Figure of Speech Based Questions - 1 | English for CLAT PDF Download

Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
The painter Roy Lichtenstein helped to define pop art—the movement that incorporated commonplace objects and commercial-art techniques into paintings—by paraphrasing the style of comic books in his work. His merger of a popular genre with the forms and intentions of fine art generated a complex result. While poking fun at the art world's pretensions, Lichtenstein’s work also conveyed a seriousness of theme that enabled it to transcend mere parody.
That Lichtenstein’s images were fine art was initially difficult to see because, with their word balloons and highly stylized figures, they looked like nothing more than the comic book panels from which they were copied. Standard art history holds that pop art emerged as an impersonal alternative to the histrionics of abstract expressionism, a movement in which painters conveyed their private attitudes and emotions using nonrepresentational techniques.
Abstract expressionism had already lost much of its force when pop art first appeared in the early 1960s. Pop art painters weren’t quarrelling with the powerful early expressionist work of the late 1940s but with the second generation of abstract expressionists whose work seemed airy, high-minded, and overly lyrical. Pop art paintings were full of simple black lines and large areas of primary colour. Lichtenstein’s work was part of a general rebellion against the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism rather than an aloof attempt to ignore it.
But if rebellion against previous art using the careful imitation of a popular genre was all that characterized Lichtenstein’s work, it would possess only the reflective power that parodies have in relation to their subjects. Beneath its cartoonish methods, his work displayed an impulse toward realism, an urge to say that what was missing from the contemporary painting was the depiction of contemporary life.
The stilted romances and war stories portrayed in the comic books on which he based his canvases, the stylized automobiles, hot dogs, and table lamps that appeared in his pictures, were reflections of the culture Lichtenstein inhabited. But, in contrast to some pop art, Lichtenstein’s work exuded not a jaded cynicism about consumer culture but a kind of deliberate naiveté intended as a response to the excess of sophistication he observed not only in the later abstract expressionists but in some other pop artists. With the comics—typically the domain of youth and innocence—as his reference point, nostalgia fills his paintings, giving them an inner sweetness for all their surface bravado.
His persistent use of comic-art conventions demonstrates faith in reconciliation between cartoons and fine art and between parody and true feeling.
Q1: What figure of speech is used in "Lichtenstein’s work also conveyed a seriousness of theme that enabled it to transcend mere parody"?
(a) Metaphor
(b) Simile
(c) Hyperbole
(d) Personification
Ans: (a)
Sol: The phrase uses a metaphor by comparing Lichtenstein's work's ability to transcend parody without using 'like' or 'as'. It implies a direct comparison between his work and the concept of transcending.

Q2: Identify the figure of speech in "Pop art painters weren’t quarrelling with the powerful early expressionist work".
(a) Metaphor
(b) Personification
(c) Alliteration
(d) Hyperbole
Ans: (b)
Sol: This sentence personifies Pop art painters by attributing them with the human action of 'quarrelling', which is typically not associated with inanimate objects or abstract concepts.

Q3: What figure of speech is evident in "Lichtenstein’s work exuded not a jaded cynicism but a kind of deliberate naiveté"?
(a) Oxymoron
(b) Metonymy
(c) Hyperbole
(d) Antithesis
Ans: (d)
Sol: This sentence presents an antithesis by placing opposite ideas (jaded cynicism and deliberate naiveté) in a balanced structure to highlight the contrast between them.

Q4: The phrase "the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism" employs which figure of speech?
(a) Hyperbole
(b) Personification
(c) Metaphor
(d) Oxymoron
Ans: (b)
Sol: The phrase personifies 'abstract expressionism' by attributing it with the human characteristic of having 'emotional power' that can fade.

Q5: In "His persistent use of comic-art conventions demonstrates faith in reconciliation", what figure of speech is used?
(a) Metaphor
(b) Simile
(c) Personification
(d) Hyperbole
Ans: (c)
Sol: The sentence personifies 'use of comic-art conventions' by attributing it with the capability of demonstrating faith, a human quality.