World picture and its types

convergence of stylistic devices, i.e. an accumulation of stylistic devices and expressive means within one fragment of the text.

As is known, the convergence of stylistic devices is one of the means of foregrounding, regarded as a cognitive procedure of selecting the most essential, relevant information; it stands out as a stimulus or “key” in the process of text interpretation. In this respect the selection of stylistic devices by O. Henry such as metaphors, metonymies, similes and epithets presents his unique way of the world representation. The stylistic devices created by O. Henry are diverse and conceptually relevant.

"This town", said he, "is a leech. It drains the blood of the country. Whoever comes to it accepts a challenge to a duel. Abandoning the figure of the leech, it is a juggernaut, a Moloch, a monster to which the innocence, the genius, and the beauty of the land must pay tribute. Hand to hand every newcomer must struggle with the leviathan. You've lost, Billy. It shall never conquer me. I hate it as one hates sin or pestilence or — the color work in a ten-cent magazine. I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw. It has caught you, old man, but I will never run beside its chariot wheels. It glosses itself as the Chinaman glosses his collars. Give me the domestic finish. I could stand a town ruled by wealth or one ruled by an aristocracy; but this is one controlled by its lowest ingredients (O’Henry, the Duel).

The extract describes one of the most famous cities of America – the city of New-York, and that accounts for its cultural significance. The convergence of stylistic devices (metaphor, gradation, oxymoron) emotionally emphasize contrasts, contradictions of this megapolis, its greatness and misery, richness and poverty, power and weakness. This effect is achieved by the excessive use of oxymorons expressing the author’s ironical and sarcastic vision of the described phenomenon.

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