#authors craft

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Author’s Craft in Jane Eyre

Emotions such as happiness, sadness, and fear can be expressed without out actually using words. In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Jane faces a tumultuous range of emotions through the course of the book as she develops from a young naivë girl to a mature woman. Brontë uses repetition, similes, vivid language, and inner thinking to help express Jane’s feelings.

One literary technique that Brontë uses to help express Jane’s feelings of fear and love is repetition. When Jane is tending to Mr. Mason after he gets bitten by Bertha, she repeatedly begins sentences the same way. “I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenance.” Brontë’s use of “I must” to start every sentence in this paragraph conveys Jane’s terror. She is afraid, afraid for her life. She thinks that at any moment “Grace Poole,” the woman she thinks bit Mr. Mason, might come bursting out upon her. The reader can feel Jane’s numbing fear and terror, but her love for Mr. Rochester keeps her there tending to Mr. Mason. Jane’s love creates a “I have to do this” mantra for herself. The power of Jane’s love for Mr. Rochester is seen several times throughout the book.

Brontë uses similes to express Jane’s feelings of love and grief. Jane compares Mr. Rochester to an eclipse, shortly after they become engaged. “My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature: of whom I had made an idol.” Brontë’s use of religion in this simile shows how much Jane is in love with Mr. Rochester. Referring to God as the sun, Brontë explains how important God is to Jane because without the sun, humans would perish because they would not have the necessary ingredients to sustain life. But Mr. Rochester is the eclipse blocking the rays of the sun from reaching Earth and man. Jane’s love for Mr. Rochester is so overwhelming that it is in a way blocking out who she is as a person because religion is a defining part of her character. Now she is placing Mr. Rochester before God, letting her love for him block out what used to be one of the most important parts of her life. This comes back to haunt her when Mr. Rochester is revealed to already have a wife. After Jane finds out Mr. Rochester already has a wife, she walks back to her room and takes off her wedding dress. “My hopes were all dead-struck with a subtle gloom, such as, in one night fell on all the firstborns in the land of Egypt.” The reader can feel Jane’s grief from this simile. Her hopes have been dashed to pieces in seconds. She has gotten lost in a forest of lies, the path she thought she was on has disappeared. Not only that but she  is also given no time to grieve. She has no time to come to terms with the fact that all her hopes are dead before she is forced to make a life changing decision based on that. Some readers might interpret the simile to reflect Jane's regret at her decisions that have led her to this point instead of her grief, however they forget that in the text Jane says her hopes are dead. These were her hopes for the rest of her life, hopes that she not only wanted to happen but expected to happen. Jane’s simile describes how important these hopes were to her because at that time, firstborn sons were usually the most valued and wanted. Jane feels more then regret. Her future life as she hoped for and expected it to be has just vanished in front of her eyes. Her hope of a married relationship to Mr. Rochester has died a quick and sudden death. She thinks she can never be with the man she loves more than anything else. Jane can not simply feel regret since she has lost any and all hope of being with the man she loves. A person does not feel regret when someone or something they hold dear dies, they feel grief.  Brontë’s use of religious infused similes creates a link throughout the book. For example, in an earlier simile, Brontë referred to Mr. Rochester as an eclipse but now that her hopes of a life with Mr. Rochester are dead, he is no longer blocking out the sun/God and consequently she is back to using religious terms. Brontë uses inner thinking and vivid language to express Jane’s feelings of grief and pain. When Jane is leaving Thornfield, she does not let herself look back into the past or forward into the future since “the first was a page so heavenly sweet-so deadly sad—that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.” Jane is in so much pain that the only way she can do what she believes she has to do, leave Mr. Rochester, is by being in the present and never thinking of what she left behind or what lay before her instead focusing on taking each step. Later on the same page, Brontë paints a vivid image of Jane as a prisoner being marched off to the scaffold. “He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge: of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end.” Jane is leaving part of herself behind when she leaves Thornfield. Jane does not want to leave Mr. Rochester, but she chooses to place a higher value on who she is than on Mr. Rochester’s and her shared love. This causes her to view herself as a prisoner being wrenched away from Mr. Rochester. She refers to herself as someone soon to be killed. Brontë uses a stark contrast of the smiling weather and Jane’s mood to create a powerful mental image. When Jane is wandering in the moors, you can perceive how she is both physically and mentally in pain through the vivid language Brontë uses. She is exhausted. Her body is completely rundown. “With this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and the sense of desolation-this total prostration of hope.” She thinks she is going to die before morning, but Jane can’t accept that fact. “And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little long!” Brontë use of language and inner thinking pulls on the reader's heartstrings as they wonder whether or not Jane will survive the night.

