Stories of Ourselves Quotes – Flashcards

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'trampling delicate ferns' 'hairy footballer legs' 'superciliously kicking him' 'licking the beads of perspiration' 'whistling spiritedly so that the hiders should hear and tremble'
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Games at Twilight, Anita Desai rough, animalistic language used to describe Raghu. he is the ruthless predator!
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'everything was still curtained and shuttered' 'made them feel that their lungs were stuffed with cotton wool' 'choke' 'stifled' 'confinement'
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Games at Twilight, Anita Desai theme of entrapment
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'silenced by a terrible sense of insignificance' 'feet tramped to that melancholy refrain so mournfully, so helplessly'
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Games at Twilight, Anita Desai theme of acceptance; anagnorisis that he is no longer a child
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'benumbed legs' 'stumbled' 'burst' 'fell'
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Games at Twilight, Anita Desai childish clumsiness of Ravi evokes sympathy
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'it would be evening soon' 'door grew softer, fuzzier' 'crumbling yellow pollen that turned to yellow fur, blue fur, grey fur' 'evening. twilight.' 'bougainvillea had lost its lividity'
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Games at Twilight, Anita Desai twilight as a liminal time; pathetic fallacy to suggest that this is a transitional time for Ravi. linking his growing up to the cyclical nature of time suggests that it is inescapable...THEME OF ENTRAPMENT!
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'subterranean world' 'ground strewn with skulls' 'collars of the men decapitated their heads' 'blackened blood in the black night'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim gothic imagery
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'exhausted and faded by having had too many children, too much labour done, too many years lived'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim portrayal of women as exhausted - they do all the work - and this is emphasised by the anaphora 'too much'. foreshadows how the women in this story are shown as exhausted
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women 'her mother [...] had warmed the salty soup and fish for her so she fell asleep contented' 'their mother, strong big-boned mother' 'eldest sister carried him in her arms' 'Swee Lin slept, softly hiccuping in her sleep, crying even there' men 'father in the next room with his friends, squatting on their chairs and throwing dice' 'the four boys lay on their mats, exhausted with their play in the streets'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim binary opposite of women (who struggle and work) and men (who have it easy; they sleep peacefully or they game)
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'them, each wrapped in his cocoon of dream, while she alone lay awake'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim theme of isolation; the protagonist never converses with other characters. SHE is the one becoming a woman now; this is a solo journey
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'she could not imagine herself belonging to any of these houses' 'whole families unaware of her standing hungry' 'whole families of mothers, fathers and children' 'surrounded by their fenced-in gardens and their walls'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim economic stability gives them a united family; overabundance of the rich is indecipherable for the speaker. wealth is not shared
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'groaned' 'a dark shape moaning deeply' 'mother huddled on the floor' 'dark messes were splattered on the floor' 'clothes were blood-red with a flow from some secret wound' 'contracted' 'contorted'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim theme of naivety; this clearly alludes to birth yet the narrator is too young to understand
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'yet some instinctive sympathy, a habit of sex, made her arms and legs move' despite her being 'frightened by what she saw' 'she felt the unexpected inversion' 'the dye penetrating the pores of her skin'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim theme of entrapment: she cannot control her instincts
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'washing away the blackened blood in the blackened night' 'the girl cried'
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Journey, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim the girl's growing up is not a celebratory event as she is aware that she will occupy the role of the exhausted female. we see her fear and feel a sense of pathos for her
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'the feeling part of her had been removed'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White Ella's sense of loss when Royal dies
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'had seen his eyes. Nothing was spoken, though' 'dropped an egg on the side of the path, and it turned into two. Not two. A double-yolker.'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White dreams; symbolism representing her sexual repression and subconscious desires
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'it was easier of course in later life, after he had cracked up, what with his hernia and heart, and the artheritis taking over' 'She wouldn't let hesrelf hear any more of what he had to say' because 'Mr Ogburn had a hare lip, badly sewn'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White theme of deformity; Ella feels empowered from her position of subserviency when others have physical deformities that equate them to her emotional deformities
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'haven't you lived with me long enough to know how to treat a newspaper?'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White Royals poor treatment of Ella despite her caring for him
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'she must have killed him by loving too deeply, too adulterously'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White sense of blame; Ella sees herself as the cause of all wrong
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'she was so glad she could have cried' 'he might even have expected it' 'she felt so humiliated on account of his humiliation' 'she always expected less' 'Royal, who never bothered to explain (why should he?)'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White clear gender roles; Ella's subserviency and low expectations of him accepting her actions
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'Some of the locals just couldn't accept that Royal was a superior man' 'She had been so dazzled' 'Royal was a natty dresser' 'She was impressed, of course'
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Five Twenty, Patrick White Ella's view of Royal being god-like
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'John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage' 'what can one do? 'what is one to do?' 'I take phosphates and phosphites - whichever it is - and tonics, and journeys'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman sense of resignation; speaker is shown as weak, succumbing to the expected subserviency associated with her gender.
