Part One. Avoiding Comma Splices
A comma splice is the error of using a comma to link two complete sentences:
You CAN link two complete sentences with FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so:
McMahon drives an Infiniti M37, but he likes the similar styling on the Nissan Maxima.
Terrel Owens plays for the Bills, and already he is causing a controversy with his petulant, contumacious behavior.
The problem with comma splices arises when we use conjunctive adverbs between the two complete sentences. Some common conjunctive adverbs: however, moreover, instead, in contrast, additionally
McMahon is a vegetarian, however, he fattens himself up with mozzarella pesto mushroom pizza with extra thick, soft doughy crust.
McMahon doesn’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving, instead he eats a garden burger.
The Maxima borrows styling cues from the Infiniti, its fender flares suggest the luxury of the Infiniti G37.
A sentence fragment is an incomplete thought expressed in a phrase or a dependent clause.
While waiting for McMahon’s lecture during the afternoon English 1A class. A fly buzzed around Beatrice’s head.
The Infiniti M37 costs $10,000 more than the similarly styled Maxima. Since the M37 lavishes the driver with far more creature comforts.
The Infiniti M37 should retail for about $50,000. Which is a considerable increase over its predecessor, the M35.
Part Two. Finding Fragments and Comma Splices in a Passage
Jesse’s mother was barely recognizable, her straight black hair was covered with a greenish-blonde wig she had found in the dumpster behind the Veggie Grill on the Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. People passing by were giving her funny stares. As she stood in front of the restaurant. She was in her white spandex gym outfit, she probably hadn’t washed it in weeks. Jesse could smell her from ten yards away, now she was staring at her reflection in a newspaper rack. Her fingertips tracing the contours of her sharp cheek bones. Her eyes were bloodshot, she probably hadn’t slept the night before. Jesse tried to get his mom’s attention while Officer Bergdorf looked on. Feeling sorry for the mother, but even more for the kid. Geez, the poor kid’s mother was doing this more and more lately, doing her crazy “exercise walks” from Torrance to El Segundo. Sometimes twenty miles a day, and this was in addition to all her working out at the gym. Her tiny body was shriveling into a prune. Embarrassed, Jesse looked at his mother. He said, “Take the wig off. It’s filthy.” She wasn’t listening. She turned her head this way and that. Admiring the glamorous film star image she saw in the newspaper rack’s reflection. “Jesus, Mother, you’re going to get lice. Do you have any idea where that wig has been?” Finally, she recognized her son’s voice. She turned to him. “Jesse? How do I look?” “We’re going home. I’m already late for school, thanks to you.” He approached her and carefully pinched the germ-infested wig before flinging it on the roof of the Veggie Grill. “What you do that for?” “We’re going home now. You need to take your Seroquel.” She looked at Officer Bergdorf. His bowling ball belly spilling over his gun belt. He had asked her out on a date a year earlier. Told her he’d barbecue her the best steak she had ever had. As far as he knew, she was just some good looking divorced lady who was into exercise. That was before he found out she was bipolar. Lucky for him. She had refused him. Now the officer was looking at the poor woman, skinny as a rail, gaunt, little more than a skeleton. She didn’t think much of him either. She studied his greasy haired comb-over. Which failed to conceal his balding pate. Then holding her nose with an air a disapproval, she stared at his bulging gut and said, “I told you to lay off the donuts.” He patted his belly affectionately. “I’m hooked, Regina. There’s no cure for me.” He looked at Jesse. “She gonna be okay?” “Yeah, I just need to get her home and make her take her medication. She’ll be fine.” He thanked the officer for calling him and got his mother inside the faded red Corolla. On the way home, she complained that she hadn’t finished her walk. Jesse told her he’d miss his first two classes because of this stupid episode. He reminded her of the importance of taking her medicine. It kept her “normal,” or at least close to it. “You don’t need to lecture me. I know all about it. But I prefer to get the same healing benefits from exercise. It’s more natural.” “Exercise helps, but it doesn’t work like your medicine.” When they got home, he went into the kitchen