In English grammar, the bare basic fundamentals are the parts of speech. This week, we will be analyzing the parts of speech of different writing passages from stories and find ways to accurately apply these parts of speech in your writing.
The Alchemist:
“Even though I complain sometimes it (his heart) said, it’s because I am the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams because they feel they don’t deserve them, or that they won’t be able to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away, or of moments that could have been good, but weren’t, or treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because when these things happen we suffer terribly.”
“My heart is afraid it will have to suffer,” said the boy.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams because every second of the search is an encounter with God.
When I have been truly searching for my treasure every hour has been luminous because every hour has been a part of the dream. When I have been truly searching for my treasure I discover things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible to achieve.
Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits them. Unfortunately very few follow the path laid out for them. They just go along and see the world as a threatening place, and because they do, the world does indeed turn out to be a threatening place. We, their hearts, speak more and more softly for we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.”
“Why don’t people’s hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?” asked the boy.
“Because that’s what makes hearts suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.”
“What you still need to know is this: Before a dream is realized, the soul of the world tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. That’s the point, as we say in the desert, that one dies of thirst just as the palm trees have appeared on the horizon. Every search begins with beginner’s luck and ends with being severely tested. The darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.”
Tell Tale Heart:
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.
The Secret Garden:
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.
What are your personal goals and dreams? What is getting in the way of them? What kind of plan do you have to achieve them and overcome the obstacle