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Lesson 3 homework
In the excerpt of “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, the author successfully presented the idea of a future world to the readers through two main aspects, the narrator’s perspective, and the interactions between the narrator and local people from the future world.
Firstly, the author fabricated the future world concept through the narrator’s perspective in a straightforward style of language. To illustrate this point with a specific instance, the narrator claimed, “I feel naked in a strange world,” when he first arrive, the narrator directly revealed the fact that the narrator was in a “strange world” that he does not belong, hinting the time travel that has been done. Besides, with the title of “The Time Machine”, the reader receives pieces of information that guide them to a conclusion that the narrator was likely from is currently in a divergent time period through the time machine. The feel of “naked” also supports this point as a supplementary detail. This “naked feeling” was more likely caused by the unfamiliar and unknown world the narrator just arrived, the narrator is quite “distant” from this current world, which proves again the narrator is possibly a time traveler. These fragments of information gradually lead the reader to ascertain the time travel background of this passage. “I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future”. The term “remote” suggests that the narrator’s from a disparate period of time, with information given in the previous paragraphs, the readers will end up with an inference that the narrator is a time traveler who travels to the future world that he does not belong to.
Secondly, the readers also gain pieces of information to verify the idea of background setting of a future world through the interactions between the narrator and local people. People who belong to the future world “came a step forward, hesitated, and then touched
my hand…they wanted to make sure I was real ” which the narrator himself was a strange existence to the indigenous people, hinting the narrator and native people are from divergent place that the narrator does not belong to this current world, which also validates the time travel and the fact the narrator’s in the future world.The author successfully constructed the future world’s setting through this passage, with the first few paragraphs provides pieces of information that guides the reader to decipher the background setting of time travel, along with the subsequent paragraphs continues to present supplementary details to support and confirm this inference.
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Lesson 2 Homework
The structure of The Silk Factory by Judith Allnatt was brilliantly arranged. The author has chosen to start the passage with a “statement” that provides abundant amount of information that stimulates the readers’ interest, but then the author stopped on expanding this plot, while unfolding the whole storyline through following paragraph, then when the starting sentence integrates with the rest, it pushes the plot to a climax and ends with an undetermined ending. The ingenious structure grasps the reader’s heart tightly throughout this passage.
The author started the whole passage with, “It was on their first day at the house that Rosie saw the stranger child.” The most eye-catching point within this sentence is the “stranger child”, which this phrase stimulates the reader’s curiosity and make them wants to explore more about this weird appearance of the strange child, since the author didn’t reveal any other description of this child except the word “stranger”. Those unknown information of this kid leads the reader to keep reading this story in order to know more about this child. Usually, the author will start to expand and add more details to the first sentence, and develop the kind of suspense it possesses. However, in this passage, the author stopped to continue describing the strange girl, but starting a new “perspective” of the story, apart from introducing the strange kid, this angle of view concentrates on depicting the ideal life Rosie and her kids have. Whereas this kind of contrast further develops the reader’s interest and cause them to wonder what will happen and make them more urgent to investigate more about the strange child that appeared.
The next paragraph was arranged in the middle of two paragraphs that focus on depicting the appearance of the strange kid with a suspense feel, but this this paragraph was quite different from the others, it supplemented the storyline to make it more complete and clear, it also has a transitional effect that aimed to develop the feel of suspense while a more detailed and comprehensive description was added. For the new “perspective” of the story, the author illustrates an idyllic and pleasant scenario of the kids playing, “Sam was kneeling beside the patch of earth that Rosie had cleared for him, making hills and valleys for his matchbox cars and trucks by digging with an old tablespoon”, a picturesque description that carries out the atmosphere of serenity. In addition, the author also included sentence like “Through the antique glass, Rosie watched them stretch and shrink as they moved, as if she were looking through ripples.” Reinforces the serenity and the pleasant life of Rosie and her family. But then the suspense atmosphere “returns” to the passage as the following sentence appears. “She (Rosie) closed her eyes, glad of a moment of calm after the trauma of the last few days.” The “trauma” was used as a foreshadowing for future plots since it gets involved with Rosie’s story that wasn’t unfold too much. Besides, this sentence sort of “echoes” with the suspense feel at the start of the passage. The next sentence also supports this point, “When she opened her eyes, another child was there.” The addition of a new and unfamiliar child echoes with the first sentence at start, where the two “perspectives” of story merged together, and then leads to the climax of this passage.
