Stylistic Analysis of a Passage from "Bleak House".
In this selection from the "Bleak House", Mr. Dickens effectively uses cohesion, independent clauses, and lexical sets to set up his story. This passage flows very smoothly with his transitions from one sentence to another. Throughout the first paragraph you find cohesion when he repeatedly uses the word "fog" to begin his sentences and then later on uses it to link his ideas together(1). "Fog" occurs repeatedly throughout the passage thus making it easy for the reader to comprehend the idea that Dickens is trying to get across.
Mr. Dickens also repeatedly uses independent clauses in his sentences to create a very vivid description of the scenery. On multiple occasions in the selection you find that Dickens has used compound sentences joined together with a semicolon, and example is, "Fog creeping into the caboose of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats"(1). This sentence structure really puts a lot more emphasis on what the fog was doing. While analyzing the structure of the sentences the reader must take notice of his verb choice. Throughout the selection he uses with verbs ending with -ing to set the time as being in the present. .
His verb choice combined with the sentence structure describing the town sets a very good image in the readers head but would be incomplete without Dickens use of lexical sets. The most noticeable lexical set is that when he is describing the town and its current state. He includes the words: "pollution", "dirty", "drooping", "unwilling", etc (1). These words really make the reader picture how the town must look when it's overwhelmed with this fog and dirtiness.
Mr. Dickens really sets the stage for the rest of his book in the first few paragraphs with his use of lexical sets to vividly describe the town, his sentence structure and verb choice to clarify the time and setting, and the cohesion to make sure this entire passage flows smoothly.
