Tag: perfectparagraph
Student paragaraph on women’s community in The Handmaid’s Tale
Perfect Paragraph practice continued / student examples
Jimena
Martin
Capucine
Tanguy
Louis
Brune
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Thelmina
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood creates a contrast between Offred’s colorful , emotional past and her dark, passive present. These shifts reveal her ability to alternate back and forth between a numb “survival mode” and her thriving interior identity. For example, while Offred is observing Serena outside, her memories come flooding back: “I once had a garden, I can remember the smell of the plump shapes of bulbs, held in the hands, coolness, the dry rustle of seeds through the fingers…time could past more swiftly that way.” The senses are active in this passage, through images such as the “smell of…bulbs” and the “dry rustle of seeds through the fingers.” It is as if her body remembers and longs for her past, which is brought to life through her detailed description of this flashback. Similarly, Offred creates a tone of nostalgia as she enters the kitchen: “The kitchen smells of yeast, a nostalgic smell. It reminds me of other kitchens, kitchens that were mine. It smells of mothers; although my own mother did not make bread. It smells of me, in former times, when I was a mother.” Once again, the sense of smell engages the past self she keeps inside, it even goes as far as helping her to realize that she once had a mother and once was a mother–something that should be obvious to her, but she has clearly kept hidden in her mind. Her longing for the past is reinforced by a diction of nostalgia that is present in words such as “nostalgic,” “reminds,” and “former times.” All of these elements contribute to an emotional, precise vision of her past, and her nostalgic description of each of these flashbacks illustrate the gap between the freedom of her past and the enslaving present.
Her enslaving present is, in fact, described in a totally different way than her past. It is described in an extremely nonemotional way which illustrates this “survival mode” she needs to be in as she lives with the Gilead Society. One of the characteristics of this “survival mode” is the way she lists every object surrounding her as if she needs to know what object she could use in case of emergency. For example, as she describes her bedroom she also enumerates every object she “possesses” ” A chair, a table, a lamp. Above on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in the face where the eye had been taken out. There must have been a chandelier once. They removed anything you could tie a rope to.”. This very robotic way of speaking comes in a total opposition to her description of the past. The punctuation perfectly highlights that shift in her mood as she talks about the present which, coupled with the enumeration of objects, demonstrates how she has to act as she lives as a handmaid but also how she repeals all her feelings to be focused on what could happen around her. Even on her walks to go shopping, she still describes her surroundings in a very precise way which practically makes the reader feel like it’s a report : “The wall is hundreds of years old too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it’s red brick, must have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on mental posts above it, and barred wire along the bottom and broken glass set in the concrete along the top.”. In this quote, Offred gives more historical indications on, for example, the age of the wall but also on the new constructions. This knowledge in every change that occured in her surroundings could be another characteristic of her “survival mode”. In fact, it shows how careful she needs to be with this society and how each detail could help her to escape her position and this society or at least stay alive and carry on her memories.
Perf paragraph outline: tone in The Handmaid’s Tale (written together in class)
Question: How does the tone of Margaret Atwood’s novel show Offred’s state of mind?
Thesis Statement:
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood creates a contrast between Offred’s colorful , emotional past and her dark, passive present. These shifts reveal her ability to alternate back and forth between a numb “survival mode” and her interior identity.
a) “I once had a garden, I can remember the smell of the plump shapes of bulbs, held in the hands, coolness, the dry rustle of seeds through the fingers…time could past more swiftly that way”
b)” The kitchen smells of yeast, a nostalgic smell. It reminds me of other kitchens, kitchens that were mine. It smells of mothers; although my own mother did not make bread. It smells of me, in former times, when I was a mother”
c) ” A chair, a table, a lamp. Above on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in the face where the eye had been taken out. There must have been a chandelier once. They removed anything you could tie a rope to.”
d) “The wall is hundreds of years old too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it’s red brick, must have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on mental posts above it, and barred wire along the bottom and broken glass set in the concrete along the top.”
