VIRGIN SUICIDES POST 3

"The window shades had closed like eyelids and the shaggy flower beds made the house look abandoned. In the window where one light had burned, however, the shade rippled. A hand peeled it back, revewaling a hot yellow slice of face--Bonnie, Mary, Therese or even Lux--looking down the street. Parkie Denton hooted his horn, a short hopeful blast, but just as the girl put her palm to the glass, the light went out."

The author uses symbolism in describing the return of the girls to the house, the sort of final hurrah before their final, impending incarceration. The "window shades...closed like eyelids" are symbolic of a true shutting in and putting to sleep of their social lives. The "shaggy flower beds" represent neglect of their "flowery youth" which will now forever be set aside and wasted out of their mothers contempt. The hand moving the shade represents their last reach at civilization, and the yellow light and "slice of face" is all the hope that is left in both the girls and the boys who so longingly sought after them. The fact that the face could have been any of them adds to the interchangeableness of what they represent; although their personalities are different, they are all in search of womanhood and freedom that they will never achieve.

VIRGIN SUICIDES POST 2

"Together we watched Mrs. Lisbon push open her car door with one goot, then climb out, holding her purse over her head to keep dry. Crouching and frowning, she opened the rear door. Rain fell. Mrs. Lisbon's hair fell into her face. At last Cecilia's smal head came into view, hazy in the rain, swimming up with odd thrusting movements because of the double slings that impeded her arms. It took her a while to get up enough steam to roll to her feet. When she finally tumbled out she lifted both slings like canvas wings and Mrs. Lisbon took hold of her left ledbow and hed her into the house. By that time the rain had found total release and we couldn't see across the street"

The author uses a dreary setting and a metaphor to set up the return home of Cecilia. Usually when someone comes home from a hospital it is a good thing; in this case, it is quite the opposite. The darkness, "rain" and "haze" set up her return as dreary. Her attempt at getting out of the car is oddly reminiscent of a baby bird leaving its nest. The diction helps solidfy this comparison: "she lifted both slings like canvas wings". This makes it sound like a small bird getting ready to take flight. When Mrs. Lisbon grabs her elbow, it shows an over-protective mother bird restraining her able-bodied, eager youth from taking flight. With the addition of her movements being described as "odd thrusting", the scene takes on a slightly violent undertone. The significance of the dreariness is that coming home from her suicide attempt is even worse than death for Cecilia. She is now restrained even further, both by her canvas slings and by her overbearing mother. Dying would have let her "take flight" away from her miserable life; now, she is stuck at home in restraining casts with her mother acting as an extra boundary from what would have been happiness to the little girl and her old, worn-out soul

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES POST 1

"We've tried to arrange the photographs chronologically, though the passage of so many years has made it difficult. A few are fuzzy but revealing nonetheless. Exhibit #1 shows the Lisbon house shortly before Cecilia's suicide attempt. It was taken by a real estate agent, Ms. Carmina D'Angelo, whom Mr. Lisbon has hired to sell the house his large family had long outgrown. As the snapshot shows, the slate roof had not yet begun to shed its shingles, the porch was still visible above the bushes, and the windows were not yet held together with strips of masking tape. A comfortable suburban home. The upper-right second -story window contains a blur that Mrs. Lisbon identified as Mary Lisbon. "she used to tease her hair because she thought it was limp," she said years later, recalling how her daughter had looked for her brief time on earth. In the photograph Mary is caught in the act of blow-drying her hair. Her head appears to be on fire but that is only a trick of the light. It was June 13, eighty-three degrees out, under sunny skies."

