Category: Writing

Then and now

January 28, 2016 / / 0 Comments
  • Leysdown :Going to the cliffs
  • then:Young boy
  • Now: Teenager

Then

Listen, can you hear it the sound of waves roaring as if they were alive each and every wave in synchronization. Beyond the sandy beaches and swaying branches of trees you see it. You finally see it. It stands taller than any giant yet as elegant as any ballet dancer. You can taste the sourer salt from the sea spitting on to your lip. It shrivels in disgust. For years you have fantasized about this day. The day you climb The Cliff. You make your way to the most exciting part of The Cliff the trio of  World War two bunkers. You can smell the algae growing on the bunkers which once stood tall at the top but in age have fallen. The sight of them bewilders your imagination these three bunkers once protected the land of Britannia, not that you even know what that means but you like the sound of that. You climb on in they are tilted on their side. Your brain tries to fix the tilted picture but of course you can’t. As you stumble upon the slimy bunker you can smell the stale water which over the years has collected at the bottom of the bunker. As you run your hands across the cracked walls you quickly pull them back because the feeling of it hurts on your soft delicate hands. Foolishly licking your hands you taste the algae it makes you feel nauseous it tastes salty but yet rather sweet you don’t know if you like it or not but it will just keep the experience in your mind forever. You leave the bunkers and you know you have one more step of the adventure of a lifetime: The climb back up. You look towards the top of The Cliff and you feel the butterflies start to do their thing. Try and alter the path that you want to follow. The wind blows on your face bringing a slight hint of fresh manure, usually you would have hated it but this time something about it rejuvenating. As you climb close to the top the steepness is going to get the better of you until you go on all fours as if you were some type of dog. The roughness leaves your hands thirsty but you’ve done it, you’ve conquered the cliff.

Now

semantic fields in Romeo and Juliet

October 13, 2015 / / 3 Comments

Shakespeare uses many different pieces of figurative language including personification. between lines 96 and 103 Mercutio personifies dreams. He does this when he is explaining to Romeo that you have a free choice in every action and that dreams are just a lie sprung from a sleeping brain.’Which are the children of an idle brain/Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,’ this means the dreams are just children of a sleeping brain and are nothing but a useless impossible idea. This expresses the view of free will extremely well because he says dreams are nothing they are what our own minds create we can always decide what we do at any time in our lives this is why I believe Mercutio is explaining free will. In describing dreams as children Mercutio is telling Romeo that all children have dreams for life and not a lot of them come true.

coincidence adds to to the idea  of fate and free will in Romeo and Juliet.For example in Act 1 scene 2 Romeo and Benvolio are strolling through a sycamore grove when an illiterate servant of the Capulet family coincidently see Romeo as a wealthy man and asks him to read it, the thing he reads is a list of invitees for a Capulet party. Romeo sees Rosaline on the list and immediately wants to go, as we know this is what leads Romeo to Juliet this is an example of fate in Romeo and Juliet. This adds to the idea of semantic fields because it literally means that Romeo is reading a list of invitees but the underlying meaning of fate.

The prologue also adds to the idea of fate in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. On line five and six he says. ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life’. Before the play even starts we have been told that Romeo and Juliet will die, the quote means from the sex organs of enemies a pair of lovers who fate was written in the stars will take their own lives. The most important part here is star-cross’d lovers because when the play was wrote in the sixteenth century every one was Christian, and Christians believe God has pre-determined our lives so nothing we do can change this. So stars is an actual reference to heaven. This is another example of fate and free will in Romeo and Juliet. This links to semantic fields because the deeper meaning of the words again is fate and free will.

how do the two poems commemorate the dead?

May 20, 2015 / / 1 Comment

‘They shall grow, not old, as we who are left grow old’ this commemorated the fallen because us who did not die and fight will get old but the ones that fought and died will live on forever. However Siegfried Sassoon talks of war as a bad unjustifiable thing especially the people not involved. ‘Sneak home and pray you’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.’ He is commerating the dead here because they were not afraid of dying for their country and they did not find it good like the nieve crowds he mentions here.’You smug faced crowds’.

Robert Laurence Binyon commemorates the dead with this. ‘They fell with their faces to the foe.’ this is first an alliteration but he is also saying how they were not cowards but in fact some of the most bravest men who had ever lived. Even when they knew they were going to die they did not run. This is similar to Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Suicide in the trenches’ because in the last stanza he talks about the bravery of the youth, but a key difference is that Siegfried Sassoon says that those who are not involved are cowards and naive to believe war is a good and justifiable thing.

I think Siegfried Sassoon is trying to persuade us to believe that all war is a terrible thing. He is trying to make us angry at the fact of war and also sad. If he can play with our emotions then he can get his own way and more people will believe in his opinion. ‘ the hell where youth and laughter go’ This makes us want to question authority, with questions like why are we sending our youth to death?

