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Bilgewater: Foregrounded features
Task E - our answer
This is another example of the use of the personifying metaphor to help
indicate the keen, hyper-aware perceptions of the candidate, through whose
eyes we see most of the things described in the passage.
The trees are subject to a dynamic, transitive verb 'swinging', which
thus personifies them, as it is normal for this transitive verb to have
human subjects. In addition to that, the noun phrase acting as the object
of 'swinging' involves another metaphor: 'long, black ropes'. Trees do
not have ropes, which are human artefacts. But they can have branches
which reach down to the water (willow trees are like this, and Cambridge
is well known to have lots of willow trees along the river as well as
in other areas). So effectively the metaphorisation of the branches as
ropes underlines the personification of the trees, and helps to make us
feel that Bilgewater's perception of the scene is fresh and acute.
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