Sunday, October 28, 2012
Outside Reading
For 5 pts of extra credit (in the multiple choice category), please write a paragraph of no more than 7 sentences, in which you answer this question: How does the author of your outside reading book use one literary device to develop his or her story or deepen the meaning? Be specific and persuasive. Due by 10 PM on Monday night.
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Yann Martel uses symbolism to relay to the readers that everything is not what it seems. Through using different animals, Mr.Martel lets the reader know the mental status of Pi as the plot proceed. At first Mr. Martel uses the hyena mainly, to hint at the wild and violent turmoil of Pi being stuck in the middle of the ocean, not knowing how to survive. Afterward, the Orangutan arrives, the symbol of either hope, his mother, or comfort in the fact that he can survive. Also, the tiger lurking in the boat can be a symbol for the mental insecurity Pi suffers later. This is indicated at the beginning of the book when Pi, feeling nostalgic as he recalls his days with Richard Parker, thinks to himself "i still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love"(6). This is a bit unsettling, as Richard Parker is a tiger( or something more) with no regard to Pi's feelings at all, so fear is expected, but love is TOTALLY a weird perspective as well.
ReplyDeleteDoes the quote count as more than 7 sentences?
DeleteIt's not a problem, Nekeisha.
DeleteGabriel Garcia Marquez uses the theme to potray that lovesickness is a literal sickness equivalent to cholera. Florentino Ariza yearns for the love of his life, Fermina Daza. The thought of losing Fermina hasn't crossed his mind until the fateful day when Fermina was sent on a long journey to forget about Florentino and the love she has for him. Ever since the day Florentino lost Fermina, he suffers physical and emotional pains as he waits for his beloved Fermina to return to him, almost the same as how people suffer when going through cholera. In chapter 2, Florentino was worried that Fermina will never respond to his declaration of love and his mother mistakes his lovesickness for cholera. Florentino, still going through emotional and physical agony, had gone crazy as he drank cologne and ate flowers to remember the smell of Fermina. Florentino's yearn for Fermina's love has now turn into an obsession.
ReplyDeleteThis is irrelevant to the extra credit but i found what Florentino said funny. He said he would save his virginity only for Fermina then he goes on this sex rampage with these women to satisfy him.
Netta-
DeleteI'm sorry to say, but theme is not a literary device--it's a component of literature, but it's usually the result of the use of literary devices, not a literary device itself.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses symbolism to deeper the meaning of the novel. Cholera is one of the many few symbols that Gavriel Garcia Marquez uses. Cholera is known as a disease that is caused by contaminated food and water,which kept spreading throughout the city in which case Fermina's family moved to avoid the disease. Cholera is compared to love seeing how it is part of the title of the novel, "Love in the time of cholera" and cholera plays an important role within the novel. Another reason why it is compared to love is the symptoms Florentino gets, "symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera" This portrays that Florentino's pain and suffering is equivalent to those who currently have the disease. The pain in his heart after the loss of his beloved Fermina devastated him physically and emotionally and at one time, his father, mistook his lovesickness for cholera. Thus symbolizing that the painful love that Florentino is experiencing is equivalent to the pain people go through while having cholera.
DeleteThank you Ms. Scher for telling me it wasn't a literary device. I assumed the theme was a device because it seems really important throughout the novel.
DeleteIn “The Book Thief”, Markus Zusak’s style of writing influences the reliability of the narrator, Death, while adding his own creativity in his work. The most prominent feature that shows Zusak’s unique style is the boldface texts that are displayed in the context. These boldface texts are presented by the narrator, Death, probably intending to assist readers and inform them about the facts of that time period. Definitions, Death’s opinions, and random facts are displayed in these boldface texts which also displays a sense of foreshadowing and how omnipotent Death is. By displaying these facts and opinions in boldface texts, Zusak spoils the readers and can easily mislead them if he wanted to. Zusak’s capability of this proves that he can control the reader’s thoughts about a certain issue by giving them too much information. The texts are presented through Death, which proves how much knowledge he has and how much the readers can rely on him.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel “Love in Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the theme is that being lovesick, in a literal meaning, is like having the disease cholera. Florentino Ariza, the main character, is lovesick like one would suffer from cholera, because he endures both emotional and physical pain for something, in this case, it is Fermina Daza. In the second chapter, Florentino is worried sick because Fermina would not give an answer to his love confession. His family, at first, mistook Florentino’s lovesickness for cholera. Later, Florentino took his situation even further because he begins to eat flowers and drink cologne and vomiting after so that he can know Fermina’s scent. Florentino’s love being compared to a disease deepens the book’s meaning of passion by showing how strong and deadly his love can be for Fermina, going as far as making himself ill.
