The Lucid Eye in Silver Town free essay sample

This extract tells of thirteen-year-old Jay August’s one-day visit to New York City from the perspective of his adult self. Quincy is unsure of the location of a good New York bookstore, having been gone from the city for most of the past fifteen years, but he directs the taxi driver to Forty-Second Street and Sixth Avenue. Arriving there, the driver lets his passengers out near a small park. Jay finds the park inviting, with its pigeons and benches and â€Å"office girls in their taut summer dresses,† and leads his father and uncle into the grounds. Standing in the park, looking up at the New York skyline, Jay suddenly feels something â€Å"sharp and hard† fall into his eye. Seeing the boy’s distress, Martin suggests he and Quincy take Jay out of the wind; perhaps he can find whatever has fallen into his son’s eye. Quincy, however, insists that they return to the hotel and find a doctor to examine Jay’s eye. We will write a custom essay sample on The Lucid Eye in Silver Town or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Reluctantly, Martin defers to his brother. Arriving at the hotel, Jay is embarrassed as he is herded through the lobby by his father and his uncle. He tries to look â€Å"passably suave† even though his eye is shut and his face is probably red. Jay is appalled when his father shares his plight with an â€Å"old bum† in the lobby: â€Å"Poor kid got something in his eye. † Back in the hotel room, Quincy calls for a doctor. With a clean handkerchief, Martin attempts to remove whatever happens to be in Jay’s eye, but his son pushes him away. In pain, Jay refuses to open his eye. He wants to wait for the doctor. Narrator Jay August’s understanding of himself as a boy of thirteen shows it is he who finally sees most clearly. Looking back, Jay recognizes—sometimes wryly—the boy he had been, a â€Å"poor kid† from a small Pennsylvania town, one filled with restless longing and pseudo-sophistication. For the young Jay August, New York had been â€Å"the silver town. † Watching the â€Å"shimmering buildings† as they â€Å"arrowed upward and glinted through the treetops,† he had felt â€Å"towers of ambition, crystalline† rise within himself. The author uses this epithet â€Å"crystalline† for interpretation of the title of the text, where New York is called a Silver Town. Let’s look through the stylistic devices which the author uses in this extract. The stylistic device most prominent in the text is epithet. The boy’s feelings get home to the reader due to this stylistic device. In the description of the mark we can observe such epithets as â€Å"inviting† but the author also uses the metaphor â€Å"agreeably dusty† and it can serve as the contrast between these two words. The repetition of the word â€Å"and† can help us to concentrate on the description of events which take place in the park: â€Å"with the pigeons and the men nodding on the benches and the office girls in their tout summer dresses†¦Ã¢â‚¬  The author attracts out attention to the buildings. The epithet â€Å"shimmering† the metaphors â€Å"arrowed† and â€Å"rose† are aimed to create the atmosphere of a big city, which is like a dream, especially for people from the countryside. The author uses the parallelism in the sentence â€Å"one of them would take my hand, or put one of theirs on my shoulder, but I would walk faster, and the hands would drop away†. This similarity makes it easier for the reader to concentrate on the message. And this message describes the way to the hotel. It is obvious that the boy would like to look older and he didn’t want somebody to know about his problem. It can prove the fact that this boy is quite brave and patient. For describing the boy’s feelings the author uses simile: â€Å"it feel like a steel chip, deeply embedded†. But nevertheless the boy didn’t cry and complain. He tried not to worry his â€Å"guardians†: â€Å"It’ll work out† – he said. The general slant of the text can be characterized as emotional, because the author concentrates on the reaction of the main characters.