Describe and analyse the differences between the responses to the hurricane which struck the South in 1987 in, "Hurricane Hits England", by Grace Nichols and the article from the Times by John Young.

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J.Hart

Describe and analyse the differences between the responses to the hurricane which struck the South in 1987 in, “Hurricane Hits England”, by Grace Nichols and the article from the Times by John Young.

Comment particularly on how and why the media text differs from the literary one.

When a disaster such as this occurs, it is important to analyse the responses in the aftermath. We can tell a great deal from people’s reactions. In particular we can observe which things matter to people in life. For example, many people would be upset by the destruction to the trees and so we can see that the environment is very important to them. However, others, such as Grace Nichols, would be looking for meaning in this and so it is obvious that she is a fairly religious person who believes that everything is done for a purpose.

The differences in responses to the hurricane can be traced back to how a typical newspaper article would be written and presented in comparison with that of a poem.

The title of a newspaper article is all important to its success, regarding readership. The first thing to note is the devices employed in the title. Apart from its primary purpose to give minimal information about the article, the title is, for the most part, the way in which the author attracts the reader. In a diverse newspaper such as the Times, a reader could not possibly read every article and so an article has to do something to catch the reader’s attention. This is done in the form of a title. However, the title is not just eye-catching because of its size; methods such as alliteration and puns are employed so as to distinguish the article from others in the paper. An example of this can be found in the title of the article we are studying.

“Countryside counts the toll of uprooted trees” (Title)

Here, alliteration is used twice to attract the reader.

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However, when we cast the same analytical eye over the title of a poem, we realise, after having read the poem, that its title does nothing more than offer a vague insight into the subject of the poem. In our poem, “Hurricane Hits England”, the title does nothing more than show the background thoughts of the poet. This is the same for almost any other poem as well.

As a result of this, for both the media and the literary text, we can see that the requirements of the title often dictate its meaning and consequently the response to an ...

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