Use what you have learned from
reading these pieces to write
a paragraph that provides an analysis of how the theme
of loss is depicted in the two pieces, addressing the
writers’ use of style and diction.
As
a starting point, you may want to consider what is emphasized, absent, or different
in the two texts.
Develop
your paragraph by providing textual evidence from both texts.
Use
the provided lined paper to compose your response.
You must IDENTIFY the
grammatical, literary, and syntactical terms (from this sheet in the middle
column) WITHIN your paragraph. Do not simply summarize and quote. Remember
that this paragraph is about the writing, not an assessment of the characters' growth
throughout the book.
Reading A: excerpt from “The Secret Life of Bees”
By: Sue Monk Kidd
Pgs. 193
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Reading B: “my lost father”
By: Lucille Clifton
|
The
only parts of her not submerged were her hands. They floated, her palms
little ragged cups bobbing on the surface, the water weaving in and out
of her fingers. Even now that’s the picture that will me up
in the night, not May’s eyes, open and staring, or the stone resting on
her like a grave slab. Her hands.
June
came thrashing into the water. When she reached May, she stood beside
August, panting, her arms dangling beside her body. “Oh, May,” she
whispered and looked away, squeezing her eyes closed.
Glancing towards the bank, I saw Rosaleen standing ankle deep in the river, her whole body shaking.
August knelt down in the water and shoved the stone off May’s chest. Grabbing May by the shoulders, she pulled her up. Her body made an awful sucking sound as it broke the surface. Her head rolled back, and I saw that her mouth partially open and her teeth were rimmed with mud. River reeds clung to her hair braids. I looked away. I knew then. May was dead.
August
knew, too, but she put her ear to May’s chest, listening. After a
minute, though, she drew back and pulled May’s head to her breast, and
it almost seemed like she wanted May to listen now for HER heart.
“We’ve lost her,” August said.
…
June
and August, sopping wet, stooped on either side of her, while mosquitoes
sang in our ears and the river went on about its business, coiling off
into the darkness. I was sure they’d pictured May’s last moments,
too, but I did not see the horror on their faces now, just a
heartbroken acceptance. This had been the thing they’d been waiting for
half their lives without even realizing it.
|
see where he moves
he leaves a wake of tears
see in the path of his going
the banners of regret
see just about him the cloud
of welcome see him rise
see him enter the company
of husbands fathers sons
|
Week four option D
ReplyDeleteIn these two reading pieces, one from The Secret Life of Bess and one from a poem called I Feel it All, there is an underlying moral of how powerful silence can be and that sometimes silence can be louder than words, In the reading from The Secret Life of Bees, when May died, there was nothing but silence coming from Lily. When tragedies happed in life, most of the time we go speechless. Lily knew that there are times where something is needed to be said, and other times when nothing but silence should fill the air. Even though it was silent, you could still here the loud screams inside everyone’s head. In the poem I Feel It All, she talks about how “ill be the one to break my heart”. This sows that even if we can be tough and not let anything to get to us, we still have our own demons inside of us that come out in the silence that we create. When nothing is spoken, silence is so powerful that we won’t be able to say how we feel, and our demons and feelings will eat at us from the inside out, both of these readings show that sometimes, our words only come out in whispers, while our silence can be heard in screams
The theme of loss is portrayed in both The Secret Life of Bees excerpt by Sue Monk Kidd and in the poem My Lost Father by Lucille Clifton. In both of these writing pieces, there is a sad and informal mood and tone. This shows that usually with loss, there is sadness that comes with it. “…He leaves a wake of tears…” This quote from My Lost Father means that several people were crying and mourning at his wake. This proves that when there is loss, there is also usually sadness. “I was sure they’d pictured May’s last moments, too, but I did not see the horror on their faces now, just a heartbroken acceptance.” This quote from The Secret Life of Bees explains the sister’s reactions when they discovered May’s death. These reactions are not positive, they are negative. They also make the tone of the excerpt very sad. In both of these pieces of writing, the theme of loss is interpreted as sad and gloomy.
