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Noticing Form · Q1

Q.
  1. He made them himself at odd moments.
  2. He raised himself.
  3. He had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught.
  4. … a day may come when you yourself may want to get a big piece of pork.
Notice the way in which these reflexive pronouns have been used (pronoun+self)
  • In 1 and 4 the reflexive pronouns “himself” and “yourself” are used to convey emphasis.
  • In 2 and 3 the reflexive pronoun is used in place of personal pronoun to signal that it refers to the same subject in the sentence.
  • Pick out other examples of the use of reflexive pronouns from the story and notice how they are used.

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The story has many reflexive pronouns — some emphatic, most showing the object is the same as the subject.

A reflexive pronoun is formed by adding “-self/-selves” to a pronoun. In the given sentences, “himself” (1) and “yourself” (4) add emphasis, while in “raised himself” (2) and “let himself be fooled” (3) the reflexive stands in for the object because it refers to the same subject. Other examples from The Rattrap show the same two uses. Where the object refers back to the subject: the vagabonds come “to warm themselves” at the fire; going to the manor “would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion's den”; the stranger “had stretched himself out on the floor”; at the table he “helped himself to the food”; and the letter speaks of a rat who got “power to clear himself.” An emphatic use appears when the ironmaster hopes his daughte …

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