different cultures poetry

Robert Harrison 11S GCSE English Literature Coursework Poems from different cultures In this essay I am going to look at and compare two poems called Half-Caste by John Agard and Search for My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt. Half-Caste is about being mixed race as Agard's mother was white but his father was black and he came to England from the Caribbean. The word 'half-caste', can be used to describe people of mixed race but is considered rude and insulting. Search for My Tongue is about Bhatt who was born in India and spoke Gujarati as their first language but then moved to the U.S. and learnt English and describes what it is like to speak and think in both languages. Both Poems use a mixture of English and their own language which in the case of Half-Caste is Agard's West Indian Dialect and in Search for My Tongue is Bhatt's native language Gujarati. In 'Search for my tongue' there are two meanings as a tongue is not only the part of your mouth, but also it can mean a language, so your mother tongue is your first language. The poem seems to be about Bhatt feeling that she is losing her first language and she is trying to find it again. Whereas in 'Half-caste' Agard is writing about how other people view people of mixed race and is asking them questions by saying 'explain yuself', which is repeated throughout the poem and it almost seems that he is having an argument with

  • Word count: 1034
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Business Culture.

Business Culture Business culture is the overall running of the company there are many types of business culture and the type of business culture resembles the type of management. There are four main types of business culture, they are: Power Culture This is the centralisation of power. This type of culture is usually found in small organisations where control rests with a single individual or a small group of people. The company spreads out from the single central figure. The advantage to this type of structure is that decisions can be made very quickly; this makes the company very versatile. A disadvantage to this type of structure is that it is very autocratic and the employees may not get a lot of autonomy this may result in a bad atmosphere within the company. Power culture does also exist in large companies but is not as common. Role Culture This type of culture was first used in the nineteenth century in government departments, then during the twentieth century when companies started to get bigger introduced this type of culture. This type of culture splits the company up into functions then each function is arranged in a hierarchical way. The higher an employee is in the company the more decisions they can make. This means that this type of culture can motivate certain employees but can have a negative effect on other employees depending on the employees in the

  • Word count: 689
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare the ways in which the poet presents people in night of the scorpion and one other poem?

Compare the ways in which the poet presents people in night of the scorpion and one other poem? Night of the scorpion is a poem about a woman getting stung by a scorpion and the events that follow it. The poem two scavengers... is about the comparison between two garbage men and a couple going to work. Although the two poems sound totally different, they both convey the message about equality in society. In night of the scorpion the people are peasants. They are religious people. The crowd of peasants have a different religious belief than us. They believe that if they chant about god then this will help cure the mother. They believe that chants will help cure the mother, this is shown by when the peasants said, "with every movement the scorpion made his poison moved in mothers blood." The father although being a peasant he is not religious like the other peasants, he is a rationalist. Although of his rationalist ways, when he is faced with the possibility of loosing his beloved wife he looses all of his rational thoughts, and tries every conceivable possibility to save his wife. "My father the, sceptic, rationalist, trying every curse and blessing, powder, mixture, herb and hybrid. He even poured a little paraffin upon the bitten toe and put a match on it." Although the father does not believe in the religious side of the society he tried all of them at the thought of

  • Word count: 762
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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The Charge Of The Light Brigade And Disabled

In a class we have been studying two different poems, Charge Of The Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson and Disabled by Wilfred Owen. Both of these poems were written about war, although they are about two different time periods. Charge Of The Light Brigade was written in 1854, focusing on the Battle of Balaclava (Ukraine) during the Crimean War (1853-1856). However, Disabled was written in World War 1 and focuses more on before and after the war, as well as a soliders point of view, not on a particular skirmish. Charge of The Light Brigade was written to memorialize a group of around six hundred men who were ordered into a suicidal charge against Russian militants. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote the poem after reading an article in "The Times" newspaper about a misinterpretation of orders which sent approximately "a noble" six hundred to their deaths. He thought the misjudgement was a scandal and wanted to publicize it in a poem. Wilfred Owen was once in the war and wrote most of his poems in the trenches. He wrote the poem to emphasise the tragedy of war - injury, death etc. Disabled is about a solider who went to war in World War 1 and had both his legs and one arm blown off. The poem is about his life before and after the injury as well as how he contrasts his life. Wilfred Owen uses the "flashback" technique for effect. Disabled has five stanzas of mostly different

  • Word count: 898
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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What do you find particularly memorable in the language the poet uses in Caged Bird?

What do you find particularly memorable in the language the poet uses in Caged Bird? In the poem, Caged Bird, by Maya Angelou, the language has been employed effectively. She has defined her own structure, so as to find the sound, tempo and rhythm that are most suitable for this poem. The imagery, as well as the sounds, with which the poet uses to aid in the conveyance of her message and ideals, has been executed effectively. Furthermore, the use of contrast and comparison is central to the poem and is presented in a powerful, albeit straightforward manner. Angelou has chosen to shape the structure of a poem to benefit her own ideals, and has achieved this remarkably. This is apparent as, even though each line has a different number of beats, the first line only having four, the second, having six and the fourth having five, the poem in its entirety is still lyrical and musical, and this lyrical style ties in with the poem's image, that of a caged bird, which "sings with a fearful trill..." By opting not to constrain her poem through the use of rigid meters, rhythm and general structure, each stanza, or rather, each line contributes to the poem's overall idea. Whilst the structure is integral to the poem, so is the use of enjambment. In the first stanza, the structure is smooth and the words flow continuously. The poet has employed enjambment to help make the verse sound

  • Word count: 840
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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William wordsworth and blake poetry

