Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Writing Practice, Part 2

This is an eleven-sentence paragraph.  How many chunks will this paragraph contain?

Life is dreamlike. In paragraph four, Poe initially establishes this mood through his seven rooms, whose "...windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened," beginning with the color blue and ending with the colors black and red.  This coloration affected the characters, placing them in a state of out-of-worldness. The guests were further invited to remove them themselves from the reality of what was occurring outside the walls. Later, in paragraph seven, the guests wear masques that consisted of "...much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm...There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre."  Again, Poe furthers the mood, creating scenes that represented the extreme difference in reality of the world and actions within the party. In addition, if the guests had any fears, their masks offered quite the disguise, covering up any concerns of the unknown. Then, in paragraph seven, Poe directly alludes to the thematic topic dreams when he describes, "To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these -- the dreams -- writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps."  Could the dreams be turning into nightmares? With these images, the author sets the scene of one paralleling the outside world, a world where The Red Death will arrive, becoming a reality and not a dream. Thus, life, while dreamlike, still holds the certainty of Death’s visit.


I see a problem!  Too much yellow?  Not enough?

No comments:

Post a Comment