Carlyle uses many literary devices to boost his argument. Carlyle writes “In this mitigated form, however, the distemper is of pretty regular recurrence; and may be reckoned on at intervals, like other natural visitations; so that reasonable men deal with it, as the Londoners do with their fogs, — go cautiously out into the groping crowd, and patiently carry lanterns at noon; knowing, by a wellgrounded faith, that the sun is still in existence, and will one day reappear.” Here Carlyle employs the device of imagery, equating human thought and theory, from religion to science, as a fog from which we all know sooner or later will lift. Before the fogs lift, however, we walk about with our lanterns (light or thoughts) and bang into one another, perhaps, much like religious or scientific discussion. The image is concrete.
Carlyle writes that “there is a deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless grinding collision of the New with the Old. The French Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not the parent of this mighty movement, but its offspring.” Here, Carlyle commands an oratory, a high speech, much like that of the great orators he mentions within this satire. Employing such terms as “fabric” and placing it against such terms as “boundless grinding collision” escalates the manner of speech to oratory. With such oratory, Carlyle’s satire becomes less argument and more poem.
Carlyle writes that “the King has virtually abdicated; the Church is a widow, without jointure; public principle is gone; private honesty is going; society, in short, is fast falling in pieces; and a time of unmixed evil is come on us.” Carlyle employs a few devices or techniques here to win over his reading audience. In one, he uses personification (Church and widow), which lowers the institutional level of the Church to a more personal level, to the reader’s eye-level, if you will. The Church is no longer stone but flesh. Second, we notice the quickening pace of this passage as it descends: abdicate, widow, gone, going, fallen to pieces. The world is unraveling, from King to Church, public to private, until we arrive at evil. Carlyle portrays this “sky is falling scenario” in quickening, abrupt phrases. Carlyle condenses this free fall and accelerates it again through simple punctuation. As we pass each stop (semicolon) we gain more momentum until we hit the period at the end.
