelming excessiveness of the entire scene. For example, the repetitive use of the conjunction “and” is used to link together the different instruments of the orchestra. The author gives a concrete example of Gatsby’s use of wealth: he has so much money that he is able to hire a monstrous variety of musicians at his own private party. In the final two sentences of the excerpt, the word “and” is used to describe the multitude of images and events going on at the party. Polysyndeton is especially effective in portraying the bar scene, in which people are constantly conversing with each other, yet there is no substance to their discussions. In this way, Fitzgerald highlights the problem with money; it can buy you anything you want, but in the end, is that really what’s important? The “women who never knew each other’s name” do not connect with each other on a personal level because they are spoiled by their lives of luxury.
In Another Country - by Ernest Hemingway
In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.
(bold added for emphasis)
In The Art of Fiction (Viking, 1992), David Lodge notes that "repetition on this scale would probably receive a black mark in a school 'composition,'" but that Hemingway "breaks the rules" deliberately--to convey a sense of experience as it was experienced, "using simple, denotative language purged of stylistic decoration."
http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/hemrepstyle078.htm
As observed by David Lodge, Hemingway doesn’t concentrate on composing a grammatically perfect and eloquent passage in this text. Rather he focuses on producing a clear picture of the scenery through his use of imagery. Furthermore, the repetition and polysyndeton in this passage (especially with the word and) serves to provide a quick, continuous flow between ideas and sequences. In this way, Hemingway’s writing isn’t bogged down unnecessarily with complex phrasing or extravagant words. The author expresses his thoughts plainly but effectively.
The Grapes of Wrath - by John Steinbeck
“In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet. The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people, lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust hung like a fog, and the sun was red as ripe new blood. All day the sun sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees.
The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, dying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men’s faces secretly, for the corn would go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in their dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women know that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, What’ll we do? And the men replied, I don’t know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still—thinking—figuring.”
The novel The Grapes of Wrath is set during the Dust Bowl period of America, lasting roughly from 1930 to 1936. The Dust Bowl was a period of terrible drought and dust storms throughout the Great Plains. In this excerpt from the first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck is expressing the effects of the Dust Bowl on the common Midwest farmer.
The author makes use of polysyndeton to emphasize his style of realism throughout the chapter. Steinbeck repeats the word “and” instead of inserting other conjunctions or phrases between ideas. Steinbeck tends to use polysyndeton in the context of cause-and-effect, as in the three highlighted examples. This furthers the author’s simplistic style. In effect, all he is doing in this passage is describing a scene in a farmer’s life in Oklahoma. He is not analyzing actions or explaining why events are taking place in this passage – all he is doing is painting a portrait with words.
The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter 3)
At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.
By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names.
In this passage, the narrator Nick is describing the extravagant party hosted by Gatsby at his house. The author’s use of polysyndeton serves to express the overwhelming excessiveness of the entire scene. For example, the repetitive use of the conjunction “and” is used to link together the different instruments of the orchestra. The author gives a concrete example of Gatsby’s use of wealth: he has so much money that he is able to hire a monstrous variety of musicians at his own private party. In the final two sentences of the excerpt, the word “and” is used to describe the multitude of images and events going on at the party. Polysyndeton is especially effective in portraying the bar scene, in which people are constantly conversing with each other, yet there is no substance to their discussions. In this way, Fitzgerald highlights the problem with money; it can buy you anything you want, but in the end, is that really what’s important? The “women who never knew each other’s name” do not connect with each other on a personal level because they are spoiled by their lives of luxury.