DeleteIn the first passage, the author uses imagery to show the physical appearance of loss. May’s dead body is described in huge detail in order to place more emphasis on her death. “The only parts of her not submerged were her hands. They floated, her palms little ragged cups bobbing on the surface, the water weaving in and out of her fingers.” By using all this detail, not only is the author putting a picture into your head, but she is helping you imagine how much of an effect this had on everyone’s life by showing how much they were observing May.
ReplyDeleteIn the second passage, loss is represented by the syntax of the writing. There are no full sentences and no capitalization, and by writing like this, the author is showing that it has a very gloomy emotion to it. By not using punctuation, the passage seems emotionless, almost like the author is still processing what has happened to her father. The author also uses parallelism by constantly saying “see” to show what is seeing while she pictures what is currently happening to her father.
Both reading A and reading B are talking about the loss of a loved one. However, they are two different styles of writing. They both have description but reading A uses a lot more and has similes. In fact, because reading B is a poem it does not have any full sentences with punctuation. Reading A has a lot of dialogue and reading B does not have any. Although they are both really different and are doing different things, they both make it seem as if we are there. For example, in reading A “Her head rolled back, and I saw that her mouth partially opened and her feet were rimmed with mud.” You think of what Lily saw making it easier to understand how she felt. Similarly, in reading B when it says “see just him about the cloud” you think of what it is like going to heaven. Although the writing is different, they want you to feel what they are feeling and see what it is like loosing a loved one.
ReplyDelete4musketeers18
ReplyDeleteBoth the excerpt from The Secret Life of Bees, and the reading “My Lost Father” depict themes about the remnants of death. The excerpt emphasizes the shock that stems from the unanticipated forthcoming of death using syntax that features sentence fractures. For example, Sue Monk Kidd writes phrases such as, “I looked away. I knew then. May was dead.” Sue Monk Kidd pairs the excerpt’s disheartening tone with imagery of the scene to make the heartache in the scene tangible. Kidd also tries to convey that no matter the magnitude of one’s grief that comes from the death of another, the world does not stop in its motion. Kidd articulates this by writing, “…while mosquitoes sang in our ears and the river went on about its business, coiling off into the darkness.” The author also relates May’s death to the lives of others by writing,” This had been the thing they’d been waiting for half their lives without even realizing it.” The word ‘it’ is incorporated to be applicable to other scenarios, to show how unexpected many events in life can be. The reading, “My Lost Father”, uses figurative language such as metaphors to compare how evident regret is in those who perish. The reading then transitions from this morbid aspect of death in order to emphasize that life gives way to death. Lucille Clifton writes,” see him rise see him enter the company of husbands fathers sons.” Although both of these pieces of literature regard death, they differ because different themes of death are emphasized in both pieces.
4musketeers18
The theme of loss is portrayed in both The Secret Life of Bees excerpt by Sue Monk Kidd and in the poem My Lost Father by Lucille Clifton. In both of these writing pieces, there is a sad and informal mood and tone. This shows that usually with loss, there is sadness that comes with it. “…He leaves a wake of tears…” This quote from My Lost Father means that several people were crying and mourning at his wake. This proves that when there is loss, there is also usually sadness. “I was sure they’d pictured May’s last moments, too, but I did not see the horror on their faces now, just a heartbroken acceptance.” This quote from The Secret Life of Bees explains the sister’s reactions when they discovered May’s death. These reactions are not positive, they are negative. They also make the tone of the excerpt very sad. In both of these pieces of writing, the theme of loss is interpreted as sad and gloomy.
ReplyDeleteLoss is a very gray matter. Loss creates a hole in people’s heart. A hole needed to be filled. Loss is depicted in two pieces of writing. The first piece, an excerpt from “The Secret Life of Bees,” is about the reaction of the loss of May. It says in the excerpt, “‘Oh, May,’ she whispered and looked away, squeezing her eyes closed… but I did not see the horror on their faces now, just a heartbroken acceptance.” This reveals that the mood and tone of the poor people are morose and depressing about the loss of May. They heartbrokenly accepted it like they knew that they would lose May. The second piece, a poem named “My Lost Father,” is about the aftermath of the loss father. At first, one may not see who “he” is. At a second glance at the title, one sees that “he” is the author’s father. It states in a portion of the poem, “See where he moves, he leaves a wake of tears. See in the path of his going, the banners of regret.” This repetition of see is followed by the reaction of the loss of the father. For example, the people cry because he moved on to the afterlife. The repetition shows the action of the father and what happened to him. These pieces are slightly different because they show different meanings of loss. The first piece reveals that loss is expected most of the time and accepted. The second piece reveals that loss is regrettable and morose, yet one can find comfort knowing that the loss of another will lead them to a better place.
