Throughout the book Danielewski constantly leads the reader in different directions. During the fastest points he is slow, the narrowest points he is thick, the loosest points he is dense. To understand this book you must not only understand the words, but also what the author is visually conveying.
On page 425 when Navidson is cycling down the corridor toward the begining of exploration 5, the author begins with this strategy. Traveling down the corridor Navidson finds himself traveling down hill. He is having very little resistance from his bike yet the text seems to be strangling itself.
"For the next five
days Navidson
covers anywhere
from 240 to 300
miles at a time,
though on the
fifth day, in what
amounts to an
absurd fourteen
hour marathon
Navidson logs 428
Miles."
As he bikes what seems to be nearly 2000 miles in five days, the text comes together to merely a single word per line. The author is not trying to convey the journey, he is trying to let the reader know how lost Navidson is. Although he is traveling farther and farther, he is really getting squeezed tighter and tighter in his head. The text strangling itself symbolizes how much of an understanding Navidson has on where he actually is. Furthermore, how much of a grasp he has on the corridors.
At the top of this page he turns around thinking that he had been disoriented, but this move just makes him more disoriented as he falls upon the same slope he started on. This is when the text starts to come together and his idea of where he is gets smaller and smaller.
A few pages later on 428-429 as he continues down the slope but the text does the opposite. As he finally gets to some sort of a checkpoint, when he is able to see the ceiling come down to him, the text is going down. As the ceiling rises the text is rising. It is easy to see how he is using the text to portray the ceiling movement, but it is not as clear to see that Navidson is finally getting a better understanding of where he is. He is finally passing some sort of landmark.
Danielewski is using the text not only to show physical features of the corridor, but also to show the emotions of the character. On the following pages when he travels across the plateau the shape of the text gives the reader the idea of a plateau. However, when he changes direction to the right, expecting some change. He ends up traveling down the same hill. This is where the text comes back together, although the land is still wide. This symbolizes his idea of where he is getting smaller and smaller.
While there are obvious intentions of the author to portray images and convey messages, there is also less obvious symbolism. Danielewski is able to express obvious messages and hidden ones at the same time.
2 comments:
You begin with, "Throughout the book Danielewski constantly leads the reader in different directions. During the fastest points he is slow, the narrowest points he is thick, the loosest points he is dense." This seems really broad, and to be honest I'm not really sure what you're getting at. Perhaps you can add some support for this to make it more clear.
Is "To understand this book you must not only understand the words, but also what the author is visually conveying." your thesis? (I'm assuming because of where it appears in the first paragraph.) This seems a little too straight forward and not actually what you are trying to prove throughout your essay. You seem to actually argue that through the textual layout in that chapter the author is trying to convey Navidson's thoughts.
In your second paragraph, you say that the text is strangling itself, and then you show the text as it appears in the novel. I think a sentence explaining how the format of the text equates to strangling would be a good idea to support this statement. This sort of continues and applies to the entire essay. I like where you are going with comparing the text with Navidson's thoughts, but I think this would be more powerful if you also used a little more textual support to show how you know that Navidson is feeling the way you say he is.
"While there are obvious intentions of the author to portray images and convey messages, there is also less obvious symbolism. Danielewski is able to express obvious messages and hidden ones at the same time." Your concluion seems a little weak, and broad enough that it's not clear where you're going. What are the obvious intentions? Is the less obvious symbolism what you have been pointing out along the way? Try to focus your conclusion more on what you say throughout the essay.
Throughout the book Danielewski constantly leads the reader in different directions. During the fastest points he is slow, the narrowest points he is thick, the loosest points he is dense. This is because he is attempting to convay multiple messages at the same time. To understand this book you must not only understand the words, but also what the author is visually conveying. In certian instances Danielewski gives the reader clues into the characters mind with the orientation of his text.
On page 425 when Navidson is cycling down the corridor toward the begining of exploration 5, the author begins with this strategy. Traveling down the corridor Navidson finds himself traveling down hill. He is having very little resistance from his bike yet the text seems to be strangling itself.
"For the next five
days Navidson
covers anywhere
from 240 to 300
miles at a time,
though on the
fifth day, in what
amounts to an
absurd fourteen
hour marathon
Navidson logs 428
Miles."
As you can see the text is filing down the center of the page and the last ling has only one word. This shows the idea of getting tighter together as the reader moves through the text. This can be seen as a clue into the characters mind. As he bikes what seems to be nearly 2000 miles in five days, the text comes together to merely a single word per line. The author is not trying to convey the journey, he is trying to let the reader know how lost Navidson is. Although he is traveling farther and farther, he is really getting squeezed tighter and tighter in his head. The text strangling itself symbolizes how much of an understanding Navidson has on where he actually is. Furthermore, how much of a grasp he has on the corridors.
At the top of this page he turns around thinking that he had been disoriented, but this move just makes him more disoriented as he falls upon the same slope he started on. This is when the text starts to come together and his idea of where he is gets smaller and smaller.
A few pages later on 428-429 as he continues down the slope but the text does the opposite. As he finally gets to some sort of a checkpoint, when he is able to see the ceiling come down to him, the text is going down. As the ceiling rises the text is rising. It is easy to see how he is using the text to portray the ceiling movement, but it is not as clear to see that Navidson is finally getting a better understanding of where he is. He is finally passing some sort of landmark.
Danielewski is using the text not only to show physical features of the corridor, but also to show the emotions of the character. On the following pages when he travels across the plateau the shape of the text gives the reader the idea of a plateau. However, when he changes direction to the right, expecting some change. He ends up traveling down the same hill. This is where the text comes back together, although the land is still wide. This symbolizes his idea of where he is getting smaller and smaller.
While there are obvious intentions of the author to portray images and convey messages, there is also less obvious symbolism. As pointed out above while Navidson is traveling thorough the house, the text is able to show some of his emotions while also portraying the corridor and speed of movement. Danielewski used his pages to show the reader how his characters were feeling.
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