Literary Analysis and "Only Partly Here"

The more articulate you are, the more specific you can be about what you are trying to communicate.  Lucius Sheppard, in "Only Partly Here," uses sophisticated language to examine the complex nature of the relationships between the characters. 

Author Lucius Sheppard evokes the state of mind of the inhabitants of New York in the time directly after 9/11 with a simile.  He illustrates the frantic, purposeless and futile nature of their efforts by comparing them to drugged and over-stimulated rats in a maze.  He is able to bring that time to life for the reader because of his versatility with the language.

Which words that we use can we add to our word wall and vocabulary lists?  Pick 10 words you are not familiar with and look up the definitions.  You will be responsible for knowing these words as the cycle continues. 

As the story progresses we begin to see the nature of the relationships between the three recovery workers: Bobby, Mazurek and Pineo, and we also see the complexities of the interaction between Alicia and Bobby. 

What is happening between Alicia and Bobby?  As the story continues to unfold, examine the changing nature of their interaction.  How do they start out?  How does that change, and what happens in the end to change it even further?

Finally, what is the nature of this story, and what is its message?  A full understanding can only come from a full examination of the text.  We are reading together, but as you learn to study you must get to the point where you can go back and re-read parts of the text that you need to understand more fully. 

Learning to study a text in a deep and meaningful way is a critical skill for college.  In order to really function on the college level, you need to 1) Learn how to understand the text, and that means find the meanings of words you don't know and then understand the words in the context of the story, 2) Be able to uncover the personalities and motivations of the characters, based on the way they're described and the nature of their dialogue, 3) Examine the progression of the action in the story and note developments that occur, 4) Interpret the meaning, moral or message that the story conveys.