Compare Two Texts About Children. Both The Last Night and Out, Out- have a focus on children experiencing pain

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Sam McKinty

Compare Two Texts About Children. Compare Ways in Which Experiences are Presented in These Two Texts

In this essay, I will be comparing “The Last Night”, a passage describing the experience of two young boys being transported to a concentration camp with ‘”Out, Out”’, a poem describing the events leading up to a boy’s hand being cut off by a buzz-saw. Both “The Last Night” and ‘”Out, Out-“’ have a focus on children experiencing pain, however the characters handle their pain in different ways.

“The Last Night” is the title of an extract from the novel “Charlotte Gray” by Sebastian Faulks. I believe that the title of the extract is a suitable one considering the content of the passage. The passage describes the events leading up to two boys “André and Jacob” being transported to a concentration camp along with other Jewish deportees. The title “The Last Night” refers to the boys and the other deportees last night as citizens, mothers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers before they are transported to a fate unknown.

‘“Out, Out-“’ is, in my opinion, a very different title to “The Last Night.”To me it seems that “The Last Night” has a very obvious message within it, that the evening the extract is set in is likely to be the last for the two main characters “André and Jacob”.  However, as a title ‘”Out, Out-‘” does not have such a first glance obviousness about it.  The title is in speech marks. Who is talking, and what does it mean?  In line 7 of”Out, Out-‘”, Faulks tells the reader that the saw “snarled and rattled”, this gives the reader the impression that the saw is some sort of animal,  this idea is pushed further into the readers mind when in line 16 Faulks writes “Leaped out at the boy’s hand”. Since the title of the poem is in speech marks (“Out, Out-“), I think it must be a quote from one of the characters, most probably the boy’s sister. As the boy’s hand come into contact with the saw, she yells “Out, Out-“, as if the saw is an animal and she is yelling at it to let go of the boys hand. So despite “’Out, Out-“’ not having such an obvious meaning, both titles do have meaning in them which gives further insight into both pieces.

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In line 14 of ‘”Out, Out-‘”, the boy’s sister call’s out to him to tell him that his “supper “is ready. In what I believe to be the boy’s excitement of it being time for supper, his hand comes into contact with the saw. In the poem Faulks describes this as the saw being an animal that “Leaped out at the boy’s hand” “As if to prove it knew what supper meant”. It is this severe injury that ultimately leads to the death of the boy. In “The Last Night”, “A women came with a sandwich for each child to ...

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