Sentence Diagramming Challenge (Ready, Set, Go!)

I’ve chosen a few quotes from Gilead. (I finished it last night, sobbing.)

Take your pick, one or several.

Level #1

Oh, I will miss the world!

It was a general disaster.

Level #2

The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to sunshine.

Your mother wanted to name the cat Feuerbach, but you insisted on Soapy.

(ETA: Okay, that second one is a little more tricky that it seems at first glance… Let’s add one more.)

This habit of writing is so deep in me.

Level #3

His mother would take tiny bites of her food and swallow as if she were swallowing live coals, stoking the fires of her dyspepsia.

In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.

My grandfather seemed to me stricken and afflicted, and indeed he was, like a man everlastingly struck by lightning, so that there was an ashiness about his clothes and his hair never settled and his eye had a look of tragic alarm when he wasn’t actually sleeping.

Take a picture of your diagram(s) and email them to me (heidi (at) poetsgarden (dot) com). It doesn’t have to be perfect. I don’t have the answers, so I’m working through them (guessing) just the same. Give it a try! (If you need an idea of where to start, this link should help.)

I’ll post my diagrams (and any others that I receive) next Wednesday, along with some basic diagramming instruction.

You can do it!