What similarities can you find between Cormac McCarthys The Road and John Steinbecks Grapes of Wrath?
What similarities can you find between Cormac McCarthy's The Road and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath? The opening of The Road immediately captures the dark mood of the novel. "Nights dark beyond darkness and days more gray each one than what had gone before." This sentence suggests the desolation of the world. Grapes of Wrath similarly starts off with the author describing in vivid detail the setting of the novel. He emphasises the importance of nature and how it can affect the lives of people and force them to become helpless victims. Both authors use compound sentences linked by the coordinating conjunction 'and' to create a deliberately flat style and one reflecting the bleak world the characters find themselves in. Moreover both authors create a foreboding atmosphere by using very desolate phrases to describe the surroundings. For example Another similarity in both novels is the use of pathetic fallacy. There is lots of visual imagery being used in the opening of both novels. Another literary device used is personification. Steinbeck writes "the last rains falls on the "scarred earth". Moreover there are lots of similes being used by both writers. For example McCarthy writes "the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." Similarly Steinbeck writes "the sun was as red as ripe new blood". Both these descriptions seem to be very negative and
Compare and contrast the ways in which the authors of
Contrast and Compare the ways in which the authors of "Survivors" and "The Dead-Beat" portray the horror of war. "Survivors" by Siegfried Sassoon and "The Dead-Beat" by Wilfred Owen have both similarities and differences in their illustrations of violence and horror during the war, despite the fact that Owen's poetry is heavily influenced by Sassoon. To begin with, the very title 'Survivors' hints at a tragedy (which, of course, proves to be WW1), that the subjects have fought through in order to carry on their lives, the actual word 'survivors' could also be interpreted as showing the men as a select few, with others not being so fortunate as to hold out. When delving deeper into the content of the poem, it becomes clear that the soldiers have not come out of this catastrophe unmaimed; "the shock and strained" graphically depicts the state of the soldiers minds, and the alliteration used for this puts even more emphasis on the point. Yet the title of Owens 'The Dead-Beat' gives the impression of a sluggish, hopeless figure, not one of action. This is a paradox in that 'The Dead-Beat' is actually the more graphic of the two poems, as well as being set (?) at a faster pace: it opens with the words "he dropped--", instantly beginning the poem without need for setting or description, composing pictures of dead bodies, of exhausted soldiers, immediately displaying the violence
The Male Suppression of Female Power: Antoinettes Downfall in Wide Sargasso Sea
Lauren Gallegos Professor Boscagli English 114WR April 20, 2011 The Male Suppression of Female Power: Antoinette's Downfall in Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is much more then an appropriation of the classic novel Jane Eyre. It evokes poignancy because it serves as a metaphor for female oppression in patriarchal society. Set in the Victorian era, and written during the first wave feminist movement, Wide Sargasso Sea explores the destructive control that civilization pressures men to posses over women. Forced to marry someone subordinate to himself and rely on her economically, Mr. Rochester suppresses Antoinette in order to regain his sense of power and identity. The control driven relationship between Antoinette and Mr. Rochester juxtaposes the two characters' antithetical philosophies, forming Rhys' main leitmotif-the potency of despotic power and its interconnection to sex and culture. Through Rochester's anguish over Antoinette' s economic and sexual dominance, Rhys examines the male tendency to reduce powerful women to objects, stripping them of all emotion, in order to regain their "mandatory" feeling of superiority. Almost immediately upon his arrival at Granbois, Rochester begins to question his hasty and financially motivated marriage to Antoinette. Threatened by the lack of power he holds in his new home, Rochester begins to
In the following poem, Laurence Binyon looks back on those soldiers who died for their country during battle. Analyse the poem. What is the poem saying about war?
Assignment 14 In the following poem, Laurence Binyon looks back on those soldiers who died for their country during battle. Analyse the poem. What is the poem saying about war? Concentrate upon the following areas for your answer: - Content and theme(s) - Structure and style, and how this is shaped by content - Context - Purpose and success The title of the poem written by Laurence Binyon already suggests what the purpose, context and theme for this poem will be with the title "For the Fallen". Therefore before the reader even begins to read the poem they have an idea that is going to be about those who have passed away during the war. The first stanza personifies England as 'a mother for her children' who is mourning for the 'dead across the sea'. This could be meaning the soldiers that were in the battle of the Somme. The tone in this first stanza is calm and respectful as the poem states its purpose and begins to describe that the men have 'Fallen in the cause of the free'; Suggesting that this is why the men are fighting. By writing in this style the reader can understand that the men in this poem have become hero figures by sacrificing themselves for their country. The second stanza opens with 'Solemn' as its first lexis carrying on the theme of loss and 'desolation' in the poem. We must remember that many women lost husbands, fathers and children in this war, so
The childs inability to interpret the adult world is often central to the presentation of childhood in adult literature. Compare the presentation of childhood in Spies and Ato
"The child's inability to interpret the adult world is often central to the presentation of childhood in adult literature." Compare the presentation of childhood in 'Spies' and 'Atonement', considering to what extent you feel this comment is applicable to these texts. As is frequently the case with novels written for adults with children as the main protagonists, the presentation of childhood emphasises the innocence of those at a young and often tender age. When the real world is like a dream, everyday activities are play and adults are a separate species with baffling social conventions, a child will often try to understand grown up aspects of life, but will make genuine misunderstandings instead. Many writers look back on their youth with fondness and use these misunderstandings for either comic intent, such as in Frayn's Spies, or for life-altering tragedy in McEwan's Atonement. In these two novels, as well as the prominence of childhood and memories being recalled as an adult, there is also the historical context to be considered in how this affects the presentation of childhood. Both novels are set during the Second World War. Life in Britain in the 1930s and 40s was an era of transition for society, during which the rise of the urban working class had led to significant changes in politics. Because of the war and the sudden absence of huge amounts of the
