Home Work for Monday

This one needs a slight bit of set up to be read properly for people who don't read Discworld novels. The all capital letters text is all speech from the same character. Here it is:

BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD WAS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LITTLE LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.
The blue glow was bottomless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts out of her mind.
'No,' whispered Susan, 'no, I've never thought like that.'
Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND OUT THAT IT HELPS, he said.



I chose this because I love Terry Pratchett quotes and there are so many good ones on the internet. I also chose it for some of the interesting techniques used in this specific extract from 'Soul Music'. Anyway, the thing that stand out most about this text is of course the large wall of capital letters, which is missing correct punctuation and grammar. First of all the lack of speech marks indicates that Death's communication is not in spoken form, hence no speech marks. The fact that his text is all in capitals, which to some may have created the idea that he was shouting, was to signify that even the 'sound' of his voice was very unique among the characters in his novels.  It may also be worth mentioning that by making such a long statement, it made his 'argument' seem very strong even though it is really based on opinion. Also, 'The blue glow was bottomless' is a very short sentence but almost has more effect by being so simple. The blue glow is simply bottomless. Not bottomless like the depths of the ocean, or the void of space. Just bottomless. It creates more focus on just that one point and allows the reader to project their own connotative ideas onto the text. Finally, the contrast between Death being commanding and gloomy and Susan being mightily downtrodden at hearing such hard words further frames death as this cold, hardened veteran of life (or rather, death) and really provokes the reader to care in some form about the two characters involved.