In this extract taken from Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance, the writer describes the preparations for an annual carnival through the third-person view of Aldrick Prospect, a man who has spent an entire year since the previous year’s Carnival getting ready for the one currently taking place. The text includes two paragraphs of similar lengths, but with dissimilar sentence structures. There are only two sentences in the first paragraph, with the first one being especially lengthy, while the second paragraph of the extract consists of more sentences of just average length making it obvious that the first sentence of the text had been written long intentionally.
Lovelace uses many literary techniques in the text in addition to writing in the third-person, most notably alliteration, consonance, repetition, and a great variety in his diction, in order to achieve an intriguing and detailed description of the Carnival. Through Aldrick’s eyes, the writer is able to describe the traditions and the history behind the celebration and Lovelace does so in a nostalgic, reflective and wistful tone, causing the mood and atmosphere to be less celebratory as would be expected of a narrative about an important festival and instead, there is a sense of hopelessness and sadness for me personally while reading this extract.
In the first paragraph, the reader is given a first impression of the Carnival and is introduced to Aldrick Prospect, a man who puts on a dragon costume and it is obvious that the title of the work, The Dragon Can’t Dance, refers to him. It is also made clear that the main character of the story is Aldrick since most of the text is told as part of Aldrick’s memories. The long first sentence can lead to many interpretations, such as to emphasize on how time-consuming the preparations for the Carnival are, or to describe the length of time the traditions have been sustained in and how old the memories are in Aldrick’s mind.
The first sentence could also be emphasizing on how distant the people are from their African origins, and how far the bloodline has been carried. In contrast to the first paragraph, the second paragraph’s short sentence structure gives each element of the Carnival more detail, highlighting the uniqueness of every thing that takes place as if each component in the second paragraph is significant enough to be underlined in its own sentence. This difference in sentence structure, gave yet another meaning to the first sentence of the extract, that the happenings in the second paragraph were more important than the ones in the first paragraph.
However, the content in the two paragraphs are similarly plentiful, unlike their dissimilarity in structure, as they are almost identical in length. The difference is that the first paragraph is written to explain the history of the Carnival in more general terms, while the second paragraph illustrates specific things that used to be seen at the Carnvial. This gives emphasis to how great a loss it has been, of the tradition and the culture from the past. Both paragraphs also utilizes many words ending in ‘-ing’, giving the reader the prospect that the Carnival is going to be constantly in motion and that something will always be happening at any given point in time during the Carnival.
The text opens with the words ‘Hill’ and ‘Carnival’ beginning with a capital letter, not only to indicate that the Hill and Carnival in reference are the names that people call it, but also to show clearly the significance of them. The first sentence sets the scene extensively, but phrases such as ‘Monday morning’ and ‘the awakening Hill’ lay down the scene in words especially as these phrases signify the beginning of something about to happen as waking up on a Monday morning is the clear start of the working week on most calendars.
Young boys are sweeping the floor ‘before the mist clears’ and it is said that Aldrick puts on his costume at dawn in the second paragraph, which in addition to setting the time of day as being very early, it also made the surroundings clearer as a reader can imagine the mist disappearing to make way for the sunrise. This adds onto the idea that this is the beginning of a great event about to take place later in the day, with the excitement rising and the atmosphere getting warmer just like the sun. The boys clearing the ground also bring the idea of a fresh start, with the boys getting the floor ready for a new day.
At this point, the atmosphere appears to have been quiet and peaceful early in the morning, but this idea of silent stillness is broken within the first twenty words of the text. There is an obvious instance of consonance in the phrase ‘Monday morning breaks upon the backs of these thin shacks with no cock’s crow’. The repetition of the ‘mo’ sound in ‘Monday morning’ gives a sort of quiet humming noise that is in direct contrast to the rapid sounds created by the letters, ‘b’, ‘c’, and ‘k’, in the words, ‘breaks’, ‘backs’, ‘shacks’ and ‘cock’s crow’, giving the impression that the Carnival is very much anticipated by the inhabitants of the shacks and that the fact that it is Monday morning is enough to be aware of the Carnival’s arrival and there is no need for a ‘cock’s crow’ to awaken the villagers, with the onomatopoeia giving the reader the sense of hearing the cock’s crow had it been heard at all that morning.
