Richard Adams creates imagery with similes, metaphors, and personification. Some
examples of similes are: Pg. 12 "I can feel the danger like a wire around my neck." It's a
simile because it uses "like" and it compares the feeling of danger to a wire around his
neck. Pg. 6 "...something oppressive, like thunder." It's a simile because it uses "like" and
compares something oppressive to thunder. Some examples of metaphors are: Pg. 23
"Slipping across the moonlight patches as fugitives." It's a metaphor because it's saying
that they ARE fugitives. Some examples of personification are: Pg. 30 "Fear driving him
on..." It's personification because it's giving fear a human characteristic. Some sensory
details would be touch and see. An example for see would be: Pg. 3 (beginning of the
story) "Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped down..."
It shows us what the edge of the wood looked like with words like "sloped" and "open".
An example for touch would be: Pg. "He had a curious, heavy growth of fur on the crown
of his head..." It helps us feel that his head is large with words like "heavy growth".
Verisimilitude is the quality of seeming to be true. It is necessary in a novel because it
gives the setting and characters a comparison to the human world and it makes us believe
that the setting could be a true place. Some examples that show verisimilitude are their
own language, the social structure and the legends or myths. An example of their
language, (which in this case is the Lapine language) would be: Pg. 35 “I’ll swim the
embleer river as many times as you like.” Embleer means stinking. An example of the
social structure would be: Pg. 11 “Owlsa like Toadflax might threaten and bully. The
Threarah had no need.” He’s comparing how the Owlsa, who I predict are very high in
the hierarchy, would probably bully and be mean. But, the Threarah had no need to bully
the others. (The Threarah is probably the leader.) An example of legends or myths would
be: Pg. 26 “Frith made the world. He made all the stars too and the world is one of those
stars. He made them by scattering his droppings over the sky and this is why the grass
and grow so thick on the world.” This is like the legend of Paul Bunion or Santa Claus.
When Adams has his character Bigwig quote about swimming across the embleer river as
many times as they would like him to, he acts as if swimming is bad for them. In the
packet, swimming is very odd for them to do. They usually like to stay on land and swim
when needed. This is also quoted in the book. The use of verisimilitude gives the reader
an understanding and a picture of what this place is like and how it looks. It gives that
effect of that you could actually swim across the Enborne River and you would be close
to Cowslips warren and the road where they found the dead yona (hedgehog) in the
middle of the road.
Feedback:
Hannah – The imagery BCR asked you to explain how imagery helps to develop the
setting (place) and to create a mood. One of your examples has imagery and develops
setting, “Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open and sloped
down…” For this example, if you had included more of that passage instead of stopping
and putting in the …... then you would have also been able to include some words that
create a mood or feeling in the novel. I’m glad that you recognize that similes, metaphors,
and personification can help to develop imagery; however, your examples do not help to
develop the setting; most of the figurative language that you chose helps to develop the
conflicts or problems in the book. Focus on what the question is asking you to do.
I like how you write that verisimilitude “makes us believe that the setting could be a true
place”! Good job! How does the word “embleer” create the believability of the setting?
Why do rabbits need a word for “stinking”? How does the word sound like a word that
rabbits might use for something negative about their world? How does having a social
structure make this fantasy world more believable to human readers? Include the passage
about rabbits swimming from the book. I love your description of the setting at the end;
Adams’ map helps to create the verisimilitude of these places, as well.
Some of the multiple choice questions that I missed were numbers 8, 14,
18, 19, 20, 23.
To be able to get the question right I should pay more attention to the
details in the book.
I understand imagery but It’s a little hard for me to “off the top of my
head” understand if it’s an allusion or something different. I can explain
what the mood is. Verisimilitude is the quality of how believable
something is. Verisimilitude is easy for me to find because I know how
to connect things to the human world. To improve my BCR responses I
could (like you said) use more from the text! It would really help. I
think I didn’t use a lot from the text because, to be honest, I really
didn’t want to write down all of that passage. As for analyzing mood and
stuff I could try to be better with it by using passages from the text
and using prior knowledge