Views on the penal System: The Dungeon and The Convict

How do Wordsworth and Coleridge present their views on the penal system in 'The Convict' and 'The Dungeon'? Consider point of view, form, structure and language. Both The Convict and The Dungeon present views on the penal system in different ways. Upon first glance there is a slight contradiction within The Convict. It is written in typical ballad form (as favoured by Wordsworth) - a light, jaunty rhythm. This may be appropriate for the first stanza but soon seems to contrasts with the subject matter - that of a forlorn convict in a prison cell. This is a problem with Wordsworth's insistence on a rigid form which may not always be suitable, however it may also present us with a hidden meaning on the penal system: if you are a convict, do not despair as you should realise that there is a 'jolly' life outside of the prison, as the salvation of nature awaits you. A key theme within The Convict is that of nature, and Wordsworth contrasts this greatly with the idea of imprisonment to air certain views on the penal system. Nature's beauty and glorious power is emphasised; "The glory of evening" highlights the difference between the joy of the free world and that of the convict. Further, there is sensory irony in "the joy that precedes the calm season of rest/Rang loud through the meadow and wood", as joy is an internal emotion but it is described as tangible by the senses. This

  • Word count: 1860
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Lears tragic fall proceeds from his misuse of power in Act 1

Lears tragic fall proceeds from his misuse of power in Act 1, Scene 1 In Act 1, Scene 1 or King Lear Shakespeare shows Lear attempting to divide up his kingdom between his three daughters yet still wanting to keep the status of King and also keep his authority whilst not having the responsibility of caring after the peoples or the lands. Lear has decided to split his kingdom up between his three daughters and says 'which of you shall love us most, that we our largest bounty may extend,' this shows his plans to hold the love test where his daughters must profess to Lear the extent of their love for him. The daughter who says they love Lear the most will be given the most bountiful and therefore best share of the lands. Gonerill must speak first professing in a rehearsed way that she loves Lear 'more than word can wield the matter,' thus saying she loves her father so much that it is impossible for her to convey it in words, yet she continues to say that he is 'dearer than eyesight, space and liberty,' thus saying that he means everything top her. In response to her confession Lear gives a third of his kingdom 'To thine and Albany's issues be this perpetual.' Thus proclaiming that the land will always be in Gonerill and Albanys family, left on to their 'issues' (children). It is argued that the use of his power to make his daughter tell him they love him is a misuse of his

  • Word count: 1148
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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How are women portrayed in The Millers Tale, The Handmaids Tale, and The Crucible?

How are women portrayed in The Miller's Tale, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Crucible? The Miller's Tale was written and is set in medieval England, a time when women had much fewer rights than men, and were more or less just owned by their fathers, and then by their husbands when they got married. 17th century United States in The Crucible has a slightly different society but also has the similar male dominance. The Handmaid's Tale is set in a dystopian future where women are also heavily dominated by men, but in a completely different way. This essay is about the ways that women in general are portrayed and perceived in these three stories, as well as touching on the characters of the individual women in these tales. The Miller's Tale is one of the stories from the Canterbury Tales series, all written in poetic form, by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales in the series are all told by different pilgrims, who are also fictional, so this uses a story-within-a-story literary device. Their tales are part of a contest to entertain each other on their pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury Cathedral. In The Miller's Tale, it is the miller's turn to tell a tale, and he tells the story of a devious young student called Nicholas, who is attracted to the much younger wife of a carpenter, his neighbour, and plots a cunning plan to sleep with her. He does this by telling the dim and simple

  • Word count: 3047
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Youth Culture In Parts 1 - 2 Of A Clockwork Orange