The more detailed description of the strange kid actually forms the climax of the passage, where the author describe the girl’s glance as “a quick, furtive movement as if she were scanning the upper windows of the row, afraid of being overlooked”, portrays the awareness and sensitivity of this girl, by using words like “quick, furtive” and “scanning” to reinforce these characteristics of the strange kid. The author also used phrases like “animal-like” to describe the strange girl, which by describing a human as “animal-like”, the contrast between the description and reality exaggerates the suspense feel and helped to shape the uncanny atmosphere within this description. At the end, “But when she (Rosie) stepped outside, the child was gone.” The story was wrapped up with an unpredictable ending, while reinforcing the suspense feel, also leaving the readers with plenty spaces of imagination.
Overall, as the beginning of a novel, this passage has an innovative structure that helps the author to present her story. The ingenious structure first captures the reader’s curiosity that causes them to keep reading, which provided the author a chance to fully unfold the plotline to the audience, then urging the plot to climax. The structure successfully serves to the presentation of plots and the way how Judith Allnatt arranged every part of the story was wonderful that it clasps the audiences’ heart.
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Lesson 1 Homework
In the extract of Dracula by Bram Stoker, the author successfully created suspense for the readers through various aspects.
Dracula’s speech starts the whole passage, which it also created a strong sense of suspense. For example, at the very start of his speech, Dracula said, “Let me advise you, my dear young friend—nay, let me warn you with all seriousness”, Dracula deliberately changed the word from “advise” to “warn” , the tension within his words fabricates the suspense atmosphere and also hints the sense of horror of his following speech. Besides, the word “advise” usually intends to make things better, while “warn” was used when dreadful things happened (you won’t warn people for anything that’s good, you only warn people when there’s something terrible) these two words are actually on opposite sides, which the author intends to use the contrast between them to foreshadow the danger and horror of the upcoming events. The rest of Dracula’s speech continue a similar type of tone and keeps creating suspense atmosphere, for example, at the end of his speech, the author described it as “He finished his speech in a gruesome way”, which the sense of horror and suspense maintain throughout the whole speech. To sum up, the first paraph has played an excellent role as an introduction, successfully construct a solid foundation of the tone for this story, leading the reader to step into the suspense.
The next paragraph mainly focused on the main character’s inner emotions, and build up the suspense based on this aspect. The narrator described his feeling as “I felt that I was indeed in prison”and “It is destroying my nerve.”, indicating the oppression of this castle. The narrator also depicted his terror as “I start (to move suddenly with surprise or alarm) at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings.” Through these descriptions, the author created suspense through the intense fear of the main character that’s constantly growing, also foreshadows the upcoming plot. Then the author changed the perspective, started to depict the attractive and pleasing scenario outside the castle, which created a vast contrast with the fearful and troubled feeling of the main character, developing the suspense to a higher level.
The Third paragraph reached the “climax” of this extract. Where the narrator witnessed Dracula crawl down the castle, as he described, “But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.” This paragraph reached the summit of suspense within this extract, construct through a series of Dracula’s strange and uncanny actions that’s beyond human’s limits. Some act like “emerge from the window”, “crawl down the castle wall”, describing his cloak spreading like wings, these eerie and unnatural acts has pushed the suspense to a pinnacle. But the story ends unexpectedly, which further develops the suspense through the undetermined future of the main character.
Overall, Bram Stoker has successfully created suspense through diverse aspects and techniques within this extract.
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