 Through repetition, similes, vivid language, and inner thinking, Brontë powerfully conveys Jane’s feelings without actually stating that Jane is sad or happy. In the real world, most humans prefer to keep silent about what they feel. We try to hide our real emotions behind a mask of “fine.” But through our actions, tone, and words, our emotions can shine through whether we want them to or not.

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Author’s Craft in the Knife of Never Letiing Go

Human beings’ thoughts and emotions tend to run wild and uncontrolled, especially in moments of struggle and hardship. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness follows the journey of the protagonist, Todd, as he tries to discover himself amid chaos. Todd lives in Prentisstown, where all boys are destined to become men; however, the only way to truly be a “man” in Prentisstown is to kill another man. Todd is the last remaining person to go through the transformation, but does not want to have to murder just for a title. Conflicted by his feelings, Todd flees the town with his friend, Viola. Together, they face perilous situations where Todd has to rethink his morals. Patrick Ness utilizes multiple craft moves throughout the story such as repetition, run on and fragment sentences, and first person narration to reveal Todd’s thoughts and opinions as he experiences various situations. The author uses repetition of specific words and phrases to show Todd’s thoughts and opinions. The repetition is shown specifically in a scene where Todd encounters a Spackle. Spackles are creatures that have lived on Todd’s planet for years. Because of inaccurate information fed to him by his elders, Todd believes that all Spackle are vile, repulsive creatures that should be killed on sight. Another reason Todd is so prejudiced against the Spackles is because his mother was killed in the Great Spackle War; Todd is holding the entire Spackle population responsible for his mother’s death. Relying heavily on what he’s been taught, Todd instantaneously attacks the Spackle and knifes it to death. Just moments after he has killed the Spackle, the weight of the situation slams into Todd, and shocks him quite badly. As his mind scrambles to catch up to date with what just happened, the reader gets to experience Todd’s thoughts as they whirl through his mind. One of Todd’s first thoughts is “And I’m a killer—I’m a killer—I’m a killer—I’m a killer.” The repetition of thoughts that Todd experiences mirrors that of what a real human may experience; when they are in shock, their minds tend to play one important thought on a seemingly infinite loop. The word “and” is another example of a repeated word that Ness uses to show how Todd’s actions and feelings blend together. “And I twist the knife—And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die—And in a moan and a shudder he dies. And his noise stops altogether.” This example combines Todd stabbing the Spackle and his thoughts on the moment. The “And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die” part shows Todd’s frustration at the Spackle not dying even after Todd has stabbed the Spackle repeatedly. Perhaps the phrase reflects Todd’s fear of killing the Spackle rather than his frustration for Spackle not dying quickly. More likely though, that Todd’s anger combined with his desire for the Spackle to die exceeds any fear or shock that Todd initially had when he first spotted the Spackle. Along with using repetitive words and phrases to exemplify Todd’s thoughts and opinions, Ness also makes use