comma with fronted object: Such truths, FOXFIRE made softer.

[larisachristie]

Hello,

I wonder if anyone could explain why there is a comma in this sentence:
"Such truths, FOXFIRE made softer"

It is from "Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang" by Joyce Carol Oates.

 

[Copyright]

Well, this isn't a sentence. Could you give us more ... and up to three additional sentences if they will help. And some context ... what is happening?

 

[larisachristie]

Sorry, here's some context.
I'm not sure if I shoul put actual citation here, because it lasts for about two pages and the phrase is repeated a couple of times. What Oates says is that there's this small city. And the main characters are teenage girls who have formed a gang (named Foxfire) to confront the outside world.
"Such truths" refer to their understanding that there's not much to expect from life. For example, a politicial gives a speech at their school saying, You kids can become anything you want. And they can't help grinning and laughing, because that doesn't correlate to their perception.
The final thesis is this:

Like Legs Sadovsky that day in the museum when we saw the Tree of Life, how it connected things, like underground roots connecting all things living and dead, and she bit at her thumbnail brooding saying finally, "-You'd think our species would count for more that that," in surprise and disgust for how small Homo sapiens was revealed after all.
Such truths, FOXFIRE made softer.

 

[PaulQ]

To make softer = to soften = to lessen (usually in a sympathetic manner) the impact or emotional effect of something.

 

[larisachristie]

Well yes, I understand that. I'd like to know why there is a comma after "Such truths"

 

[velisarius]

I think it's because of "fronting". The normal word order would have been "FOXFIRE made such truths softer". When you place another part of the sentence before the subject and verb this is called "fronting". Without the comma this sentence would be more difficult to understand.

 

[PaulQ]

Sorry! My first thought is that, assuming author,editor and proofreader were efficient, 'such', in the phrase 'Such truths' = 'remarkable truths.'

The comma provides the pause to allow the next, associated, thing (FOXFIRE made softer.) to enter the speaker's mind.

 

[Copyright]

I think it's because of "fronting". The normal word order would have been "FOXFIRE made such truths softer". When you place another part of the sentence before the subject and verb this is called "fronting". Without the comma this sentence would be more difficult to understand.

I read it the opposite: Such truths made Foxfire softer.

I see this as the longer version: "By such truths that we learned, was Foxfire made softer” (less harsh). And by Foxfire, Oates is talking about the members and the organization.

There is a comma to take the place of missing words.

 

[velisarius]

Copyright, I don't see how a harsh truth can make something softer, and even if it were so, why such a contorted way of saying it. I stick by my version (which was my first thought anyway and was later confirmed by post #3).

 

[Copyright]

I suppose it does mean that ... but my mind rejected the idea of the girls making the truth softer. I simply don't like the phrasing, especially from someone like Oates, but perhaps I should expect it from a creative writer.

I can see hard truths, the truths learned at the forge, in the shackles, in poverty. But I don't imagine the opposite of hard truth to be soft truth, although I might be inclined to go along with "the soft truth of maternal love" if I read it in a passage.

But I don't see the girls sniggering at what they consider to be the politician's impossibly upbeat message that they can achieve anything as softening any truth. He has his truth, they have theirs ... and their jest doesn't soften or lessen any universal truth, not that one is being expressed anywhere than I can see.

Ah, well, that's just me. And perhaps it makes sense in the larger context.

 

[velisarius]

The gang "confronts the outside world". I see it as a group where the sense of belonging helps the members to face harsh truths in the outside world. I haven't read the book though, so I could be quite wrong.

 

[larisachristie]

Thank you all for the replies! You've been very helpful