| Narrative Element | Textual Evidence with MLA Citation | Explanation & Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Exposition | ”A hundred and fifty years before, when the parochial disagreements between Earth and Mars had been on the verge of war, the Belt had been a far horizon of tremendous mineral wealth beyond viable economic reach, and the outer planets had been beyond even the most unrealistic corporate dream. Then Solomon Epstein had built his little modified fusion drive” (Corey 7). | This passage goes over general information about the book. There are two major factions, Earth and Mars (Inners). There are constant tensions between Earth and Mars. A magical piece of technology allowed humans to venture out into the asteroid belt to extract resources. |
| Character | “‘People look at you, they don’t see Dmitri Havelock, good cop. They see Earth.’ … ‘Look, I’m sure there are all kinds of differences … I’m just saying anyone this far out from the sun? They don’t care. From this distance, you can cover Earth and Mars with one thumb’” (Corey 42). | Detective Miller is talking to Havelock, who is working at Ceres Station, which is home to the majority of Belters. Inners took all of the mineral wealth of the belt and oppressed the people. Belters view Earthers and Martians as one. Havelock is an Earther, so when he works on Ceres, nobody views him as an equal. It does not matter how much he helps to keep Ceres safe; he is hated like every other Inner. |
| Rising Action | ”The Canterbury shuddered and the monitor went white … ‘My God. They nuked her. They nuked the Cant,’ … That can’t be right, Holden’s mind protested. That doesn’t happen. Pirates don’t nuke water haulers. No one wins. No one gets paid” (Corey 54). | There is a mysterious faction that is not pirates; someone is trying to start a system-wide war. We still do not know who but what we do know is that the Canterbury’s destruction was the tipping point for the Belters to rise up again their Inner rulers. |
| Conflict Character vs Society | “‘You know what Mars wants? They want you, doing this. They want this piece of s--- here to make sure that everyone looks at Belters and thinks we’re a bunch of psychopaths who tear up their own station. They want to tell themselves we’re just like them. Well, we aren’t. We’re Belters, and we take care of our own’” (Corey 68-69). | There are riots in the streets of Ceres demanding to fight Martians after being accused of the Canterbury’s destruction. A Belter just killed an innocent Earther girl. One of the steps of keeping control of a people is to keep them divided amongst each other. Miller is able to realize that the Inners are using this fact to keep the Belters looking like psychopaths instead of a civilized nation. |
| Dialogue | ”’… it’s the XO’s job to tell the captain when he’s being an idiot. You’re being an idiot, sir. You already tried to goad them into killing us with that broadcast. Now you want to chase them? … You are going to get the remaining four members of your crew to safety’” (Corey 57). | Naomi is the executive officer. She is speaking to Holden who is the ship captain. The Canterbury was just nuked with 50 souls on board. Holden blames himself and Mars for all of the deaths and cannot stop grieving. Naomi is the voice of reason. She knows that they are currently drifting through space. She is the part of Holden’s brain that takes action. She is not blind to consequences of their actions. |
| Theme - Oppression | “‘You think so? The inner planets look on us as their labor force. They tax us. They direct what we do. They enforce their laws and ignore ours in the name of stability. In the last year, … They’ve blocked any Belter freighters from taking Europa contracts. They charge us twice as much to dock at Ganymede’” (Corey 108). | Belters live in the asteroid belt, Mars and Earth need the resources of the asteroid belt. Inners need to keep the Belters under control. Whether it be through starvation or heavy taxes. Belters are treated as labourers; nothing else. |
| Descriptive Element | Textual Evidence with MLA Citation | Explanation & Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Imagery | ”A dozen needles stuck into his back through membranes in his suit. His heart shuddered and chemical bands of iron gripped his brain. His spine went dead cold, and his face flushed like a radiation burn” (Corey 51). | In this setting, there is no magical technology that can erase physics. Going at speeds of 400,000 km/h will kill a human without the acceleration drugs that they have to take. You can feel the sensation of having a dozen needles in your back and feeling a cold liquid flow through your body. Heart shuddering implies that you are bouncing around a lot in a fast-moving object. |
| Similie | ”Holden froze, watching the blood pump from Shed’s neck, then whip away like smoke into an exhaust fan” (Corey 134). | Shed was just killed by a large bullet from an outside ship that penetrated his ship’s hull. Blood escaped the room they were in from the same hole. The blood rushed outside the ship just as smoke would flow into a vent. |
| Metaphor | ”EarthLily, which had always made him think of the waste recycling levels … Recycled air that had passed through a million lungs. Water from the tap so clean it could be used for lab work, but it had been piss and s--- and tears and blood and would be again” (Corey 25). | The EarthLily flower is a flower that is a metaphor for the waste recycling system on Ceres. The flower takes in the polluted air and water and turns it into clean air and water. It is a metaphor for an essential part of life and Belter culture. |
| Situational Irony | “‘To further investigate this matter, and to aid in discovering the true wrongdoers, if any, the MCRN is dispatching one of their ships from the Jupiter system to pick you up … You will assist the MCRN in their investigation into the destruction of the Canterbury’” (Corey 75). | The main characters were on a search and rescue mission when they witnessed their spaceship being supposedly destroyed by the Martian Congressional Republic Navy (MCRN). They blamed the deaths of the 50 people on board on Mars. The ship they escaped on was low on supplies. The irony here is that Mars ended up being the one who saved them from dying. |
| Suspense | ”The fusion reactor dominated the central space. Something was wrong with it … a layer of something like mud seemed to flow over the reactor core. Slowly, Julie floated toward it … Tubes ran through it like veins or airways. Parts of it pulsed. Not mud, then. Flesh. An outcropping of the thing shifted toward her. Compared to the whole, it seemed no larger than a toe, a little finger. It was Captain Darren’s head. ‘Help me,’ it said” (Corey 6). | This prologue explains how Julie went missing. Throughout the first few pages, it talks about why the ship that Julie is in, the Scopuli, was abandoned. This all led up to the discovery of a mysterious bio-organism that is feeding off the nuclear energy of the Scoupli’s fusion reactor. Then came the sudden shock of her entire crew being dead. These pages keep the reader guessing what Julie would encounter next. |
| Setting | ”Miller looked at her—dark eyes, pale hair, smooth skin. She was already too tall to be mistaken for an Earth child, her limbs longer and thinner. Her skin had the pink flush of Belter babies, which came with the pharmaceutical cocktail that assured that their muscles and bones would grow strong” (Corey 38-39). | There are different settings in the book. Ceres was never meant to be a natural environment for humans. The near lack of gravity makes it so that our bodies develop differently. Bones are not as hard and are more stretched out; hence the taller appearance and need for drugs. This appearance makes outsiders view Belters as “sub-human” |
Narrative Elements:
Select specific passages that showcase narrative techniques such as parts of a story (exposition, conflict, climax) point of view, characters, dialogue or theme. Discuss their significance in shaping the story.
