Journal #1

Create a blog post subtitle that summarizes your post in a few short, punchy sentences and entices your audience to continue reading.

THE ROAD TO TREEGAP

Journal- 1

8-27-18; Close Reading, analyzing emotions-

The novel Tuck Everlasting, uses descriptive language to capture the setting and the mood of the complete story. It emphasizes feelings such as wonder, delight, and pleasure, that the author creates using vivid descriptions. In this part she talks about a simple road, a road that led to a town, named Treegap, but something peculiar about the road is that it was trod out by cows. Cows that were calm, giving a feeling of quiet and peace, “The road had been trod out long before by a herd of cows who were, to say the least, relaxed” (Pg.5, Natalie Babbitt, 2007). The author is always stresses a sense of calm, serene, and quiet. It gives this road another purpose other than transportation, if not a relaxing area outside of the busy town. A place where the human expansion can’t reach the beauty and grace of nature. The author states, “Here its edges blurred. It widened and seemed to pause, suggesting tranquil bovine picnics: slow chewing and thoughtful contemplation of the infinite” (Pg.5, Natalie Babbitt, 2007). The story describes an archway to the forest, where the author feels as if the road, trod by cows at random, it felt as if the road was supposed to exist to be at the archway, “But on reaching the shadows of the first trees, it veered sharply, swung out in a wide arc as if for the first time, it had a reason to think where it was going, and passed around” (Pg.5, Natalie Babbitt, 2007).

As we keep reading, we start to shift moods, it went from a calm, quiet environment, to an eerie, less visited part of the village, where it no longer feels that someone is a part of Treegap, “On the other side of the wood, the sense of easiness dissolves. The road no longer belonged to the cows.” (Pg.5-6, Natalie Babbitt, 2007). The setting keeps moving and there appears to be a cottage with an uninviting and unpleasant appearances, complete with a four foot fence the just screams- stay out! “A square solid cottage with a touch-me-not appearance” (Pg.6, Natalie Babbitt, 2007). The story moves along to the village, where apparently, there is nothing important to the story about the village, except two places, the jailhouse and the gallows, meaning that a fair amount of the plot is in those places. The wood had a very different vibe it felt, not like Treegap, if not a different place, a place where it does not feel like the rest of the word, “the wood had a sleeping, other world appearance, that made you want to speak in whispers”, and the cows must have thought, “Let’s keep its peace, we won’t disturb” (Pg. 6, Natalie Babbitt, 2007)