ReplyDeleteThe main similarity between the two texts is the theme of loss. In the “Secret Life of Bees”, a description of May and her dead self is given. However, in “my lost father”, no clear description of the character is given. A main difference is the format of the pieces. Sue Monk Kidd uses an essay-like, story book format, while Lucille Clifton uses poetry to convey her message. The usage of high-level vocabulary is best represented in Kidd’s piece. Clifton’s poem has no clear formality in it, nor does it follow a specific pattern. “my lost father” has more symbolic messages while “The Secret Life of Bees” has more straight-forward meanings. The perspective of the story also has great, because Kidd uses a first person witness’s point of view, while Clifton uses a third person point of view to get her point across. Neither piece reflects what time period in which they were written in.
ReplyDeleteBoth of these passages, the excerpt from the 'Secret Life of Bees' and the poem, 'My Lost Father' show the theme of loss. In the Secret Lifew of Bees Lily, Rosaleen, June, and August have to deal with the loss of May. "I knew then. May was dead." Lily had realized at that moment that May had killed herself and wasn't going to come back. Lily has already had to deal with the loss of her mother, and now May. "He leaves a wake up tears." The poem, 'My lost Father' shows that the father has died and has left people mourning over him. "See him rise. See him enter the company of husbands, fathers, sons."
ReplyDeleteIn the passage from the Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd is describing the loss of May and how the characters felt. Her writing was very descriptive and was in a paragraph form. Her writing described how May looked in the water in great detail. The tone or mood of the passage was defiantly serious because everyone was in shock that May committed suicide. Sue Monk Kidd uses “Her body made an awful sucking sound as it broke the surface” to describe how May sounded as she was pulled up from the water. The author also uses “May was dead. August knew, too, but she put her ear to May’s chest, listening” to show how August didn’t want to believe that she lost her sister and kept trying to see if she was alive even though she knew. Losing her sister caused all the characters to feel sad. The theme of loss causes mental pain. The poem “My Lost Father” by Lucille Clifton has stanzas. I noticed that every other line in the poem starts off as “see.” In the poem it states “See in the path of his going” this can mean that the father wants you to finish his path, similarly to May wanting her sisters to live life to the fullest. The theme of loss can also strengthen you because after Mays death it caused her to realize she needed to marry Neil for May. Both pieces show how loss can affect you negatively or positively.
ReplyDeleteBoth of the literature pieces, “The Secret Life of Bees” and “My Lost Father” show the theme of loss. In the excerpt from the Secret Life of Bees, Lily and August were the ones to find May dead. Silence hung heavy over them as they saw her body. The poem “my lost father” is about a person’s dad who has lost his way. May and the father are alike because they don’t mentally know where they are headed. Lines such as, “I did not see the horror horror on there faces now, just a heart broken acceptance” and ,”the banners of regret see just about him the cloud of welcome” are similar. This is because the Boatwright sisters soon accept the fact that May is dead, and the “banners of regret” observe him [the father] ascending into a place that they restrained him from going. There is also personification in both pieces. In the last paragraph in the excerpt Lily narrates, “mosquitoes sang in our ears and the river went about its business”. Lucille Clifton, the author, writes about how “the banners of regret” see her father joining husbands, fathers, and sons. The banner of regrets most likely symbolizes the father’s worries, sadness, and actual regrets.
