Water for Elephants: Week 1, Post A

VOCAB:
undulating (46)-to move in a smooth wavelike motion.
Proctor (21)-a person appointed to keep watch over students during an exam.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:
“They pat and they fuss, and above all, they cluck” (19). Jacob’s parents died, so a few old ladies from his church come to visit him. This is the author’s description of these women. The ladies clucking like hens. It’s a kind of metaphor.
“But it’s difficult because he’s zooming away from me, receding to the end of a long black tunnel” (17). This is also when Jacob’s parents have died. This phrase is kind of imagery. It’s telling us what Jacob was feeling and seeing at the time.
“Snatches of sky peek through leaves, a mosaic blue and green that shifts gently with the wind” (22). This sentence is definitely imagery. It’s describing exactly what the sky looked like at the moment Jacob was looking out the window during his test.

QUOTE:
“Age is a terrible thief” (12). This quote is significant in the story because it’s about a man who is in the nursing home but is having flashbacks of his life in the circus. In this quote, Jacob is talking about how aging took his wife from him by cancer, and aging is the reason that he’s in the nursing home right now. Age took the things one usually enjoys in life away from him.

THEME:
The major emerging theme of the book so far is probably that you should go to college and start a successful life and not ruin your chances of being successful.