Representation of human experiences in part 1 & 2 Flashcards
“Light, electricity, ether. Space, time, mass. Heinrich Hertz Principles of Mechanics. Heissmeyer’ famous school. Code breaking, rocket propulsion, all the latest..”
Context: Werner’s backstory in part 1 & 2
Features of text: listing that creates a tone of rapture
Aspect of rubric: inconsistencies in human motivation, Werner’s scientific mindset which is later manipulated to serve the German cause despite his ethical misgivings
“His fourteenth birthday arrives in May and no one laughs at the Hitler Youth now. Now, in his nightmares, he walks the tunnels of the mines. The ceiling is smooth and black; slabs of it descend over him as he treads. The walls splinter; he stoops, crawls”
Context: Werner’s reasons for avoiding the mines
Features of text: narrative time accelerates, augmented by listing to intensify the feeling of inevitability and represent Werner’s negative motivations
Aspect of rubric: inconsistencies in human motivations
“‘We’re dropping bombs on Paris,’ she says Jutta. Her voice is loud and he resists an urge to clap his hand over her mouth. Jutta stares up, defiant.”
Context: Jutta’s condemnation of Werner’s motivations
Features of text: characterisation of Jutta as morally stalwart, communicated through dialogue
Aspect of rubric: paradoxes and inconsistencies, in particular Werner’s clear knowledge of his plan to ‘escape the mines’ and its immoral consequences
“Time slows. The attic disappears. Has anyone ever spoken so intimately about the very things Werner is most curious about? Open your eyes, concludes the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever.”
Context: the purer motivations of Werner and his wonder at science and human understanding
Features of text: heteroglossic structure, the various voices of characters come together in close proximity to represent Werner’s motivations in their purer form as being a product of individual and collective contexts
Aspect of rubric: inconsistencies in human motivation
“Marie-Laure thinks she can sense a shiver beneath the air, in the pause between the chirring of the insects. Like the spider cracks of ice when too much weight is set upon it.”
Context: Marie Laure after realising that her life is about to change and she will leave Paris with her father
Features of text: objective description, Doerr relies on other senses to communicate her emotions and thoughts obliquely, connect to a representation of human qualities that is at once individual, and also universal.
Aspect of rubric: human qualities, emotions etc.
“But after a week it becomes easy. She finds the ribbon she uses as bookmarks, opens the book, and the museum falls away.”
Context: Marie Laure’s early life in and around Paris and the museum of natural history
Features of text: motif of sight associated with imagination and storytelling,
Aspect of rubric: storytelling
“The despair doesn’t last. Marie-Laure is too young and her father is too patient
Her hands move ceaselessly, gathering, probing, testing…To really touch something, she is learning… the exquisitely polished interior of a scallop shell in Dr Geffard’s workshop - is to love it… He sweeps her hair back from her ears; he swings her above his head. He says she is emerveillement.”
Context: as Marie Laure begins to lose her sight she must learn in other ways.
Features of text: the emotions of fear and despair are represented as being overcome by sensory description, the listing of different forms of learning ‘gathering, probing, testing’ connecting her to the world.
Aspect of rubric: emotions and human qualities
“Marie-Laure says ‘I heard that the diamond is like a piece of light from the original world. Before it fell. A piece of light rained to earth from God.’”
Context: Marie Laure learning about the Sea of Flames
Features of text: Marie Laure’s characterisation is communicated as rapturously involved in storytelling and sense-making
Aspect of rubric: storytelling