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'I want to astonish him' ''John, dear! said I in the gentlest voice' 'It is no use, young man, you can't open it!'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman Patronising; growth of the speaker as the 'rest cure' has worsened her mental condition
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before: 'I wish John would take me away from here' now: 'I have locked the door and thrown the key down' 'I had to creep over him every time'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman theme of entrapment; she actually enjoys being in the room and chooses to be trapped there
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'John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition' 'So [...] I am absolutely forbidden to 'work' until I am well again' 'personally I believe that [...] excitement and change, would do me good' 'I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman context: the rest cure and the high esteem it is viewed in. everyone telling her what to do when SHE HERSELF thinks it is not best.
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'John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious!'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman mental health is seen as inferior to physical health
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'the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered' 'looks as if it had been through the wars' 'great bedstead nailed down' 'this bedstead is fairly gnawed'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman descriptions of the room - obviously not a 'nursery' due to violent language used
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'blessed little goose' 'what is it, little girl?'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman her husband speaks to her in a patronising, puerile tone; he controls her life
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''the colour is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow' 'a sickly sulphur tint' 'the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes' 'they connect diagonally' 'optic horror' 'the whole thing goes horizontally too' 'adds wonderfully to the confusion'
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The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte P. Gilman description of the wallpaper. it is violent and sickly but difficult to picture, showing HER entrapment in her situation and how she is isolated in it
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'vague vibration' 'violent pulsation' 'as though it had force to draw me down' 'oncoming rush'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens Train is described using monstrous, supernatural language, and it is described in more detail than the people, playing to the Victorian idea of technology overpowering humanity (being unstoppable)
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'oozier and wetter' 'excluding all view' 'great dungeon' 'gloomy red light' 'gloomier entrance to a black tunnel' 'barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air' 'as if I had left the natural world'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens GOTHIC TROPES! theme of isolation evokes fear. the gothic language foreshadows the supernatural threads in the story
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'resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine' 'he slowly added these words, touching my arm' 'a disagreeable shudder crept over me'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens first person used to involve the reader is creepy and unnerving due to sensory language
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'A mere poor signalman on his solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens theme of powerlessness alludes to the class system in Victorian England
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'next evening was a lovely evening' 'pursuing my stroll' 'I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens unexpectedly positive descriptions juxtaposes the gothic setting. evokes feelings of doubt and confusion in reader - is the narrator reliable?
