Language Analysis:
Step 1: Take each sentence one at a time, identify its type, and break down & identify its parts.
Step 2: Explain why it makes sense to use this arrangement, type/length of sentence, word choice, etc. in this instance. What does it add to the effect of the paragraph? How is the structure connected to meaning?
Example:
Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of the sun.
-Opening paragraph of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”
Analysis:The first sentence is very long and complex. It has multiple dependant adverbial clauses that pile up, one after the other, making the reader trudge through the sentence with the sense that it will never end, just as the man in the story is struggling through the vast Yukon wilderness. The sentence starts with “day,” not “the man.” Since the story is about how a man goes off into the wilderness and eventually freezes to death, starting the story with “day” as the subject instead of “the man” shows us what the true focus of the story is. The man is made insignificant in the sentence, as he does not appear until the third clause, and then only as a tiny figure surrounded by a much longer description of nature. The choice of the word “broken” instead of a word like “dawned” is significant as well. “Broken” has negative connotations that set up the reader for the grueling story to come. In addition, the redundant appositivein the first sentence, “exceedingly cold and gray,” reinforces the feeling of nature’s overwhelming and oppressive presence. The day breaks “cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray.” London could have easily written “Day had broken exceedingly cold and gray.” The repetition is not sloppy writing, but a way to emphasize the mood and context for the reader, and extend the length of the sentence. The second sentence is also a multi-clause sentence that increases the reader’s feeling of exhaustion and the slow, difficult movement forwards. Again, nature is the subject, the “steep bank,” and the man does not appear until the second clause. The third sentence is a simple, extremely short sentence. This allows the reader to pause and take a breath after the lengthy opening lines, mirroring the way the man in the story stops to collect himself. The pattern of seemingly redundant repetition continues in the next sentence, which reads “There was no sun nor hint of sun,” and while London might have simply written “There was no hint of sun,” this syntactical pattern again emphasizes a type of revision for the worse or more extreme (Not just cold and gray, but exceedingly cold and gray. Not only was there no sun, there was not even any hint of sun.). We also hear in this sentence that there “was not a cloud in the sky,” which seems odd when paired with the lack of sun. It is also a very familiar, clichéd saying. The beginning of the next sentence, too, is a clichéd phrase, “It was a clear day.” Both of these statements sound positive, and if you read them in isolation, might sound as if this will be a happy story about going to the beach. However, London gives you these pleasant phrases only to then snatch away all hope by writing “and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of the sun.” Again, we have the use of repetition to emphasize the monotony and strangeness of the situation, as well as the disturbing lack of sunlight. The diction, especially the word “pall,” suggests a rather funereal mood. “Pall” is related to the words “pallor” and “pallbearer.” Pallor is a kind of sickly pale color, and a pall is the white sheet-like covering placed over caskets. However, this is an “intangible” pall. It is a “subtle gloom.” It is as if there is something clearly wrong, but it can’t quite be named. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it is depressing and ominous.
…etc.