Rowan Dobranski's Blog

I was recently talking about my upcoming English midterm with my father when I had a thought I found rather interesting. I was thinking about how diction can determine how an idea is conveyed in a novel, and whether it comes from the narrator or the character and how that affects the reader’s understanding of the message. For example, in the sentence “the old man moved with surprising haste,” it feels like the character themself is surprised, but in the sentence “the man moved with haste uncharacteristic of his old age,” the unexpectedness of the speed with which the old man moved seems more objective and detached from the character’s thoughts. I am interested to see if I could find some examples of diction that impact the novels we have read in class in this way, and whether I can use that as possible analysis on a future essay or my upcoming exam.