Explore How Burgess Presents Youth Culture In Parts 1 - 2 Of The Novel The story of Alex is a much-exaggerated representation of how youth culture can rule over the more civilised adult world if left unchecked. Throughout the novel Burgess shows how youths are capable of great evil if they are allowed to do so from an early age and so reminds the reader how important an effective and fair judiciary system really is. On the other hand, we do see several authority figures within the parts one and two of the novel, however, they appear to have adopted the philosophy of "fight fire with fire" because they use violence and humiliation (much the same as Alex) to get what they want. This happens on several occasions as the police act poorly when they arrest Alex and when they have him in custody and also P.R Deltoid, who was trying to get Alex to stop his bad behaviour, resorts to spitting on him. This shows that, in fact, the adult world cannot seem to come up with any better way of dealing with people than Alex, and his gang, can. So, we are lead (by Burgess) to assume that the role of authority figures as examples for younger generations has played a large part in producing the extremely dangerous gangs that are seen in this dystopia. In a Clockwork Orange, Burgess uses his own youth culture of the 1950s and 60s to produce a terrifying projection of what is to come. Each

  • Word count: 1081
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Compare The Way In Which "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes" by Thomas Gray and "London" by John Dryden Present A Sense Of Tragedy In Their Poems.

Compare and Contrast The Way In Which Gray and Dryden Present A Sense Of Tragedy In Their Poems. Both the poems differ by a hundred years, but the style and language is very similar. Dryden's poem is much more serious and talks about an actually quite serious point. Gray's poem on the other hand is much more designed to be mock heroic using very elevated, serious language for a trivial meaning. Dryden's poem uses iambic pentameter with all the lines but one being end -stopped. This forces a slower, solemn reading which emphasises the grimness of the poem. Throughout the poem he uses a lot of death imagery such as "A dismal picture", "Haunting" and "murder'd men". Also in each verse there is a definite feel of displacement with such lines as "To a last lodging call their wand'ring friends." The author of this poem conveys the feeling of a widely spread tragedy rather than a personal one like the other poem. "A dismal picture of the gen'ral doom." In the first verse of Dryden's poem he uses a metaphor to present another death image, "And half unready with their bodies come." This is implying that their bodies are being readied for death almost. In the second verse the writer writes from the point of view of someone, whose house is still intact, having trouble sleeping because they are worried that their house will be next to burn down, "Their short uneasie sleeps are broke

  • Word count: 1316
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Comparing The Foresyte Saga & Othello

Both extracts explore the theme of adultery and extreme examples of conflict in a relationship. However, the differing time periods in which they are set and the contrasting ways in which the authors portray them, vary accordingly. In both extracts it appears that the female protagonists seem to be the source of the problem within the relationship and the extracts centre on their supposed adulterous behaviour. The two extracts differ because in Shakespeare's Othello, the audience know that Desdemona has in fact not cheated on her husband, but his possessive nature and mistrust of her has warped his judgement. In Galsworthy's novel, it is clear that the character of Irene clearly has been unfaithful through the description of her body language and the dialogue used, "so you've come back." The men in both extracts have the controlling factor within their relationships, and suffer from possessive love. In Othello, his desire to control Desdemona and to have her all to himself because she's his wife, clouds his judgement on the situation; he'd rather her dead than for her to be with any other man and break another's heart. In Galsworthy's novel, the man is indeed slowly losing control, but still tries to grasp it. His wife had gone off and had an affair and he wasn't able to control that. Now he tries to claw it back by shouting at her to leave, "get out of my sight", and then

  • Word count: 1110
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Write about how writers use endings in 3 of the texts that you have studied. Dickens, Hardy and Roy.

