In today‘s monologue, the speaker used the past participial phrase “consumed by passion” to modify the subject of the sentence “he.” Participial phrases are common in novels, newspapers, academic writing and speeches. They allow the speaker/writer to add information about the subject without making the sentence too long, which can help readability and give it more impact.

For instance, the speaker could have said, “He becomes consumed by passion and abandons his wife and embarks on a quest to fulfill his artistic vision.“ However, the repetition of ”and“ makes this sentence overly long and boring. But the speaker shortens the sentence with the participial phrase like this: ”Consumed by passion, he…” This gives the sentence more impact while keeping it easy to read.

As you may have guessed, we often use past participial phrases to give reasons for someone‘s actions. For instance, “Angered by the events, he refused to participate.”