The Forbidden Forest

The Forbidden Forest "Mom! Johnny's not helping me get ready for dinner!" exclaimed my sister at the top of her puny but blatant lungs. "Yes, I am." I called upstairs to the room where my mother lay in a soundless slumber. "Would you shut-up! She's resting, you know. She is exhausted!" I tried to whisper to my sister, Emma. My mother worked two jobs to keep us alive. Six years had passed since the day my father died. Nobody really knows how he died, but from what my mom told me, Emma the curious little girl that she was, and still is, walked into the terrifying, damp forest across the condensed street. Nobody had ever gone in there before. She walked inside and fell down a precipitous hill, luckily my dad saved her and they came out perfectly fine. However, after a week or so, he started acting weird, from what I remember. Then, a month later he just left us. I don't know if he is deceased or still alive. Really, I prefer him dead. As I helped Emma with dinner, she was telling me about her childish day. I love her, I really do, but I just wasn't in a qualified mood. "Would you shut-up! I don't want to hear about your stupid day!" I shrieked and startled her tiny mind. That shut her up, I thought. "What's all that noise?" My overworked mother murmured as she came down from her slothful bed. "Uh, nothing", Emily pronounced. I have to admit she is a cute ten-year-old.

  • Word count: 1608
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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The Scarlet Letter: Sin and Guilt

The Scarlet Letter: Sin and Guilt The novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne has been a classic for many years. It is important to examine the theme Hawthorne develops and how he exhibits it through the lives of his characters. Hawthorne carries the theme of sin and guilt throughout his novel. This theme is noticeable in the plot line and is illustrated through the main characters of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Hester is a married woman who arrives from England prior to her husband, Roger Chillingworth. Hester commits the sin of adultery and having a daughter out of wedlock. She refuses to name the father of her child and is forced to live with guilt by wearing a scarlet "A" on her gown. She is also guilty of hiding the fact the Chillingworth is her husband, and upon telling Dimmesdale the truth, begs "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive! (Hawthorne, 236)." The burden that Hester must bear for her sin of adultery is seen when she removes the scarlet letter and Pearl reacts negatively, forcing her to replace it. Hawthorne points out "whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom (Hawthorne, 257)." The Reverend Dimmesdale is "usually understood to be guilty of two sins, one of commission (his adultery with Hester) and one of omission (his cowardly and hypocritical failure to confess)

  • Word count: 885
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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The Withered Arm - Trace the developing relationship between Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge. How does Thomas Hardy use the supernatural to engage the readers' interest, build up tension and keep the story going?

Coursework The Withered Arm By Thomas Hardy Trace the developing relationship between Rhoda Brook and Gertrude Lodge. How does Thomas Hardy use the supernatural to engage the readers' interest, build up tension and keep the story going? 'The Withered Arm' is set in 1888 in a place called Wessex - now known as Devon. It is set in a typically English rural location, mainly farms and small cottages for farm workers. There are two main characters; Rhoda Brook - a milkmaid and Gertrude Lodge - newly married to local landlord Farmer Lodge. Back then everybody knew each other and so knew everybody's business. Men are more respected and did all of the work whilst the women stayed at home and did the house work. If women were single they lived with their parents or on their own in a cottage. If the had a child whilst out of wedlock then they were frowned upon by society and were very much disrespected by everybody else. When we are first told about Rhoda Brook she is portrayed as a woman in her early thirties who hasn't aged to well. She is a milkmaid working on a farm for most hours of the day not having much time to rest. She has a twelve-year-old son although she isn't married and we don't find out the identity of the father until the end of the story. Rhoda lives in a small cottage, built out of mud blocks, on the side of a hill. Gertrude Lodge is introduced as a young and

  • Word count: 1045
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Explore the relationship between Paul Morel and his mother.

