"For an instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self." p. 117
first of all, STOP. WHINING. I'm sick of it. I get that you're miserable, but are you really so miserable that you can't even shake it for a moment? you're in the English countryside, and you can't pretend to enjoy it?! you make me sad. so be it. (come, Patsy!). after finishing, I realize that this as a foreshadowing to Victor going bye-bye. and by "going bye-bye", I mean jumping ship. literally. he's miserable. he might have been recovering, but retelling this story to Walton just made everything gush back and he got miserable all over again. and this time he really can't shake it. poor guy.
Showing posts with label foreshadowing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreshadowing. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
presagio.
"I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end." p. 98
I should have picked up on this right about this part of the book... Nick starts talking about "the end". he reflects more about Gatsby's life as a whole. he foreshadows Gatsby's death a mere five pages later. uh-duh. I feel a little stupid now for not noticing it, but I was still kinda worried about Myrtle dying and trying to figure out where Tom was and so on and so forth. the end of the book isn't super clear about all of that. that's probably typical. the reader doesn't need to know EXACTLY where people go. it's sorta like that object permanence thing that babies learn when they're a few months old: just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. it's pretty well placed, actually. right at the coattails of the Myrtle incident. right after the big to-do between Gatsby and Tom. boo. well played, Fitzgerald.
I should have picked up on this right about this part of the book... Nick starts talking about "the end". he reflects more about Gatsby's life as a whole. he foreshadows Gatsby's death a mere five pages later. uh-duh. I feel a little stupid now for not noticing it, but I was still kinda worried about Myrtle dying and trying to figure out where Tom was and so on and so forth. the end of the book isn't super clear about all of that. that's probably typical. the reader doesn't need to know EXACTLY where people go. it's sorta like that object permanence thing that babies learn when they're a few months old: just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. it's pretty well placed, actually. right at the coattails of the Myrtle incident. right after the big to-do between Gatsby and Tom. boo. well played, Fitzgerald.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"Eveline" makes me think of Ben Folds
because he has a song "Emaline". completely unrelated. ohwell.
anyway, this is in response to the first(?) question in the book about this story. it asked why the first paragraph was structured the way it was. the word "invades" was used instead of something else. why was everything in passive voice except for the first paragraph?
the "invades" thing I picked up pretty quickly: no one can control night. it just happens and the darkness that it brings seeps into every crack. using the word "invades" rather than a more pleasant word preps the reader in a way for the unpleasantness that is in this story.
until I really looked into why "invades" was used, I couldn't figure out the purpose of using passive voice. (being a yearbook nerd, I find very little use for it in most circumstances. other than laziness, of course). but! I had an epiphany.. as I was explaining to my small group that "invades" is used because it can't be controlled, I realized that the author used passive voice for similar reasons. passive voice suggests that something happens, but not actively. the person doing the action does not choose to do the action, necessarily. there's a lack of DOING replaced by simply BEING... the passive voice foreshadows the lack of control and action that Eveline exercises in the story, a-HA!
anyway, this is in response to the first(?) question in the book about this story. it asked why the first paragraph was structured the way it was. the word "invades" was used instead of something else. why was everything in passive voice except for the first paragraph?
the "invades" thing I picked up pretty quickly: no one can control night. it just happens and the darkness that it brings seeps into every crack. using the word "invades" rather than a more pleasant word preps the reader in a way for the unpleasantness that is in this story.
until I really looked into why "invades" was used, I couldn't figure out the purpose of using passive voice. (being a yearbook nerd, I find very little use for it in most circumstances. other than laziness, of course). but! I had an epiphany.. as I was explaining to my small group that "invades" is used because it can't be controlled, I realized that the author used passive voice for similar reasons. passive voice suggests that something happens, but not actively. the person doing the action does not choose to do the action, necessarily. there's a lack of DOING replaced by simply BEING... the passive voice foreshadows the lack of control and action that Eveline exercises in the story, a-HA!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
gangrene is not a weird shade of green - TTTC
"After the rot cleared up, once I could think straight, I devoted a lot of time to figuring ways to get back at him."(p. 181)
so even in war, there's revenge. or something like it. this little piece is sort of a cliff hanger. I mean, there's a break in the story here, and it doesn't continue forward with the story directly afterward. it gives a little side-note about what you can learn from being shot. but this excerpt seems to be a foreshadowing of something to come. as I continued to read this chapter, it became more and more clear to me that O'Brien was going to do SOMETHING to get Jorgenson back. I was never sure what he was going to do exactly. that's not the point. the main idea here is that something would be done. a lot of devoted time can't go unwasted, I guess. you don't almost let someone die of shock in a war and expect not to get something nasty in return? is that really the lesson here?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)