My bold padlet by Jonathan Ng

Close Reading

jonctng — 2023-10-14 02:49:05 UTC

hi

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 02:50:11 UTC

Steps of Close-reading (literary analysis)

jonctng — 2023-10-14 02:51:08 UTC

Getting a 'feel' for the poem
1. Try to identify the tone/feeling of the poem.
1a. Is it positive or negative?
1b. Can you be more specific than positive/negative? Is it... frightening? Cruel? Hilarious? Dangerous?

2. Identify words/phrases that have a powerful impact. (4-6 words in general)

3. Understanding the poem's 'scene' - what is happening? How do we know? Double-check your understanding.

Analysing Words:
Look at some of the evidence you have identified as being impactful. Make sure that you:
1. Understand and can identify the explicit meaning of the words. What do the phrases/words literally mean?
2. Begin to identify symbolic/connotative (connected) meanings of the words in the context of the sentence and the larger poem. What are some suggested, additional meanings?
3. Explore the nuances (subtle details) of the diction (word choice).
4. Consider what impact this has on the reader.

Disabled

jonctng — 2023-10-14 02:53:03 UTC

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

* * * * *

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees,

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,

All of them touch him like some queer disease.

* * * * *

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He's lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

* * * * *

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,

He thought he'd better join. He wonders why.

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.

That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,

He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,

And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

* * * * *

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

* * * * *

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don't they come

And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

Arms and the Boy

jonctng — 2023-10-14 02:54:43 UTC

BY WILFRED OWEN

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads,
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

"sharp with the sharpness of grief and death"

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:11:08 UTC

"keen with hunger of blood"

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:11:43 UTC

keen
hunger

"No antlers through the thickness of his curls"

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:13:31 UTC

"Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads."

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:15:37 UTC

long
nuzzle
hearts of lads (for context)

Keen

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:34:00 UTC

1: yearn for something
2: intense with something
3

Hunger

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 03:35:57 UTC

1: starving/starvation
2: The desire to want something in desperate
3: Not as serious as famishing in this case but still wanted to show the wants toward bloods

3. What's the difference between:

jonctng — 2023-10-14 03:44:23 UTC

Stab
Slash

Hungering
Famishing
Yearning

2. WHat does it mean, to hunger for something?

jonctng — 2023-10-14 03:45:59 UTC

Is it only eating?

Long

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 04:24:22 UTC

1:Long is long
2: wanting something or not having it for a period of time
3:

Nuzzle

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-14 04:29:53 UTC

1: using nose to do something(appease) which is not normally do with people/things that is not close to you
2:

Literary Analyses as Argument

jonctng — 2023-10-28 02:51:33 UTC

Literary analyses are ‘inductive arguments’, which means, to argue for something being ‘likely’, or at least, to be believed based on evidence from the text, supported, explained and analysed by the essay’s writer’s own understanding of language and understanding of the world..

Stab and Slash

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-28 02:58:02 UTC

stab something probably will only create a small damage on something, but slash is a much more bigger movement than stab where you probably could split something into two when you slash it

e.g: if you stab an apple, it will only create hole on the apple, but when you slash it, the apple will be in half.

The words stab into her heart

stabbed in the back.

The star slash though the night sky

slash me into two

The Eagle

jonctng — 2023-10-28 03:12:02 UTC

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

1) How do the objects described in the poem affect our impression of the Eagle?

2) How does the quote ‘Like a thunderbolt, he falls’ present the Eagle?

2) Is the Eagle presented as powerful or as weak?

The Eagle

milucheung1107_ — 2023-10-28 03:24:18 UTC

1) The object describes the eagle and gives the impression that it is strong and like a king or leader of its own. 'He clasps the crag with crooked hand' the eagle seems like hanging on the cliff in a hard way. 'Close to the sun in lonely lands'. This gives an impression of the eagle is standing at the top of the peak viewing the world that he is living. The phrase 'Close to the sun' creates a sense of the eagle standing up high where the sun is far away from us up in the sky that no one actually reached there. Moreover, the phrase ' Ring'd with azure world he stands' suggested that the eagle is surrounded and trapped by water but he is not fear towards it that he 'stands'. This immediately creates a picture of the scene full of majesty and royalty in the reader mind.

