HollyinNNV Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 My students are working through The Writers Workshop by Gregory Roper. I LOVE IT! Many of them do too. The students wrote an imitation this week. They imitated a selection by Dickens. Here's the suspect sentence: Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. Now I won't tell you which side of the argument I am on until I hear some of you. But SOME :thumbup1: people in the class see a metaphor in this sentence (or at the least, a comparison) and other people :thumbdown: do. not. see. it. at. all! I'd love your opinions! Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 I see a metaphor...or maybe a comparison...hmmm...a metaphor, but not a particularly good one. Clever, but if it were a *good* one, we'd all see it right off, wouldn't we? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura in VA Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Hmm. I don't see it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Well, I don't know about a metaphore/comparison, but he's making the eyes be alive, deciding things and mixing in with other things. If it is egg whites, I don't think that was meant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle in AL Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 The only thing I see is curls of flaxen hair. Isn't flax some sort of grain? So that would mean he's comparing the hair to golden grain? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coopers5 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 being a metaphor of an egg/egg white. The blue (yolk) mixing w/the "white" like white of an egg. But it's weak, in my opinion, if that's what's intended; the white part of your eyes are already referred to as "whites," so that's why I say it's not really vivid or strong. Not to mention - if that's it - it conjures up a really strange picture to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HollyinNNV Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. OK-Thanks for the responses so far. Maybe I'm a little crazy. I was looking at the description of his eyes. It seemed odd to describe them as having the blue color mixed with the whites. When would that ever happen? Never. So then I was thinking about the verb mixed. And I thought, well maybe this is a metaphor. Maybe whites can have a double meaning-whites of eyes and egg whites. And I get that impression from the word mixed. Obviously, the word scrambled would have been better. So, this sentence is taken from a larger excerpt that the students are supposed to rewrite. The excerpt includes a pun, allusion, metaphor and this.......so I wasn't feeling like it was out of line to think it might be a comparison. In class, though, I had a student adamantly say that she just couldn't see it-no way-it is just not there. Later she mentioned being in a bad mood being the reason she was so adamant. But.......it made me think that I might have been a little nuts in thinking it was a comparison. FWIW, my dd had a great time finding a point of comparison, where a physical feature has a name that can mean more than one thing-like eye whites, egg whites. So, she actually had a good time trying to work out her imitation. So, its not all bad! I'm enjoying everyone's replies! Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 I was looking at that same thing. It's a very weird comparison--I guess it means that his eyes are very pale blue??? Or did I think it was a metaphor??? See? A good metaphor (or comparison) should not be so obscure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Since eye whites are often blueish, I think it probably just means that the blue was such a pale, wishywashy blue that you couldn't tell where the white ends and the iris begins. I don't think he had eggs in mind, since yolks and whites are very different colours. I think the comparison is probably supposed to be hair and flax (as Michelle in AL said), but I don't think it is particularly useful at this point in time to think about that comparison, since by now the word "flaxen" means that particular texture, not textured like flax, most of us not being familiar with flax (linen is made from it - the flowers are a beautiful blue, it can be spun into fine thread, and it has dark seeds which people now-a-days eat). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloridaLisa Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Well, I don't know about a metaphore/comparison, but he's making the eyes be alive, deciding things and mixing in with other things. I think that the author has personified the eyes. I don't see a metaphor. We'll be getting to Roper's book once my dc finish Sentence Composing. I'd love to hear how you've implemented, anything you've changed or tweak in using Roper's book. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 White is sometimes used to indicate purity or holiness, but sometimes to indicate emptiness. I don't know the context of this passage, but I would look for something like that. So, the words fair, flaxen, etc. and the description of the eyes all work together to make this man the lightest possible appearance while still being natural. I would look for other context to decide what, if anything, this symbolizes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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