Close-Reading Bingo

Common Weaknesses:

Weakness #2: Baker describes the escalators themselves that rise to his office, “They were the free-standing kind: a pair of integral sins swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight.”  -The Lost Message of Words

Weakness #6: Comparing the black handrails, "like the radians of black luster," shows the way he is able to control his writing. -Back of the Napkin Blog

Weakness #2: He uses figurative language to describe a “steeper escalator of daylight, formed by the intersections of the lobby’s towering volumes of marble and glass, met by the real escalators just above the middle point.” -Contemplations

Bad Grammar: Salinger uses common words and even slang some slang like dough to try and communicate his story. -Chillin In The Nyle 

Best Overall Response:

The entire paragraph is good, but I was told to only pick a sentence... So this is it: "This unabashed overflow of foul language seems to suggest that he is trying to make up for his young age with his gratuitous choice of words in his attempt to be an adult." -The One Guy's Blog

Confused Practice Diction Analysis

In the excerpt from the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, Salinger’s slightly vulgar, familiar diction depicts the ill-educated, juvenility of the narrator. At first, the character introduces the reader to the point of the passage. The character “[doesn’t] feel like going through all that crap” of describing his life and “what [his] lousy childhood was like” because he is a lazy youth and possibly has poor writing skills if he must rely on vulgar words. Words such as “damn near” and “crap” are straight from the vulgar lexicon of immature teenage youth, hence emphasizing the narrator’s juvenility. Then the teen bounces around topics from an autobiographical style to the purpose of his writing to randomness about his brother, “D.B” who’s “in Hollywood without describing them very well. That isn’t too far from [the narrator’s] crumby place.” The vulgarity of the familiar diction highlights the juvenility of the undereducated narrator.

The Pretty Update

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld is so intriguing that I'm already halfway done with the book.

Tally, Zane, and the other Crims are doing things to make themselves "bubbly." Their term "bubbly" means clear-minded and can remember things from the past. Croy, one of the Smokies, dropped off 2 pills that ugly Tally agreed to take as a pretty. Tally and Zane are rushed in their decision because Specials are arriving. They each take 1 pill. Over a period of time, they each seem to be "healing," minus Zane's increasingly worse headaches. What is the correct dosage for this cure? 1 pill? 2 pills? Why is Zane having these headaches and not Tally?

Quite a few of the Crims have gotten flash tattoos on their face. In this world, tattoos can move; the tattoos move depending on the person's heart-rate. A higher heart-rate means that you are more bubbly and clear-minded. With these flash tattoos, you can see at a glance how bubbly a person is. Another thing they do to stay connected with their brain is use their ugly nicknames, like Nose, Squint, and Skinny. Their big, devious trick to stay bubbly for a loong time is to crack the ice in the skating rink and fall through to the baseball diamond below. (The rink is floating in the air and every person must wear a safety bungee jacket.) Zane dumps alcohol in the middle of the rink, to lower the freezing point, and then cracks through the ice. All of the Crims, plus some poor spectators, fell through the ice. The adrenaline kept them clear-minded for a longer time than just telling stories or using ugly names. How long can they keep this up?

Later in the story, Tally runs into Dr. Cable, a Special. (Read previous posts for more info on Dr. Cable.) Dr. Cable offers Tally a new lifestyle, as a Special. Tally does not like this idea too well, so Dr. Cable gave her time to think about it. Will she choose to become a Special, with superhuman strength and be super "bubbly?"

Shay is smart, and as it was "proven" in the first book, she can put "two and two together." She pieced together that Tally and Zane found a cure. Tally told her about the pills and Shay remembered the previous betrayal and claimed that all Tally could do is betray people. Shay seems to have cured herself through her anger. Shay has not talked to Tally for a while now. Tally and Zane found Shay holding a secret meeting in Uglyville, not a place where too many pretties go. Shay started a group of "cutters" who, as the name suggests, cut themselves. They do this "ritual" to feel bubbly, and it seems to work. Shay is turning insane.What is going to happen to her, mentally and physically?

Zane's headaches are getting worse. At one point, he stopped breathing, Tally hover-boarded him to the hospital, which is the last thing that Zane wants. The doctors could find out about their cure and reverse it permanently. Zane breaks his hand before entering the hospital, and then the doctors only worry about his broken head and don't bother with searching his brain. He got off the hook this time, what if it happens again?