Compare how Wordsworth and Blake present their ideas about the city in their poems 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge' and 'London' Both William Wordsworth and William Blake have written two contrasting poems on the subject of London, they were written in the 1800's when London was the largest, most dense city in the world, holding at least one million civilians. William Wordsworth and William Blake both share completely different views about London. William Wordsworth's poem 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge' mainly concentrates on the visual aspects of London, using nature to describe it. The majority of his poem is the description of a typical London morning: beautiful and magnificent. On the other hand, William Blake's poem 'London' concentrates on creating an image that at the time London was a dark and desperate place to live in. He explains the exploitation of young chimneysweepers and the growth of prostitution. He also contrasts the rich from the poor, distinguishing the fact that the rich owned London and the poor were left to scavenge off the streets. The Romantic feature that William Wordsworth had, helped him write the natural poem, 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge'. The tranquillity of a London morning inspired him to portray London as a beautiful, magnificent sight. The majority of the poem is taking up by the idea of the beautiful morning, 'a sight so

  • Word count: 1734
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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English poetry essay

English Poetry Essay When you enter the 'capsule' of love and warmth, you find yourself pulled in, addicted almost. It's not how you imagine it; it's not unbearably painful, or tiresome or trivial on that matter. It is just simply bare human emotion, maybe a singular, loose word, but when you experience it...it is another world. Time, you lose track of, pointless questioning, irritation, even to an extent anger, all gets snuffed out. You feel a different you, the old you has gone, and the new one is happy, content and overall; in love. The three authors all share the main concept of 'love' in their poems; I'm going to evaluate how they depict it and what styles of writing they use. Marvell depicts in 'To His Coy Mistress' how a lover is writing to his mistress about how 'Had we but world enough, and time' then 'we would sit down...and pass our long love's day'. He puts it finely, and delicately at the beginning with the odd joke; 'Thou by the Indian Ganges' side, shouldst rubies find: I by the tide of Humber would complain...' Marvell then puts in extraordinary emphasis' such as, 'Love you ten years before the flood....' and then 'An hundred years should go to praise...two hundred to adore each breast, but thirty thousand to the rest.' This just outlines his desperation, his longing for that feeling of love again, and yet all he can do is write about it, measly as it is. It

  • Word count: 1286
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare the way Mary Casey and John Agard present identity in the Class Game and Half Caste

Compare the way Mary Casey and John Agard present identity in the Class Game and Half Caste Both poets are showing their identity across to the reader. However they are doing it in different ways. The layout for The Class Game- Mary Casey is a monologue. A monologue is a short, alone speech. This makes it easier for the reader to understand the point of the poem and it makes it more effective. It makes it seem as if they are talking straight at the reader. It has no rhyme scheme. The layout for Half Caste- John Agard is a performance piece as it was written to be read out loud with tone. The poem is made up of three stanzas of different lengths. He also writes in short sentences and no punctuation. This makes it easier to see the non-standard English. Mary Casey's 'The Class Game' shows the differences in the different classes. However in the end she tells us that she is proud of her class no matter how poor she is. She shows who she really is. She doesn't want to hide her identity. She writes the words that she uses and the way she talks and what sort of place she lives in. When she writes about the words her class uses, she compares them to the other class. 'Me say 'Tara' to me 'Ma' instead of 'Bye Mummy Dear'?' Mary shows how the words that are said that are intended in the same way but are different can change someone's view point and their 'Class'. She doesn't care

  • Word count: 1063
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Why is identity so important to poets from a different culture?

Why is identity so important to poets from a different culture? I believe that poets struggle to find their true identity as they might have an ongoing battle between two, as in 'search for my tongue', it is about the poet who has 'two tongues in her mouth' which symbolizes her two cultures, which displays her two identities. In the poem, there is an ongoing battle between her 'mother tongue' and her 'foreign tongue' and how she cannot 'use them both together' - showing that the two cultures would clash. To try and solve this, the poet tries to have one identity - one culture to fit into, but no matter how hard she tries and no matter how much she thinks she has moved on, 'I think I've forgotten', it always 'grows back'. This is like in 'presents from my Aunts in Pakistan', as in this poem, the poet also wants just the one identity as she rejects the presents she gets sent over from her other (Pakistani) culture, but she feels she couldn't escape it either as she 'couldn't rise up out of it's fire'. In the poem, she calls herself 'half English' which shows that she does not belong entirely to one culture, and therefore because she has a mix of two cultures, she has two identities. I have also found that in both poems, the poets have tried to escape their birth culture, and lose their original identity, as in 'search for my tongue' the poet tries to 'spit out' her 'mother

  • Word count: 353
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare Island Man and Limbo AQA Anthology

Compare And Contrast The Methods Used to portray Caribbean culture In "Limbo" by Edward Kamau Brathwaite And "Island Man" By Grace Nichols There are lots of different methods used in the poems "Limbo" and "Island Man" which make these poems so amazing. I have collected together a few of them in order to understand the meaning in depth of the poems. The most obvious similarity of this poem is that they are both about the Caribbean and they are both based around thoughts people are having at a certain time of day. Limbo is about a man doing the limbo dance to get his body into shape. Island man is about a Caribbean man in London waking up, dreaming about still being in the Caribbean, where he really wants to be. The poem Limbo is quite a deep poem, it describing in detail two things... the action of the dance "limbo" and the history of the black slaves in the Caribbean. On the other hand, Island man is an easy, simple poem only describing the thoughts of an "Island Man". Both poets say the poem from somebody's viewpoint. Brathwaite writes the poem's viewpoint as the man, doing the limbo dance himself. It's very personal and has all the details in of everything he's thinking and doing at each stage of the dance. Nichols writes "Island Man" from the main persons viewpoint but in this poem, it doesn't describe everything, she just writes what he's thinking as he wakes up

  • Word count: 819
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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