ReplyDeleteNassa-
DeletePlease see my comment above to netta
In "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak, Zusak uses a lot of figurative language, his style of writing being direct, but with a lot of imagery and personification. Instead of outright saying that a fight is about to ensue, Zusak describes the moment as, "a great shiver arrived" (Zusak 104). The turning point was not a smooth and unnoticeable transition, but it was as if a ghost had run right through them, a sudden shiver of trouble. Also, there is a lot of talk about the sky for it seems that Death has a profound interest for the sky, paying close attention to color. During the book burning ceremony/celebration,"the sky was crouching", as if it were watching the whole ordeal, enticed and hovering over the crowd surrounding the fire. When a situation is chaotic, the sky is stirring "like soup" and when Death "inhales" the sky to relax, it is a "white-snow sky". Therefore, Zusak uses colors and imagery as well as personification to set moods, especially through portrayal of the sky.
ReplyDeleteYann Martel the author of “The Life of Pi” uses personification when referring to death to deepen the meaning of the word thus signifying the importance of death throughout the novel. Martel makes clear Pi’s feelings toward death when Pi states, “…I don’t believe in death.”(Martel 5) Martel indicates right from the beginning that death will play a significant role in Pi’s life; therefore he creates a contemptuous personality for death by personifying it. Although the novel has only begun, the action is already over, the events that have affected Pi’s life so deeply have already passed (untold yet), thus he has come to a conclusion about death; “The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity-its envy.”(Martel 6)The personification of death increases to the insight on life Pi has gained due to his past situation. Correspondingly, by personifying death Martel creates a certain mood to set off the novel, where death is ever so present behind the scenes, looming and waiting for Pi to give in, by giving up on life.
ReplyDeleteCormac McCarthy uses diction to accentuate the dreary and desolate atmosphere that The Road is set in. In the 1st Chapter alone, McCarthy describes a plethora of everyday objects with the adjective gray, such as “gray road” (5) “gray sunset” (11) “gray ashes” (3) and “gray flake” (16). The color gray denotes a very dreary atmosphere, and it's constant repetition by McCarthy implies that he is trying to convey to us that everything in the book is this depressing and dreary color. This would fit with the post-apocalyptic time period the book is set in, and the repetition of gray constantly resurfaces this setting of dread and survival. The repetition of this color is hinting that terrible events will befall upon the characters later in the book, and the emotions evoked from it will be dread and hopelessness, the colors gray represents. Because he is constantly repeating this motif from the beginning of the book, it can be deduced that the rest of the book will follow suit in the dreary and desolate tone that has been set.
ReplyDeleteIn Yann Martel’s, The Life of Pi, Martel uses Piscine’s name as a symbol of the never ending cycle. On the very first day of middle school, Piscine decides to put the nickname of Pissing Piscine to a stop and give himself a completely fresh new start, “Pi Patel…π=3.14 and I drew a large circle, which I then sliced in two with a diameter…” (23 Martel). The number pi is a never ending number; no one has yet to find how far the number has gone, just as how Pi’s thoughts are interminable. He is at a stage where curiosity consumes his mind, new information entices and excites him, and it makes him understand the way of life on a much deeper level. Science and several different religions guide Pi’s life, two completely opposite subjects, yet his is able to discern that to live one needs to think logically but to think logically one needs to believe in something more than just himself. The number pi is an irrational number to explain the rational, how the extraordinary and questionable are possible, Pi has something dramatic and traumatizing happen to him something that was likely never to happen yet it did. He survives through the event and lives to tell his improbable tale, something that will be remembered for as long as pi.
