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Analyzing Aimee Bender's Lemonade

Decent Essays

The Variation of Sentence Length
And then I couldn’t help it, I made another Chinese joke! Because I said that the popcorn shrimp would be good to take to the movies. And she was quiet and I thought: Oh my God, I did it again, didn’t I? Why do I do that? And I was about to say I was really sorry again when her cell rang and I could tell it was Jack because her whole face got all shimmery.
In “Lemonade” by Aimee Bender, when Louanne made a racist joke, she felt worried because it might have offended her Chinese friend. Since she didn’t intend to hurt her friend, she kept questioning herself about her action. The author expresses the character’s nervousness by using short questions for a short period of time before another event interrupted her …show more content…

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.
Short sentences not only express how upset the character was but also shows the strength and power of the speaker. This excerpt is a part of “Patton's Speech to the Third Army.” As the leader of the troops, the speaker uses short and concise sentences. He also adds many pauses, using commas, to make long sentences sound shorter than they actually are. He uses these sentences to show his subordinates the power of himself, the commander, who is an expert on wars and has higher status. Using short sentences, he constantly pumps up listeners’ zeal in order to make them to fight for America. In this situation, if he used long sentences, with a lot of descriptions or background information, his speech would bore the army and wouldn’t express the emotion he …show more content…

I feel a power in me. I am Push, Push the bully, God of Neighborhood, its incarnation of envy and jealousy and need. I vie, strive, emulate, compete, a contender in every event there is. I didn’t make myself. I probably can’t save myself, but maybe that’s the only need I don’t have! I taste my lack and that’s how I win – by having nothing to lose. It’s not good enough! I want and I want and I will die wanting, but first I will have something. This time I will have something. I say it aloud. “This time I will have something!” I step toward them. The power makes me dizzy. It is enormous. They feel it. They back

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