Comment on Making Stew

The Review of Making Stew

    When I read the first sentence of “Making Stew” by J.B Priestley, his greatest cooking time surprised me, that is, “during the darker hours of the war”. This attitude of enjoying oneself in adversity is really impressive and admirable. In this prose, Priestley moves easily between humor and joy. Although his language is simple, the beautiful lines reveal the omnipresent wisdom of life. I really appreciate the jewel in the crown of the prose——“Here is the stew that has been seasoned with many onions, red wine and honey——and my delight.” Delight is to the colorful life what a seasoning to a delicious stew. Optimism unlocks the door to the ultimate happiness.
  Now I’d like analyze this article from three aspects as follows:

I．Rhetorical device
    In this interesting prose, rhetorical device is indispensable. Few but good, it evokes emotional responses in the readers.

Hyperbole
    When the author boasts that his stew is the best, he says that “You might travel from Truro to Inverness, even today, and be offered nothing better than or as good as my stew.” Truro is located in the southeastern tip of the island of Britain and Inverness is in the north of Scotland. From Truro to Inverness would be a way of saying from one end of the Britain to the other. Here, Priestley praises his unmatched stew with a great store of confidence and drives us to have a taste of the delicacy.

Humor
    The sentences with humorous elements are used in the description of stew making.
1. “…I never rush the business and keep peering into the pan…”
  Carefully observing this sentence, we’ll discover that which part the adverb “never” charges grammatically is unclear: “rush the business” or both the phrases?   This confusion makes us to wrack our brains to seek the answer. But it gives no clues. Finally, we have to give the suspense up and laugh at ourselves.

2.“… tasting, muttering a spell or two…”
The course of making stew is wrapped in...