Explain how elements of this passage relate to or demonstrate important conflicts and/or themes of the larger work.

Week 5 Close Reading Exercise:

The purpose of this exercise is to examine a literary passage and to determine

a.) its important linguistic and figurative/literary features, and

b.) how it contributes to the larger work of which it is a part.

For this exercise, you will work in your discussion groups. After reading the assigned passage over carefully a couple of times, each member of the group will have a task to complete related to the passage. Because there are more than 4 members in most groups, you will sometimes need to double up on a task. It is up to you as a group how you divide the work.

You should submit one completed answer sheet to me via email by the end of the week. Call the file “Discussion Group ___ Close Reading Notes,” where the blank is your group number. Include the same information in the subject line of the email you send to me. Make sure that each group member’s name is included at the end of the task they have completed. Note form is fine for these answers, but make sure it is easy to follow your thought process.

Tasks:

Determine where and how the passage fits in the story’s plot and provide detailed definitions for any unknown or seemingly important diction.

Identify and suggest the effects of any literary or rhetorical devices in the passage. You’ll be looking for elements like imagery and figurative language (metaphor and simile, personification, irony, etc).

Explain how this passage contributes to character and/or setting. Make sure to identify what particular elements of the passage create the effect you identify.

Explain how elements of this passage relate to or demonstrate important conflicts and/or themes of the larger work. You should support your claims with references to the passage and brief mentions of other parts of the story.

Here is the passage, which runs from pages 11-12 in the story.

It was night. For a moment she saw the coast of Sumatra edged by the phosphorescence of waves, and crowned by lighthouses, still sending forth their disregarded beams. These also vanished, and only the stars distracted her. They were not motionless, but swayed to and fro above her head, thronging out of one sky-light into another, as if the universe and not the air-ship was careening. And, as often happens on clear nights, they seemed now to be in perspective, now on a plane; now piled tier beyond tier into the infinite heavens, now concealing infinity, a roof limiting for ever the visions of men. In either case they seemed intolerable. ‘Are we to travel in the dark?’ called the passengers angrily, and the attendant, who had been careless, generated the light, and pulled down the blinds of pliable metal. When the air-ships had been built, the desire to look direct at things still lingered in the world. Hence the extraordinary number of skylights and windows, and the proportionate discomfort to those who were civilized and refined. Even in Vashti’s cabin one star peeped through a flaw in the blind, and after a few hours’ uneasy slumber, she was disturbed by an unfamiliar glow, which was the dawn.

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