Old Leisure - Literary Devices :: essays research papers

History has seen advancements in technology, philosophy, and industry, all of which radically changed the lives of those witnessing such developments. Slower, more relaxed lifestyles have given focal point to lifestyles of a faster paced nature. George Eliot describes her preference for the leisure of the past, conveying the message that the rushed leisure of her time is hardly leisure at all. She accomplishes this by using some(prenominal) stylistic devices, including personification, imagery, and diction.The most obvious stylistic device used by Eliot is that of personification. She uses this device to create two people from her thoughts on old and new leisure. The clenched fist person is cutting unfilled, who we can infer to be part of the growth of industry in the 19th century. He is eager and interested in science, politics, and philosophy. He reads enkindle novels and leads a hurried life, attempting to do many things at once. Such characteristics help us to create an ima ge of New Leisure as Eliot sees him. one-time(a) Leisure is quite contrasting to New Leisure. Being a stout country squire of the 18th century, he is laid back, simple minded, well fed, and financially well off. He reads but one newspaper and favors Sunday services that "allow him to sleep." "He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus." He is not b differented by his "inability to know the causes of things" and sleeps "the sleep of the irresponsible." Eliot describes centenarian Leisure more than New Leisure because todays readers are familiar enough with living a life as hurried and fast paced as New Leisures. Her description of Old Leisure is nostalgic of a slower paced way of life.While Eliot uses human characteristics and actions to describe Old and New Leisure, she also creates images of both personages to further depict their contrasting lifestyles. The images of Old Leisure inclu de him "scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine." They also depict portraits of life in Old Leisures era as "slow waggons," "spinning wheels," and "pedlars, who brought bargains to the portal on a sunny afternoon." They also tell of how Old Leisure "fingered the guineas in his pocket" and was "fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree wall."New Leisure, on the other hand, does not live in a world where such images are present. He is ""prone to cursory peeps through microscopes" and is "prone to excursion- trains, art museums, periodical literature, and exciting novels.