of run on sentences and sentence fragments to dive deep into Todd’s thinking process. The run on sentences show Todd directly experiencing and noticing things happening before his brain can process any thoughts and form opinions on the situation; they also show the passage of time. In the moments where Todd loses control of his thoughts due to shock, fear, or anger, the loss of his control is mimicked by the loss of sentence structure. When Todd and Viola first spot the Spackle, the world comes to a standstill, information quickly runs through his head and he becomes aware of the situation. Once Todd gets a hold of his thoughts, he attacks the Spackle and “[punches] the knife into [the Spackle’s] chest. It crunches as it goes in, turning to the side as it hits a bone, and the Spackle screams...and he looks at me with his black, black eyes...” A little while later after the Spackle’s death, Viola is kidnapped by Aaron, the preacher of Prentisstown who is rather disgusted by Todd’s unwillingness to become a man. Todd is so shocked and scared in these moments that his thoughts are, “He’s grabbing her by the neck with one hand and smashing a cloth over her nose and mouth with the other and as I call out and take a step forwards I hear her scream from beneath it and she tries to fight with her hands but Aaron’s holding her tight and by the time I’ve taken my second and third steps she’s already swooning from whatever’s on the cloth...” By repeatedly using the word “and,” Ness pieces together Todd’s thoughts in a continuous flow, again much like the organic human thought process. Ness also uses multiple sentence fragments to show Todd’s meandering mind after he has had some time to think about a past event. After Aaron kidnaps Viola and knocks Todd out, Todd thinks about the Spackle incident and Viola being kidnapped while unconscious. His thoughts are “FALLING NO FALLING no please help me Falling The Knife The Knife Spackle spacks are dead, all spacks dead VIOLA sorry, please, sorry he’s got a spear FALLING Please please Aaron, behind you! He’s coming!” The sentence fragments demonstrate how humans’ thoughts jump from one to another and back again quite randomly; humans are unable to focus on just one thought and one thought only at a time when they’re stressed or in a state of shock. Similarly, Todd cannot stop his mind from veering from one thought to another. The final author’s craft technique that Ness commonly applies to explain Todd’s thoughts and opinions is first person narration. Throughout the story, the plot unfolds through Todd’s eyes. The reader experiences the emotions behind all of Todd’s thoughts and his interpretation of the situations he goes through. Whenever an event that takes place infuriates Todd, the reader gets to see why Todd is upset. Some may argue that viewing the story and the world through a third person narrator may have been better and that there would be no difference, but if Ness had written through an uninvolved character, then the reader would not be aware of Todd’s emotions, thoughts, and opinions; the reader would also miss out on Todd’s connections to the other characters. By employing repetition, run on sentences and sentence fragments throughout the The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness skillfully conveys Todd’s thoughts and opinions to the reader and successfully captures the mayhem  of the human mind. The incorporation of Todd’s thoughts helps the reader to make sense of the passion and struggle behind each and every one of his compellingly difficult choices and actions.

