1. IOC revision By Mélissa Roux

2. Passage on page 125-126 Starts with: ‘The pieces of Cholly’s life could become coherent only in the head of a musician…’ Ends with: ‘… Only in drink was there some break, some floodlight, and when that closed, there was oblivion.’

3. Aim of passage This passage is in Spring and recalls Cholly’s past.  Author succeeds in making us sympathize for Cholly  Concept of freedom  Protrays hectiness in Cholly’s life  Explanation/reason to Cholly’s current behavior  Foreshadows his rape to Pecola

4. What I will explore >linguistic devices + how they convey meaning >characterisation >structure of the extract >consider the effect of the social/historical context

5. Structure The opening of the extract start with a strong sentence: ‘The pieces of Cholly’s life could become coherent only in the head of a musician.’  Musician (artists) are commonly known to have creative=messy minds. This allows the reader to unerstand that Cholly’s life is so hectic only complex minds can understand.  Could also be the reason why he has the need to ‘escape’ by drinking.

6. ‘musician’  Metaphor of Cholly’s life  Morrison uses ‘musician’ (chose this specifically) to portray the events in Cholly’s life as different music notes  All together these ‘notes’ or ‘event’ are what composes his life.  His life is like an unpleasant song.

7. Structure The first part of the extract is euphonic. The rest of the passage regularly uses literary techniques (e.g repetition of ‘free’) to add rythm for the reader. Morrison uses: ‘talk their talk’ - alliteration ‘skins and strings’ - sibilance ‘Only’ - Anaphora

8. Structure Still early on in the passage the concept of Cholly’s freedom is introduce with a repetition of the word itself.  Anaphora with the word ‘free’ allows the concept to resonate in the readers’ minds  Repetition of this word creates a sense of rythm emphasizing on Cholly’s freedom. Refers back to the fact that Cholly’s life was coherent ‘only in the head of a musician’

9. Structure Chaining of events with ‘to’ – repetition At this moment, events that have strongly affected Cholly’s life and behaviour are listed out by Morrison, this effect:  Recalls the reader that Cholly has been through a lot  Allows us to sympathize for him knowing that there was once a sweet and loving side of Cholly

10. ‘Dangerously free’  Oxymoron protraying Cholly as a character. Being free now that he’s lost the people who cared most about.  After the part of the extract that repeatedly refers to Cholly’s freedom is closed by the following quote (next slide)

11. ‘….Nothing more to lose. He was alone with his own perceptions and appetites, and they alone interested him.’ This part follows the repeated ‘free’ of Cholly.  ‘free’ could actually be replace by ‘alone’  At first this quote seems to contrast his ‘freedom’ but we then realise that Cholly’s free in his own world.  Cholly’s only a representation of many men from the ‘black community’. Morrison teaches the audience the miserable and unpleasant life that a lot of ‘black men’ went through due to racisms, unfair treatment.  The reason why these men (Cholly) turned to alcohol.

12. ‘Only in drink was there some break, some floodlight, and when that closed, there was oblivion.’  Metaphor of drunken self being a passage to being connected to the world and perhaps feeling alive.  ‘floodlight’ gives an impression of heaven and hope  Allows the audience to forgive and understand the reason why Cholly consistently comes home drunk  ‘oblivion’ choice of vocabulary makes the audience feel pity and scared for Cholly being lost, emphasizes on their sympathy for him.

13. Conclusion  This passage sums up Cholly’s life as being messy.  Beginning metaphor of his life being an ugly and complicated song.  Literary techiniques such as repetition and anaphora add rythmn to the passage emphasizing on the metaphor i mentioned on previous point.