ReplyDeleteoneinamillion12
The theme of loss is depicted in both pieces by the way that the author writes. In the excerpt from The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kid’s word choice of a heartbroken acceptance is how she describes the feelings that August and June had when May passed away. By using these two specific words, Sue Monk Kid shows that the death was a hard thing to handle, because it was heartbreaking, and that it is irreversible and unpreventable by using the word acceptance. She also uses syntax when she breaks the news that May was dead. She uses a three word sentence which is very odd, and the three words emphasized the concept greatly, “May was dead.” Also, the tone of which Lily is thinking in is very emotional and sorrowful and this further depicts that loss is an emotionally difficult thing to accept. In the other piece by Lucille Clifton, the theme of loss is depicted by a number of things. First off, the repetition of the word see shows that the person is trying to imagine what is occurring to the deceased person in that very moment. Lucille Clifton also uses symbolism to show this concept, when he quotes, “see him just about the cloud of welcome.” This so called “cloud of welcome is supposed to be symbolizing heaven, meaning that the living person is thinking about the deceased entering into heaven, which could comfort them more. Overall, the theme of loss is evident in these two pieces because of the writing styles of the two different authors.
ReplyDeleteLoss is something that everyone has to deal with at some point in their lives. This can be from a family member, a friend, or even a pet—but loss is loss, and it’s certainly inevitable. The novel “The Secret Life of Bees” and the poem “my lost father” represent the theme of loss. In “The Secret Life of Bees”, May Boatwright commits suicide by drowning herself in the river. Her sisters and friends all suffer from their loss of their loved one. Sue Monk Kidd, the author, uses similes and personification to create a very emotional scene where they are all suffering from loss. “After a minute, though, she drew back and pulled May’s head to her breast, and it almost seemed like she wanted May to listen now for HER heart.” By putting “her” in all capital letters, the author puts an emphasis on August to give a more dramatic feeling. Another way this represents the theme of loss is by presenting the actions of the people witnessing the loss. They are described as “squeezing her eyes closed” and “her whole body shaking”. These create a mental picture for the reader so they can visualize the suffering that they are feeling. Lucille Clifton uses the title of her poem “my lost father” to show the sadness of loss because none of the letters are capitalized. Throughout the poem, none of the words are actually capitalized to show how things seemed to lose meaning from her loss. Like Sue Monk Kidd, she uses metaphors to say things with deeper meaning. For example, she wrote, “see just about him the cloud of welcome.” She was describing how her father was being welcomed by death. The poem was made passionate by adding long spaces in between phrases to separate ideas but still leaving them combined in a way. These two prompts represent the theme of loss because they both have a sad and depressing mood to them. They contain more dark words and phrases than light and happy ones in order to make the reader comprehend the way that one might feel when they suffer from loss. Although it is upsetting and unwanted, loss will follow everyone and we will end up just having to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Reading A and B the theme of loss is depicted. In Reading A when it says HER it means she wants may to come back take away her loss. August wants may to hear her heart to now that her loss is a great impact on everyone. The theme of loss is projected in reading A because a dear friend May is gone, and now there is an emptiness in their hearts where they lost a part of themselves. In Reading B loss is not only caused by other people like in reading A. Loss can be created by yourself. The writer talks about how she keeps silence about the death to protect herself. When really she is creating more loss in her heart. The pain from never speaking consumes your heart, when speaking can make one forget loss, just like how august wanted may to hear her heart. The theme of loss is clearly evident in the Readings A and B.
ReplyDeleteThe excerpts from “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd and “my lost father” by Lucille Clifton are two very different pieces both based off of the underlying theme of loss. “The Secret Life of Bees” excerpt is about May’s death and the other characters reactions. “my lost father” is about all of the sorrow a person can have. In “The Secret Life of Bees”, Sue Monk Kidd has a skill for using creative metaphors like “the river went on about its own business coiling off into the darkness”. She also uses descriptive vocabulary like shove and dangling like in “August panting, her arms dangling beside her body” to help paint a better mental image of the scene and express all of the sorrow she feels for her loss. It also helps set a sorrowful mood for the piece. On the other hand, in “my lost father”, Lucille Clifton’s strength is using figurative language like “See in the path of his going the banners of regret.” She also uses repetition of “see” a lot in the beginning of sentences before she mentions what he does.
ReplyDelete4muskateers4