4. PREPROCESAMIENTO Y CLASIFICACIÒN
5.1 COMPARACIÓN DE MINUCIAS
The followi ng passage is ada pted from the novel
Summer by Edith Wharton, orig inally publ ished in 1 9 1 7.
The hours of the Hatchard Memorial l ibrarian were from three to five; and Charity Royal l's sense of duty usually kept her at her desk until nearly half-past four. But she had never perceived that any practical
5 advantage thereby accrued either to North Dormer or to herself; and she had no scruple in decreeing, when it suited her, that the l ibrary should close an hour earlier. A few minutes after Mr. Harney's departure she formed thi s decision , put away her lace, fastened the shutters ,
10 and turned the key in the door of the temple of knowledge. The street upon which she emerged was still empty: and after glancing up and down i t she began to wal k toward her house. B ut i nstead of entering she passed on, turned into a field-path and mounted to a 15 pasture on the hillside.
She let down the bars of the gate, followed a trail along the crumbli n g wall of the pasture, and walked on til l she reached a knoll where a clump of larches shook out thei r fresh tassels to the wind . There she l ay down
20 on the slope, tossed off her hat and hid her face in the grass. She was blind and i nsensible to many things, and dimly knew it; but to all that was light and air, perfume and color, every drop of blood in her responded . She loved the roughness of the dry mountain grass under
25 her palms, the smell of the thyme into which she crushed her face, the fingering of the wind in her hair and through her cotton blouse, and the creak of the larches
as they swayed to it.
She often climbed up the hill and l ay there alone for 30 the mere pleasure of feeling the wind and of rubbing her
cheeks in the grass . Generally at such times she did not think of anything, but lay immersed in an inarticulate well-being. Today the sense of well -being was
intensified by her joy at escaping from the library. She 35 liked well enough to have a friend drop in and talk to
her when she was on duty , but she hated to be bothered about books. How could she remember where they were, when they were so seldom asked for? Orma Fry occasionally took out a novel , and her brother Ben was
40 fond of what he cal led "jography ," and of books
relating to trade and bookkeeping; but no one else asked for anything except, at intervals, "Uncle Tom's Cabin ," or "Openi n g of a Chestnut B urr," or Longfellow. S he had these under her hand, and could have found them
45 in the dark; but unexpected demands came so rarely that they exasperated her l i ke an i nj ustice ....
50 with smooth nai ls like a woman's. His hair was sunburnt-looking too, or rather the colour of bracken after frost; eyes grey, with the appeali n g look of the shortsighted , his smile shy yet confident, as if he knew lots of things she had never dreamed of, and yet
55 wouldn't for the world have had her feel his superiority . B ut she did feel it, and l i ked the feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and ignorant as she was , and knew herself to be- humblest of the humble even in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain was the worst
60 disgrace-yet in her narrow world she had always ruled.
I t was partly , of course, owin g to the fact that lawyer Royall was "the biggest man in North Dormer"; so much too big for it, in fact, that outsiders , who didn ' t know, always wondered how it held h i m . In spite of
65 everything-and in spite even of Miss Hatchard lawyer Royall ruled in North Donner; and Charity rul ed i n l awyer Royall ' s house. She had never put i t to herself in those terms ; but she knew her power. Confusedly,
the young man i n the l i brary had made her feel for
70 the first time what might be the sweetness of
dependence. She sat up and l ooked down on the house where she held sway .
If you're not sure how to determine the "point" of a passage like this, don't worry. We're going to break it down.
Even if fiction passages do not contain arguments, they can often be divided into sections - usually no more than two or three. This passage can be divided into two basic sections:
1)
Lines1 -46
In the first section, we are introduced to Charity Royall, the character on whom the passage focuses. We learn that she works as a librarian, that she dislikes her j ob, and that she's eager to escape from it. If we had to sum it up in a few words, we might say "Charity hates job." (Someone inclined to doodle could also write "Charity 0 job.") This section contains a lot of description, so if you get the gist after a while, you can just skip down.
2)
Lines4 7
-endSections change when new information is introduced or a shift in topic occurs. The introduction of a new character (the man) in line
47
indicates that a new section is beginning. This is where things start to get interesting. We learn that Charity is intrigued by the man and by the prospect of a different life that he represents, but we also learn that she "rules" in her house.Taking both parts of the passage together, we thus have the central conflict: Charity is torn between her current life, part of which is unpleasant (she hates her job) and part of which is pleasant (she rules at home), and, the passage implies, the possibility of another life as the young man's wife. The first part of the passage thus serves to set up the second part - it e:A'Plains why Charity would want her life to change.
The really, important part of the passage comes at the end. That's hardly a smprise because most
writing, even fiction, is usually structured so that the most important idea
comes last.
What do we learn there? That Charity isconfused.
So a main point, we could put down something like: "Charity torn old/new life."Note that this statement does not even try to cover all of the events. It simply states the