Read the Following Passage from Bel Canto About the Character Carmen

Bel Canto: Prose Passage Analysis

Read the following passage from Bel Canto, (Chapter 8) about the character Carmen. In an organized discussion, analyze techniques such as selection of details, point of view, diction, syntax, figurative language, and any other techniques you notice used by author Ann Patchett to characterize Carmen. Mark up the passage before you begin writing.

“But for Carmen it was different. She had clearly two lives. She did her push-ups in the morning and stood for inspection. She carried her rifle on guard. She kept a boning knife in her boot and she knew how to use it. She obeyed orders. She was, as it had been explained to her, part of the force that would bring about change. But she was also the girl who went to the china closet at night, who was learning how to read in Spanish and could already say several things in English. Good morning. I am very well, thank you. Where is the restaurant? Some mornings, Roxane Coss let her climb into the impossibly soft sheets on her big bed, let her close her eyes for a few minutes and pretend she belonged there. She would pretend she was one of the prisoners, that she lived in a world with so many privileges that there was nothing to fight for. But no matter how the two sides got along, they were always two sides, and when she went from one to the other it was a matter of crossing over something. Either she told Gen she couldn’t get Mr. Hosokawa upstairs, in which case she disappointed Gen and Mr. Hosokawa and Miss Coss, who had all been so kind to her, or she told him she could, in which case she broke every oath she had sworn to her party and put herself at risk of a punishment she would not imagine. If Gen had understood any of this he never would have asked her. For him it was merely about helping out, being a friend. It was as if he only wanted to borrow a book. Carmen closed her eyes and pretended to be tired. She prayed to Saint Rose of Lima. “Saint Rose, give me guidance. Saint Rose, give me clarity.” She pressed her eyes closed and pleaded for the intercession of the only saint she knew personally, but a saint is very little help when it comes to smuggling a married man into an opera singer’s bedroom. On this matter, Carmen was on her own.