Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the weight of the snow. I knew that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill. It looked exanimate enough, with its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load... About a mile farther, on a road I had never traveled, we came to an orchard of starved apple trees writhing over a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow like animals pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farmhouses that make the landscape lonelier... ...The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery sunlight exposed the house on the slope above us in all its plaintive ugliness. The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin, wooden walls, under their worn coat of pain, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow. --Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome 1. One of the purposes of a descriptive essay is to create a dominant mood. What is the mood of the above selection? 2. Provide several examples (at least 5) of connotative language Wharton uses to create this mood. 3. Provide examples of two additional rhetorical techniques that help to create the mood and explain how each technique accomplishes this task... 4. Description essays also serve the purpose of providing a vivid record of a writer's experience through the use of concrete, sensory detail. Provide an example of Wharton's use of sensory concrete detail. Provide an example of Wharton's use of sensory concrete detail for each of the five senses. If a certain sense is not used, indicate as much. 5. Which sense does Wharton appeal to most frequently? Provide two examples from the passage. 6. Which sense does Wharton appeal to most effectively? 7. Explain the reasoning behind your response to #6 and provide the most effective example. 8. Wharton makes use of personification--particularly in the second paragraph. Underline/Highlight the examples and list the keywords (verbs) below. 9. What is the common strand that runs between these words and how do they contribute to the mood overall? 10. Write a sentence which identifies the most important technique Wharton uses and explains its effect on the passage as a whole.