Month: September 2015

Act 1, Scene 1 summary

The scene is set outside a castle, where there is a change in shift taking place. The play starts with a question “Who’s there” as Barnardo and Francisco see a ghost of the dead king. This puts the two sentinels on edge and are eager to switch with the other two sentinels Horatio and Marcellus. Francisco leaves and Barnardo stays to explain to the two guards about the ghost they saw, but Horatio doesn’t believe him “Horatio say ’tis but our fantasy” and “Tush, Tush ’twill not appear”. Barnardo tries to convince him that this ghost exists but he doesn’t have to in the end as the ghost appears before his eyes. They try to get Horatio to talk to the ghost but the ghost dissapears, the ghost seems to be of the old king. They think that this is a sign that of impending war and increasing militarisation of Denmark.


 

Now and Then

It is 6:30am and the people rise with great discomfort to the sound of Kanye West’s good morning, then the unsubtle sound of shouting scout leaders. The scouts must find their uniform. Listen how the gentle groan descends upon the circle in the middle. This is not a happy time. This is a time where your body is awake but your mind isn’t, the worst type of sedation. The daily notices fly over your head, in a trance like state you get ready for breakfast, preparing for what the Dutch throw at you. To not dirty their plates they make jam sandwiches for breakfast, and for lunch. A stumble to the tents takes one into a cesspit of clothes and bedding where one must pull up the ground to find their wash bag.

You have started to awake, the mind is catching up with your body and the clouds start to separate, to see a different landscape. The senses start to turn on, you can smell the dutch forest air, hear the sounds of other beings experiencing the same epiphany as you, feel the breeze go through your bed hair. You pass through the miniature tower bridge, carefully avoiding the mud patches, where you reach the haven of sanitation, the toilets. The people of the camp clean their teeth in sinks which hold a mixture a food debris, spit and a little bit of sick. This concoction made for great teeth but couldn’t be said the same for the drains. The same journey was to be made back to the camp where the leaders were preparing the cards to determine your destiny in which activity you will be doing. Like any truly random process, everyone just swaps the cards for what activity they want to do and everyone pretty much gets what they want, so a true democracy. You turn up at your activity which can vary from a fairly disappointing quiz or can be a rather entertaining session of Ultimate Frisbee and this you must perform with the type of scout enthusiasm to ensure you’re not insulting the leaders in some sort of twisted way. To curb your enthusiasm a little, you must endure your squashed, wrinkled jam sandwich half way through which was constructed earlier this morning, the sort of piece which started as a Vincent van Gogh but soon turned into a Jackson Pollock. So that your food doesn’t get too settled you must continue to do a activity that you have been pretending to enjoy for the last hour and a half, the enthusiasm starts to fade and people just start to wander back to camp, so you follow suit.

A bit of free time is gifted to you, which is the best thing that has happened all day, except if you are doing the cooking then you will be spending half the time decoding the recipe and the other half getting  someone else to cook while you still pretend to decode the recipe. The sounds of Ultimate Frisbee ring through the air as everyone enjoys it through a collective naivety which brings together all the different cultures. Everyone seems happy, except you, you’re still pretending to decode the recipe and as you think about it you realise what you’re doing is pretty counter productive, so you start to help…. and guess what It works! everyone is eating food, Incredible. Each person picks at the food and the sudden realisation that you don’t need to do the dishes crosses your mind. It was all worth it.

The sky darkened and hearing has become your primary sense, this place isn’t lit like London. A relaxation descended upon the camp, no more work today and tomorrow feels like a distant land. You go back to your tent and decide what to change into after a long day, the rave is happening tonight so you dress into something more appealing than Slazenger tracksuits and a sweaty sport shirt. A pair of chinos and a Monster Energy Drink T-shirt will do just fine, topped off with a bucket hat. This combination must attract some female counterparts, but this is life and life just doesn’t work like that. There’s a smell of youth in the air, as everyone is getting ready for an explosion of sexual tension but this is just a tease, the booklet says the rave ends at 11:30pm, typical. You gather up the friends that you can find, which turns out not to be that easy but you find enough to make sure you’re not too lonely. The walk to the designated area is a tantalising one, being joined by many other people from different camps on the way, which fills you with a sense of excitement but a slight nervousness; Hopefully the Euro pop won’t be too bad. You reach a squelch of mud under you feet, you’re here, but to not realise you were there a mile ago would be difficult. You can feel the sub woofer rattle your body, your atoms rattling about, kinetic energy increasing. The heart rate increases, your temperature increases, a tingling feeling surrounds you. You have fallen in love with the world. The DJ is a very handsome looking Mediterranean gentleman, who has the type of grin showing he doesn’t know what he’s doing but at least he looks good doing it. The music, people, dancing and everything blends into one beautiful portrait, the best type of sedation.

 

 

Riffing on Style homework

Sailing has finished and sir has informed us that you must go back to school for music, sorry for any inconvenience caused by this. You may go back to sailing afterwards but will have to cycle due to lack of space on the minibus, blame the year 7s and year 8s for this. We can’t be held responsible for you getting there late and no boats being left, so this will be left to your discretion if you go or not. If there is bad traffic getting home the be informed that you will not be refunded for having to have cold dinner and that you must be in bed by 9pm or a fine will be induced by guardians. DO NOT REPLY.