Compare two pieces of war literature
A comparison of the presentation of trauma in the Poetry of Wilfred Owen and Regeneration by Pat Barker In order to explore the presentation of trauma in Owen's poetry and Regeneration by Pat Barker a definition of the word 'trauma' must be determined. Trauma is both physical and psychological illness, in the Physical sense trauma refers to a physical injury such as a wound, broken bones or loss of limb which can change the outlook and actions of a soldiers such as having "sleeve sewn"1 to cover up the ghastly injury, whereas in the psychological sense it can be displayed through a loss of control of bodily functions like "a tortured alimentary canal"2 causing irregularities in digestion leading to vomiting or diarrhoea. Barker's Novel looks at individual case studies away from the trenches using the technique of flashback, she describes the true horror that the soldiers faced and also the psychological after effects they have to deal with, "dead minds revisited"3 , psychological difficulties were not often considered in Owen's time and therefore a different view appears. "The old lie: Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori", translates to 'it is sweet and right to die for your country' is ironically placed at the end of the poem Dulce et Decorum est. Here Owen is mocking the patriotic perception of war, showing how it has now changed into modern trench warfare. Rivers also
Synoptic Module
Synoptic Module Revisit the armistice, letters from a lost generation + Geraldine Robertson Glasgow's poem Dulce et Decorum. How typical are they of work written by women in the war period. Compare and contrast the techniques they use to make their point. At the end of the Battle of the Somme and when the war was coming to a close women writers began to write more about the loss and emptiness that they felt when they lost their loved ones in the war. However, the women writers did not include a sense of realism within their poems and instead they romanticised their loved ones who had went to war. I am going to look at three different texts and examine whether they are typical or atypical of the time in which they were written. The first text that I am going to look at it is 'The Armistice' and it is a poem that has been written by May Wedderburn Cannan. This poem was written at the end of the war and tells us the story of women discovering that the war had ended. It shows us the sense of melancholy and relief than women felt at this time. This text is typical of the time in which it was written as it does portray to us the loss and emptiness that women felt at this time. It is also typical of the time as women are working with typewriters and this would stereotypically a job that a man would have done but this was not possible as the majority of the men had been lost
Throughout both Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Carroll shows that the lessons taught in Victorian schools are inapplicable and unrealistic.
In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll rejects the typical Victorian society to show the absurdity and nonsense of that era. The Victorian era encompassed many beliefs in areas such as education, social theory, etiquette, and politics. The whimsical and illogical creatures of Wonderland satirize the vice and folly of these concepts. Throughout the novels, Alice interacts with things commonly seen in her Victorian world. The education system in England teaches knowledge that is useless to the real world. The morals and constructive tales that children learn are irrational and have no clear meaning. Carroll's use of puns shows the silliness in everyday English etiquette. Through the characters in Wonderland, Carroll mocks English politics by proving them to be corrupt. Throughout both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Carroll shows that the lessons taught in Victorian schools are inapplicable and unrealistic. Though Alice is proud of the knowledge she acquired through her education, the information she remembers from her schooling is either completely useless or inaccurate. Alice absorbs the lessons but has trouble putting them in context or understanding their real-world applications. This can be seen when Alice falls down the rabbit hole. She says: I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she
Looking at pg.45, how does Faulks foreshadow the devastation and horrors of World War One
"Looking at pg.45, how does Faulks foreshadow the devastation and horrors of World War One?" Page 45 of Sebastian Faulks Birdsong, holds a variety of language technique that foreshadow the horrors of World War One. I will be looking at the way Faulks uses setting/nature, imagery, and descriptive language to capture and signifying what the soldiers were going to experience in the forthcoming war. Faulks foreshadows the devastation of World War One using setting/nature. An example of this is when he uses a phrase which can be used to describe life in the trenches. "...superfluous decay, the rotting of matter into the turned dug earth with its humid, clinging soil." Which is reality he used to describe the river at the location which they were having a picnic, can be interpreted to describe the conditions in the trenches. The 'superfluous decay' and 'the rotting of matter into the turned and dug earth' can be about the decaying and rotting of the soldiers bodies in the trenches. 'Humid, clinging soil' can also be about the conditions in the trenches, because I know from my own knowledge that trenches were usually really crowded, and it would have been really hot and stuffy for the soldiers at times. 'Clinging soil' could also be about the days when the conditions in the trenches are really wet and the muddy earth 'clings' to the soldiers clothing in the trenches. Faulks also
Otherness in The merchant of Venice, The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible
Oliver Denholm 13L English Literature Coursework Analyse how Shakespeare, Hawthorne and Miller explore the tensions between individual desires and wider community values in The Merchant of Venice, The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible respectively and discuss different interpretations of the writers' intentions. The struggle between individual will and community values, described by Arthur Miller as "the balance between order and freedom" is the central theme of Miller's The Crucible, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In all three texts, community values are defined not by what is deemed to be 'normal', but by its antithesis: the 'abnormal' and the incongruous. Whilst they write from greatly differing socio-historical backgrounds - Miller, Shakespeare and Hawthorne all share an interest in the role of "the other" in society, a concept which Edward Said expanded upon in his book Orientalism. Said used the example of underlying western prejudice towards the Middle East, its peoples and its culture; defining "the orient" as "existing for the west, being controlled by the west, in relation to the west". In other terms the concept of otherness here is largely based upon self perception, and one's own place in society; with these ideas being used to subordinate others who do not fit into their society, and these three writers all