Explore the relationship between Paul Morel and his mother. What impact does this have on his later relationships? ('Sons and Lovers') "The texture of Paul's relationship with his mother is one of an intimacy so close that the only adequate means of expression are sexual, but its structure is throughout one of social aspiration." John Goode1 It is clearly evident throughout the novel that the relationship Paul and his mother have is not one of any other normal son and mother relationship. It is far too close and suffocating to be portrayed as 'normal'; yet as John Goode has said above, it is a relationship full of social aspiration. Mrs. Morel is determined for her son to be a social success and Paul sees his mother as the one to raise him above the level of the 'coal-pits'. She has the power, intellect and ruthless direction. Mrs. Morel, a 'Puritan', tries to refine and elevate her husband; when she fails she starts to despise him and tries again, first with William and then with Paul. She is a woman of immense strength of character, determination and emotion. Having failed to maintain a healthy and happy relationship with her husband she attempts to regain much of the love she has been deprived of through her sons. Paul proves an easy target for her domination: "...Paul, always rather delicate and quiet, got slimmer, and trotted after his mother like her shadow."

  • Word count: 2254
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Who does Bennett present as a better teacher: Hector or Irwin?

Who does Bennett present as a better teacher: Hector or Irwin? In your response ensure that you: - Use quotation and close analysis of dramatic technique to support your ideas. - Show some awareness of biographical, cultural or historical context. The initial presentation of Irwin is clearly negative. In the opening scene of the play Bennett presents to us a clever but cynical historian, advising MPs how to sell a nasty bill that would restrict trial by jury. Utilising his experience as a TV historian, recommending an "amused tolerance" when faced with cameras. We learn further on in the play that Irwin was a school teacher, employed to aid students with their entrance exams to Oxbridge, and throughout the play Bennett conveys Irwin as a liar, maybe slightly manipulative, and questionable sexuality. Throughout the play, some of Irwin's speech is comparable to the likes of certain revisionist TV historians, such as Andrew Roberts as the nineteen-eighties was the birth of TV historians: "Life only comes alive when contemplating its toilet arrangements." This statement made by Irwin when he is recording his TV show. One could argue that revisionist historians should not be allowed to corrupt the mind of young children because they are assuming that history as it has been traditionally told may not be entirely accurate. During the introduction of the play Bennett

  • Word count: 1533
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Howards End

From the start of chapter 11 to the end How does Forster use contrast and opposition in the aftermath of Mrs Wilcox's death? Throughout the novel, "Howards End," Forster has used contrast as one of the main structural devices to develop the connection between the relationships. Materialism and spiritualism are one of the contrasts in the novel which aid us when viewing the relationships between the Wilcox family. Spiritualism is the 'unseen,' the intangible attachment to objects in life and Mrs Wilcox represents the unseen in the novel even after she has died. Forster is presenting the 'unseen' to us through the colour of nature/images of Mrs Wilcox's funeral and though Mrs Wilcox isn't physically present her spirit still lives on in nature. For example Clouds drifted over it from the west; or the church may have been a ship, high prowed, steering with all its company towards infinity Forster's use of the sea and imagery in this line helps present the 'unseen' and how spiritually Mrs Wilcox will live for an infinite amount of years and that death is just part of the circle of life; that we live this world for another part of life- that there is no beginning or end to life. Contrasting Mrs Wilcox the rest of the Wilcox family represent the 'seen' tangible objects in life like the business world and motorcars their world is filled with 'panic and emptiness.' The language

  • Word count: 1021
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Analysis of Italian novel I'm not Scared

The book being titled "I'm not scared" is very appropriate as the common theme of the book is orientated around many characters facing fears and overcoming them or giving in to them. Furthermore the progression of the story is determined by characters not being "scared". The book is based in 1970s Italy. More specifically in an isolated village named Acqua Traverse. Acqua Traverse is typical of southern Italian villages at the time geographically with contact with the outside world being very limited and the villages being of a small scale. This fictional village represents the situation of the majority of typical southern agriculture villages in Italy at the time who suffered financially due to their failure to develop their industry, in which the north had much success. Due to instability in these regions many fled to the north in search of opportunities for wealth. This instability also provoked the regular occurrence of kidnappings in southern Italy. "I'm not scared" also embodies typical culture references throughout, with a society influenced strongly influenced by the males of the village, being present the book. A main character of this thrilling novel is that of Michele, a boy possessing such strong curiosity and strong morals that is unique of a child his age. Also proving to be an influential character is the kidnapped Fillipo who is discovered by Michele

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  • Word count: 1633
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Discuss Angela Carter’s Treatment of Innocence and Sexuality In ‘the Bloody Chamber and Other Stories’.