ReplyDeleteCormac McCarthy’s use of gloomy diction in the novel, The Road, demonstrates the feelings of the characters and emphasizes the depressing world the father and the son are forced to live in. Throughout the story, the author uses words such as “gray”, “godless”, “barren”, and “ashes” to describe the setting. Because of his choice of words, readers can understand the miserable mood of the characters from how they interact with their surroundings. Having to live in such a world with only each other, the father and son would, naturally, develop a melancholy attitude towards life. The author continues to show the desolate environment when describing the cities as “mudstained shapes of flooded cities burned to the waterline” (McCarthy 261). The words “mudstained”, “flooded”, and “burned” help the reader envision a world destroyed by natural causes, a truly apocalyptic scene. Thus, McCarthy uses these specifically depressing words to help convey the unhappy mood of the story and its characters.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy uses syntax to give an air of hopelessness throughout the story. Throughout the novel, the structure of the story is that each paragraph is like a chapter of the story of the man and child and each paragraph is composed almost exclusively by simple sentences, such as, “Dark of the invisible moon…. The nights now only slightly less black” (McCarthy 32). The most noticeable part of the syntax was that there were rarely any transition words that showed time, which McCarthy uses to show how the man and the boy have lost a sense of time as they wander through an ashen wasteland. The lack of time words show a future that is as gloomy and dreadful as the ash covered landscape of a ruined America. The simple sentences along with negative diction like “slightly less black,” portray hopelessness by showing no emotion and giving the story with a sense of heaviness, almost like a solemn funeral possession where the man and the boy march off into the dark future. Cormac doesn’t use syntax or diction to go into great depth with the man and the boy, which can be seen with the way Cormac addresses them. The lack of names and the very shallow descriptions of the characters describe them almost like doomed figures, their existence in the doomed world meaningless and futile as they traverse the barren landscape.
ReplyDeleteIn The Road, Cormac McCarthy connects the readers to the somber and daunting atmosphere that dooms the hopes of the father and his son by introducing a paradox in the novel’s early stages. As the father and son journey along the burned and deprived, the father consoles his son by reminding him to remember that “the things put into your head are there forever” (12). However, his son consequently reminds his father about his forgetfulness, and the father responds “Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (12). Through this paradox, McCarthy offers an insight to the background of the father, suggesting a trait of his character and possibly the father’s faults and past regrets that continue to daunt him as McCarthy consistently incorporates flashbacks throughout the novel. Furthermore, the paradox adds a sense of hopelessness, as the father and son are stranded, alone in the deprived and ashen lands of the world, left with nothing but bare scraps of clothing, food, material , a pistol for defense, and lastly, their dependence, and love for each other. Although the father intends to express those words as a mean to console his son, the meaning may suggest the contrary for the misery, despair, and emptiness of the stricken world the father and son perceives will forever stay in their minds, while the once graceful, lively, and thriving society under the solid sense of time will eventually fade away, forever lost.
ReplyDeleteBtw, Thanks Ms. Scher for this great extra credit opportunity! :D
DeleteYou're very welcome!
DeleteIn A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan uses point of view to develop the story and emphasize the impact of time on each character. Every chapter is about a different character with a different narrator. Sometimes the chapter is told in first person, giving the reader deep insight into the narrator’s personal life—including the struggles, achievements, and emotions faced. Point of view plays a large role in understanding the recurring subject of time and the magnitude of its effects on an individual. For example, Egan starts the first chapter in third person, narrating Sasha’s situation in her mid-thirties. Readers are introduced to her internal conflict as the narrator reveals, “Redemption, transformation—God how she wanted these things” (14). In chapter ten, the story is told in second person point of view, with Rob being the “you” who was Sasha’s fake boyfriend during college. Here, Sasha’s troubled past is revealed through an important lens, demonstrating one unique example of Egan’s brilliant use of point of view in this book. By mixing up the narrators and perspectives on each character, Egan reveals and contrasts past failures within many different time frames, showing how people can reconstruct their lives not by erasing the past, but by learning from it.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Road”, Cormac McCarthy uses imagery to make the readers envision the post-apocalyptic world that the man and the boy live in. The use of diction such as, “Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust” (10); portrays an image of a burned down wasteland. Applying ash helps achieve the bleak and barren surroundings the characters travel in. McCarthy extended the use of imagery by saying, “The grainy air. The taste of it never left your mouth” (17). McCarthy portrays a gloomy and filthy environment the characters are forced to face. Every day, the characters have to deal with the grimy taste of the air, a constant reminder of the inhospitable surrounding they live in.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, Junot Diaz uses an epigraph to foreshadow the life of the protagonist, Oscar Wao. Diaz includes the quote “Of what import are brief, nameless lives… to Galactus??” which originates from a “Fantastic Four” comic book (Junot I). Epigraphs are usually about the main protagonists in a novel so the quote is most likely about Oscar. The reference to Galactus and the “Fantastic Four” reveals that Oscar may be a nerd or geek because only comic book fanatics would be able to identify who or what Galactus is. The quote is also from 1966 which suggests that the novel (and Oscar’s story) occurred within the late 20th and early 21st centuries making it a modern work of literature. In fact, since it is so “modern”, being a comic book fan or geek would make a person prone to bullying or discrimination. Most importantly, the use of the word “brief” brings up the idea that Oscar may die at a young age but it is unknown through the epigraph whether he will commit suicide, be murdered, or die of natural or accidental causes.