This passage contains foreshadowing and a seemingly average and pristine setting that acts as a biting contradiction to what the reader already knows. The photograph is described as depicting a "comfortable suburban house", but the proceeding diction creates dark images of what this house eventually became. Visibly pleasing aspects of a common home such as "slate roof", "shingles", "windows" and "porch" seem to be part of a common appearance, but the "strips of masking tape" and overgrown "bushes" proceed to cover them, showing signs of neglect and careless delapidation. The author uses harsh alliteration to further make the scene dismal: "slate roof" "shed its shingles". As this picture of normalcy was taken just before the first suicide attempt, it gives insight to the not-so-obvious troubles underneath the seemingly normal appearance of the household. The visible image of Mary in the window where "her head appears to be on fire" is possible foreshadowing of her death, and perhaps even the way in which she will die.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 7

"'You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about that.' I said:
'Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir.' But I had a real horrorshow smeck at that inside, bothers. He said:
'It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed on him? Deep hard questions, little 6655321. But all i was to say to you now is this: if at any time in the future you look back to these times and remember me, the lowest and and humblest of all God's servitors, do no, I pray, think evil of me in your hear, thinking me in any way involved in what is now about to happen to you. And now, talking of praying, I realize sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. "

This quote utilizes dramatic irony and foreshadowing to emphasize a point the character, the prison chaplain, is trying to verbalize to a stubborn and self-satisfied Alex. A man of God, he questions his creators will over and over again in regards to the procedure Alex will go under that will rid him of his cruel ways, but also of his free will. When Alex snarks at this in his own head, it shows that he is not ready to endure nor understand the seriousness of what he is about to be deprived of. The Chaplain, on the other hand, repeartedly warns him and begs for Alex, a criminal, to forgive him. This should serve as a warning for Alex, but instead gives him a feeling of surperiority for considering it nonsense-this shows he has not changed, nor has he been "put in his place" as prison had originally been intended for. When the true purpose of the treatment is revealed, it it clear Alex jumped the gun and underestimated societies ability to supress him.

CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 6

"They dragged me into this very bright-lit white-washed cantora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming from the barry places near by. Your could hear some of the plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could slooshy one belting out:
'And i will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone.'
But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut it and you could evens looshy the avook of like somebody being tolchocked real horrowshow and going owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora were four millicents, all have a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it being on the table and they sucking and belching away over the dirty bolshy mugs. They didn't offer me any. All they gave me, my brothes, was a crappy starry mirror to look into, and indeed i was not your handsome young Narrator any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also.


This quote uses diction and imagery to set up a scene that is symbolic of Alex's loss of power after he is taken in by the police after his arrest. The jail is a dingy, dirty, pungent-smelling place; "lavatories", "beery rot" and "disinfectant" are combined to render what the smell of the building is like. Prisoners scream and sing from their cells, one in particular crying out like a woman; this could foreshadow the effects that jail will have on Alex, perhaps causing him to become less of a devious alphamale. The others in the room with Alex do not accept him and invite him to drink with them--they only offer him a "crapy starry" mirror. This is shocking for Alex, as he is used to being the ringleader of his friends, not being incarcerated in a place where he is intimidated and cannot take control. When he looks in the crappy mirror he recieves, he realizes that his face is swollen and beaten, different than his usual handsome ways. With lack of leadership, power, and his vanity, he is truly metaphorically incarcerated with no resources to act like his usual dominant self.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 5

"Then they viddied themselves as real sophistoes, which was like pathetic, and started talking ing big-lady golosses about the Ritz and the Briston and the Hilton and Il Ristorante Granuturnco. But i stopped that with "Follow uncle", and i let them to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let them fill their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till i near sicked with the sight of it, I , brothers, lunching but frugally off a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop of chilli. These two young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters. They had the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair--a like dyed strawy. Well, they would grow up real today. Today i would make a day of it. No school this afterlunch but education certain, Alex as teacher."

This passage further characterizes Alex and his seemingly one-track mind. He meets these young women and spoils them with lavish amounts of food, which they indulge infront of him to a sickening degree. He eats lightly as he looks on to their gluttony; it disgusts him, but he has manipulated enough times and is aware of the inner workings of their shallow minds and naiivety enough to convince them to do what he wants. The diction used makes them seem extremely vulnerable. "Innocent young litsos" eating "cream-puffs" and "banana-splits" render the image of little girls being treated to ice cream and sweets. The dark twist is put on this situation when Alex reveals that he plans on assissting them in "growing up"-he is going to have relations with them. His disgust at their piggishness and point of view of them as innocent little girls shows that he has a superiority complex and considers himself more well-mannered and mature than them. When he notes that they look and think the same, although they are not sisters, and have seemingly artificial, dingy hair, it shows that his view of women is that of almost completely uniform pieces of meat, meant strictly for carnal utilization.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 3

Then, brothers, it came. OH, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers aon the pillow, glazzies glosed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunchd redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all th other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. The flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.

