Luke's English Journal

There are many feelings within this poem such as love, happiness, relief, teamwork, trust and many more. The overall feeling of the poem and what the poem is telling us is that life’s a tricky task and its not easy to get through life without any help, the poem states ‘you are holding up a ceiling, with both arms. it is very heavy’ its linking life with the ceiling and you holding it with both arms. also life has to be held up with two arms as its very serious just like holding the ceiling up with two arms. It also tells us to accept help where its needed cause everything is not possible without help. as we see later on in the poem when help arrives and makes it much easier to hold up the ceiling. Also life by yourself can be challenging and getting married could resolve the problem as you can work together and help each other through life. you can split things between to two of you and make things much easier for example the poem states ‘a man or woman walks in the room and holds their arms up to the ceiling beside you’ and then ‘so you finally get to take down your arms’ this shows that help is needed to keep life on the right track. the poem presents these feelings by using effective language devices. The first word of the poem is ‘You’ this makes you think and put yourself in the situation so the poem is alive and means something to you, putting it in second person.’you are holding up a ceiling’ this is the first line from the poem and straight away you think of the ceiling being life or emotions. you think of these feelings or emotions being held up by she/he. Also the sentence carries on, on the next line. this is an effective language device as it makes you really think about the first line and pause for a second, then read the rest of the sentence below this in enjambment. ‘but you must hold it up or else’ this leaves you on the edge and leaves you thinking what actually will happen if you don’t hold up the ceiling, this could link to bad things or consequences that happen in your life. this language device works very well linking the poem up and helping the reader to understand and interpret the poem in as many ways possible. ‘your arms are tired, terribly tired’ this has the same sound at the beginning of each word making the line effective this is alliteration. that’s the first stanza, which is very depressing and then the second stanza starts by saying ‘but then’ this brings so much hope compare to the first stanza as you will probably be struggling to keep the ceiling up without it collapsing. but there’s suddenly hope now and its shown by the next part of the stanza stating ‘ unexpectedly, something wonderful happens: someone a man or a woman walks into the room and holds their arms up to the ceiling beside you’ this creates a relieved feeling within you as someone has come to the rescue. linking this to a marriage. the third stanza helps to present the relieved feeling after this stage in the poem. ‘ so you finally get to take down your arms. you feel the relief of respite, the blood flowing back to your fingers and arms’. also ‘you feel the relief of respite’ which is alliteration shown in the poem again. the last three lines of the third stanza show the feeling of love and partnership as it states ‘and when your partners arms tire, you hold up your own the relieve him again’ this shows you are willing to take turns and work together in life to make it easier for the two of you. the last stanza states ‘and it can go on like this, for many years without the house falling’ this shows feeling of trust and love being shown throughout life linking to holding up the ceiling taking turns one after the other.

You have made some interesting observations in your response and have clearly delineated between Shakespeare’s play and Plath’s poetry.

To develop this work you would need to:

• Be a great deal more prepared with a range of examples and specific quotations – which you then explore in terms of both their meaning and their use of language.
• Demonstrate a clearer appreciation of the story of the play and the broader message of the poems – what are they about and what happens in them?
• Make closer links between emotions and the means used to express the emotions
• Support your points with evidence. There’s no explanation of why you think Katharina and Plath’s poetry are different in their representation of emotions. What is different?

The statement I picked was “then, what I had waited for had pounced on me” and this Is linked this quote to a little passage in the book that states “if you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one and its not long before your conjuring up another, slightly harder, a bit more ambitious – a bit more dangerous. I didn’t like the thought of where it might be leading me. As if, in some strange way, the very nature of the game was controlling me, taking me towards a logical but frightening conclusion” the two statements linked together because there is a connection when putting them both together. Because the 2nd statement I quoted, when summarised talks about joe not being happy with succeeding in one dream he just has to go out and tackle another one, but its as if he is doing it until death approaches him. This links to the 1st statement because he says “then, what I had waited for had pounced on me” so basically death has finally pounced on him and it seems like his been waiting for this to happen.

When exploring the tittle of this novel, “touching the void” a range of interpretations are possible. There were two conclusions I reached, which were the ‘void’ being a space between a goal and also the void meaning the unknown. I will explore both points in brief detail.

The first thought of the void being a space between a goal comes to my head as joe Simpson who is one of the climbers, is never impressed after completing a certain goal. So it relates to him as there is always something in the way of him completing a goal fully, he will still be disappointed in a way. We see this in the little passage when joe reaches the summit and he says ” if you succeed with one dream, you come back to square one and its not long before you re conjuring up another, slightly harder a bit more ambitious. So it seems no matter what is achieved by joe there is always that something in the way just like an empty space between a goal.