ReplyDeleteSorry if anyone is offended by my use of the words "comic book geek" or "geek". It is used throughout the whole story and I did not want to lessen the impact of the point i was trying to make. SORRY!
Sorry i just realized that this is not a literary device -____-
DeleteNo. wait.... It is a literary device!(?)
DeleteYes it is!
DeleteThank you! :D
DeleteCormac McCarthy uses syntax in The Road in such a way that the reader is able to see how lawless and ungoverned America is in the novel’s time era. Within the first few pages of novel, many readers become disorientated due to the fact the author does not follow proper writing structure. McCarthy does not use quotation marks, commas after dialogue, and also does not use apostrophes. An example of McCarthy’s unorthodox writing style, “Is it over my head? the boy called” (McCarthy 38). Like the cannibals inhabiting the unruly land, McCarthy also does not act in accordance to laws. While the “laws” McCarthy breaks are not actual laws, he still writes in a style that is considered peculiar by literary society. McCarthy uses this style to evoke the thought of abandoned ways that are no longer imperative to follow considering the cataclysmic atmosphere of the land. In a land where humans devour each other to survive and are not prosecuted for it, many are able to comprehend the idea that anyone is able to commit a once devastating crime without being apprehended. McCarthy uses this idea in his writing and is able to arouse the very idea from his readers.
ReplyDeleteIn Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, ambiguity in the characters’ pasts is used to develop one theme of the novel: Everyone you meet in your life will impact you in some way. In every chapter, a new character is always introduced. Egan jumps straight into the middle of the characters’ live with no real indication to who they are. Like Bennie and Sasha, the question most people ask themselves once they are in their 30s and 40s is, “How did I get here?” or as Jocelyn says, “How did [I] get so old?” (Egan 85). Most people choose to blame misfortune on people and poor decisions, even though in the long run, those decisions led to something better. By making the pasts ambiguous, readers are able to see how all these characters are connected in some way or other. Egan wanted to show that life has a way of crossing different peoples’ paths with yours because whether you know it or not, it does benefit you.
ReplyDeleteJennifer Egan’s transition to different narrators every chapter in the novel, “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” corresponds to the lack of connection these characters have with the world around them. Because each chapter begins with a new narrator, it is as if readers are taking a glimpse into the lives of these individual characters through that character’s eyes, which gives the story a more realistic plot. Every chapter touches upon a different character’s flaws and fears in their own life. In one chapter, a troubled character named Sasha speaks of her thirst to write a “story of redemption, of fresh beginnings and second chances,” (8) longing to rewrite her past mistakes. In another chapter, a character named Rhea, who is also searching for her identity, becomes overwhelmed that the world is huge and, “that’s the part no one can really explain” (56). The frequent change of narrators in the novel contributes to the story as a whole because it shows readers that each character has a connection to one another; they are in a battle between their past and present, and wanting to become something bigger than what they once were.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Road”, Cormac McCarthy uses imagery to provide the reader with a bleak and macabre vision of the post-apocalyptic setting. The cantankerous situation the father and his son are forced into is further described by McCarthy’s choice of diction. From the start of the novel, there is mention of “Nights dark beyond darkness,” and how each day is “more gray” than the last. South of the road in which they wish to travel is described as “Barren, silent, godless.”(McCarthy, 4) McCarthy provides words like godless, and dark nights, to portray a sense of hopelessness, and despair, in a laconic way. Thus demonstrating how McCarthy’s use of imagery deepens the meaning of the setting, which plays the main role in the meaning.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel "The Road", by Cormac McCarthy, the main characters are remain unnamed, a characterization style McCarthy uses to add deeper significance in the story. The story opens with "When he awoke in the wood in the dark..." (McCarthy 1), in media res. No background is given, just a man trying to survive with his son. This makes the character, unnamed and without any physical description, a representation of every father and the lengths he would go to save his son in the most dire situations. The son embodies the next generation, and the struggles each successive generation faces to survive. By not having names, the two characters become larger than life, they become ideas.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtHq9RFQeqc
Deletethis is pretty much what just happened.
What just happened? The plot of the book, or you getting this in right before 10 PM?
Deleteme getting it in on time
Deletewell, time to start on that AP homework
In the book “Life of Pi” Martel Yann used personification to convey the simple life of the animals. Yann writes that animals do not live more freely in nature. Yann believes that the zoo in a source of “pleasure” to some animals (Yann 17). Yann then goes on comparing animal life in a zoo, to a life of a human family living in a house. Personifying the animals stirs up feeling for them, so we may judge. I believe later on, these feeling will come in handy when Pi is trapped with the tiger on a boat.
ReplyDelete