However Robert Laurence Binyon is trying to get a totally different response all together. He wants us all to be honored that people died. Happy that young people were so brave. He does this here ‘They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted’ He is saying that the soldiers would not move and would never give in to the enemy. This makes us have an emotional response of wow how can i not feel a sense of gratitude for these men?

Siegfreid Sasssoon commemorates the solider here ‘And whistled early with the lark’ At first this seems like a piece of pointless information. However I can see a deeper meaning which I think he wants everyone else to see. Which is, you will only see a lark early in the morning but by the afternoon and nightfall it will be gone. I think he is comparing the lark to the soldier as he was at first loud but as the war progressed he realized that it wasn’t fun and by the next morning he was silent and dead. he is trying to get us to feel a sense of sorrow for these soldiers, as well as this he wants us to see that war is not a game and to notice the things which have a much bigger meaning.

Siegfried Sassoon is also commemorating war here with this quote ‘No one spoke of him again’. He is commemorating the dead soldier here by speaking of someone no one else had the courage to do. I think he does this because there must be a reason why no one spoke about him. I think the main reason is that the media,government and huge powers in the world wanted war to appeal to the youth of the world. So they would not want to advertise the fact that war turns people to suicide. So because Siegfried Sassoon is a huge believer in war being a terrible thing so him saying this causes us to have the emotional reaction of why are we sending our children to die when there are better ways to resolve world problems.

Robert Laurence Binyon commemorates the bravery of the soldiers who died and were lost in action. I have evidence for this here . ‘And a glory that shines upon our tears.’ He is saying that although we will be mourning for our lost we should also feel glory that we won the war. He is trying to promote the opposite of Siegfried Sassoon, which is that although many of our children, fathers, brothers and sisters died they were not in vain. They will live on forever in our memories. This is a way Robert Laurence Binyon commemorates the war.

Robert Laurence Binyon Also commemorates the war here but not only the war but the soldiers and the country. ‘Fallen in the cause of the’ This shows that he believes that we should not be sad because if it was not for the amount of dead there was we would be the German’s slaves. He is also creating imagery here i see that for every dead person someone else lives. Some one else breaks away from the shackles of slavery. Another person gets the chance to fulfill their dreams. I think this is a really good way of persuading the reader to share Robert Laurence Binyon’s point of view, as many people believe that their family died in vain this small piece of text which some people would just skip over is one of the most influential words ever.

In conclusion I believe that Robert Laurence Binyon and Siegfried Sassoon have very different views on war which are shown very clearly in, ‘Suicide in the trenches’ and ‘For the fallen’. I think Mr Binyon gives us his view easily as he is backed up by the media, but Mr Sassoon keeps deeper meanings which in opinion has a better effect. These are my comparisons between Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Laurence Binyon.

 

 

There is no such thing as a just war

May 4, 2015 / / 1 Comment

I strongly believe that there  is no such thing as a just war. I beive this because in life we are taught to never use violence as a way to solve problems, so why when a politician says we are going to war is it excepted? Now adays most wars are caused over oil eg. The war between Sudan and south Sudan and the war between the USA and Iran. these wars are infact stupid because innocent people are dying  over nothing. Do you thinkit is right that people die for nothing? so why do people try and justify war? Justify the killings of parents, children, brothers and sisters.

Another reason is that murder is murder so how can someone give a reason for killing thousands of people whoever they are. “Although there is not agreement estimates of civilian casualties : range from 500,000 in Iraq and 1 million in Vietnam and Korea, 7 million in WWI and between 35-50 million in WWII. It’s estimated that there may have been close to 20 million Chinese civilian casualties at the hands of the Japanese alone in WWII. The numbers can be confusing, because some estimates include only those people killed by direct violence, whereas many died as a result of infrastructure destruction.  The fact that we so accurately count the numbers of military personnel killed in the wars, but don’t bother with an estimation of civilian casualties, may reflect an uncaring or blind attitude about civilian suffering.”(PsychologyToday.com) So all of these people have been killed as a result of war. How can any one possibly justify this.

The definition of just is, based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair. People say we have to have war to keep evils out of this world but instead of trying to do it wirty words we try and use force which ends up with thousands oof people dying for one person. in which way is this morally right? Why do we get choose who dies and who lives? fair, what is fair many people say we have to go to war to make everything fair, but how are we making things fair by killing this just causes more hate around he world.  For example when a western country bombs a terroist group they can ten use this to recruit others by saying they bomb our families.When the great war began everyone woud say this is the war to end all wars, obviosly we know this is not true so why to we still start wars becasue we use the excuse that it is just. 