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Author’s Craft for the Knife of Never Letting Go

Human beings are naturally chaotic, wild creatures with equally uncontrollable, unrestrained thoughts and emotions. In The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, you witness Todd Hewitt, the protagonist, pursue his fate while he finds himself amidst the chaos and disaster of his world. Todd lives in Prentisstown which consists of only men, where killing a man grants a person their manhood. He was told to believe that there are only men in the world pbecause the native species on the planet, the Spackle, killed all the women during the Great Spackle War. Todd is the only one left to go through this transformation but he rejects this destiny and flees the town with his new friend, Viola, a girl Todd bumped into in the swamp. Running away has its consequences, and Todd is faced with numerous dangerous situations where he must come to terms with his own inner turmoil in order to face the destruction in the world. With the application of repetition, run-on sentences, fragmented sentences, and first person narrator, Ness skillfully shows the reader Todd’s most inner thoughts and opinions the moment he experiences something. The repetition in the Knife of Never Letting Go depicts the importance of certain thoughts and certain ideas. This technique is used in situations where Todd endures high tension and stress. For example, Todd stumbles upon a Spackle as he and Viola are on the run. Leaning on his own understanding of the Spackle, he jumps to conclusions immediately and attacks the creature to kill it. Motivated by pure hate and fear, he loses control of his emotions and allows them to drag him into action. “And all my hate erupts into me like a volcano at full bright red— And I fall on him — And I punch the knife into his chest.” Frustration and fury fills his body to the brim as he attempts to kill the Spackle. “And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die” is what Todd thinks over and over again as his mind focuses his anger into energy. Immediately after the Spackle dies, realization hits him and he’s left in a state of utter shock. His mind cycles through the fact that he’s now a killer as he tries to come to terms with what just happened. “And I’m a killer— I’m a killer— I’m a killer— (Oh, please no) I’m a killer—” The repetition shows how our own minds work; sometimes our mind is like a broken record player stuck in a loop, and our brains can focus on one thought and one thought only. In Todd’s case, what just happened is so appalling and dreadful that his mind can’t move past it. In addition to repetition, Todd’s thoughts are delightfully communicated through sentence fragments as well as run-on sentences. The run-on sentences show how Todd is processing information as he receives it. The flowing sentences also help to reveal the passage of time. Since the sentences are uninterrupted for a long time, it gives the impression of events whipping by rapidly. For example, when Aaron, the preacher from Prentisstown who is after Todd, comes out of the woods and grabs Viola, the book states, “And he’s grabbing her by the neck with one hand and smashing a cloth over her nose and mouth with the other and as i call out and take a step forward I hear her scream from beneath and she tries to fight with her hands but Aaron’s holding her tight and by the time I’ve taken my second and third steps she’s already swooning from whatever’s on the cloth...”. Using only the word ‘and’ to attach the sentences together gives the impression of Todd’s brain connecting every bit of information together without stopping as he absorbs observations. The continuous flow of details shows how Todd is processing everything just as it happens. Also, Todd’s thoughts are demonstrated with sentence fragments. Just before Todd wakes up after being hit on the head by Aaron, the thoughts racing through his mind are “FALLING NO FALLING no please help me Falling The Knife The Knife Spackle spacks are dead all spacks dead VIOLA sorry, please, sorry...” This kind of depiction exemplifies what our own thoughts are like. Sometimes there’s an endless stream of feelings and thoughts, and your mind overflows, causing you to hop from one thing to the next, unable to concentrate on just one subject. Todd is unable to get a grip on his thoughts so they tumble violently around in his head without interference. Lastly, Ness uses a first person perspective which accurately captures Todd’s emotions and feelings about everything in the story. As opposed to witnessing the story from the sidelines as a neutral, uninvolved figure, you experience the plot through Todd’s eyes. This gives you a limited perspective and a slight bias because you can only see what Todd sees. His interpretation of the world is the only understanding you will have. Some might say that the story would have been the same if it was from a third person perspective instead, and that is a respectable interpretation. However, if the story was seen from a third person perspective, you wouldn’t be aware of the emotions and thoughts deep down in Todd. You would only be exposed to what was on the surface through body language and the words Todd spoke, but not what he is feeling at all times. This includes critical things such as his personal relationships with other characters, which would be less apparent and clear if the story wasn’t told through Todd. For example, Todd sees Viola and how “her eyes are wide and growing more blank like they did when she closed up on herself and started rocking.” The reader doesn’t know what Viola is thinking at the moment and only sees the story through Todd’s impression and interpretation of the events.    For the most part, with the usage of repetition, run-on sentences, fragmented sentences, and first person narrator, Ness gives the reader a peek of the unfiltered raw emotions and thinking of Todd Hewitt as the story progresses. With these techniques, he weaves together a story that paints how humans think and the mayhem within them.

[randomwritersunited-blog]

