Students,
Jane Yolen does a masterful job of infusing her writing with vivid, descriptive language that adds to the imagery of The Devil's Arithmetic. Find an example of this writing style and share with your readers why you were drawn to the line or passage.
For example:
"The forrest was now boiling with people, for the Viosk villagers had come behind the klezmer to greet Shmuel and his friends." (p. 57)
This description of the forrest boiling with people conjures up an image of a wooded area teaming with life and energy. When a pot of water boils, it comes alive, no longer placid and cool but bubbling and full of energy. The wedding party gathered and picked up energy.
Your response is due by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, February 8.
The moon hung ripely between two heavy gray clouds. A bird pelted the air with a strange lilting song. Page 20
ReplyDeleteI liked this imagery because I like the way it illustrates a picture in your mind
ReplyDelete- David
"Hannah slipped into the chair, knowing it was the one the family reserved for the prophet Elijah, who had slipped through the centuries like a fish through water." p. 162
ReplyDeleteI was especially drawn to this passage, not so much of its descriptive language, but for the image Jane Yolen puts in your mind. Elijah is slipping through time, just as a fish slips through water. A fish swims and glides through water easily, seeing as that is where it was born. Just like it is easy for us humans to walk on land, it is easy, persay, for the prophet Elijah to fall and slip through time. I think what Jane Yolen is trying to describe, is how Elijah is "supposed" to show up at every seder and he doesn't. Maybe she trying to say he slips past those, too. Like he "slipped" from Hannah's family's seder.
There were many passages that I enjoyed, just as I had enjoyed tha book.
_BAILEY_ (Bagel-cat)
The sky was so blue it hurt the eyes. I liked this sentence(passage)because its all bright and sunny and that usually represents a good day or good events but the camp is terrible. Also the sky isn't exactly blue enough to hurt the eyes. Plus we're having sunny weather.
ReplyDeleteWhere was this line found, Eli?
DeleteHer stomach felt heavy, as if the argument lay there like unleavened bread. I like this comment because it is talking about how stupid, boring, and bland there argument was. Like unleavened means most likely the matzoah bread. I was not very sure what it meant by her stomach was heavy, i'm guessing she was board.
ReplyDeletep. 86 Part of the moon still hung in the sky, a pale halo over his (the soldier's) blond head. This is actually ironic because the soldiers, under Hitler's orders, were making life as miserable as possible for the Jews they captured, and numerous times in the book, the Jews say that there is no God watching over the camp, only the Devil (his bride Lilith's cave is the gas oven, etc.). It is also very easily pictured and emphasizes how Hannah, the narrator, must have noticed the small beauty, the moon, in such a horrid camp.
ReplyDeletep.154-155. It was as if all nature ignored what was going on in the camp...If this had been a book, she thought, the skies would be weeping, the swallows mourning by the smokestack.
ReplyDeleteI love this line (actually the whole paragraph) because it is as if you are feeling and seeing what Chaya is for herself. She is thinking how strange it is how beautiful all of nature is around the camp, like the trees and the swallows, and comparing it to the death and sadness of the camp. I especially love the part about if it was a book, because it is a book, however the author has made other ways to express the horribleness of the camp, and still leaves the nature pretty, like a tiny bit of hope. The imagery of this whole line/paragraph is just super awesome, and the irony of it really makes you think.
Memory on memory like a layer cake (pg. 157)
ReplyDeleteHannah has her memories of America and her memories of the concentration camp. When Hannah is making a new layer of the cake (creating new memories) she has a had time remembering the older layers (her older memory.) I love this line because it really lets the reader know how Hannah feels.
They made a perfect half circle in front of the synagogue doors, like a steel trap with gaping jaws ready to be sprung. Page 64
ReplyDeleteI like this line because she compares the Nazis to a trap, although the Nazis were like a trap. They enclosed the villagers like what a trap does to animals. Also, I like how she says with gaping jaws ready to be sprung, becuase that is exactly how the Nazis were. They were always ready to kill someone.
God bless lowkey gonna borrow this for my home work lmao thanks
Deletethank god for this, its useful in 2020!
Delete"But as the scissors snip-snapped through her hair and the razor shaved the rest, she realized with a sudden awful panic that she could no longer recall anything from the past. I cannot remember, she whispered to herself. I cannot remember. She'd been shorn of memory as brutally as she'd been shorn of her hair, without permission, without reason," page 94. The metaphor "shorn of memory" describes Hannah's memory being "shorn off," or cut away from her, comparing it to the fact that her hair is being shorn off, too. The metaphor describes perfectly that her memory has suddenly been taken away from her in a brutal fashion (shaving it off).
ReplyDelete"It was as if all nature ignored what went on in the camp. There were brilliant sunsets and soft breasts. Around the coandant's house, bright flowers were teased by the wind. Once she'd seen a fox cross the meadow to disappear into the forest. If this had been in a book, she thought, the skies would be weeping, the swallows mourning by the smokestack."
ReplyDeleteI love the juxtaposition in this paragraph. I find it very amusing that there were soft breezes across the camp yet the flowers next to the comandant's house were being teased by the wind. I love how Jane Yolen compares these two things. Because the juxtaposition is so good I chose this paragraph of great literature. Lastly, I really love how Hannah thinks that if the scene was in a book the skies would be weeping, the swallows mourning by the smokestack. This juxtaposition and irony really pulled me into this paragraph.
Page 154-155. Later that afternoon, the cauldrons all set for cooking, Hannah walked with Rivka and Shifre to the water pump. Esther was already there, filling a bucket in slow motion for the women in the sewing shop. She had lost a lot of wieght, the dress hung in loose folds on her frail body, her eyes were dead.