The second thought of the tittle “touching the void” I explored was the void being the unknown. This meaning they did not know what to expect at the top of the mountain as it was the unknown. The tittle touching the void is telling us they want to touch the unknown because they have no clue what could be up there or what they could encounter at the void. We see this in the passage as joe says “I didn’t like the thought of where it might be leading me” which really relates to my idea of the void.

I look at the tittle ‘touching the void’ and many thought come into my head which relates with the tittle. The meaning of the tittle could be explored and interpreted in different ways. But mainly focusing on the word ‘void’ brings many ideas of what the word is trying to tell us. As soon as I think of the word void I think empty spaces and we do know it can mean ’empty spaces between galaxies, so to me I look at the word void and think that it can be interpreted in the way that it means empty spaces between goals, so you are trying to achieve a goal but there is always something missing which just doesn’t let you achieve. An We see that in the book no matter what they achieve they always want to achieve more so in a way it relates to what I thought of it as there is just something in the way of them and stopping them to reach there actual goal because they never seem to be happy completing something they just go and do something else even wilder. It could also mean that the void is what they want to achieve, so the top of the mountain could void as that’s were they want to reach. I interpreted the whole tittle ‘touching the void’ and I come up with the thought that it means the void is the unknown and they want to touch the void as they don’t know what could be expected and you can link this to the top of the mountain being the void (uknown) and they want to reach the top to see what is there.

Some of the thoughts Claire Francis would have been feeling during the storm were feelings such as tension, scared, anxiety, and many more. We see in the short passage about the storm many things which trigger her feelings and emotions. Feelings such a tiredness are shown for example ‘ not only am I feeling exaughsted from changing sails throughout the night’ this also tells us she has been up all night which means even if she does not state she is tired we still understand she is from the line. Claire also talks about the boat surviving some harsh conditions and also saying she’s surprised that the boat was still alive, in a way she is giving off an indirect, boasting about how her boat had survived threw all of the problems. In the last paragraph we see the happy side come out in her and she shows this feeling when she says ‘I allowed my self to become excited at the sight of a clear sky’ which indicats she is finally relieved and happy at the fact the storm was nearly over.

How do Shakespeare and Plath show the strength of feeling of women?

Looking at the two authors work, the taming of the shrew (Shakespeare) and Sylvia Plath’s two poetry’s ‘daddy’ and ‘the arrival of the bee box’ we see to angry and infuriated women who express themselves with emotions. The emotions shown by the two women are very similar but shown in different ways, the taming of the shrew written by ‘William Shakespeare’ expresses the women’s emotion within the script on the other hand Sylvia Plath emotions are not as direct and her work is very hard to link together, she also goes into much detail in her work to make you feel it and understand her life in a way of which no other author does. Sylvia Plath’s does not just give you emotion on the paper she goes in to detail so you look more into her poems and think about what she is telling you. In this essay I will look at how the feelings are shown through the language the authors use and the performance of the play also how the authors express the strength of feeling of women.

In the taming of the shrew Katharina is put across as a unhappy, moody and miserable women, it’s just a cover up for how bad Katharina gets treated. Shakespeare shows Katharina as a strong willed woman who is always sticking up for herself. The women in Padua in the time had no say in anything and that’s why Katharina wanted to speak out and stick up for herself. It was normal in those days for women to be seen as if they were nothing and as if they were useless compare to men on the other hand who were seen as important people and controlling. This is why Katharina would come across as aggressive and as rude because the people watching the play would have the idea in their head that women weren’t allowed to argue with men, and Katharina is doing the complete opposite. This is affective as it confuses the audience and makes them think more about the play and about how women were treated in those days. In the play you see many lines where Katharina is shown as if she is a bad person and as if she is rude , where she is just sticking up for herself. We see this in act 2 scene 1 pages 69 where petruchio says “come, come you wasp! I faith you to angry”, Katharina:” if I be waspish best beware of my sting”. This might seem rude and ignorant but she is just sticking up for herself and not letting Petruchio control her. If you watch the play and read the book now you can see that the play is a comedy and you can see that Katharina is actually sticking up for herself because nowadays everyone is treated with equal respect. So you can see the differences from the time Shakespeare was around to compare to how equal rights are seen now.