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'Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous' repetition of 'red light' 'an irresistible sense that something was wrong'
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The Signalman, Charles Dickens sense of fatalism foreshadows the inevitable death
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'high parallels of cloud which hung like suspended streamers of dirty cotton wool' 'moon was hidden' 'bitter-sweet citrus smell hung gently on the night air'
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The Lemon Orchard, Alex la Guma contrived setting; pathetic fallacy
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'moon was hidden' --> 'moonlight clung for a while to the leaves' 'bitter-sweet citrus smell' --> ' 'the perfume of lemons seemed to grow stronger, as if the juice was being crushed from them'
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The Lemon Orchard, Alex la Guma
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'red-clay complexion of his face' 'rivers, streams, roads and railways on a map' 'ridges of his chin' 'sharp range of his nose' 'eyes were hard and blue like two frozen lakes'
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The Lemon Orchard, Alex la Guma description of the man (leader) indicates that he does not belong here; imagery linking a map - the topography of his face - may allude to colonisation; language related to transport networks indicate that he does not belong here
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'the shoes of the men sank into the soil and left exact, ridged foot prints, but they could not be seen in the dark' 'the shotgun was loaded'
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The Lemon Orchard, Alex la Guma omniscient narrator knows things that we do not know. helps to create a fuller image of the setting and situation
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'angled branches' 'quivering shine of scattered quicksilver' 'perfume of lemons seemed to grow stronger, as if the juice was being crushed from them' 'the blackness of night crouched'
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The Lemon Orchard, Alex la Guma unnaturality of nature: unnaturality of racism
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'initiated into the cult of the countryside' 'a true countryman always reads his 'local rag' first'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh protagonist's obsession with becoming 'a true countryman' is almost OTT; Waugh satirises this
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'serene opening of a day of wrath!'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh juxtaposition between 'serene' and 'wrath' foreshadows the incident coming up
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'Lady Peabury and Colonel Hodge, both, to the villagers, newcomers, but residents of some twenty years prior to Mr Metcalfe'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh close knit community; lack of acceptance. links to the village saint
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'Mr Metcalfe rallied for action' 'plunge down the hill and challenge the enemy' 'the heads of the intruders' 'nervous gloom descended on the Old Mill'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh language of war is hyperbolic to describe foreign visitors to this countryside setting
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'attempting to drive the new peril into the World of Unbeing' 'simple meal of milk, raisins, and raw turnip' 'elm platter' 'There is no place for the Artist in the Modern World' 'She wandered to the harp and plucked a few poignant notes'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh the Hornbeams are shown as idealistic and hippie. their portrayal is satirical as Waugh criticizes those who think they are helping but not really
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'we're not even scheduled as a rural area' 'halves the potential value of one's property'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh capitalist attitude of Colonel Hodge; MONEY MONEY MONEY
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'Metcalfe with his back up' 'fighting Metcalfe' 'Metcalfe who would cut off his nose' 'Metcalfe the lion of the Rotarians'
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An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh repetition of 'Metcalfe' shows his anger and fury at being dismissed and downplayed, not 'respected by the whole business community' (as he was in the world of work, but not in this small village'
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'the house shook, the windows rattled, a framed photograph slipped off the mantel' 'sound of a crash somewhere outside'
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Meteor, John Wyndham language of war and invasion; aural imagery adds life to 'middle england' setting
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'there was, otherwise, no least among us' 'Be willing to learn from others, and improve it if you can' 'Go in wisdom, kindliness, peace, and truth' 'they may be quite different from us, but we must remember that it is their world, and help them where we can'
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Meteor, John Wyndham altruism, equality these aliens represent a UTOPIAN COMMUNITY! they are ACCEPTING (vs. lemon orchard)
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'tomorrow, god willing'
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Meteor, John Wyndham likened to humans; causes the reader to see them as sentient beings making the end carry a stronger sense of pathos
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'it shines like a blue pearl' 'it will be a good place where irrigation and water supply are not one of the main problems of life' 'blue, shining world' 'beautiful, shining blue planet'
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Meteor, John Wyndham aliens' initial perceptions of Earth naive; their idea of a problem is a lack of water - they have not considered the attitudes of the inhabitants. also, there is a lack of water on earth
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'this is a terrible place!' 'condemned to some fantastic hell' 'our mind reel with the horror of this place' 'cower before the hideous monstrosities that face us'
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Meteor, John Wyndham anagnorisis; use of devilish language emphasises the sheer shock and disappointment felt by the aliens. the language here contrasts the hope and kindness in the extract before ('we must watch for them, seek them out, cultivate them')
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'When I wake again it will be on our shimmering new world...If I do not wake, something will have gone wrong, but I shall never know that...Very simple, really - if one has faith...' 'Is it so much that we ask - simply to live, to work, to build, in peace...' (last thing we hear from Onns)
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Meteor, John Wyndham SENSE OF FATALISM frequent use of ellipses paints Onns as idealistic and naive as s/he has only known perfect societies. they ellipses may also foreshadow the events to come; alludes to the optimistic uncertainty of the aliens
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'You shouldn't have touched it' 'proper authorities' 'That's beside the point' 'It might be some device still on the Secret List' 'wait for the expert'
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Meteor, John Wyndham contrasts the egalitarian society of the aliens. human society is shown to be full of suspicion and distrust; humans speak together in a patronising manner and instead of sharing knowledge, use it to make others feel small (hence 'Secret List')
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'one could scarcely expect to find real consciousness on a planet so young'
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Meteor, John Wyndham irony used to show naivety of the aliens
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'two towering pointed ears' 'two vast, glowing eyes' 'the great eyes blinked' 'the legs [...] were like massive pillars' 'strands of shining black metal' 'it opened a cavern of a mouth; an enormous pink tongue flicked out and back'
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Meteor, John Wyndham imagery used to describe the cat is dramatic (almost hyperbolic?) which evokes humour as humans see the cat at cute and unthreatening
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'on to the plain where our globe lay. Yes - lay! Past tense. That is our calamity' 'lifted it - yes actually lifted'
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Meteor, John Wyndham Onn as the narrator is dramatic and entertaining, maybe a bit OTT
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'he pumped a cloud of insecticide over them and watched while they slowed, waved feeble legs, and then lay still' even after watching them die, he 'sprayed the locality a little more, to make sure'
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Meteor, John Wyndham violence and cruel sadism of the humans
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'I wonder what on earth they were?'
