Monday, October 26, 2009

Mood

Mood is the atmosphere or general feeling of the text. It is the feeling that the reader get while reading. In the book Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson the mood was Scary and Sad. The frightening part was that the Fever actually happened and that it could happen again. The sad part was how tousands of people died and children were left alone. By using Imagery the book makes you feel as if you are there so you feel what the characters feel. All the characters are sad and scared , so you get sad and scared.

Theme

The theme of a book is a writer's central idea or main message about life.
In the book Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson the theme is overcoming hard times. Throughout the whole book, the yellow fever makes people ill and kills them, but Mattie survives the fever and takes care of all the others with the fever. Mattie overcame the hard times she faced in the book by staying alive and helping her grandfather until his death. She survived through out the whole book because the author is trying to tell you that she is brave and doesn't give up.

Friday, October 23, 2009

MOTIF

POINT OF VIEW

IMAGERY

Imagery is the verbal expression of a sensory experience. It uses descriptive or figurative language to create words into pictures. The most common things used for imagery are the 5 senses. There is sight, sound, touch, taste, smell.

Sight is the sense that you use to see things. In a book it is a description of what something looks like. In Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson, an example is located on page 66. "the tin bathing tub". This describes a bathing tub that is made of tin. This helps you picture what that looks like.

Sound is the sense you use to hear things. In a book it is thedescription of what something sounds like. There is an example on page 67 "her teeth rattled" You can imagine the sound of someones teeth rattling. This helps you feel like you are in the book and hear what the protagonist hears.

Touch is the sense you use to feel something. In a book it is the description of how something feels like. On pg 213 Mattie said "Lumpy Mattress" This gives you an idea of what it would the mattress feel like when you touched it.

Taste is the sense you use to know the flavor of something. In a book it is the description of the flavor of a certain object. An good example is the one on page 67. "it tasted too horrible" This gives you an example that the food she ate tasted bad and you can immediately imagine eating something bad.

Smell is the sense that you use to identify the fragrance of an object. In a book it is the description of a fragrance. "I could smell the stench,"pg 146. Mattie said this because a stench means, something that doesn't have a pleasant fragrance. This allows you to imagine yourself in the place of the main character and identify the horrible smell.

Why do you think that imagery is important?
Why do you think that the author uses imagery in his/her books?

DICTION

Diction is the writer's choice of words.The writer used words like"I woke to the sound of a mosquito whining in my left ear and my mother screeching in the right". This can be found on page 1.Another example of diction is when the writer used another set of words like "Over here lass",which can be found on page 18.Another example is "It's that heap of rotting coffee beans on Ball's Wharf,I tell you".Which could be found on page 19.The writer also used the word "Balderdash",which could be found on page 21.

CONFLICT

A conflict is struggle or a problem in a story. An internal conflict is one mental struggle or emotion that takes place inside the characters head. An example of an internal conflict is that Mattie is struggling with the deaths of her loved ones.An external conflict is an outside struggle in a story.An example of an external conflict is that Mattie's father died two months after the Cook Coffee House opened.This can be found on page 7.

Figurative Language

Figurative Language is Words or phrases that describe one thing in terms of another. Not to be taken literally. Like Metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole.

Similes are a comparison between two things. It usually includes the word like or as. In the book Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, Mattie Cook said "Bodies are piling up like Firewood," on page 64. She means that the bodies were piling up so fast that they looked like firewood. Because you pile on Firewood over the other that's what they were doing to the bodies. Another good example from the book is on pg 142. "Two bony hands curled around my shoulder like the claws of a panther," This means that the bony hands on her back felt like claws from a panther.

Personification is the giving of human abilities to non human things. You will find an example of this on pg 183 of the book. "We walked past blocks of empty houses along streets that felt abandoned" This said that the streets felt abandoned. Streets don't have feelings to feel abandoned. One more example is "My stomach took control" This meant that Mattie was hungry. A stomach is not a human and cannot take control of anything. This is a very good example of personification.

Hyperbole is the exaggeration of what something really is. In Fever, on page 138 there is a very good example. "A roast beef bigger than a horse" Mattie is exaggerating this because she is so hungry that she sees the roast beef bigger than a horse. She is using exaggeration because of her hunger.

What is the reason that Authors use Figurative Language?
What does the Figurative Language show in the book?
Why do you think that Figurative Language is important in books?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

IRONY

Irony is a literary device that exploits the readers expectations. Verbal Irony occurs when a speaker or narrator sayss one thing while meaning the opposite. Dramatic Irony is a form of irony in which the reader or audience knows more about the circumstances or future events.

In the story fever 1793 the author, Laurie Halse Anderson has the reader always asking or wanting to read more. She always has the reader questioning whats going to happen next. During the story, when Mattie's mom caught the "Yellow Fever", Ms. Anderson made it seem like she is gog to die but it turns out that she ends up barely surviving so she's not the same elegant, strong and ambitious person that she was before the disease had spread all over Philadelphia. This is example of verbal irony.

Another similar event that happened was when Nell and the twin boys, William and Robert, caught the Yellow Fever disease and fell very ill almost to the point of death. This is an example dramatic irony. Eventually when the frost came and cleared the air of yelloe fever the three children became better and started to do the things that they had once done beore they gt the fever.