Choose a pair of 'themed' texts (one short story, one poem) from your booklet and complete the following sections:
Write a short summary of the texts (1.1)
Trees Can Speak - This is the story of two men who go on an adventure together into the Australian outback. One of the men (Joe) has elective mutism and therefore unable to speak and the other suffered from infant paralysis and doesn't have much use of his legs. They communicate non-verbally with the use of body language and the way Joe nods and shakes his head. They both find a peace in the outback with nature and they seem to have a connection with each other as they are both not considered 'normal' in society.
Miracle On St David's - This poem is about the author reading poetry to patients at a psychiatric hospital. The author does not see the patients as 'insane' but simply as people listening intently to her poetry. All of a sudden, a patient who has not spoken since being admitted, stands up and recites 'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth. He recites it to the ward while the nurses stand shocked by the sight of him speaking for the first time. It is a very powerful moment and a very powerful poem.
Evaluate the author's intentions and themes in the above texts (1.2). Remember to justify your analysis with quotations (1.5).
Trees Can Speak - There are a number of themes in this piece but I believe one of the main themes is respect and dignity for your fellow man. Both Joe and the disabled man have a disability and therefore people in society will judge them for something that is not of their doing. They feel a mutual respect for each other and very comfortable in each other's presence, with neither making a fuss about the problems disability can bring and each helpin...
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...lts' absurdity.
Perhaps the writer was using a child's naivety in his portrayal of the pig-man to reflect the issue of society becoming less trusting of individuals they did not know. However, the parents send the child after the pig-man which suggests society was still fairly trusting at the time.
Analyse the viewpoint taken by the writer of the text (2.3)
The viewpoint of the writer is to bring to light some of the issues that can arise from divorce, particularly with the children. He wants us to understand how households in this time period did not usually separate and that there was a social stigma around separation and divorce. He is also showing how children deal with problems and their thought processes. Furthermore how problems at home can be displaced onto other parts of their lives. In this instance it is the pig-man.
Word Count without quotes: 1743
Task: Analyze how the story shows our themes by explaining how 3 specific quotes show (not tell) the theme in action in the story. Be sure to keep track of these and your first set, as they will help you write the reflection paper after we finish reading The Watsons Go To Birmingham (more to come!). you may use this chart, or type your own, as long as you meet the requirements of this assignment.
The first poem I think you should consider in adding to your list of poems is “For the Fire”, this poem was about the time I went in to the forest to get some lumber, and during my time there I noticed some of natures creations around me, like the kookaburra and wind that swerved in and out of the trees etc.
Clarke, Loretta. “The Pigman: A Novel of Adolescence.” English Journal 61.8 (Nov. 1972). Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Carolyn Riley and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research, 1976. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Confessions of an Erstwhile Child is an essay which analyses the concept of the nuclear family. At first the author explains the ideas of Thomas More’s Utopia, but afterwards narrows his content by going into explaining his thoughts on children raised in dysfunctional families. He very cleverly shows the reader part family model’s with current ones, allowing his audience to make the decision for themselves. His tone is a logical philosophical. The reader is told of his depressing childhood growing up in a dysfunctional family, and how it had a profound effect upon his life. The author uses his own personal experience and knowledge to express his opinions on his topic, but really doesn’t use much inference to other cases or factual evidence to back up his argument. All and all, the author wrote an essay which would prove to be thought provoking and well organized.
Lee, Debbie. Literary Analysis Sample Essay. 18 August 2000. Online. Internet. 29 November 2000. Available http://open.dtcc/cc/nc/us/eng135/sample.html
(C) analyze the way in which a work of fiction is shaped by the narrator's point of view.
...Literature. Vol.1. Ed. Rossi, Patricia. Addison Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. New York: Copyright 1999. 2655-57.
The story “Hunger” is a story with a very clear message. The message of this story is that a person at any age, instead of hiding from his problems, must face his or her problems. In “Hunger”, the reader understands how to make a living and support himself or herself. After the father of the boy leaves him, the boy and his mother had to become the householders. Wright, very clearly, describes the situation of the boy’s family situation. The main characters are the mother and her son.
In a well written paragraph, analyze which genre, historical fiction or informational text, better develops their ‘characters’. Choose one character to focus on and provide text evidence. Make sure you include evidence from both works to support your reasoning.
1. Your paper could have been stronger had you used more quotes. Each time you make a specific point concerning the novel, you should back up your point by using a specific quote from that novel. That way your readers have proof that your point is valid.
Updike, John. "A&P." Thinking and Writing About Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 981-86. Print.
2. You should use quotes throughout your paper and not just in the beginning. Your last few paragraphs do not have any support from the novel itself.
Roberts, Edgar V., and Robert Zweig. Literature:An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Fifth compact edition ed. Glenview: Pearson, 2012. Print.
Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary