1B Hyclak AP Lang (20-21 SY) discussion
Post #2: Find a significant sentence in your reading and analyze it. Don't just explain what it says, but explain what is important about the language. What patterns are you seeing and why are they important?
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"It's like I'm trying to climb a mountain, but I've got one fool trying to shove me down so I won't be on his level, and another fool tugging on my leg, trying to pull me to the ground he refuses to leave." (66)The author, Nic Stone, uses a combination of a hyperbole and strong visual imagery in this sentence to exaggerate the way Justyce is feeling. By using the idea of climbing a mountain, Stone emphasizes that emotions are physically heavy and can be hard to overcome--as climbing a mountain would be. The descriptive words of being pushed and pulled down while trying to climb up makes it easy for the reader to understand how much weight is tied to his emotions. In just this sentence, Stone demonstrated that emotions can drain us and that the people around us don't always mean to make things harder but they often do.
"The city had been bleached by an early winter. Bare branches scraped against an ash-gray sky. The muted browns and muddied grays of November comforted Olivia. "The author , Teresa Toten uses similies by comparing winter to bleaching, ash to gray color in the sky, and muddied grays with muted browns to the leaves cahnging colors. Not only does this sentence have many similes but it also has a grand deal of imagery which helps the reader invision how early winter looks in new york.
"You have looked into that accursed stone of wizardry! Exclaimed Gimli with fear and astonishment in his face. "Did you say aught to---him? Even Gandalf feared that encounter" The author, J.R.R Tolkien uses this sentence before explaining everything in detail to help set the tone of the story that is going to take place. By having a character hint at the danger and fear in what ever is coming up. this sets the tone for whats to come and pushes the reader to imagine what is happening. By also pausing in the character's dialogue helps set the tone into the story and history of the story.
"I feel the pain, tearing, ripping, shredding. I fall to my knees and squeeze my arms against my ears like they can protect me, but nothing can protect me, nothing. I scream again and again but the pain continues, and so does his voice." (Roth, 51)The author Roth's uses these sentences as a way of getting into there heads. How memories can spark a chain of events that you don't what to happen. In this case Roth shows how Fours' memories bring him pain because of what happens to him when he was a kid. This will be used throughout the book for how his past is still controlling him even though he has taken another path. Roth goes more and more into detail on the psychological why of how the characters think and act.
"The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live" (113).McCourt's perspective so far in the book is that of a child, as if he's not recounting his life but living through it and the story is just his train of thought. This is abundantly clear throughout the novel but especially in this sentence, where something as serious as dying is nothing more than a chore in the eyes of a kid; being told to die for the Faith or Ireland is just as common as being scolded for playing outside for too long. In this single sentence, the author is able to exploit how things like the constant presence of death can desensitize a child and make the topic nonchalant and casual in their mind.
"'Of course not,' James says again. 'Lydia doesn't know how to swim.' It's not until he says these words into the telephone that he understands why the police are asking." (24)So far the book has been narrated. The book has not been through the eyes of any character. This quote shows a shift in what they know about their daughter Lydia. Before this point, they had not heard anything about where their daughter could be, and then all of a sudden the police are searching the lake for Lydia's body. I think this quote is setting up for the story to back track and explain how the police came to the conclusion of thinking she was in the lake. Throughout the first few chapters, the author uses a pattern of giving background knowledge on one character, and then their relationship with Lydia (the main character) and is still following that pattern at the point of the book I am in.
“Behaviorism’s successor, cognitive psychology, retained the optimistic belief in change and wed it to an expanded view of the self, developing a thesis that the self could improve itself.”(Seligman 87,88)This sentence is significant because it creates the idea that the self can improve itself, this book as a whole is about how every person creates their own reality, the significant sentence above further proves this. This singular sentence is important though because it structures a thesis giving readers steps to follow to improve oneself. The words used within the sentence in themselves have so many different meanings that need to be understood clearly to achieve the main idea portrayed. The sentence structure helps to emphasize the steps that need to be taken and in that order. The pattern created is a repetition within self, this helps to draw importance to oneself. All of the little details within this one sentence show the complexity but also the impact.
“In several months, when the project was over, for better or for worse, the lovely antiques would slowly reenter the market”(185).Though seemingly insignificant out of context, this sentence is very meaningful. The author, John Grisham, foreshadows what is to come. Throughout the entire book, Grisham writes in past tense. Here, however he writes in future tense. Rather than writing that the items reentered the market, he wrote that they WOULD reenter the market. Immediately, attention is drawn to the sentence through the change in tense. It can be inferred that the transactions just made were not a regular purchase, through foreshadowing the purchased items reentering the market. He also reveals that in several months the project will end and even inserts the idiom, “for better or for worse”. Readers are left wondering how exactly the project will end. Will it be successful? Or will it be dropped as a dead end? Through the foreshadowing in this sentence, Grisham is able to reveal a lot of information, while at the same time raising more questions.
