Part A
Read this section from An American Childhood (paragraphs 13 and
14) to identify and analyze figurative language. Then answer the
follow-up questions.
The walls squeaked, the pipes knocked, the screen door trembled, the
furnace banged, and the radiators clanged. This was the fall the loud
trucks went by. I sat mindless and eternal on the kitchen floor, stony of
head and solemn, playing with my fingers. Time streamed in full flood
beside me on the kitchen floor; time roared raging beside me down its
swollen banks; and when I woke I was so started I fell in.
What extended figurative comparison does Dillard make in this passage,
and for what purpose?
O A She compares Time to a river to illustrate her sudden awareness of its
passage and her own existence within its flow.
B. She compares herself to a diver to describe what it is like to wake up from
a particularly bad nightmare.
C. She compares the noises around her to a flood to show how her senses
were overstimulated and overwhelmed.
D. She compares an appliance to the friend she wishes she had in her solitary
childhood to show how lonely she was.
Part B
Which passage from the text best supports your answer to Part A?
Who could ever tire of this heart-stopping transition of this
breakthrough shift between seeing and knowing you see, between
being and knowing you be? It drives you to a life of concentration, it
does, a life in which effort draws you down so very deep that when you
surface you twist up exhilarated with a yelp and a gasp.
O A 'The walls squeaked, the pipes knocked, the screen door trembled, the
furnace banged, and the radiators clanged."
B. "I sat mindless and eternal on the kitchen floor, stony of head and solemn.
playing with my fingers."
C. Time streamed in full flood beside me on the kitchen floor, time roared
raging beside me down its swollen banks; and when I woke I was so
startled I fell in
D. "It drives you to a life of concentration, it does, a life in which effort draws
you down so very deep that when you surface you twist up exhilarated
with a yelp and a gasp."