Lexical stylistic devices

Among lexical stylistic means we find the following figures of speech used in the text: an epithet, a metaphor, a simile and irony.

1. An epithet (эпитет) is, usually an attributive word or phrase expressing some quality of a person, thing or phenomenon. An epi­thet always expresses the author's individual attitude towards what he describes, his personal appraisal of it, and is a powerful means in his hands of conveying his emotions to the reader and in this way securing the desired effect. E.g. "a rigid and time-honored code, a code so severe...", "the cynical confidence", "the evil assumption", "Atticus's lonely walk", "Judge Tailor's voice... was tiny".

2. A simile (сравнение) is an expressed imaginative comparison based on the likeness of two objects or ideas belonging to different classes (in contrast to a comparison which compares things belong­ing to the same class and is not a figure of speech). The comparison is formally expressed by the words "as", "like", "as if", "such as",'"seem", e.g. "This case is as simple as black and white": "I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers"; "...and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoul­der and pull the trigger..."