The author uses vibrant diction to create a visual representation of listening to moving symphonies. As Alex listens in "bliss", it reveals him as more of a human than the sort of apathetic monster he seems to be. He refers to the sensory organs using the made up slang "glazzies" (eyes) closed, "rot" (mouth) "open in bliss" as sounds reach his ears, showing that he is numbing these other senses to allow the music to enter him and overtake him. When refering to the instruments coming out of the stereo, he appeals to brassy, metallic colors with words like "redgold" referring to trombones and "thick thick toffee gold" and "worms of platinum" when speaking of the flute and the oboe. Along with "heavenmetal" and "silvery wine", these descriptions bring a visual element to the effects that the music is having in Alex's head. He calls "gravity all nonsense now", showing how the music is making him feel like he is floating

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 3

"So we scattered out into the big winter nochy and walked down Marghanite Boulevard and then turned into Boothby Avenue, and there we found what we were pretty well looking for, a malenky jest to start off the evening with. There was a doddery starry schoolmaster type veck, glasses on and his rot open to the cold notchy air. He had books under his arm and a crappy umbrella and was coming round the corner from the Public Biblio., which not many lewdies used those days. You never really saw many of the older bourgeois type out after nightfall those days, what with theh shortage of police and we fine young malchickiwicks about, and this prof type chelloveck was the only one walking in the whole of the street. So we googlied up to him very polite, and I said: 'Pardon me, brother."

This scenario is reminiscent of a brawl between school bullies and a smaller, more studious boy. The author uses diction and imagery to describe the way the old book-bearing man looks. "schoolmaster" "glasses" and "rot open to the cold nochy air" renders an image of a nerdy-looking man lugging his books through the cold breathing awkwardly through his mouth. "Public Biblio" is made up slang to describe a public library, but "biblio" is recognizably derived from other languages (ex: biblioteca = library in italian) .Despite the fact that in the book the "schoolmaster type veck" is much older than Alex and his friends, they still knock the books from under him, assault him and take his money. Alex is first nice to him and tells him how it's nice to see someone reading-a genuine thought- but this respect does not inhibit him from assaulting the old man and ripping apart these valued books. This behavior is used to further characterize Alex, and can also be used as a metaphor for the devaluement of intelligence and literature by the new generation of youth, who find enjoyment not in books but in shamelessly hurting those who carry them and ripping them up

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE POST 1

"Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided them by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shiverying starry gray-haired ptitsa in a shock and go smecking off with the till's guts. But, as they say, money isn't everything."

The diction used is unique and made-up, making it difficult to understand, but requires a certain amount of imagination and context clues to decipher. The "deng" in their pockets seems to be some sort of money, and the fact that they have enough is keeping them from resorting to mugging someone, displaying their violent tendencies. "tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood" seems to mean that they would otherwise assault an old man in an alley and bloody him in the process of mugging. This shows that they are morally unsound and reckless young men; they obtain their means of survivial through thuggish behavior and have no problem with committing crimes to get what they want. "Do the ultra-violent on some shivering tarry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smeck off with the till's guts" can be translated similarly to the first quote. It blatently addresses "ultra-violent" behavior on a helpless old person and mercilessly spilling their guts. The fact that they currently have money is keeping them from doing these horrible acts, and the last line is either alarming or helpful to the situation. "But, as they say, money isn't everything" seems to mean that although they have the "deng", it won't keep them from pursuing other violent behavior.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE POST 7

