Hardy

Hardy's poems reveal a morbid fascination with death, write about this veiw.

I dont think that its a morbid fascination with death i feel as though its more of a curiosity in death as he is only talking about his experiences with death in his life e.g. his wife's death. He also talks about death in a beautiful way, like in 'The Haunter' he describes his wife to be more of a guardian angel type ghost. He portrays his wife to be looking out for him and being by his side when he needs her, "If he but sigh my loss befell him Straight to his side i go." Hardy also make's it nice by showing that his wife is with him even in death and is in his dreams by saying that she follows him into his dreamworld. This brings beautiful imagery as the title 'The Haunter' is rather negative whereas the language behind it isnt. Hardy also makes his memories of his dead wife seem beautiful like in the poem 'The Waterfall' as every time he plunges his arm into a basin of water it reminds him of the time he spent with his wife at a waterfall having a picnic, searching for their lost chalice in the pool of water. Hardy also shows that he doesnt have a facination with death as he understands that his wife is dead and that his feelings are lost to her now shown in the poem 'Your Last Drive'. This point is shown by the last line of the poem when he says that she is his "past love, praise, indifference, blame" he knows that she cant feel anything anymore including his love so he sees it as pointless to dwell on it anymore.

'All my sons' by Arthur Miller

Q - An exploration of the fatal flaws of the characters in the play 'All my sons'?

By Lewis Hole

In 'All my sons' all of the main characters have fatal flaws that change the story usually for the worse. A few of these characters are Joe Keller, Kate Keller and Ann Deever and with their fatal flaws all giving tragic elements to the play.

Joe is a very ordinary man, decent, hard-working and charitable, a man no-one could dislike. But, like a protagonist of ancient drama, he has a fatal flaw or weakness. The fatal flaw of Joe Keller is by far the most tragic in the play and causes the most impact on all of the characters and is also a main part of the storyline. This fatal flaw is that he will do anything for his family, to make sure they do not go without anything they need to get by in life. This flaw came into play when Joe sold 21 faulty airplane cylinders because he wanted to keep his business running and to not lose money. He did this and when it came to him getting charged for it he said that he was ill on the day and his partner in the business (Annie's dad) took the blame and got sentenced to prison because Joe had denied Annie's dad's version of events. This fatal flaw took place before the play just like most conventional greek tragedies and this also tie's in later in the play.

The consequence of this flaw is a lot worse that the action as it goes on to kill 21 pilots and drove his own son Larry into taking his own life. Another minor flaw of Joe's is that he try's to joke around rather than face certain facts shown by him playing a game with a child named Bert instead of telling his wife that Larry's memorial tree got blown down in a storm. I think by joking around more he forgets his own burden of knowing that he killed 21 people, inadvertently killed his own son and basically sent his partner and friend to prison. Due to him realising his own burden at the end of the play he finally understands that what he has done was wrong and that in his own mind to correct it was to commit suicide and complete the greek tragic cycle of the protagonist dying. I think this shows exactly when he realises that he must kill himself 'Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were'.

Kate also has a large flaw that seems to consume everything in her life, this flaw comes from the fact that she doesn't want to allow herself to come to terms with Larry's death. This flaw seems to effect everything kate does as she doesnt like Anne coming back as she reminds her too much of Larry. She also doesnt like Anne coming back because she will be forced to accept Larry's death because Anne wants to marry Chris. When the memorial tree meant for Larry gets knocked down in the storm at the very start of act one, Kate gets a sort of reinforcement to her flaw as she thinks that its a sign showing that Larry is still alive and that it was too early to make a memorial for him. Another point of kate's flaw is that if she accepts Larry's death she has to accept that Joe accidently killed the 21 pilots and is also the reason for Larry's death.

Anne's fatal flaw is that she is extremely lonely with the death of Larry and needs someone to be with her for example she wants to marry Chris. This flaw drives Anne to come clean about Larry's death with Kate as she thinks its the only way she will be able to marry Chris and to not be lonely anymore. Anne also came at a bad time as she was forced into kate's flaw by having to tell her about the truth of Larry's death.

Everyone's flaws seems to coincide with each others as Joe's flaw relies on Kate's and visa versa, as if one is accepted it will affect the both of them. Also Anne's flaw relies on Kate's flaw as she will only be with Chris if Kate accepts Larry's death. Therefore flaws are a large part of 'All my sons' and this shows as flaws are a main aspect of greek tragdedy's which is what this play is influenced by.

Curious Incident (Pg.158) - Close Analysis

In this chapter there is a lot that happens and also some character development in which Christopher plucks up the courage to go further than the end of his road by himself. He also gets enough courage to run away from his dad and try to make his way to london to find his mother, which doesnt seem possible for Christopher in his own mind if he were to think about it but to him this is something that he must do because in his mind this is the safest thing to do.

