Tag Archives: word #6

Monument

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  • Monument (noun):
    • (1) : a lasting evidence, reminder, or example of someone or something notable or great
    • (2) : a memorial stone or a building erected in remembrance of a person or event
  • Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monument
  • Taken from A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
    • “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant–a combined gardener and cook–had seen in at least ten years.”
  • Again, the word monument is a well-known word but when referring to Emily as a fallen monument it puts everything in perspective. From the story the reader eventually learns that the town doesn’t know much about Emily, to begin with. They know little to nothing about her, based on their assumptions of the few times she’s gone out to the public. By referring Emily as a fallen monument, although biased to the men’s perspective, the reader is still able to know the importance the town gave Emily even though all she was, was a stranger to them. The town seems to be driven to discover her as if she were a puzzle. At the end of the story, after they’ve found the dead body of her lover, the might have gotten a new perspective of her, maybe not so much a monument, but they still didn’t know her.

Facile

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Facile, adjective: without depth; superficial.

Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/facile

We encountered at the end of the first paragraph of chapter 3 of Quicksand. The author uses the word to describe how the campus at Naxos was beautiful, but only in appearance.

“On one side of the long, white, hot sand road that split the
flat green, there was a little shade, for it was bordered with
trees. Helga Crane walked there so that the sun could not so
easily get at her. As she went slowly across the empty campus
she was conscious of a vague tenderness for the scene spread
out before her. It was so incredibly lovely, so appealing, and so
facile. The trees in their spring beauty sent through her restive
mind a sharp thrill of pleasure.”

Tangibility

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Tangible (adjective): capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/tangibility

From: Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen; Quicksand “Yet her conception of it had no tangibility” Helga Crane’s character is very different and she accepts the hatred as if it is a normal life and she thinks happiness isn’t even really important. therefore, she has no will of trying to be happy.

 

Inextricably

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Inextricably (adjective) – in a way that is impossible to disentangle or separate.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inextricably

From “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka

I came across this word while reading “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka. It appears at the beginning of the reading on the third paragraph on the first sentence when the author is describing the suspicions some people have with the hunger artist as they question the legitimacy of his art. It caught my interest because it’s a word I don’t see being used often, and i’m curious as to how it ties in with the sentence and the author’s overall point.

“However, it was, in general, part of fasting that these doubts were inextricably associated with it.”(Kafka).

After reading the definition of the word I better understand the context of how the author was using it in that part of the text. As seen in the quote, the author is discribing how the suspicions on the legitimacy of the hunger artist’s performance are to be expected because what he does is of extreme intensity on the human body and would most likely lead to death for the average person. So people are bound to question if he’s secretly doing something to assist him or if he’s really just a master at what he does.

Ramification

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Ramification (noun) – the act or process of branching

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ramification

From “The Complete Fiction of Nella Larson” by Nella Larsen, Page 43

“Negro society, she had learned, was as complicated and as rigid in its ramifications as the highest strata of white society.”

The author uses this word to describe how the Negro Society has many layers or branches in it. This shows that the Negro Society is big, and contains various divisions that are complex.