"No one knew exactly when she had begun to lost her sight. Even in her later years, when she could no longer get out of bed, it seemed that she was simply defeated by decrepitude, but no one discovered that she was blind. She had noticed it before the birth of Jose Arcadio. at first she thought it was a matter of a passing debility and she secretly took marrow syrup and put honey on her eyes, but quite soon she began to realize that she was irrevocably singking into the darkness, to a point where she never had a clear notion of the invention of the electric light, for when they put in the first bulbs she was only able to perceive the glow. She did not tell anyone about it bcause it would have been a public recognition of her uselessness. She concentrated on a silent schooling in the distances of things and people's voices so that she would still be able to see with her memory what the shadows of her cataractsno longer allowed her to. Later on she was to discover the unforseen help of odors, which were defined in the shadows with a strength that was much more convincing than that of bulk and color, and which saved ehr finally from the shame of admitting defeat. In the darkness of the room she was able to thread a needle and sew a buttonhole and she knew when the milk was about to boil. She knew with so much certainty the location of everything that she herself forgot that she was blind at times. On one occasion Fernanda had the whole house upset because she had lost her wedding ring, and Ursula found it on a shelf in the children's bedroom"

This passage contains irony. Ursula is blind, and has been for many years; however, not a single person has been receptive enough to notice. Although she can no longer see, her senses are somehow sharp enough to make her more able than the average person- she can thread a needle effortlessly, utilize odors for direction and sense the readiness of boiling milk. While searching for a small, hard to find item with a number of seeing people, she is the one who finds it in an odd place. Although her sight is damaged, it is clear that she is otherwise not "blind" at all. Irony is also present when you further compare her next to the people around her. Not only is she apparently more capable, their lack of awareness for her very obvious and debilitating condition represents blindness in themselves. They are not able, after many years, to realize that someone very close to them cannot even see. They are so consumed with themselves they have not taken the time to realize the extreme state of their loyal caregiver, who although is impaired still realizes everything about them.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE POST 5

"The Street of the Turks, enriched by well-lit stoes with products from abroad, displacing the old bazaars with their bright colors, overflowed on Saturday nights with the crowds of adventurers who bumped into each other among gambling tables, shooting galleries, the alley where the future was guessed and dreams interpreted, and tables of fried food and drinks, and on Sunday mornings there were scattered on the ground bodies that were sometimes those of happy drunkards and more often those of onlookers felled by shots, fists, knives, and bottles during the brawls."

The author uses imagery and diction to create a visual of a festive night scene that results in a dark outcome when daylight breaks. "Well-lit", "bright colors" and "overflowed" set up the street as lively and bustling. The mentioning of "future" and "dreams" relay the thought process of the attendees as wanting to search for something more than what they already have, and food and drinks show good spirit. However, sprinkled throughout the elated scene, there are hints of wrong doings and guility pleasure-gambling, and shooting. The final result in the morning of "bodies" scattered all over as a result of "shots, fists, knives and bottles"--more negative and violent words-- contrast from the original image conveyed when there is still darkness to sequester the evil. Marquez uses all of this to further enforce the theme, found throughout the book, of loss of innocence and introduction of evils that can change the path of one's desires. Many of the attendee's "futures" and "dreams" are halted by violent brawls after the eventful nights, leaving many of them dead in the street. The evils like "gambling" and "shooting" act as sidetrackers composed of greed and the immediate satisfaction of urges, causing them to stray from original intent of a good time and positive self progression.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE POST 4

"On the days that followed he was seen with a net and a small basket, hunting butterflies on the outskirts of twon. On Wednesday a group of engineers, agronomists, hydrologists, topographers, and surveyors arrived who for several weeks explored the places where Mr. Herbert had hunted the butterflies. Later on Mr. Jack Brown arrived in an extra coach that had been coupled onto the yellow train and that was silver-plated all over, with seats of episcopal velvet and a roof of blue glass. Also arriving on the special car,fluttering around Mr. Brown, were the solemn lawyers dressed in black who in different times had followed Colonel Aureliano Buendia everywhere, an that led the people to think that the agronomists, hydrologists, topgraphers, and surveyors, like Mr. Herbert with this captive balloons and his colored butterflies and Mr. Brown with his mausoleum on wheels and his ferocious German shepherd dogs, had something to do with the war."