ReplyDeleteOverhead the swallows dipped down to catch bugs rising from the ground. They soared back up beyond the barracks. Hannah watched them for a moment, scarcely breathing. It was as if all nature ignored what went on in the camp. There were brilliant sunsets and soft breezes. Around commandant's house, bright flowers were teased by the wind. Once she'd seen a fox cross the meadow to dissapear into the forest. If this had been in a book, she thought, the skies would be weaping, the swallows mourning by the smokestack.
I specifically like this pagssage of the book The Devil's Arithmetic because the book is basically about the Holocaust in the 1940's and this passage especailly describes the plot of the book the best. It shows the irony of how the Jews suffered in concentration camps all over Europe and starved, got beaten, killed, etc. and how nature is trying its best to ignore the disaster.
"Pretty girl, with faraway eyes,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you look with such surprise?
How did you get to be so wise,
Old girl in young-girl disguise."
Page 55
This quote from the badchan in the beginning of the book is my favorite. It's really interesting to me because he calls Hannah an old girl in a young-girl diguise. I think what he means is that Hannah is suspiciously smart compared to most people in their time being, but in a different way. Also it shows that the badchan really is skilled. This quote relates to Hannah greatly.
"The raw scraping of the doors being pulled open was as loud as thunder." Pg. 85
ReplyDeletei like this quote because i love how they are comparing an old door with the loud shocking noise of thunder! it has such descriptive language and it kinda shows the condition of the camps with the old scraping door.
Sorry, mine is on page 153-154.
ReplyDelete"She was flushed with April sun and her mouth felt sticky from jelly beans and Easter candy." pg.3
ReplyDeleteI like this line because it is the second line in the whole book and already that one sentence attaches you to the book more. It is the first descriptive writing she has in the book, and I really like it because we get to know what Hannah's feelings were at the moment. I also like how she said, "She was flushed with April sun," I like how she is giving the sun a name.
Sunlight filtered through the canopy of large trees, spotlighting the forest. –Chapter 7, page 52
ReplyDeleteI like this passage in the Devil’s Arithmetic, because I can form a picture in my head of what it looks like. I can see the forest full of trees and the sun trying to peak in when the sun beams pierce through the different layers of the tree. I like how Jane Yolen describes the trees as a canopy and says the sun is making a spotlight over the forest. In my opinion, the best part of this passage is when she says the sunlight filtered through the trees. When I read that part of the passage, I think of water filtering through a strainer.
Grandpa's voice is like a plague of locust. (pg. 13)
ReplyDeleteI like this line because it is vividly describing how grandpa's voice is, probably meaning his voice is booming and loud and noticeable because if you had locust you would probably notice them. The plague part probably means it's infectious or something close to that. All in all I really like that line
"Not ever," Hannah muttered to herself as she watched the smoke curling up, writing its long numbers against the stone-colored sky. (page 141)
ReplyDeleteI really liked this passage because Jane Yolen is saying this as if it's actually happening, but it's not. The numbers are not actually being written against the stone-colored sky. When you read it at first, you think that it's actually happening, but then you realize that it's actually just a metaphor. I think that metaphors are much more powerful than any other type of literary device. They make fake things almost seem real. This passage is representing the people who were dead in the smokestacks. Because every time a person in the camp dies, there number is taken away from the others, or it's subtracted. That's the devil's arithmetic. In the passage, it's saying the numbers are being subtracted when is says "writing its numbers against the stone colored sky." Another reason why I like this passage is because it doesn't say that the people were dying or died in the smokestacks directly, Jane Yolen puts it together in a better and more mysterious way.
"Like spawning fish, the children came from everywhere to dive into the pile." pg 139
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this line because it vividly describes how the children raced to the midden pile. It's almost like you're there watching the children race into the midden pile. Jane Yolen probably used spawning fish to describe the children because fish can be extremely speedy animals and they can sometimes race crazily away from a predator. Personally, I think this was one of the best lines in the book.
Page 28
ReplyDeleteShmuel began to laugh, letting it start deep down in his belly and then rise higher and higher. After a bit Gitl joined in. At the last, the two of them were laughing so loudly they were almost paralyzed by their own silliness.
I like this phrase because you can't really be paralyzed by your own silliness, it's impossible. Being paralyzed means frozen or still or shocked persay, so you can't really be shocked or frozen by your own silliness, maybe amazed by it, but you can't be shocked by it. The saying means that they were laughing so loudly that their own silliness amazed them.
*I really like everybody's' imagery, they are really awesome!
Lara, Redmayne, Tveit, Daley, Styles, and Lynch
"Do you think it strange, little Chaya, that I- Shmuel Abramowixz- with an arm like a tree and, as Gitl says, a head like a stone..." pg. 33
ReplyDeleteI like this simile because it is comparing Shmuel's arm to a tree and his head to a stone. His arm is really not a tree but it is described as rigid and thick, just like a tree.
ReplyDeleteAs she fell asleep, she was sure the smell of the midden had gotten into her pores; that there was not enough water in camp-in all of Poland-to wash her clean.
P. 124
I really like this hyperbole. Jane Yolen did a great job of expressing how dirty Chaya felt. Of course there was enough water in Poland to wash her, but Jane Yolen made you feel how dirty Chaya was, as if there wasn't enough water to wash her.
"There, there, child, forgive me. I am crazy with all this wedding business, and my tongue is sometimes quicker than my heart." -Gitl (Pg. 43)
ReplyDeleteI was really drawn to this passage because I like the way Jane Yolen said the part of, "my tongue is sometimes quicker than my heart." It describes when Gitl got mad at Chaya, her words slipped out before realizing in her heart, what she had said was wrong. I also really like this line because I can relate. Sometimes, I say things before thinking through my words.