Background: I wrote this paper for an English class called The Sentence. In this class, I learned how individual sentences operate in terms of structure, punctuation, and word choice, and how they can communicate a larger idea. I included this piece because it shows long-form complex thinking and analysis, as well as organized writing. In the excerpt below, I included paragraphs 3 and 4, where I feel my writing shines.
The Picturesque Sentence: How It Works and Why It Matters
One important element of the picturesque sentence is word order, for pictures can have different effects if certain elements are painted in a different order. What strikes the reader first can have a greater effect than what is said to them last. Or, the opposite can happen, where more attention is drawn to the end of the sentence. In this amazing sentence by George Orwell, he imagines what it must be like to work in a coal mine: “But earth is tractable stuff compared with coal, and I don’t have to work kneeling down, a thousand feet underground, in suffocating heat and swallowing coal dust with every breath I take; nor do I have to walk a mile bent double before I begin” (qtd. in Klinkenborg 155-156). The first part of the sentence establishes the scene that Orwell is working in while he is gardening, but the second part grabs the reader’s attention because of its sensory imagery. The reader is taken by the “touch” imagery used because heat and coal dust can be felt by them. They can also imagine the pain felt by the imagined miner’s uncomfortable position, as we have all been bent over uncomfortably at one time or another. These aspects emphasize his point that his gardening conditions are much better than the conditions of a coal mine because of the pain and discomfort the reader can sense through his picturesque description of the coal mine.
This sentence, constructed in this way, reflects its purpose, which is something Fish and Christopher R. Beha say is incredibly important to sentence craft. Fish says, “The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is ‘What am I trying to do?’” (37). Similarly, Beha asks, “What do I need this sentence to do?” In this example, Orwell emphasizes how easy gardening is in comparison with working in the coal mines, but he makes the choice to use imagery at the end of this sentence. His choice in word order is crucial to this sentence as it grows in intensity, reflecting just how poor the working conditions for a coal miner are with each modifier he adds. If the word order was switched so that the sentence started with the description of a coal mine, as in this example, “I don’t have to work kneeling down, a thousand feet underground, in suffocating heat and swallowing coal dust with every breath I take; nor do I have to walk a mile bent double before I begin, [as] earth is tractable stuff compared with coal,” the end of the sentence becomes a let-down, and doesn’t leave the reader with the same sense of relief that Orwell feels since he is only doing garden work. The “step-by-step” build up that Klinkenborg observed disappears, and so does the effect that this move has on the reader (165). In addition, it is significant that he lists these unideal conditions one after the other at the end of the sentence, as in doing so he makes sure the reader remembers this list. It communicates the feeling that each of these things, while problematic on their own, create a monumental problem when put together.
Works Cited
Beha, Christopher R. “The Marquise Went out at Five O’clock: On Making Sentences Do Something.” The Millions, 30 Aug. 2012, themillions.com/2012/08/the-marquisewentoutatfiveoclockontheformandfunctionofsentences.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2017.
Fish, Stanley. How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One. Harper, 2011.
Klinkenborg, Verlyn. Several Short Sentences About Writing. Vintage Books, 2012.
Carissa Winslow 