Author’s Craft in the Knife of Never Letting Go

     Human beings are naturally chaotic, wild creatures with equally uncontrollable, unrestrained thoughts and emotions. In The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, you witness Todd Hewitt, the protagonist, pursue his fate while he finds himself amidst the chaos and disaster of his world. Todd lives in Prentisstown which consists of only men, where killing a man grants a person their manhood. He was told to believe that there are only men in the world pbecause the native species on the planet, the Spackle, killed all the women during the Great Spackle War. Todd is the only one left to go through this transformation but he rejects this destiny and flees the town with his new friend, Viola, a girl Todd bumped into in the swamp. Running away has its consequences, and Todd is faced with numerous dangerous situations where he must come to terms with his own inner turmoil in order to face the destruction in the world. With the application of repetition, run-on sentences, fragmented sentences, and first person narrator, Ness skillfully shows the reader Todd’s most inner thoughts and opinions the moment he experiences something.      The repetition in the Knife of Never Letting Go depicts the importance of certain thoughts and certain ideas. This technique is used in situations where Todd endures high tension and stress. For example, Todd stumbles upon a Spackle as he and Viola are on the run. Leaning on his own understanding of the Spackle, he jumps to conclusions immediately and attacks the creature to kill it. Motivated by pure hate and fear, he loses control of his emotions and allows them to drag him into action. “And all my hate erupts into me like a volcano at full bright red— And I fall on him — And I punch the knife into his chest.” Frustration and fury fills his body to the brim as he attempts to kill the Spackle. “And he won’t die and he won’t die and he won’t die” is what Todd thinks over and over again as his mind focuses his anger into energy. Immediately after the Spackle dies, realization hits him and he’s left in a state of utter shock. His mind cycles through the fact that he’s now a killer as he tries to come to terms with what just happened. “And I’m a killer— I’m a killer— I’m a killer— (Oh, please no) I’m a killer—” The repetition shows how our own minds work; sometimes our mind is like a broken record player stuck in a loop, and our brains can focus on one thought and one thought only. In Todd’s case, what just happened is so appalling and dreadful that his mind can’t move past it. In addition to repetition, Todd’s thoughts are delightfully communicated through sentence fragments as well as run-on sentences. The run-on sentences show how Todd is processing information as he receives it. The flowing sentences also help to reveal the passage of time. Since the sentences are uninterrupted for a long time, it gives the impression of events whipping by rapidly. For example, when Aaron, the preacher from Prentisstown who is after Todd, comes out of the woods and grabs Viola, the book states, “And he’s grabbing her by the neck with one hand and smashing a cloth over her nose and mouth with the other and as i call out and take a step forward I hear her scream from beneath and she tries to fight with her hands but Aaron’s holding her tight and by the time I’ve taken my second and third steps she’s already swooning from whatever’s on the cloth...”. Using only the word ‘and’ to attach the sentences together gives the impression of Todd’s brain connecting every bit of information together without stopping as he absorbs observations. The continuous flow of details shows how Todd is processing everything just as it happens. Also, Todd’s thoughts are demonstrated with sentence fragments. Just before Todd wakes up after being hit on the head by Aaron, the thoughts racing through his mind are “FALLING NO FALLING no please help me Falling The Knife The Knife Spackle spacks are dead all spacks dead VIOLA sorry, please, sorry...” This kind of depiction exemplifies what our own thoughts are like. Sometimes there’s an endless stream of feelings and thoughts, and your mind overflows, causing you to hop from one thing to the next, unable to concentrate on just one subject. Todd is unable to get a grip on his thoughts so they tumble violently around in his head without interference. Lastly, Ness uses a first person perspective which accurately captures Todd’s emotions and feelings about everything in the story. As opposed to witnessing the story from the sidelines as a neutral, uninvolved figure, you experience the plot through Todd’s eyes. This gives you a limited perspective and a slight bias because you can only see what Todd sees. His interpretation of the world is the only understanding you will have. Some might say that the story would have been the same if it was from a third person perspective instead, and that is a respectable interpretation. However, if the story was seen from a third person perspective, you wouldn’t be aware of the emotions and thoughts deep down in Todd. You would only be exposed to what was on the surface through body language and the words Todd spoke, but not what he is feeling at all times. This includes critical things such as his personal relationships with other characters, which would be less apparent and clear if the story wasn’t told through Todd. For example, Todd sees Viola and how “her eyes are wide and growing more blank like they did when she closed up on herself and started rocking.” The reader doesn’t know what Viola is thinking at the moment and only sees the story through Todd’s impression and interpretation of the events.      For the most part, with the usage of repetition, run-on sentences, fragmented sentences, and first person narrator, Ness gives the reader a peek of the unfiltered raw emotions and thinking of Todd Hewitt as the story progresses. With these techniques, he weaves together a story that paints how humans think and the mayhem within them.