Blog post 2.1
From Callahan’s ‘Chimera’:
“Until one day, what remains is truly and thoroughly a mosaic, a chimera- part man, part woman; part someone, part someone else. And then, if that man or woman is amputated from us, clipped as quickly and as cleanly as a gangrenous leg, our minds are suddenly forced into a new reality – a reality without the other, a reality in which an essential piece of us is missing.” (378)
Although the transition is from one lengthy sentence to another, I feel that the author maintains the flow of thought without interruption. The picture of a man made up of parts of his wife (the reality of his whole). The break from this wholesome picture to the broken one painted in the following sentence was to me beautiful not only in meaning, but in structure. The break there was necessary, I think it made the picture of the amputation more vivid, and put emphasis on the transition from something whole to something broken. I really love the way these two sentences create a full picture, a journey from one state of being to another- one paragraph ending, and another beginning. In this instance, the writer emphasizes the contrast between something whole ( a mosaic) and then made it shatter (an amputation); it’s imagery and structure put together to evoke a strong feeling in the reader.
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