Read the passage
read this excerpt from "the great san
francisco fire."
the great san francisco fire
the blaze soon roared like a seething,
famished beast lapping up its spoils.
how does the author's use of the phrase
seething, famished beast affect the passage?
it stresses the passage's
catastrophic tone.
the san francisco earthquake of 1906 was
one of america's largest natural disasters.
the shaking lasted only 45 to 60 seconds,
but it caused many of the brick and wooden
buildings to collapse, trapping many victims.
but the worst was yet to come. the tremors
from the earthquake had ruptured gas lines.
the quake also destroyed the entire fire
alarm system in the city. at the time, glass
wet batteries were used for the alarms.
these were glass jars full of electrolytic
solution with copper electrodes. of the 600
glass wet batteries that operated the system,
556 of them had broken. within a few hours
of the quake, 52 fires broke out, but no alarm
was ever sounded for the fires.
it create an uneasy tone
it shifts the tone from intense to
absurd
it gives the passage a somber
tone.