The descriptive text is marked by the proposal to be a portrait of people, objects or scenes. Thus, this type of text is a kind of photograph of the object described.
In addition to the physical characteristics, the reader is encouraged to understand through the use of all the senses: touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell.
According to what will be described, the reader is led to understand also the psychological and interior characteristics of the object.
Tip:
It is essential that the reader has as much information as possible about the described object and not just the enumeration of characteristics. In other words, whoever is going to describe it must exhaust the object, but maintain consistency.
Example
Quaresma was a small, thin man who wore pince-nez, he always looked down, but when he stared at someone or something, his eyes took, behind the lenses, a strong penetrating glow, and it was as if he wanted to go to the soul of the person or the thing that fixed. However, he always wore them low, as if guided by the tip of the goatee that graced his chin. He always wore a tailcoat, black, blue, or gray, with striped cloth, but he always wore a tailcoat, and it was rare that he didn't. covered with a top hat with short, very high brims, made according to an old costume that he knew accurately to era.
(The Sad End of Polycarp Lent, Lima Barreto, 1915)
Understand the Descriptive String
- it is necessary to use nouns that allow the identification of traces of what is described.
- The object is described by adjectives and adverbial phrases with the function of adjunct or predicative adjunct.
Tips and Examples
Use adjectives to detail the object described:
The central plateau of Brazil descends, on the southern coasts, in unbroken escarpments, tall and abrupt. Overwhelm the seas; and unleashes in plateaus leveled by the views of the maritime mountain ranges, stretched from Rio Grande to Minas. But as it drifts towards the northern lands it gradually decreases in altitude, at the same time it descends to the east coast in levels, or repeated terraces, which strip it of the primitive grandeur pushing it away considerably inland.
(the Sertões, Euclides da Cunha, 1902)
Demonstrate the object described using linking verbs:
it was possible to know your age, your origin, your story".
(The End of the World War, Mario Vargas Llosa, 1982)
Try to use the past tense and present tense verbs to describe scenes:
A little tired, with shopping deforming the new knitting bag, Ana went up on the tram. deposited the volume in the lap and the tram it started to walk. leaned back then at the bank searching comfort, in a sigh of half satisfaction.
(Love, Clarisse Lispector, 1982)
Use metaphors and comparisons that allow the interlocutor to have more elements to elaborate the mental image of what is described:
The calm, sovereign gestures were of a King - O sublime autocrat of syllabaries; the hieratic pause in his walk made him feel the effort, at every step, that he made to push forward the progress of public education; the blazing gaze, under the harsh twitch of the japanese monster eyebrows, penetrating the surrounding souls with light—was the education of intelligence; the chin, severely shaven, from ear to ear, remembered the smoothness of clean consciences — it was moral education.
(the athenaeum, Raul Pompeia, 1888)
Read too:
- Types of Texts
- Textual genres
- Descriptive Text
- Description: what is it, features, types and how to do it
- How to write an essay - step by step