Extra: multiple characters in the story are looking for Julie. It is kinda like a murder mystery
| Narrative Element | Evidence | Explanation & Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Character | 2.2 | |
| 7.1 | ||
| 7.2 - 8.1 | ||
| 8.2 | ||
| 9.3 | ||
| 9.7 | ||
| 10.3 | Belters don’t like inners (earth and mars) | |
| 14 | morals & holden | |
| Julie/Holden/Miller 1 2 3 | The author swaps back and forth between envrionments/characters | |
| 18.last | ||
| 19.last 2 | ||
| 21.1 | Prejudice against people not from where you live Belters → Inners, Inners → Belters | |
| 21-22 | OPA | |
| 24.big paragraph | ||
| 25.2 | Fake like in space | |
| 26 | relatedness | |
| 28 | Alex, mars settlement | |
| 31.2-the rest of the page | bunny mode alex dialogue | |
| 32.last | Naomi aint worried about space | |
| 33-36 | Figuring out why the scopuli was Turns out it was to frame mars for war (later on) | |
| 35 | Amos humming, holden and Amos do not really like each other, they’re more colleagues than friends | |
| 38-40 | Miller and father, belter drugs | |
| 41-43 | Havelock breakdown, he dies later by a harpoon Belters see earth and mars as the same Martians and earthers do not like each other | |
| RISING ACTION? | 47-… | build up to stealth ship, holden leadership Sacrifice to save the others on the Canterbury Ade remained calmed through knowing she will die soon Everyone was for the most part calm, they tthough tthat the 6 ships attacking them were just pirates, they thought they only sent torpedos which should destroy a large ship like the Canterbury. Turns out they were not pirates and those were not torpedos, those were nukes. |
| 55-56 | Holden’s resiliency, mad, but he is the XO of the ship and now technically captain, stand up for everyone that died | |
| 57 naomi dialogue | Put shed to sleep, they know he is unstable, also putting holden in his place— a voice of reason | |
| 58 | Stealth tech, who did it earth or mars?, holden says its mars | |
| 61.miller dialogue | air and water isnt fake for you earther, put envrionmentals over eveything else | |
| 64-65 | riot vs swat | |
| 73-74 | Holden’s thoughts, he is a good man | |
| 80.1 | their power is our fear | |
| 83 | protecting havelock because he was “in a different gravity” | |
| character | 86-89 | who Julie is |
| First person | 92 | Did i really just say buddy |
| character | 92-94 | Shed and Holden |
| character | 95-98 | Fred Johnson, hero fallen from grace turned back into hero. He knows someone is trying to start a war and believes mars has nothing to gain from it |
| Conflict | 108.1 | How belters are treated. |
| 114-115 | Yao is extremely confident | |
| character | 117-119 | holden and lopez drugs, 30 billion on earth, multiple parents |
| character | 128-129 | julie is strong, was “attacked” |
| 130 | anderson dawes doe snot want julie to be found by miller. He works as the spokesperson for the OPA on Ceres. Jules Pierre Mao worked with him | |
| 6 |
Descriptive Elements:
Identify instances of descriptive writing that vividly depict characters, settings, or events. Analyze the author’s use of sensory details, figurative language, and symbolism in creating imagery. Discuss how descriptive passages enhance the reader’s immersion in the story and contribute to the atmosphere.
| Descriptive Element | Evidence | Explanation & Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| d | 0 | |
| 2.1 | ||
| 6.2 | ||
| 18.2 | ||
| 25.3 | ||
| 26.second last | ||
| 29.second half | ||
| 30.second last | ||
| 32.second last | ||
| 33.last | mech, torch | |
| 38 | ceres day/night | |
| 39 | ||
| 43.last | alcohol bar | |
| 46-47 | Ship juice | |
| 51.second last | juiced up holden | |
| 52. | personification of cantebury | |
| 66-67` | the type of person miller is | |
| 68-69 | miller talking to the crowd | |
| Irony | 75 | MCRN Donnager “rescues” holden after holden accused mars of destroying the Canterbury |
| Foreshadowing | 77 | Mars’ Military capabilities are way better than earth’s |
| Irony pt.2 | 79 | fingernail torture - alex |
| personification | 82.2 | |
| 84-85 | miller going to julie’s apartment | |
| Personification of donnager i guess | 111-115 | Donnager is ugly, very clean, intimidating, better than any un ship, shows mars’ power, |
| 120-122 | pdcs firing, shed dead, “Belter” ships are actually rivalling coalition battle ships |