Patrick O Brien's Vocabulary

The thundering of cannons blasts your ears. It is the dawn of the 19th century, and you are on the Sophie, a large wooden battleship, fighting Napoleon’s French Navy. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brien is an immersive and historic book about exciting battles that Captain Aubrey of the H.M.S. Sophie fight in. I would personally give this book an A- because of its descriptiveness, vocabulary, and dialogue between characters. The descriptiveness is an important reason why I gave an A- to this book. I think that Patrick O’Brien is a very descriptive writer, and this becomes very clear to the reader. “He stood up, beat the white dust from his breeches and took off his coat to shake it. With intense mortification he saw that the piece of meat

The dialogue within the novel effectively represents the time period and backgrounds of the characters. O’Brien uses a plethora of vocabulary for his characters, which lived in the 19th century. “ ‘Come, sir, you are forgetting the Généreux. She had three spare foretopgallantyards, as well as a vast mound of other spars; and you would be the first to admit that I have moral right to one’ ” (O’Brien 90). This quote is an example of how the book contains lots of 19th century text and objects. I find that dialogue like this really shows the historic values of the book. Patrick O’Brien’s book was published in 1970, which means he had to write this book considering the lingual aspects of the 19th century. He understood that the vocabulary and the dialogue needed to represent naval terms, and is never remiss in adding English slang into the dialogue. For example, the word “foretopgallantyards” is used in the quote. O’Brien had to use many terms like this to give the reader a good picture of the ship. As I read the book, I find the dialogue the most interesting because it sounds so realistic to how English seamen would have spoke in the 19th century. This is the biggest and most positive reason why I gave an A- to this