Write about how writers use endings in 3 of the texts that you have studied "I work hard for a sufficient living, and therefore yes, I do well" comes at the close of Dickens' "Great Expectations", and reveals a latent redemption of Pip's previous condemnation that "the universal struggle" had caused him to be unashamedly "disgusted with his calling and his life". This feature of Dickens' novel's ending allies with the consolidation of the trains of imagery that he seeks to define, alongside the question of the original ending and how it varies the tone of the novel. Roy's "The God of Small Things" features an ending that paradoxically falls into the line of a non-linear perspective, creating a "sicksweet" atmosphere which she seeks to both personalise and universalise- allowing her to use ending to also extend along trains of imagery. Finally Hardy's own endings both take on a literal quality with the diminuendo nature of both "The Voice" and "At An Inn", but the concept of ending as a metaphorical representation of death also comes across, "Your Last Drive" being a prevalent example. Hardy's use of ending in his work takes on a multi-dimensional significance in a literal and figurative sense, as he addresses both the close of a poem, and the closing of life. "The Voice" closes with the image of "wind oozing from norward" and the bitter indictment of, "And the woman,

  • Word count: 1966
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Transcendentalism in Walden

Transcendentalism in Walden Transcendentalism, a religious philosophical and literary movement, arose in New England in the middle of the nineteenth century. Critics generally cite 1836 to 1846 as the years when the movement flourished, although its influence continued to be felt in later decades, with some works considered part of the movement not being published until the 1850s. Transcendentalism began as a religious concept rooted in the ideas of American democracy. When a group of Boston ministers, one of whom was Ralph Waldo Emerson, decided that the Unitarian Church had become too conservative, they espoused a new religious philosophy, one which privileged the inherent wisdom in the human soul over church doctrine and law. Among Transcendentalism's followers were writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Walt Whitman; educator Bronson Alcott; and social theorists and reformers Theodore Parker and William Ellery Channing. Authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allen Poe also felt the influence of Transcendentalism. Important works from the movement include Emerson's Nature, "The American Scholar," and "Self Reliance"; Thoreau's Walden; Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century; and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Novels such as Melville's Moby Dick and Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance also had transcendentalist

  • Word count: 981
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Compare how Golding and Stevenson portray uncivilised behaviour in The

Compare how Golding and Stevenson portray uncivilised behaviour in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Lord of the Flies. Uncivilised behaviour is explored in both The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Lord of the Flies; both depict the battle between good and evil within the human psyche and portray a decay of respectable individuals, into rebellion induced by the erosion of society's unwritten rules. Both Golding and Stevenson use allegory to present this change in behaviour, and thus to convey the central theme in both novels, the duality of mans nature. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was first published in 1886, when reputation and respectability were of much greater importance than they are today. It was commonly believed, for example, before the twist was revealed, that Mr Hyde and Dr Jekyll were having a homosexual relationship, something very taboo at the time. Similarly, Lord of the Flies was very controversial upon its publication in 1954, as it references R.M Ballentyne's Coral Island in which three boys land on a desert island and have great adventures. Golding, however, showed the darker side of human nature, and used children to do so, creating controversy. Allegory, the use of symbolic characters or objects to convey major themes, is particularly prominent in Lord of the Flies, the very title is

  • Word count: 3062
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Power In The First Part Of A Clockwork Orange

How Does Burgess Explore Power In The First Part Of A Clockwork Orange? The opening of the novel is the line "What's it going to be then, ey?" This is clearly something that is said by someone in an authoritative position and we learn in the next sentence that this is Alex. He is our narrator and this gives him a certain amount of power as he can choose what he wants to tell us as readers. Burgess also shows Alex's power through the various violent attacks he perpetrates on people who we would consider to be in a position of more authority than Alex is in our own society. The first of these instances is the attack upon a schoolteacher, which is a clear and obvious indicator that this society is very wrong. At the tender age of fifteen, it would be considered totally inconceivable that Alex would not only attack, but also humiliate a man who relies upon respect from youths in order to do his job. The physical power the gang have over the teacher is almost a way of compensating for Alex and his gang feeling threatened intellectually and in this sense the teacher is the more powerful. This idea of physical versus intellectual power is explored again when the gang leave the town centre to seek victims in the suburbs. When they find the writer and his wife, they destroy the book and beat the couple into teary subordination. These actions are lead by Alex who is portrayed as an

  • Word count: 1191
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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