Transformation of outline into a coherent paragraph:
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood creates a contrast between Offred’s colorful , emotional past and her dark, passive present. These shifts reveal her ability to alternate back and forth between a numb “survival mode” and her thriving interior identity. For example, while Offred is observing Serena outside, her memories come flooding back: “I once had a garden, I can remember the smell of the plump shapes of bulbs, held in the hands, coolness, the dry rustle of seeds through the fingers…time could past more swiftly that way.” The senses are active in this passage, through images such as the “smell of…bulbs” and the “dry rustle of seeds through the fingers.” It is as if her body remembers and longs for her past, which is brought to life through her detailed description of this flashback. Similarly, Offred creates a tone of nostalgia as she enters the kitchen: “The kitchen smells of yeast, a nostalgic smell. It reminds me of other kitchens, kitchens that were mine. It smells of mothers; although my own mother did not make bread. It smells of me, in former times, when I was a mother.” Once again, the sense of smell engages the past self she keeps inside, it even goes as far as helping her to realize that she once had a mother and once was a mother–something that should be obvious to her, but she has clearly kept hidden in her mind. Her longing for the past is reinforced by a diction of nostalgia that is present in words such as “nostalgic,” “reminds,” and “former times.” All of these elements contribute to an emotional, precise vision of her past, and her nostalgic description of each of these flashbacks illustrate the gap between the freedom of her past and the enslaving present.
c) ” A chair, a table, a lamp. Above on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in the face where the eye had been taken out. There must have been a chandelier once. They removed anything you could tie a rope to.”
d) “The wall is hundreds of years old too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it’s red brick, must have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on mental posts above it, and barred wire along the bottom and broken glass set in the concrete along the top.”
Chapter 5 Perfect Paragraph written together in class
In John Knowles’ novel A SEPARATE PEACE, Knowles uses the symbol of Finny’s shirt and diction of grandeur to show Gene’s guilty, toxic obsession with Finny. For example, when Gene found himself in their room alone after Finny’s accident, he has an idea to wear Finny’s clothes and searches for his pink shirt: “I looked for and finally found his pink shirt.” This item of clothing is much more than a shirt to Gene. It symbolizes the night when Gene first felt jealous of Finny, because he could “get away with anything.” By putting on the shirt, Gene becomes Phineas : “I was Phineas, Phineas to the life. I even had his humurous expression in my face, his sharp, optimistic awareness.” Here, more than imitate Finny, by putting on his clothes Gene clearly hopes to “become” his roommate. This is demonstrated when he repeats “Phineas” and also in the fact that he wants not just to look like Finny, but also to adopt his “sharp, optimistic” outlook that allows him to get away with things at school. The shirt signifies everything Gene wishes to be and envies Finny for. Furthermore, in the same passage the narrator describes the effect Finny’s clothes have on him. He uses words such as “rich,” “noble,” “high,” “Spanish grandee,” “aristocrat,” and “triumphant” to express his feeling of intoxicating “grandeur” in response to taking on the role of Finny. The fact that these words are so hyperbolic shows the intense desire, admiration, and perhaps even his grief he has for Finny. Conceivably, these emotions indiciate that he is devoted to replacing Finny—in other words, to soothe his guilt by living out the life that he took away from him. All in all, Gene’s narration in this extract reveals his unhealthy obsession with Finny, and the power his guilt has over him.
Perfect Paragraph written in class
In Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace, the writer uses repetition to show Gene’s fear of the past. For example, when Gene first arrives as an adult at Devon School, he looks back on his memories and narrates: “I felt fear’s echo” (p. 2).At this moment, as Gene reminisces, he constantly uses the word “fear”. Moreover, the fact that fear has an “echo” shows that his past continuously haunts him. Additionally, just a paragraph later, Gene observes: “looking back now…I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in” (P.2). The dominant emotion in Gene’s mind is clearly fear. Here, repetition serves to reveal Gene’s deep-seated anxiety connected to his past. Another striking example occurs when Gene is walking through his school’s halls and contemplates: “preserved along with it like stale air in an unopened room, was the well-known fear which had surrounded and filled those days, so much of it that I hadn’t even known it was there” (p.2). The “well-known” fear that Gene refers to could reference the war, as well as his guilt surrounding his relationship with his friend Finny. The fear here is so intense, that Gene compares it to an omnipresent force such as the air. This mounting apprehension of his high-school memories is once again reinforced by the repetition of the word “fear” which clearly establishes the narrator’s discomfort. Finally, Gene highlights: “there were a couple of places now which I wanted to see both were fearful sites and that’s why I wanted to see them”. This quote once again underlines Gene’s shame connected to his younger self, and the environment which reminds him of his sins. To sum it up, the repeating refrain of “fear” (used 5 times on the first page of the novel) intensifies the reader’s experience of Gene’s trauma.