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Meteor, John Wyndham irony and humour; an impacting last line
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'people were never fooled by facades'
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head exposition sets up the scene causing us to doubt the actions of the characters
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'She had had a long reign of twenty-six years' 'Mma Mompati swept sedately into the divorce court'
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head Mma Mompati - regal language used to describe her, putting her above others (e.g. the scandal)
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'large, white-washed colonial-style house' 'She presided over teas and luncheons' 'professional smile of the highborn who don't really give a damn about people or anything' 'She had a professional smile and a professional frown of concert for everything, just like the priests'
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head Mma Mompati asserts her high class/status by acting in a 'western' way like a colonial woman (is this really better?) who does charity. but it is all a facade; the house is just 'white washed' and done in a certain 'style', and her smile is 'professional'
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'She made rounds of the hospital ward, Bible in hand' 'She had a professional smile and a professional frown of concert for everything, just like the priests' 'stricken with sorry' 'And what may ail you, my daughter? And what may ail you, my son?' 'she would pray and pray to either God or Jesus for the suffering of the world'
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head Saintly portrayal of Mma Mompati is dramatic, emphasizing its ingenuine nature (especially coz at the end she is shown to be a thief, 'she always extracted a teeny bit for her share')
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'vampire teeth were bared for battle' 'then the storm burst' 'The pose of God and Jesus were blown to the winds and the demented vampire behind it was too terrible to behold' 'Descended on her daughter-in-law like a fury'
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head vampiric language used to describe Mma Mompati at the end - a clear juxtaposition to the saintly, God-like portrayal at the start. this emphasizes the intensity of her 'foolproof facade'
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'Bamangwato tribe, which, as most people know, was famous or notorious for a history of unexpected explosions and intrigues' 'society itself seemed to cater for massive public humiliations' e.g. at the start it says 'the whole village was aghast the day it lost its patron saint, Mma Mompati' but at the end they are shown to move on quickly 'that was the end of Mma Mompati' (facade of caring THERE ARE SO MANY FACADES!!!!
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The Village Saint, Bessie Head fast paced nature of village life; reliance on gossip for entertainment. people believe the facade if it benefits them (e.g. believing that Mma Mompati actually cared about them). Bamangwato tribe - Head settled in Borone which was a village where this tribe lived
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'withering from the tips inwards, scrolling themselves delicately' 'clearing up after themselves'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty the flowers as a symbol of the Grand Aunt's secretive, simple nature
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'she wore no jewellery' 'A-A-A,' 'Do-not-touch'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty theme of secrecy
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'had dark, dark hair scraped severely back' 'her mouth slightly smiling, yet not smiling' 'her eyes looked out to him dark and knowing'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty depiction of Grand Aunt in youth is mysterious, alluding to how the boy does not know anything about her past
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'My dearest Mary' 'My love' 'My dearest' 'Dearest Mary'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty Increasingly formal tone as the letters progress structurally foreshadows the end of the relationship between 'John' and the Grand Aunt
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'In some strange way Christ has spoken to me through the carnage'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty hinting that Brother Benignus is 'John'
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'She went on burning the cards' 'She took off the elastic band and put it to one side with the useful things and began dealing the envelopes into the fire'
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Secrets, Bernard MacLaverty The distant attitude of the mother shown towards the cards, hence the detached 'dealing' them into the fire, serves to highlight the special relationship that the boy and Aunt Mary had. This creates a sense of pathos as we realise the significance of its end. compare how she puts the 'elastic band' into the pile of 'useful things' to how the boy was very noticing of the details of the elastic band, 'thick and old'
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'He always went through the ads for teachers again after he had exhausted the news and death notices' 'Teacher fifty two. Widower. Seeks companionship. View marriage.' 'He's been interviewing them' (his potential wives)
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The Stoat, John McGahern portrayal of the father as socially incompetent, a character ridiculed by his own son. it is saddening to see how the father views himself (sums it up in a sentence)