An example of an unjustifiable war is the Iraqi war between the Usa and Britain against Iraq. It started because the president of the the United States Mr Bush and Mr Blair wrongly accused Iraq to be harbourin weapons of mass description many people died. ‘Scientific surveys of Iraqi deaths resulting from the first four years of the Iraq War found that between 151,000 to over one million Iraqis died as a result of conflict during this time. A later study, published in 2011, found that approximately 500,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the conflict since the invasion. Counts of deaths reported in newspapers collated by projects like the Iraq Body Count project found 174,000 Iraqis reported killed between 2003 and 2013, with between 112,000-123,000 of those killed being civilian noncombatants.’ (Wikipedia) 

If you think about WW2 America used a nuclear weapon on Japan this still affects people today. Here are the facts  .’In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.’ All of these people died because of government who supported Adolf Hitler.’ (Wikipedia). 

‘the risk lasts a lifetime. Unborn children exposed to radiation on average grow to be smaller and less intelligent than their peers, and their risk of developing leukemia peaked 

after ten years (Yong& Edwards, 2005). Many of the women that were pregnant at the time of the bombing gave birth to children with congenital malformations that were attributed to the radiation (Ohara, 2005).’ This shows that the bombings did not just affect the people alive at the time but still affect people now. How can this possibly be justified if people who are alive decades  after the war are still being affected.

In conclusion I believe you can try and justify war as much as you want but when you aloof at the figures you can see the disaster war causes . Now before I end let me ask you this question. Do you want to be the person who has to excuse the ruthless murders of inncocent mothers, father and children?

   

Cross-eyed

February 9, 2015 / / 3 Comments

It was all so normal. Why did it happen and why here.

It was about five years ago now, when it happened. I was just doing my daily shift. Why did i forget my gear. it was at my work the South bank tower which i was helping to build.

After it happened I left for Italy, where they’re  not allowed. I have never been back hopefully i never do. It was just a normal day at work for me, I was doing the lighting, I am an electrician you see. I was on the ground floor of the tower, it was located in Waterloo. it was around forty stories high, with glass all over  it. The smell of the air was stale. It looked so tall. I had a team of four James, Liz, Taylor and me Martin Wilkinsons. When you are an electrician you always have to have the right tools, clothing and eye wear for health and safety. I did not really listen to that rubbish. So I did not really bring the ‘right’ gear as the boss would put it, but I was near retirement and this was my last job, thank God. He said I was lucky, his exact words were ” Martin you are so lucky you are a pro”

We had nearly finished the ground floor when the boss, Mr Saxs got a call from the general manager.

Why now? Why today?

Mr Saxs had only been on the phone for a few minutes, when he came towards me saying how I need to get my ‘proper’ tools. So I rushed to my locker, to get my door key and my coat, it was the start of February so it was quite cold, so I rushed out of the door. I lived next to the London Nautical school, down Hatfields, I was walking down Stamford street when all of a sudden I looked at Pret and I saw Taylor.

I stood there. With fear, going around my body, not knowing what to think, he was just standing there staring back at me same haircut same smile same everything. But that was not what sent fear through my spine. It was that he was wearing totally different clothes.

When I was walking home I was thinking of something to do. I thought of something. Crazy. I got changed, but when I finally did leave the flat I brought my camcorder with me, my crazy idea. It had just left Pret when he started to walk to Blackfriars bridge. I quickly persued. I pulled out the camcorder to start recording, like what Ross Kemp used to do. I was recording for about ten minutes, explaining what happened on the way. While I was walking I was thinking of a logical explanation for this. Maybe I was being followed by spies. Robots, teleportaion. And then came my best idea. Shape-shifting aliens.

And then I saw him again. On a bus, and again in Tesco.

I felt sick and anxious. What had I ever done to deserve this? Being followed for what? They appered everywhere. The spies had done well. If that is what they were. They could of been aliens. Sent to Earth to imprison us. But why Earth? Why me? I did not find out why they were here. But i was going to find out.

I thought of how they got here, their base and everything. Imagening they would turn round the corner and take me away for testing. I walked round the corner and right infront of me was just an ordinary street cleaner. I pulled the camcorder near to my face and said a whole story of how I would not make it out alive, just like in the film. We had reached an alley way when it just stoped. And walked down the alley.

Why this alley?

I saw cameras all around and thats when I changed my idea, from aliens to spies. It had to be. An alley hidden in London, cameras, big steel doors everything you saw in ‘James Bond’

It opened one of the doors, and entered. I also went in. The coldness of the air sent shivers down my spine, the walls were white and the floor smooth. It went into a room reading A-11. I never did find out the meaning.

He turned  around and shut his eyes. I didnt have the slightest idea of where we were. The celling was at least twenty foot high. With huge spotlights hanging down. The walls were this time painted black, so I was blind. I was so scared.

I lifted the camcorder so high to see. But when I saw I dropped the camcorder. And nearly fell with it.

And there in front of me were a thousand Martin Wilkinsons staring back.