But *later* on *in* the poem, he falls into the ocean like 'thunderbolt 'that he falls hardly into the ocean. The description of the Eagle is a metaphor of the people who give high standard to themself in front of other people but they fail to keep it due to the tiredness toward life.

2) At the first stanza, the narrator informs us about the appearance of the Eagle right now that he 'clasps the crag with crooked hands' in this case, the Eagle is strong and powerful because human can hardly reach this action that the Eagle is doing. However, in the second stanza, the scene suddenly changed, where the Eagle 'Like the thunderbolt he falls'.

3) The eagle is presented both powerful and weak. The line "And like a thunderbolt he falls." included both powerful and weak in it. The narrator is saying the eagle "falls" into the ocean where it makes opposite the position of the eagle in the previous stanza that he is not the king anymore now. However, the eagle falls "like thunderbolt" the word "thunderbolt" suggested that this speaks to his majesty and royalty power in this world which he creates a large impact to the surrounding object because thunder is something that would create large sounds and destruction to the world. The reemphasized that even he falls, he effected things surrouned. All of a sudden, the eagle drops from his perch, plunging toward the sea below which makes him feels weak.

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 02:50:46 UTC

How does the writer present her experience with the girl in an Unknown Girl

jonctng — 2023-11-04 02:54:07 UTC

Initial Reactions

jonctng — 2023-11-04 03:11:47 UTC

Bitter, quiet, beautiful, soft

The unknown girl is important - repetition

Space - persona will move away

Time - will pass

With time and space changing, memories might fade.

henna tattoo might also fade with memories

many objects of india - kameez rupees,

She's thinking about more than just the unknown girl

Context

jonctng — 2023-11-04 03:33:23 UTC

Many of Moniza Alvi’s poems draw from her experiences as a mixed race woman, born in Pakistan but brought up in England. In this poem, the narrator, who could be Alvi herself, describes the experience of having a henna tattoo of a peacock drawn on her hand by a young girl in a bazaar in India. Note that the peacock is the symbol of India. Throughout there is a tone of longing, yearning and warmth for the place she is visiting.

Though the poet has a Pakistani father and an English mother, the poem refers to the symbolic peacock, the Miss India contest of 1993, and mentions India again at the end, so it is an Indian bazaar and an Indian young woman she’s describing.

Thesis Statement

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 03:36:11 UTC

As a mixed race woman from Pakistan but born in England, the writer herself has a conflict where she is unsure on her identity whether she is an Indian or England. [The writer present her experience with the girl in an Unknown girl as bitter and memorable through India-rich images and references, and a quiet and beautiful atmosphere that eventually, like the henna and memories, will inevitably fade away.]

Negative

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 04:04:15 UTC

The line "It will fade in a week" emphasize that the henna tattoo will "fade" where it will slowly disappear in a week. But moreover, the writer connection with India and the memories she had with the unknown girl will also be slowly disappear when she return to her previous life. This creates a sense of sorrow and bitter for both the writer and reader intention that it makes the picture of fading away more obvious to the speaker of the poem.

"When India appear and reappears"

Positive

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 04:04:33 UTC

The line "I have new brown veins" reveals the completion of the henna tattoo drawn by the unknown girl. It also connect to the meaning of new life and newborn of the writer itself where she finds a different life in India comparing to her previous life in England. She looks down once more at her hand and sees the peacock that has been painted onto it. She sees the design as “new brown veins." The writer here is becoming more Indian, more part of this world she feels that she is separate from.

negative quote bank

jonctng — 2023-11-04 04:21:21 UTC

Negative quote bank

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 04:30:46 UTC

"Now the furious street are hushed"

"Dummies in shop-front tilt and stare"

Positive quote bank

milucheung1107_ — 2023-11-04 04:31:00 UTC

"reveal soft and a snail trail"

"I have new brown veins"

"A peacock spread its line"

"Longing for the unknown girl"