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'Neither had any idea that so much unfulfilled longing for the woe that is marriage wandered around in the world' SETTING 'rough grass' 'coarse tussocks' 'long grass' (repeated; may suggest how they are obscured from the real world)
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The Stoat, John McGahern Sense of disconnect from the world and this is heightened by the rural setting
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'all night the rabbit must have raced from warren to warren, he thought' 'it would not be deflected; it had marked down this one rabbit to kill' 'the rabbit sat down in terror and waited' 'they were all running'
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The Stoat, John McGahern - predator-prey dynamic - question the reliability of the speaker, 'he thought' - the repetitive end gives a sense of stability to this rootless story - a metaphor for the nature of the story; of the chase and the predator-prey dynamic
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'It's about for miles' 'the uncle became convulsed with laughter' 'have you seen any of the...applicants' 'we'll stand. that way we can't be so easily cornered'
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The Stoat, John McGahern portrayal of the uncle is much kinder; speaker has affection for him - uncle is active, wanting to take a walk of 'four miles' (pretty long) which contrasts with the stillness of the father who sits on the couch reading 'The Independent' - the uncle mocks the father - the uncle is the predator who doesn't allow himself to be 'cornered'; the father, in contrast is prey to his pathetic life
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'who wants to marry a woman who can pop off at any minute?'
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The Stoat, John McGahern father becomes the prey running away from the ill Miss McCabe; it is almost animalistic as he is preserving himself
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'didn't need anyone fussing' 'an old man like him, but not what you would call properly old' 'they think he's deaf. and old' 'he could get round town good on his own, good as gold' 'yes he knows all about those things, he's not deaf and blind yet, not by a long shot'
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Journey, Patricia Grace the old man is shown to hate being pitied/seen as old. wants to retain his independence; he resists against old age
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'they'd rather stare at their weather on the television' juxtapose wtih 'tamatea a ngana, tamatea aio, tamatea whakapau'
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Journey, Patricia Grace man highlights the difference between the pakehas and how 'there's nothing else [for them] to believe in' and the simplicity of their weather. they don't understand the land like the Maoris do - they have names for the different types of wind.
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'pushed a hill down over it' 'shot the railway line' 'the cuts will bleed for miles and the valleys will drown in blood, but the pakeha will find a way of mopping it all up no trouble' 'that's what you get when you dig up the ground, bones'
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Journey, Patricia Grace violence of the pakehas in colonising New Zealand. in the context this was written, 'te reo maori' was not yet an official language; maoris felt disrespected as the pakehas had ruined their land and developed it in their way, but showed no sense of regret in the way it was done, 'mopping it all up no trouble'
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'Same old statue of Kupe with his woman and his priest, and they've got the name of the canoe spelt wrong'
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Journey, Patricia Grace 'Kupe' is a real statue so this situates the story in Wellington. Kupe was a legendary explorer who led the migration of people to new zealand. the fact that 'they've got the name of the canoe spelt wrong' exemplifies the lack of GENUINE care Maoris felt they received from the pakehas
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'it's not so simple Sir' 'it's not as simple as you think' 'it's no easy matter' 'I wonder if you fully comprehend'
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Journey, Patricia Grace professional language is dehumanising as it suggests that the maori do not understand their own land
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'they'd be given equivalent land or monetary compensation of course' 'it's all been very carefully mapped out. by experts' 'you would all receive equivalent sites... as i say on equivalent land'
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Journey, Patricia Grace lack of understanding AGAIN!! the land is unique and this highlights how the pakehas see everything in the form of a transaction whereas there is culture and meaning for the maori
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'he kicked the desk instead. hard. and the veneer cracked and splintered'
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Journey, Patricia Grace 'veneer' links to facades; the 'kick' breaks the fakeness of the dialogue as the professionals can no longer hide behind their corporate language
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'He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time looking at the palm of his hands'
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Journey, Patricia Grace
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