Critical Analysis of the Passage - Essay Example

The Passage He went back into the hut, straightened his camp bed, cleaned his submachine gun, and pickedup his shaving kit. On his way, among whitewashed eucalyptus trees and clustering notices commending tidiness and discipline, he suddenly remembered that today was Independence Day, the Fifth of Iyar. Today the platoon was to mount a celebratory parachute display in the Valley of Jezebel. He entered the washroom and, while he waited for a free mirror, brushed his teeth, and though, of pretty girls. In an hour and a half, the preparations would be complete, and the platoon would be airborne, on its way to its destination. Throngs of excited civilians would be waiting for them to jump, and the girls would be there, too. The drop would take place just outside Nof Harish, the kibbutz that was Gideon’s home, where he had been born and brought up until the day he joined the army. The moment his feet touched the ground, the children of the kibbutz would close around him and jump all over him and shout, “Gideon, look, here’s our Gideon!” The writer composed the passage by describing the scene and his thoughts of the main character. The writer gives us a detailed visual picture of a boy and includes details of his movements from room to room. The writer describes the thoughts of the boy and what he anticipated. Every sentence seemed as if the writer was a true witness of the actions of the boy, or thoughts of anticipation by the boy as seen through the eyes of a narrator. It is written as if the narrator of a play was speaking. Without reading the entire story, I can conclude that the passage is most likely extracted from heroic tale. In addiction, the writer composed the passage using a language that makes the reader associate the scene with something exciting and memorable, that the reader may have experienced. For instance, in the readers mind the “Throngs of excited civilians would be waiting...” gives a visual recollection of a street parade, a Macy’s Day parade in New York or a parade on Independence Day in Israel. This makes the reader connect to the story. While writing this passage, it seems the writer decided that the main character would be optimistic and in the eyes of the character (the boy) would be a hero to others. The writer decided to add details of the main characters surrounding his thoughts and his hopes. The writer decides to mislead the reader into thinking the boy would be successful as his thoughts are positive. For example, the writer wrote the following: “Would be complete and the platoon would be airborne, on its way to its destination.” The writer describes a soldier who is happy for this day. The writer includes details such as the venue of Independence Day, who will be there and how people will react. In this way, the writer describes the boy’s character. Later in the story, we realized that this is not what occurred. Instead, the writer wants the reader to believe in the optimism from the main character at the end of this passage. The writer does not describe the character as a patriot for his country. He is described in a way that makes the reader presume that the character is doing things for fame and glory from his family, the children of the kibbutz and women. This character (soldier) is thinking about his parents, children and women and not what he aspires than to be a hero. The writer conveys this by describing what the character is thinking and envisioning. Grammatical and rhetorical elements seen in this passage are personification. For instance, “eucalyptus trees and clustering notices commending tidiness and discipline”. In this sentence, the writer is setting a scene of a military base in a way that even the trees are tidy and disciplined just like soldiers. The writer also describes everyone including the civilians. He does not just write “Civilians would be waiting,” instead, the writer writes, “Throngs of civilians would be waiting”. This shows that the writer is highly descriptive. The writer uses a significant day in the Hebrew Calendar, Independence Day, to have the main character envisions of his future. When one reads the entire story, the passage is ironic because in this passage all is admirable and positive but the end of the story is terrible and sad. The writer glorifies this day in the mind of this character. This is by writing what the character anticipates and thinks about as he gets ready to start his day. The writer uses details such as, brushing his teeth, shaving and washing himself to represent the start of his day. In this passage, the writer does not use a lot of quotes or questions to describe the scene or the thoughts. The first and the second sentence have three commas. The third sentences have no comma. The fourth sentence has two commas. The fifth sentence has one comma. The sixth sentence has four commas. The final sentence has two commas. Therefore, I notice the sentences are long. The punctuation used was to break the long sentences. The tone is consistent gets more exciting and optimistic through out the passage. At first the writers tone is relatively flat. As the writer describes the thoughts of the main character, the tone becomes more optimistic and exciting. The passage eventually ends in an exciting quote that the main character images will occur. The tone is consistent, but it shifts slightly to becoming more exciting as the passage ends. My Imitation passage Title: My Son Graduates College: David walked into his dormitory for the last time. He picked up his text book and put it into a box that he would put in his car and take home. He took the blanket off his bed, then the bed sheet of his mattress and finally pillow case off the pillow. He put it all in the box. He paused before his past, small twin bed that was his home for the last four years. As he carried his last box to his car outside, he stopped to notice the orange trees looking at him in approval, as if they understood the challenge that he overcame to graduate college. He suddenly remembered today is Family Day, the fifth day of Sivan, and the day of his college graduation. In three hours, his graduating class is mounting a ceremony of receiving their diploma. The graduation ceremony will take place in Mount Zion in Jerusalem. He presses the car alarm button and turns off the car alarm. He puts the box down beside the outside of the car. He opens the door and picks up his gown from inside the car. He thinks about all the people that will be coming to watch him graduate. He puts on the gown. He puts the box into the car and closes the door. He viewed himself in the front rearview mirror, fixes his hair and his tie as he thinks about his girlfriend who waited four years for him to graduate. David remembers that he is the pioneer  in his home family to graduate college. He imagines his parents at his graduation. His father’s look of pride in his eyes and his mother’s tears of joy. “David, we are so proud of you” they would say in unison. “Look there is our David,” he would hear in the distance as he walked off the stage from getting his diploma. I hoped to accomplish the style, tone, grammar and the visual details of the writer of “The Way of the Wind”. I used the characterization, personification and ending with a final quote just as the writer did. I hoped the tone was an excellent imitation as it was consistent with an increasing optimism from the main character. It was difficult to personify the trees at first. It was also difficult to begin and come up with an idea. It was difficult to understand how to imitate the writer in tone and visual detail. I learnt that the original text was written to lead the reader to believe that the optimistic outlook of the main character was what would occur in the story. I learnt it was the writer’s style that made the reader believes a certain thing was going to occur. Later after the passage, the writer changes the ending. It would be as if my story continued. The boy would find out that a few minutes before his graduation ceremony that he had failed the last test and would not graduate, or he crashed his car and did not graduate. I learnt that a writer style can take a reader wherever the writer wants. In addition, learnt that one paragraph has the power to create a picture in the reader's mind, not only about what is occurring, but also about what the writer wants the reader to believe will occur. In connection with the reproduction of the essay, it is hard to consider all the grammatical and rhetorical elements. Therefore, I used my common sense. I chose the passage to be imitated before I reviewed different figures of speech and it helped me. Perhaps, I have mentioned what I have learnt already, yet my closest observation is that, the author used present participle form of the verb. For instance, has plus the past tense of the verb. The writer also used commas, significant punctuation mark, in connecting clauses of complex sentences within the passage. According to me, the pros of using the first person is that, the author was directly connecting the scenes to the reader. “Am I part of the story? Yes, I feel like part of it”. I can picture out myself playing one of the roles of the story. Finally, this is the lesson I got from the story; the story helped me in exercising my critical thinking. Reading passages, though, it is extremely appealing, yet, it needs more digestion of the message than reading academic essays. Literature works possess more implied meaning than of the latter. The task of imitating one of the passages of a certain literal composition enhanced my creative thinking. It is about going into the scene before one can feel on writing with heart and passion in order to convey readers' interest. What's the lesson? Being stubborn is not bad, if one is doing it for good. Works Cited Norris, Zoe A. The Way of the Wind. Teddington: Echo Library, 2009. Read More