"None of its beauty was lost on me now. I watched the boats gliding before a brisk wind..." (pg 65).This quote capture the beauty of the environment he is in. He is trying to say that we need to appreciate the small thing we do in life. By doing so, we can see things we never seen before. If we appreciate them now, it can lead to a happier life no matter if we win or lose in life. And by doing so we will live in a life of fulfillment and happiness. Not take those things for granted.
"Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis" (10)This quote is very meaningful, it shows the importance of life and the ending of death in the main characters life. This is explaining how death isn't an explanation of life and it doesn't define what we are in the end. I think she was trying to capture that life is is meant Is meant to be lived and not something to take for granted.
In part 2, chapter 12 of Emma, by Jane Austen, Emma tells Mr. Weston "..all young people would have their little whims," and then later on in their conversation Mr. Weston repeats what Emma said. Austen does this to show the closeness of Emma and Mr. Weston's relationship. Although Mr. Weston is a man and adult, he still treats her like one of his companions. Jane Austen does this all throughout the book, because in the time the novel was written relationships among men and women were very proper, and often not very fun, so the adding of those sorts of conversations gives us a better understanding if the relationships.
"So I asked her the same question again, because in a murder mystery novel when someone doesn't want to answer a question it is because they are trying to keep a secret or trying to stop someone from getting trouble, which means that the answers to those questions are the most important answers of all" (58-59).In the novel I'm reading, the speaker doesn't like similes or metaphors because they confuse him, so he doesn't use them. In this sentence, the main character makes a decision based off of a murder mystery novel. Though it seems insignificant, it's very important because it adds to the point that it shows that the main character think's he's a detective. The entirety of the novel is him trying to figure out who killed his neighbors dog and multiple times hes made decisions based off of what a detective would do in a mystery novel. The person he's talking to in this chapter he wouldn't have even thought to talk to them if he hadn't decided that it was for detective work, and it can show how much minuscule things can impact his life and his decisions.
"With the eyes of the globe on him, Kennedy-who really didn't have much of a choice- introduced civil rights legislation"(163).The authors use "The eyes of the globe" as a way to refer to the people around the world watching him. Using personification allows the reader to understand the significance of this event and the amount of people it affected. This adds to the overall text by showcasing an object more vividly which in turn grabs the readers attention and allows them to sympathize with the cause.
"The face of the monster inside me-- the face I'd beaten back with decades of effort and uncompromising discipline." (Chapter 1 - 2% of book)Meyer's uses the em dash in the sentence to emphasize the effect Bells is having on Edward. The dash brings more attention to the fact that Edward is extremely struggling to conceal himself because of Bella even though he has been disciplined and fighting to hide his true self for many years. This is important in the novel because it helps demonstrate to the reader how differently Edward is affected by Bella than he is by other humans.
“You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.” (85)Miller uses the soul and the body as a metaphor, the "soul" is ideas, change, and human will. As the "Body" is your time on earth to make a change. This sentence adds powerful and philosophical thoughts to the text.
"The plaster on the crumbling walls was soaked and rotten like leprous skin, the gritty floor was soft and damaged. The ceiling glistened with stalactites of dirty water and slime." (Hendrix, pg. 182)Grady Hendrix writes down this quote at the start of a new chapter to assist the reader in comprehending how much worse the scenario in the book is and the setting that is portrayed through Amy's perspective. Utilizing a simile and great details, Hendrix further pushes the idea that the store (the main setting as to which this whole book takes place in) is continuing to worsen and shape and mold itself into a nightmarish dystopia where a psychopathic ghost warden rules. With the plot revolving around the idea that the workers are stuck in a place called the "Beehive", an area that all the other ghosts are located in, it already illustrates the idea of dismay and addresses a dread-like mood. Also, I believe Hendrix added a simile here because he wanted to add a greater affect towards the depth that the plot has progressed into(which I think is around the falling action).
"I often left my homework until the last minute because my whole life felt like one big chore."(34)The author, Rupinder Gill, uses a simile to compare her life to daily chores. By using this, she exaggerates how her childhood felt very sheltered and boring. One can think of life in many ways, fun and vibrant, or dull and stressful. Chores often have a negative connotation, and by using this she portrays an idea of having nothing to look forward to. In this sentence, her goal was to provide a simple idea with a deeper of meaning of her upbringing as a traditional cage.
The author uses personification to make the moor seem alive and to convey it’s mood. By making the trees “moan”, the reader can assume that not even the plants that live there find comfort in it. The moon is symbolic of being a literal light in the dark, when it’s being described as “cold”, it can show that there is no good in the moor. In this passage, the author is describing the moor as an immoral and grim region.