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Between the Lines-Physical Character Traits-16319543815Find a strong passage of physical character description in your book. It should include physical traits (size, build, hair color, skin color, eye color, etc.), details about style, demeanor, posture, unique qualities, scars, tattoos, etc. Introduce your book, author, and character and then include your passage in quotation marks with the page number in parentheses. Then, in a paragraph, discuss what the passage shows about your character. How do the character’s physical traits impact his or her experience or the plot? Would the book be different if the character’s physical appearance were different?00Find a strong passage of physical character description in your book. It should include physical traits (size, build, hair color, skin color, eye color, etc.), details about style, demeanor, posture, unique qualities, scars, tattoos, etc. Introduce your book, author, and character and then include your passage in quotation marks with the page number in parentheses. Then, in a paragraph, discuss what the passage shows about your character. How do the character’s physical traits impact his or her experience or the plot? Would the book be different if the character’s physical appearance were different?562546531658900Example: The main character in Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is physically unusual, to say the least. Early in the book he describes himself with a cartoonist’s eye and a self-deprecating comedian’s humor: First of all, I ended up having forty-two teeth. The typical human has thirty-two, right? But I had forty-two.Ten more than usual.Ten more than normal.Ten teeth past human…And I started wearing glasses when I was three, so I ran around the rez looking like a three-year-old Indian grandpa.And, oh, I was skinny. I’d turn sideways and disappear.But my hands and feet were huge. My feet were a size eleven in third grade! With my big feet and pencil body, I looked like a capital L walking down the road.And my skull was enormous.Epic.My head was so big that little Indian skulls orbited around it. Some of the kids called me Orbit. And other kids just called me globe. The bullies would pick me up, spin me in circles, put their finger down on my skull, and say, “I want to go there.”So obviously, I looked goofy on the outside, but it was the inside stuff that was the worst (2-3).Junior’s physical characteristics are so unique that I couldn’t help but laugh and feel sorry for this kid simultaneously. While his hyperbolic sense of humor could work like a defense mechanism, his self-description also shows that he feels like an outsider. Unfortunately, his sense of humor about himself isn’t enough to protect him from bullies who mistreat him and target him because of hi disproportionate looks. If he looked more “normal” or “average” he most likely would be safer from others’ taunting and physical threats, but he probably also wouldn’t have developed his sense of humor and cartoonist abilities to deal with his place on the rez and in the world. Example: “Thomas turned to his right to see a kid standing nearby, short and pudgy, staring at him. He was young—probably the youngest of any in the group he’d seen so far, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. His brown hair hung down over his ears and neck, scraping the tops of his shoulders. Blue eyes shone through an otherwise pitiful face, flabby and flushed”(13).This passage introduces the reader to Chuck, who will be the main character’s sidekick. The fact that Chuck is short and pudgy sets him up as the runt of the group. He is younger than the other kids in the glade and thereby at the bottom of the social hierarchy. His long hair could suggest that no one is taking care of him, like he is one of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. The image of his blue eyes shining makes him seem like a pure spirit, an innocent, unlike the hardened eyes of some of the other, more seasoned gladers. Chuck’s pitiful, flabby, flushed face makes him a sympathetic character. We feel for this poor kid.Ex: “A twisted, pale figure writhing in agony, chest bare and hideous. Tight, rigid cords of sickly green veins webbed across the boy’s body and limbs, like ropes under his skin. Purplish bruises covered the kid, red hives, bloody scratches. His bloodshot eyes bulged, darting back and forth”(20).This passage shows Ben, the glader who was most recently “stung” by a griever, hideous monsters that roam the maze. His paleness and the fact that he is writhing in agony capture the extreme amount of pain he is in. The “cords of sickly green veins” show that the boy is undergoing a transformation. The way his body is contorting and the veins are popping out makes it seem like he is turning into a monster himself. The bruises and scratches reveal that he has been through a horrible ordeal. He doesn’t just have one injury; it seems like he was being injured in lots of ways all over his body. The darting eyes indicate that Ben is terrified or insane. Ben’s current state acts as a warning about what could happen to the main character if he doesn’t follow the rules of the glade. From Boy 21“He’s in a wife-beater undershirt and his tan pants are pinned under his stumps. Pop’s white hair is tucked behind his ears and falls to his shoulders. He’s not trying to look cool with the long hair; he just doesn’t care enough to make the trip to the barber. Grandmom’s green rosary beads make a V on Pop’s chest and Jesus hangs on a black cross right around Pop’s outie bellybutton.” (22)What would you write about the character in the above passage?“She was thin, but not too small. Maybe five and a half feet tall, from what he could tell. She looked like she could be fifteen or sixteen years old, and her hair was tar black. But the thing that really stood out to him was her skin: pale, white as pearls”(55).What would you write about the character in the above passage?***Just for fun***Which celebrity could play your character if your book were a movie? ................
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