| Performance Indicators:
P.S ELA-2 Reading Analysis: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. A. Evaluate the relevant themes and synthesize how they are present in the novel in oral and written responses. P.S ELA-3 Reading Craft and Structure: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective, analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness or beauty of a text. A. Understand SOAPSTone: Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone |
This exercise is part of a process designed to assist you in your meaningful analysis of the novel LIFE OF PI. The culminating assignment for the novel will require you to write an expository essay. A focus of freshmen prose is to emphasize the importance of structure and purpose in writing. As you have learned evidence is the spine of any valid opinion. The passages that you select to use in your essay will be the evidence that you rely on in order to validate your observed point of view.
Select one of the quotes to respond to from the passages below or from your own annotation. Consider the author’s meaning by determining an expressed perspective of the novel relative to the selected passage.
“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.” (p. 6)
“I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he’s not careful.” (p. 6)
“If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the cross ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” (p. 28)
“Whatever the reason for wanting to escape, sane or insane, zoo detractors should realize that animals don’t escape to somewhere but from something.” (p. 41)
“Blue, green, red, gold and violet flickered and shimmered neon-like on its surface as it struggled. I felt I was beating a rainbow to death.” (p. 185)
“I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.” (p. 192)
“What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. … It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise, you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.” (p. 285)
“‘If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe? … Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.'” (p. 297)
“‘Tigers exist, lifeboats exists, oceans exist. Because the three have never come together in your narrow, limited experience, you refuse to believe that they might. Yet the plain fact is that the Tsimtsum brought them together and then sank.'” (p. 299)
“You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won’t make you see any higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.” (p. 302)