He also uses a lot of diagrams because Christopher thinks visually so he represents his thoughts visullay by drawing diagrams and pictures instead of words. In his diagram about the train station sign he shows the british railway sign which he later uses within two sentences instead of writing 'British Railway Sign'.

The language used in this chapter is also very tedious as Christopher uses childish structure and language as such when he and Mrs Alexander are talking and he repeats 'and then i said' ' and then she said' over and over throughout the entire conversation which is what a small child what say if they were writing a conversation down. This shows that Christopher has never grown out of his childish mannerisms.

My review on 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time'

One of my favourite parts of the novel is from pages 1 to 4 when Christopher finds the dead dog 'Wellington'. I find this funny as he can't really express his emotions by telling the reader he has to use a sad face to show that he was unhappy when he found the dog. I like the way he tells the story of this as he is very prescise in everything including the timing like he says '7 minutes past midnight' and also the way he can remember everything Mrs Shears says when she is shouting at him. The preciseness is also intriguing as he must be very clever if he can calculate such things like he knows that he moved back exactly 2 metres from the dog or that he knew that he hugged the dog for exactly 4 minutes. Its also interesting in the way that he curls up in a ball because he doesnt like Mrs Shears shouting at him but at the same time of being sad he is happy because he likes the feel of the wet grass on his forehead. The way that he tells the story is odd also because he starts talking about the dog and his emotions he is feeling and then goes into how he was taught about these emotions. Its weird as you dont really need to know some of this information but after he tells you it you feel as though you needed to know it to understand his point of view and how he sees the world and himself.

All my sons

Act one:

we are met by Joe Keller the main character of this play he seems to be an old fun loving guy as he likes to joke around with the children in the neighbourhood. His wife kate seems to think that her son Larry is alive and yet everyone else knows that he has died in the war. Chris i joe and kates other son, he seems to be a realist and think logically, clearly knowing that his brother is dead he tries to confront his mother to stop believing that Larry is still alive. We are later introduced to Annie who is Larry's ex-girlfriend and she also is in love with chris, we find out that they want to get married which Joe clearly knows kate will have an objection to.

We find out that Kate will belive in anything so long as to prove Larry is still alive by asking her neighbour to write a horoscope for her son on the day he went missing to see whether it was a favourable day for him or not. We find out that Annie's dad and Joe used to run a business together but Annie's dad was put in jail for selling faulty airplane cylinders(this was actaully joe's fault).

How far can we say that the play is a tragedy?

'All my sons' is a tragedy in the traditional greek term of tradegy. This is because it doesnt really have any good or bad themed charecters only ones with fatal flaws or errors. These errors can be seen as Kate's unwillingness to give up on the hope of Larry's death, Joe Keller's error with the airplane cylinders and Chris and Anne just because they are in love and want to get away and start a new life with each other.
The idea of this being a greek tragedy is furthered by the facts that the action has already taken place before the actaul play and that the play is set within 24 hours.
Also the consequences in this play are worse than the actions as Joe with the faulty airplane cylinders killed 21 men and drove his son to suicide. This aspect of the play is kind of like a ripple effect as one thing leads on to another and so on, only seeming to stop when the person that started the effect is dead e.g Joe for selling the faulty cylinders in the first place.
Also Joe was mostly blamed for Larry's death and because of this he took his own life. To add to this last point that in tragedies there is a need to assign blame just like Joe taking the blame for Larry's death.

Arthur miller makes every character have a fatal flaw like Joe Keller’s airplane cylinders, Kate when she doesn’t give up on hope that Larry is dead and Anne as her fatal flaw is her being lonely and loving Chris. All of these fatal flaws affect each other in some way or are caused by someone else’s flaw.
Q-An exploration of the fatal flaws of the characters in the play ‘All my sons’?

The Convergence of the Twain

I think the imagery used by Thomas Hardy in 'The Convergence of the Twain' is very powerful and cleverly used.

I think line 30 has a very striking image as it is basically saying that the titanic and the iceberg were 'twin halves', just as great as one another. I think this is saying that man cannot triumph or outshine nature. This also links with stanza 'VII' in the way that such great things are being brought down by nature. Stanza 'VII' says 'prepared a sinister mate' connoting evil and 'For her-so gaily great' meaning it was a great match, this makes me think that even such things of beauty and grace can be brought down almost like such great things shouldnt exsist.
I also like how the Titanic is described like first it is described with 'Jewel in joy designed' then 'their sparkles bleared and black and blind' this describes the change between what used to be a gloriuous ship and what is now a wreck at the bottom of the sea.
There is also sexual connotations within the poem with words like 'Sensuous' and 'consummation' i think these words make it seem like the titanic, iceberg and sea were all meant to come together as though it was fate.