Marquez uses diction to set up a contradiction. His first sentence uses soft words like "basket" and "butterflies" which render in one's mind images of simple, picnic-like activites. In the next sentence more harsh and scientific words are used to build a contrasting image of science and technology (engineers, hydrologists etc.) overlapping the outdoorsy and natural scene that had initially been set up. To further abolish the established natural feel, the introduction of the "coach" with silver plates, velvet, and blue glass allow for feel of artificial, manufactured goods entering the scene. Innocence is reiterated when Marquez brings up balloons and butterflies, but is immediately given a militant and stern feel when he refers to the balloons as "captive" and goes on to describe a mausoleum and "ferocious German shepherd dogs" leading to war, all of which are reminiscent of violence, death and conflict.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE POST 3

"Jose Arcadio Buendia in a short time set up a system of order and work which allowed for only one bit of license: the freeing of the birds, which, singht etime of the founding, and made time merry with their flutes, and installing their place muscial clocks in every house. They were wonderous clocks made of carved wood, which the Arabs had traded for macaws and which Jose Arcadio Buendia had synchonized with such prcisiont hat ever half hour the town grew merry with the progressive chords of the same song until it reached the climax of a noontime that was as exact and unamimous as a complete waltz."

Marquez is trying to convey that the town is becoming, or has already become completely planned out and artificial like the big city that Jose Arcadio Buendia desires so badly. Even little natural enjoyments like the chirping of birds can no longer be enjoyed spontaneously; they are replaced by coocoo-clocks, going of at a set time on a precise scale. The installment of these wooden birds and their artificial melodies, replacing free spirited innocence of real chirping birds, shows the industrialized, selfish path which Macondo had headed down. There is no more free spirit or raw, natural environment-- everything is scheduled, artificial, and lacking the unadulterated feel the town once possessed.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE POST 2

"Seduced by the simplicity of the formulas to double the quantity of gold, Jose Arcadio Buendia paid court to Ursula for several weeks to that she would let him dig up her colonial coins and increast ehm by as many times as it was possible to subdivide mercury. Ursula gave in, as always, to her husband's unyielding obstinacy. Then Jose ARcadio Buendia threw three doubloons into a pan and fused them with copper fillings, orpiment, brimstone, and lead. He put it all to boil in a pot of castor oil until he got a thick and pestilential syrup which was more like common caramel than valuaable gold. In risky and desperate processes of distillation, melted with the seven planetary metals, mixed with hermetic mercury and vitriol of Cyprus, and put back to cook in hog fat for lack of any radish oil, Ursula's precious inheritance was reduced to a large piece of burnt hog cracklings that was firmly stuck to the bottom of the pot."

This quote emphasizes the greed that the incorportation of technology into the society has introduced into Jose Arcadio Buendia's life. He hears about a way to "cut" persay, quanities of gold to make them larger, and begins to take selfish risks; he asks his wife to donate precious doubloons from her inheritance for him to employ a dicey experiment on. During this desperate attempt to satisfy his new-found desires for money and "things", he carelessly (much to his chagrin) obliterates the doubloons into a melted and burnt monstrosity of precious metal and more common substances. He has began to take advantage of his resources: his giving and submissive wife, and her fortune. This transition from being a hard-working founder of a small town to a greedy man destroying gold coins could be compared to a society that begins knocking down forrests with endangered wildlife to continue building homes to accomodate a larger population--technology is opening new doors to options that may be tempting, but morally deprecating.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE- POST 1

"Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked name, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tentes near the village, and with a gret upreoar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions."

Through this passage the author is trying to convey the youth and innocence of the town. The river is clear, the homes are emaculate and white-- everything is new, untouched and pure. It is compared to a prehistoric egg, an ultimate example of new life being born into an undeveloped society with raw and undestroyed resources. The yearly appearance of the gypsies causes and uproar because the technology they bring is foreign concept that will ultimately conjour a route to evil, as it has since the beginning of time.