Well here I am at behind a tree getting ready to charge towards the enemy. My palms began to sweat from gripping my rifle for so long. My eyes shifted all about as if they were radar detecting the enemy. The Mitchell Boy’s were looking scared and hoped the others didn't know it.
BANG! the shot in the distance rang out.
"Get down!" Smith bellowed. The Mitchell’s ducked and covered into the moist soil. My hand began to shake; Smith raised from his eyes his helmet that had obscured his vision to see absolutely nobody.
BANG! BANGBANG! BANG! BANG! This was becoming too much for me. I stood up proudly, and shouted "Godamned dogs!" and fired two pistol shots into the dark forest. Then, all was silent. The Lieutenant swallowed hard when he realized the danger had passed, and then stuck his pistol comfortably in his belt. "All right men. Let's get out of here.
"Lieutenant.” Sergeant Fielded said wearily. "It's Private Hall. He's dead." This news took everybody by complete surprise; a bullet had torn right into Hall's eyeball and was lodged in the back of his head.
"Oh crap." Smith shouted. "Well, take off his dog tag and let's go, there's no point in sticking around here with him.
"Err...Lieutenant, sir." I jerked my head around to see that the voice belonged to one the Mitchell boy’s. "Shouldn't we say a few words...before God I mean?"
"We can't bury him we haven’t got the time. Let whoever is coming right after us do it." I said scared to death wanting to move on.
"No, we will have to give him a service or something. The Mitchell’s and everybody gathered around the body. "Private Christopher Hall" I said as I read out from the dog tag which I pulled and placed in my pocket "It seems that Hall barely had a chance to enjoy his life dying so young the Lieutenant began. As we are standing here watching the body of a loving husband and father please god do not let us suffer the same fate.
"Amen." The Lieutenant was the only one who said anything. Then, Smith put the departed soldier's helmet over his face, as a final act. With that done, there was not another word was said about Hall, and we began to move forward.
Fighting For survival Analysis
The text I am analysing is the first chapter of a story, and because of this I knew I had to make it exiting and dramatic so that the reader keeps on reading the book. After giving the text to different people feedback has told me that I managed to do this successful.
The story I have written takes place in the First World War I have shown this quite clearly as in the first paragraph I have described a scene where by a character who is telling the story in the first person pronoun describes his situation which is stood behind a tree in a defending position from the enemy. At the start of my story I wanted the reader to understand exactly what the context is about as the title gave little away “fight for survival”, in order to do this I have used alliteration in the opening sentence “For a split second the bombing had stopped” this made the sentence catchy and memorable. In the first paragraph I have also used long sentences to make the scene as descriptive as possible using adjective phrases. As the text is a story my sentences are written in a declarative mood as these types of sentences are more descriptive, the structure of these types of sentences are usually subject-verb-object for example “I could feel my exasperating feet sinking back into the mud” in this example the subject is the foot the verb is to feel and the object is mud. Beyond the first paragraph I have taken the audience from the presence to the past back to the presence as because it is the first chapter of the story I need to describe where the characters are coming form.
As I am writing a story the lexical choose will be decided upon the topic and situating of my story and so the story is quite informal as it is in written in first person pronoun and uses a lot of jargon such as “crossfire, drafted and dog tag”. In the story when somebody speaks it is in another type of dialect so that the reader can easily distinguish when somebody is talking “well, take off his dog tag and let’s go, there’s no point in sticking around here with him”. When the gun shots appear I have made use of onomatopoeia “Bang” to make the story feel real as possible, here I have also made the words in upper case so that I can emphasis the shooting to be loud as possible. I have also made use of metaphors “this place was shear hell” “I was always woken by the singing of birds through the thin fog” this makes sentence easier to describe without going in to detail.
The use of sentence is very different depending on what is happening in the story in the beginning I have used long complex sentences so that I am able to describe fully the situation, in the middle where the regiment are being attacked I have used simple short sentence to show fast movement. The story I have written is aimed at the older population as it contains negative sentences “the bullet had torn right into hall’s eyeball and lodged in the back of his head. The use of complex sentences in some of the areas such as “my eyes shifted all about as if they were radar detecting the enemy” may make it to difficult to read for younger audiences. The purpose for my story is to entertain I have done this quite successfully as it seems reading other war stories it is quite difficult to write but I took up the task and feedback has told me I have done this quite successful at it.