THE BLOODY CHAMBER Discuss Angela Carter's treatment of innocence and sexuality in 'The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories'. Angela Carter's collection of short stories, The Bloody Chamber, is a modern, sensual and fantastic rewriting of familiar fairy tales and legends. Among the themes of 'feminism' and 'sexuality' the author introduces 'Magic Realism' as one of her main stylistic devices. Carter's tales are supposedly celebrations of erotic desire, but male sexuality has too long, too tenaciously been linked with power and possession, the capture, breaking and ownership of women. The explicitly erotic currents in her tales mirror these realities. All conform to recognisably male fantasies of domination, submission and possession. Heterosexual feminists have not yet invented an alternative, anti-sexist language of the erotic. Carter envisages women's sensuality simply as a response to male arousal. She has no conception of women's sexuality as autonomous desire. Here is the sexual model, which endorses the "normal" and natural sadism of the male, happily complemented by the normal and natural masochism of the female. These are themes Carter is keen to reason and portray to her reading audience. Her attitudes towards sexuality are evident in these collected short stories of heavy and rich description. In them she redefines the idea of fairy tales as stories solely for

  • Word count: 533
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Spies by Michael Frayn. How does Frayn show Stephen's mental progression from childhood to adolescence? You should refer to language, form and structure in your answer.

How does Frayn show Stephen's mental progression from childhood to adolescence? You should refer to language, form and structure in your answer. Frayn uses language, structural change and symbolism throughout the events of the novel to exhibit Stephen's mental descent to adolescence. A theme that reveals itself in the first chapter is perception, and Stephen's perception of reality increases during the bildungsroman. The book begins with the elder Stephen, who is very open about his sensory stimulation in perceiving surroundings. For example: "sheltering the modest houses from the summer sun and making our famously good air fresh" exhibits Stephen being open and attentive of his surroundings, whereas younger Stephen is focused entirely on the notion that Mrs. Hayward is a spy. The extent is made clear by how Stephen links mathematical code into the mystery - "Excellent. So what is the value of x" ... "Into x, the unknown in the equation we have to solve." there is a clear distinction between the sensory states of the elder and younger forms of Stephen, with the former being more integrated to his surroundings, whereas the latter's perception twists simple mathematics into part of a greater puzzle. This is furthered by the opening line of the second chapter - "Everything is as it was" ... "and everything has changed" exhibits that while Stephen's surroundings have persevered,

  • Word count: 1212
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Huckleberry Fin

Huckleberry Fin Huckleberry Finn warms the heart of the reader by placing an ignorant white boy by the name of Huckleberry Finn in some strange situations, having him tell his remarkable story the way it streams into his own eyes. Huckleberry Finn is nearly always confused on account of so many different kinds of people having such different impressions upon him; he turns to his own heart and intelligence for guidance. Huckleberry Finn has a heart of gold, and grows as a person throughout the story. Huckleberry Finn's setting jumps around to a number of different places. The beginning takes place in St. Petersburg, Missouri in around the 1840s, before the Civil War. Huckleberry lived in a very "sivilized" household; a rather prosperous one as well, with the Widow Douglas. It was a time of slavery, though throughout the entire novel there was very little said to put down African Americans. The characters in the book, as many as there were, were all created by twain to respect and acknowledge the decency in their slaves. There are two main characters in Huckleberry Finn: Huckleberry Finn, and Jim, a runaway slave. Huckleberry Finn finds himself torn between his own judgment of helping Jim escape, and the people around him who support slavery in its entirety. He is in a bad and dangerous situation while with Jim, because anyone might possibly think Jim a runaway

  • Word count: 1005
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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