and pulled the Seroquel out of its foil packet and put it in her hand as he poured her a glass of water. “Come on. Down the hatch, just like the doctor said.” He watched with relief as she swallowed the pill. Thank, God, now she’ll be half normal at work. She can’t afford to lose her job, now that would really suck. Part Three. Reading Questions for "Cathedral" One. What is the irony of using a blind character in the story as a way of developing one of its major themes? See page 391 where the narrator recounts the blind man burying his wife and how “he had never seen her.” Who’s really blind? Two. Explain the title. A Cathedral is where miracles happen. The miracle is that a dead man will be resurrected. The dead man is equated with the image of skeletons that occur later in the story during the TV show. Clearly, the narrator is dead and reborn by the story’s end. Three. How does the narrator reveals himself in the first paragraph? He’s a defensive ignoramus and a man so isolated from the complexity of the human condition that he is a walking corpse. He’s a dead man. Later we find that he’s friendless. His wife says he has no friends. He lives inside himself, a prisoner of his own solipsism, which is fueled in part by fear. Four. What is foreshadowed in the second paragraph? Robert’s sensitivity, tracing the wife’s face, will be passed on to the narrator at the story’s end. Five. What is the narrator’s real source of jealousy? Dead people don’t like to see people living life fully. They want everyone to be as dead and miserable as they are. The narrator resents the blind man for living life fully. Six. What do we know about the narrator’s habits? They’re reductionary. He does the same rituals over and over to close himself from emotion. The TV watching, the fear of silence, the fear of conversation, insomnia, the depression, the smoking dope until he can crash in bed. The blind man represents change, a threat, an interference with his routine. Our routines comfort us, but they also imprison and eventually kill us. Seven. What is the story’s turning point? Where Robert apologizes for monopolizing the talk with the wife. He shows empathy, something the narrator is lacking. He shows he has this quality, empathy, which evinces Robert’s maturity and gives him the credentials to be trusted as a parent figure for the narrator who is essentially a frightened child. Once that dynamic is established, the miracle can begin. Eight. What contradiction about maturity do we learn in the story? The adult is relaxed enough to be a child and possess a child’s hunger to learn new things. We see this on page 397 when they’re watching TV. One of life’s contradictions is that we have to be mature enough to be children, to be relaxed enough to let go and let our child explore. Nine. How do we know the narrator is a scared little kid emotionally? He keeps saying, “I’m not doing so well, am I?” He needs an adult’s approval. Ten. How does the narrator change at the end of the story? In the beginning he is disaffected. By the end, gets excited, his legs become numb, he’s possessed with a sense of urgency and life purpose. He says at one point, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now.” Part Four. Disaffected, adjective; Disaffection, noun: To be disaffected is to be emotionally withdrawn, disengaged with the world, depressed. Disaffection is the condition of having given up on life and in essence being a member of the walking dead. Part Four. The Causes of Disaffection 1. You lack confidence to engage with others so you withdraw into yourself. Perhaps you were hurt in the past and don’t want to get hurt again, so you avoid people. 2. You get married more for convenience and to shelter you from the world. 3. You become addicted to your routines, which shut out the outside world. 4. You are reflexively hostile to anyone new because they represent a threat to your existence. You hate change. 5. You act like a churlish (grouchy) know-it-all who has all the answers, a person who dismisses everything as a “joke” and “utter nonsense.” 6. You are incapable of listening to others. The only thing you listen to the Cynical Voice constantly grumbling inside your head. 7. You are lethargic in your self-centeredness and numb yourself with various addictions in order to undergo your “slow death.” 8. You teach yourself that there is no hope for change or a better life so you succumb to learned helplessness. Part Five. Journal Entry In a paragraph, describe someone you show who has over time become disaffected.
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