January 18

Literature Photo Project

Exposition

“Keith is President now. All you got to worry about is…

“Shooting my dinosaur!” Eckels finished it for him.”

The first notable event of the story, Eckels is introduced and the ending is foreshadowed.

 

Rising Action Example #1

“They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.”

The plot starts moving forwards as the characters proceed into the time machine to kill a T-rex.

 

Rising Action Example #2

“So what?” answered Travis a little angrily. “Well, what about the foxes that’ll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion dies. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, birds, countless billions of life forms are destroyed.”

The stakes get raised here, and we now know of the consequences if something goes awry.

 

Rising Action Example #3

“Travis raised his hand. “There,” he whispered. “In the mist. There he is. There’s His Royal Majesty now.”

The last moment before the climax, the stakes are even higher now that the T-rex is present.

 

Climax

“Thundering, it held on to trees and pulled them with it. It pulled and tore the metal Path. The men threw themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold meat and stone. The guns fired. The Monster moved its heavy tail again, made a sudden movement of its neck, and lay still.”

The goal established in the exposition is complete, and the plot winds down from here.

 

Falling Action

“Stuck in the mud was a brightly colored butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.”

We learn more about the aftermath of the climax here, and we start to question the results of this action.

 

Denouement

“He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loudly. He heard Travis lift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.

There was a sound of thunder.”

The final action in the story, and we learn the ultimate fate of the protagonist.

 

Physical Setting

“The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the whole world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky. Those were pterodactyls flying high above with huge gray wings”

The story is telling us about what is happening around the characters, the jungle is large and full of noise, and there are pterodactyls flying above.

 

Emotional Setting

“Eckels seemed unable to move. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them walk. He gave a cry of helplessness.”

The atmosphere is generally fearful and tense, Eckels is unable to do anything out of fear.

 

Conflict Type

“The Monster moved its small hands down toward the men, to break them in half, to push them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the wild black circle in the center of each eye”

Person V Nature, the T-rex is simply just a T-rex, acting like how a normal T-rex would.

 

Ending type

“He heard Travis breathe loudly. He heard Travis lift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.

There was a sound of thunder”

surprise/twist, we aren’t expecting Travis to shoot Eckels.

 

Irony Example

“Don’t run,” said Lesperance. “Turn around. Hide in the Machine.”

“Yes.” Eckels seemed unable to move. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them walk. He gave a cry of helplessness. […] “Not that way!”

Situational, lesperance tells Eckels to walk back to the machine,  Eckels acknowledges this by saying ‘yes’, yet walks off the path.

 

Suspense

“the jungle was wide and full of sounds.

Suddenly it all stopped, as if someone had shut a door.

Silence.”

Putting characters’ safety in jeopardy, we are aware that the T-rex is coming, but we do not know when.

 

January 18

Blackout Poem – “The Highwayman”

Analysis of The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

 

The Highwayman is a narrative poem by Alfred Noyes revolving around the daughter of a landlord named Bess and a highwayman who are in love. During the exposition, the highwayman is described and he goes to Bess’ window, the tension starts rising when we learn that Tim the ostler is overseeing this. The next day, soldiers come into the inn and capture Bess, then lie in wait to ambush the highwayman. Bess manages to set herself free, and once the highwayman comes back along, shoots herself at the window to show that there is danger. The highwayman initially turns to run away, but revises his decision to charge straight at the inn to avenge Bess, resulting in him getting shot by the soldiers. A thematic statement for this poem could be “People can do rash things in the name of love”, as Bess takes her own life in order to try and save the highwayman’s, and the highwayman rushes in blindly because he watched his love get killed. This poem is worth reading as it warns about rash acts and how they can easily have negative results, shown through having both major characters dying to decisions that were made without much forethought. This poem also contains many poetic devices, such as when Tim is described in a simile to have “hair like moldy hay”, showing that he is generally unkempt and dirty (21). Another device can be found when the poem alludes to King George, a monarch of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 to 1727. A Final example is when it is said that “the hours crawled by like years”, which is a personification of hours (57).

October 18

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Daydream Six

In the short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty “, there are many examples of expressionism and realism. Expressionism is all that occurs inside a character’s mind, separate from the reality of the story. Examples of it include memories, dream sequences, flashbacks, thoughts in general, and when time stops for every other character. On the other hand, realism is the exact opposite of expressionism, being exactly what is happening in the reality of the story. As mentioned previously, the short story “the Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is an avid user of both, often changing between the two with each paragraph. A notable example of this occurs at the start of the story, where we’re immediately introduced to Walter Mitty’s daydream persona in an in medias res, only for him to be snapped out of the daydream when his wife chastised him for driving too fast; Here it is also revealed that he is merely driving out so that he can get overshoes, and so that his wife can go to the hair salon. This blend of expressionism and realism is used by the author to highlight how dissatisfied and bored people can be with their lives, and how appealing it is to escape to a reality that is different from our own, often with us being the center of it. Below, there is a continuation of the short story from when it leaves off.

Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last, He wasn’t going down without a fight. Suddenly smirking, he charged, nailing the closest with his shoulder, using them to take shots for him. A soldier came dashing at him with a bayonet to his head, Walter ducked, letting him have the man behind, and went to pick up the newly retired soldier’s rifle, a bullet whizzing by, barely grazing his nose, he returned the favor, only difference being their accuracy. Walter spun to his right, enjoying his first fair match in a long time, almost playfully dealing with the firing squad. But then, a crack through the air, like every other rifle shot, but not quite like every other one, time seemed to slow and all sound cut out as Walter clutched his chest, Blood. He had let his guard down, and he knew the wound was fatal, He shouldn’t have gotten careless. He turned, wincing with the pain, to see a soldier staring death at him, rifle smoking…

“WALTER!” he heard a woman cry directly at him, and he was immediately staring at his wife staring back at him with the same deathly stare, a parcel at her feet. “Aren’t you going to help me take this to the car? It’s heavy, you know.” Walter Mitty looked at his wife, then at the package, “Don’t tell me you’re ‘thinking’ again, Walter. Come on, let’s go.” Walter bent down and picked up the package, and they both made their way to the car, but were interrupted by a large crash in the distance. “What was that?” His wife asked, but…

…Walter Mitty Loaded the shell into the Roth R3’s powerful 75mm chamber, unfazed by the heavy artillery fire all around him. The Roth’s tracks plowed over the broken, uneven earth, Walter Mitty the fearless commander would make it complete its objective…