The sky was grey and the waves were dead, gripping to the broken tiller I aimlessly drifting to the pontoon. We were kettled into a boat too small for the capacity, being brought back to our detention centre in which we get changed. I walked up to the vending machine, it swallows my money and burps out of order at me; a sick trick only this place would induce upon a man. We was escorted through the grey, dull city of London battling the sea of suits and briefcases which have plagued this city. We arrived, led through the large iron gate into the barren concrete playground. I was assigned to music; my fate awaited me.

Poem Anthology: At the Border,1979

The poem, At the Border,1979 follows Choman Hardi and her family crossing the border from Iran to Kurdistan in this partly autobiographical piece. Her family is moving back to Kurdistan after moving to Iran four years earlier and later in 1988 they had to flee because Saddam Hussein started bombing the Kurdish people with chemical weapons and finally entered Britain as a refugee. The main themes of this poem is migration and the effects of genocide on it’s people.

This poem follows no set poetic structure with many stanzas or lines ending abruptly usually with some type of punctuation at the end of the sentence. This symbolises the random nature of these man made borders which have split up ancient civilisations. The language wouldn’t necessarily considered poetic but many of the words could have different connotations creating a semantic field of what is the idea of home now and how the narrator is tired of nationalism. This poem is written from four different peoples point of view: the adult refugees, the guards and the two children (five year old Choman and her sister).

Choman hardi uses physical features of the land to make a point about how even though there is a border between the two countries, it’s all the same land in the end “The autumn soil continued on the other side with the same colour, the same texture.” This also shows that that these man made borders don’t affect the actual nature of the land and shows there is something greater than these borders. The adults tell the children that “landscape is more beautiful” and “people are much kinder.” but the children are seeing that nothing is changing on each side of the border “It rained on both sides of the chain.” showing that the adults have a romanticised version of there home country and the children are seeing how the country actually is.

 

 

Reading Project: Fargo (film)

Fargo is a film set during the year of 1987 in Minneapolis and Fargo, North Dakota where car salesman Jerry Lundegaard strikes up a deal with criminals Carl Showalter and Geaer Grimsrud to kidnap his own wife. The reason for this plan is so he can get his wife’s wealthy dad Wade Gustafson to pay the ransom so he can get $40,000 and the criminals get $40,000, although he’s his father in law, there’s antagonism between the two meaning Jerry can’t just ask for the money. Jerry never intended to give half of the ransom to the criminals as he was planning to tell Wade they asked for a million dollars so he could take the rest.

The character Jerry Lundegaard is a very interesting character as he is the anti hero but is the protagonist which does happen but not very often. Jerry has a wife and kid, although Jerry is desperate for money he can’t ask his wealthy father in law due to him not being able to tell them why he needs it. This friction between the two characters is foreshadowed in the early stages of the film, where only a little bit of this information is shown, almost teasing the viewer as this antagonism between the two characters will have major consequences. Jerry, the majority of the time makes his decisions based of selfish motives but on one occasion he sees an opportunity to get the money without needing to kidnap his own wife so he tries to warn the criminals but by that time it’s too late. Even though the it’s for his own selfish motives he still has a bit of care for his wife and kid to try and gain the money in a different way.

One of the great things about this film is how it makes such a gruesome situation seem so innocent through the use of setting and accents. This is executed perfectly by basing it in a small town in Minneapolis and all the characters having squeaky American accents which you wouldn’t usually associated with American gangsters and dodgy car salesmen. This adds to the anti hero aspect of Jerry as you can’t help but sometimes root for him or sympathise with Jerry as he seems so innocent that he could almost be doing this all by accident. The scenery is a baron land of snow and forest which is a beautiful and innocent looking landscape where nothing could disturb the peace of the land. There’s a scene shot from an aerial view where Jerry is going to his car after failing to secure some money in a deal and he’s walking through a snow covered car park which has his figure against the striking whiteness of the snow, showing how he’s evermore becoming a lonely figure. Then he violently scrapes the ice of his windscreen which shows how the environment is having a tightening grip on his life and losing control of his situation.

The hero who is a pregnant female police officer which is a very unusual contrast to the very average hero of a strong, white male, also adding to the very unusual nature of a very ordinary looking town. The other interesting thing about the choice of this hero is that she is not introduced until thirty minutes into the film so she definitely isn’t the main focus of the film but used as an antagonist to the main character Jerry. The police officer is such a difference to the rest of the environment as she has to work with the complete ignorance of her colleagues to the fact that murders were taking place in such a small town, making her seem the only person who could do anything useful. This is a big difference to the usual formula of the male is the hero who is the smart one who can find out all the answer; which I find in this film is usually the opposite. Fargo has many contrasting/contradicting features which tie in to make a mad but wonderful and sometimes comedic story of such a gruesome nature which can’t quite seem real in such a innocent little town.