Sean's+Best+and+Worst+Paragraphs

Best Paragraph:

In further description of the wedding venue, Chang uses a simile to compare it to "a big glass globe, with shifting patterns of colour at its centre. The guests were all flies climbing gingerly over the surface of the globe, trying to get inside." This additional description further reinforces the theme of creating a facade, by mentioning the presence of a surface creating a divide between the interior and exterior. By describing the guests as flies it demonstrates Chang's view that there is no such thing as real friends. Instead they are just lowly insects waiting to feed off you. However a theme prevalent through all of Chang's short stories in this collection is the unattainability of real happiness in any relationship. The globe is the material realization of this concept. Despite seeing/believing that there is happiness on the other side of marriage (the beautiful "colourful decorations" and "shifting patterns of colour at [the globe's] centre") the flies (humans) will never be able to pass through the glass globe and reach it.

Worst Paragraph:

As Basu relaxes with the coming of morning, so too does the setting. In the ending paragraphs of the narrative the prevalent source of light is described as changing from the "livid glow of artificial lights" to the "pure pallor" of "morning light". A "pallor", though considered an ugly tone of colour associated with death and sickliness, has a clamer, less intense tone than any colour described as "livid". Just as how Basu has become more relaxed, speaking in a "still voice", or "gently", the sky's colour turns from the angry red of before to a "soft, deep blue". The setting provides emphasis for the calming of the mood, offering a clam and relaxed image and inferring the idea of a release of energy. Like the sky, Basu has changed, and Desai shows how enriching being released is.

__** 1st Improved Paragraph **__ // Original //

In Desai’s “A Devoted Son” Rakesh is initially portrayed as a filial son who “first thing he did upon entering the house...bow down and touched his father’s feet.” Rakesh’s father had praised him and admired him as well. However, his medical education has led him to be ever conscious and over controlling of his father’s health and diet, about which his father is dissatisfied. The metaphorical blindness of Rakesh to his father’s need is ironic due to the fact that a doctor should be aware of a patient’s wills and desires.

// Improved (rewritten/rearranged top to bottom)  //

Desai’s “A Devoted Son” initially portrays Rakesh as a filial son, since the “first thing he did upon entering the house [was]... bow down and touched his father’s feet.” Rakesh’s father praises him and admires him as well. However, after Rakesh completes his medical education, he attains the “confident and rather contemptuous stride of the famous doctor”, and has become ever-conscious and over-controlling (he “declared” his father’s health and diet), about which his father is dissatisfied. Desai explores the change in Rakesh’s behaviour in her use of diction. Touching someone’s feet is very subservient behaviour. However both “confident” and “contemptuous” suggest a personal sense of superiority. The obvious contradiction in Rakesh’s treatment of his father is ironic, since he is effecting a positive and negative influence on his father depending on how you view his actions.

//Original//
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Mrs Lou’s feelings of frustration and sadness in marriage is also frequently described by Chang. For example, she is described to feel as though she is left to “rattle around in the empty house alone” - here the word “rattle” is a reference to being caged, which suggests that Mrs Lou feels caged and trapped in her unhappy marriage with Mr. Lou. She is also described to “resent the people around her”, including her husband, and wonders why Mr Lou acts as “A responsible husband when there is no one to see.” This suggests that Mr Lou is not a responsible husband usually, and that their marriage is not what it seems on the surface. This, added to the fact that she constantly feels inadequate in the family and marriage, directly shows her misery and brings out yet another main theme in the story - the unhappiness of marriages. Chang also uses this to reflect the misery that arranged marriages bring.

//Improved (rewritten/rearranged top to bottom)//

Mrs Lou’s feelings of frustration and sadness in marriage are also frequently mentioned in “Great Felicity”. She is described as being left to “rattle around in the empty house alone”. The use of onomatopoeia in the passage relates to the sound that a cage makes suggesting that Mrs Lou feels confined and trapped in her unhappy marriage with Mr. Lou. She is also described to “resent the people around her”, including her husband. The chosen verb is passive, suggesting that Mrs Lou retains the feeling inside her, yet is unwilling or unable to take stronger action. Also, she wonders why Mr Lou acts as “A responsible husband when there is no one to see.” This suggests that their marriage is not as pleasant as others make it to be, and reinforces the theme that people care more for their reputation than their personal satisfaction.