Looking at Katharina and Sylvia Plath I think they are not similar and I believe they express their feelings in opposing ways also their personalities seem very different. Katharina is very intelligent and smart. We see this in the play act 2 scene 1 page 69 when she is having an argument with her husband petruchio and he referrers to Katharina as a wasp and she replies with “if I be waspish, best beware my sting” this statement shows the intelligence of Katharina, being a women and outwitting a man was a big deal in those days, as the women of Padua were controlled by men. The two men controlling Katharina’s life was her father baptista and her husband later on in the play petruchio. In the three texts there was a pattern I came across which showed that the two women who were controlled by men, would like to know and feel what it was like to be in power. Between the two women the express of feelings is very different as Sylvia goes deep and explains her feelings compare to Katharina’s smart and cockiness approach.

Sylvia Plath who was an angry, miserable and frustrated woman who expressed her feelings of women in a different approach compare to Shakespeare. Sylvia Plath’s dad died when she was only eight years old which must have changed her whole life. I think this changed her life as she expresses her feelings in a way of letting her emotions out about her father’s death and how it’s been for her over the years without him. She expressed the feelings of women through poetry. Sylvia wrote two poems which were called ‘daddy’ and ‘the arrival of the bee box’. The poem ‘daddy’ was about her father’s death and how she feels about the tragedy. Sylvia goes into much detail and lets out all her emotions in the poem ‘daddy’. She uses similes and metaphors to give the reader an understanding of the anger she felt towards her dads death. Sylvia describes her dad as big person in her life, we get this understanding of the feeling when she talks about her dad being a statue and she could be referring him to a well-known landmark for example the statue of liberty which is a famous land mark and stands out all around the world. She also could also be referring him to a statue because she got no feelings or response from him and a statue gives out nothing but silence. She also compares her dad to an evil Nazi and herself to a Jew. This gives us the impression that her dad was very controlling of her and also told her what to do, just like Jews were controlled by Nazis. Sylvia Plath also talks about creating a model of her father and marrying him the impression she cannot live without him and he is very vital in her life. On the other hand ‘the arrival of the bee box’ is about Sylvia being in control and knowing what it feels like. We see this when she says “ they can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner” this shows us her feeling like she controls others and how she is in control for once.

After focusing on the two women, Katharina from ‘the taming of the shrew’ and Sylvia Plath you can now see they express their feelings of women in different ways.

slyvia creates a figure image of her father, using so many different metaphors to describe the relationship between them.he’s like a black shoe shes had to live in , like a statue that streches across the united states when the reader reads this qoute you could automatically presume that she thinks very highly of her father as you could compare the statue to the statue of liberty which is highly respected in the US however sylvia creates the image of her father as a giant evil nazi and then se creates the image of her as a jew and a victim, from this quote the reader can gather sylvia thinks very low of her father you know this because when you think of nazis words such as ‘controlling,evil,mischievious’ come to mindthis is due to the historical facts of world war 2 also as she describes herself as a jew one could gather that she thought very low of herself as jews were powerless in comparison to the nazis. sylvia shows so much emotions within this poem which keeps you intrested and intrigued. the emotions she shows are sad and as if she is worthless for example ‘thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breathe’ also ‘ i have always been scared of you, with your luftwaffe,your gobbledygoo.

this is a poem based on youth culture. ‘all i can see’ is about someone expressing what they see within there area in a poem. it gives you a good perspective on how youth culture is looked at by the older generation.the peom is described very well and has very affective language which helps you understand the poem more breifly.

Welcome Ladies and
Gentlemen – to the
eighth wonder of the
world the place where girls
rock diamond and pearl

men run up in the
hood, these are the people,
not common class thug
City central – no
talk of crip or blood
where young money is
the only drug, get
your hustle anyway
you can, making mine
everyday.
Got that financial
plan, making all these
people pay I’ma
get educated;
work my way to the
top, fuck slinging get
annihilated
I can hear those people’s
champagne bottles pop.

I can hear those caps pop
too, I’m from the mud
Feel it in every
vein Gangster is in
me, the quick cash the
flat in NW3
the easy gash these
are all my life. I
need these now, ok crack;
coke, smack I ain’t broke.

I’m living my life
according to Snoop
at least, and Fiddy
I can hear sirens
coming, just like Dizz-
ee; bite like pythons
blood rain like the blitz

My vision turns to
ocean, but I’m rich;
Jeezy told me this
was the life for me
tell me again ‘cos
black is all i see.

This is the second film to add too my theme study.

British drama follows a day in the lives of four poor youths living in an impoverished neighborhood in West London, where the pressure and desperation of poverty propels each of them towards the choice between a life of bleakness, violence, and crime, and the terrifying prospect of striving for a better life.