Thursday, November 13, 2014

Nightjohn: 11/12/14

1- Analyze the impact word choice has on the meaning or tone of a text.
2- Analyze how dialogue or specific incidents reveal information about characters. Make sure to include textual evidence.

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Word choice in this piece helps develop the meaning of the text by helping better describe the conditions of the slaves. When Nightjohn arrives he has marks from being whipped. The author describes this by saying, " The skin across his shoulders and down was raised in ripples, thick as my hand." The word choice also helps show how little education the slaves had. The word choice in the whole story uses bad grammer to show the lack of education of the narrator. The line says, "There ain't no light allowed in the quarters." This shows the slaves had very little education.

Dialogue reveals that the main character is eager to learn. The main character says, "To read what I just put there in the dirt– can you teach me?" This shows that the main character is eager to learn. Dialogue also reveals that Nightjohn wants to improve other's lives. Dialogue between mammy and Nightjohn said, "You came back to teach reading' John nodded. 'That's half of it.' 'What's the other half?' 'Writing." This shows that Nightjohn wanted to teach people.

Specific incidents revealed that Sarny was scared of Waller. When Waller catches her writing words in the dirt she runs. The author writes, "I crawled-ran to get away. Ran to the only place I knew." This shows how scared Sarny was of Waller. Specific incidents also reveal that Nightjohn takes responsibility for his actions. When Waller is torturing another slave to find out who taught Sarny reading and writing Nightjohn confesses. He also locked himself up. The author writes, "He walked to the spring house and put the bracelets on." This shows Nightjohn would not allow other people to be punished for his actions.

2 comments:

  1. I liked you blog and I used very similar quotes. Like one having Sarney saying ain't, how it shows she had no education.

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  2. I commented on Carlos, Jesus, and Diego's blogs.

    ReplyDelete