From this section of the source, the writer uses detailed descriptions of metaphors and personification to describe the garden as ominous and threatening.
The first described ‘ancient mulberry tree’ immediately creates a sense of permanence and subtle wisdom, enhancing the garden’s beauty as well as its mysteriousness. Moreover, the personification of its branches being ‘knuckles in the earth like a giant malformed hand’ reinforces the trees omnipotence, as its old age is rooted into the ‘earth’ and where its ‘giant malformed hand’ suggests the tree’s almost deity-like presence, with ‘giant’ implying that an inhuman form lives in the soil. Furthermore, the simile of being ‘like a … malformed hand’ suggests the grotesque nature of the plants in the garden, describing it as unsightly and displeasing. The noticeable feature of how the garden seemed to be an ‘overgrown mess’ also suggests the apathy which the garden faces, where ‘overgrown’ could imply that people have given up in trying to look after the garden to make it appealing, reinforcing the ugly appearance of the garden overall. Following this, the writer repeats the hollow and haunting ‘w’ sound in addition to a hard ‘g’ sound; the ‘gnarled growth threw long twisted shadows across the undergrowth within its cage’, when spoken aloud, creates an airiness in the voice, which creates an ominous yet threatening tone atmosphere about the garden. The alliteration of ‘gnarled growth’ moreover enhances the garden’s ugliness, with ‘gnarled’ especially implying the knobbly snd frail state of the plants. This could also reinforce the description of the garden as being old, as ‘gnarled’ is often a term used for things of extreme age. Similarly, grotesque personifications of the plants such as ‘snarled’ and ‘choked’ makes the garden much more threatening and human, however extremely malicious and aggressive. These verbs also implies extreme force and fierceness, where snarling typically is done by vicious animals with sharp teeth, suggesting that the garden is animalistic and that humans shouldn’t encounter the plants within. The double alliteration of ‘broken bricks’ and ‘chunks of cement’ relay a clear image of the garden’s architectural textures clearly, where the harsh and explosive ‘b’ sounds could reflect the fragmentation and the dry ‘ch’/‘c’ sounds indicating the disorderly and fragility of the material. The plants before the exit of ‘a mass of nettles’ created an extremely threatening description of the garden, where nettles, although not alive and with a pulse, stings and can harm humans with just a single touch, which reinforces the intriguingly dangerous atmosphere of the garden.
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