Question

Read the excerpt from "Deucalion and Pyrrha” by Carla Nappi.

The man and the woman found themselves in a library. And they began opening the books. They scooped out phrases like small stones and threw them out the window. As each one landed on the ground or in the water, or as it took flight, it grew into a being that could inhabit this new world and populate its then, its now, and its to-come.

First they made the past. . . .

And then they opened their eyes, and made the present.

He gave "a spreading wilderness of sudden waters” to the air. Each word grew liquid in a wet way that took on its character: sheets of moisture that bled out over the earth, and fogs of water that grew wild worlds inside them, and flashings of saturation. And in this way, he made the rain. (And it was a living, languaged thing.)

How does Nappi’s decision to adapt the original story by including images of books and words affect the theme?

She shows that nature speaks to humanity.
She emphasizes that life cannot exist without language.
She shows that language is the base of civilization.
She emphasizes the creative power of language.

Answer 1

She emphasizes the creative power of language.

Explanation: by having the characters literally pull phrases from books and throw them out to become parts of the world (rain described as a “living, languaged thing”), Nappi makes language the active, generative force that shapes nature and reality.