Google Doc

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1huBKVOi_4nynb-C1ukA9zhOJJI2KJpqw6JZ81HalB6A/edit?usp=sharing

Tropes and Schemes

1. When I first saw New York I was twenty, and it was summertime, and I got off a DC-7 at the old Idlewild temporary terminal in a new dress which had seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already, even in the old Idlewild temporary terminal, and the warm air smelled of mildew and some instinct, programmed by all the movies I had ever read about New York, informed me that it would never be quite the same again.

Although this introductory sentence uses story telling techniques and gives facts about the literal event, the author intertwines tropes, such as the ability to smell instinct and how New York informed the author of the change to come. These two examples are both figurative and metaphoric for her emotions while getting off the plane.

2. Part of what I want to tell you is what it is like to be young in New York, how six months can become eight years with the deceptive ease of a film dissolve, for that is how those years appear to me now, in a long sequence of sentimental dissolves and old-fashioned trick shots...

The author uses the metaphor and visual of a film dissolve to describe her young self and her life in New York. The principle here is the blurring of time and how it passes quickly in New York, and how the author can look back on her history and recognize the nostalgia in her memories.

3. Instead I got married, which as it turned out was a very good thing to do but badly timed, since I still could not walk on upper Madison Avenue in the mornings and still could not talk to people and still cried in Chinese laundries.

Throughout the entire piece, the author uses a lot of repetition and schemes to explain her journey. She will use the same set of words in different phrasing to emphasize the moment or to explain how it changed her/her life. This set of words emphasizes her emotions during the period and how she was so lost, even though she was married. This sentence becomes a trope and metaphor for her state of mind.

Tomorrow Rarely Knows

Social: "If time travel was possible, why would we want to do it?"

By using the social phrase of "we," this includes a relationship made between the writer and the reader. It's an inclusive phrase that directly addresses the audience and their presence in the piece.

Physical: "There is no linear continuation: The past disappears, the future is unimagined, and the present is ephemeral. It cannot be traversed."

Because this phrase is so philosophical and not tangible at all, it creates a distance that the reader will generate because it separates them from the concrete questions and examples. The use of bigger, more intricate words gives this a sense of seriousness and condemnation.

Shipping Out

"Whenever we go over bumps or train tracks, there's a huge mass clicking sound from all the cameras around everybody's neck. I haven't brought any sort of camera and feel a perverse pride about this."

Here by using the phrase "perverse pride," he sarcastically comments on the stereotypical nature that tourists should be bringing cameras to document their travels. However, he gets a kick out of not bringing his camera, showing his differing views and the joy he gets out of doing the opposite of what one is supposed to do on a cruise.

"In heavy seas, hypochondriacs are kept busy taking their gastric pulse every couple of second and wondering whether what they're feeling is maybe the onset of seasickness."

The use of the words "wondering, whether, maybe, onset" give the author a mimicking tone to this statement and a dry humor to its obvious target. The phrase of "gastric pulse" isn't even a clear or accurate phrase and doubles as the metaphor for "vomiting."