Growing up with brothers and sister can create friendly yet serious competition and rivalry. Lively is able to capture the sibling rivalry between Gordon and Claudia, along with the response of the mother by employing the use of diction and imagery. Lively use extensive diction to developed the passage and reinforce her theme about the violence and self-centeredness in the world. Lively used words and phrases like, “searching furiously”, “hunting”, and “rivalry”, to show reader the intense and very important task of searching for fossils. Lively’s diction give readers the understanding that Claudia and Gordon are not just looking for fossils, they are looking to win at “finding fossils.” Lively also emphasizes her theme of violence by …show more content…
Lively use of imagery to describe Claudia’s reaction to the possibility of Gordon finding a fossil, is telling to the character of Claudia and her competitive spirit. “She scrambles through little bushy plants, hauls herself over a ledge.” The imagery of this sentence suggest that this was not a particularly easy journey to get to her brother. Claudia had to “haul” herself, it wasn’t as simple as walking across the room. This shows the difficulty of the journey and lengths she would go to win. The imagery used to describe the ways that claudia fell, helps the reader understand the author’s theme. The author, in great detail, describes how claudia fell. “Shifts under her clutching hands… crumbles… falling thwack backs on her shoulders, her head, her outflung arms.” Lively even goes on to describe Gordon as looking down in “satisfaction.” Lively is able to again show how violent the siblings were just for fossils. Lively use of imagery to describe the mother’s reaction, “marvel at the furious tenacity of her children,” shows that the mother is shocked and embarrassed by her children actions as well as suggest that the mother sees the actions of her children as representative of the world -