Author: Henry Howeld

Hamlet V Futility

Both Hamlet and Futility are war poems  that delve into the idea of despair and hopelessness.

The narrator in Futility is in despair because he is upset that a soldier won’t wake up- he is dead. The narrator is angry because the sun is so powerful but cannot wake up the soldier. The narrator cannot comprehend this and feel futile to this

 

 

“When we have shuffled off this mortal coil”

Hamlet likens ending life to the feeling of being freed of chains that have been around you. This clearly represents Hamlet’s feelings. Hamlet feels that he is being weighed down by something, and wonders if death would rid him of this feeling. The language device used is a metaphor that is useful for drawing parallels between different feelings. Hamlet uses this as another way to express his dilemma of life or death, brought on by his father’s death and Ophelia’s apparent lack of love for him.

“Whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand”

Hamlet is expressing his love for Ophelia and his lust for her death. He describes the stars (the planets) as standing up in respect for Ophelia’s death, as she is that important for him. This is another metaphor used by Hamlet that  his obsession with death. Death is littered in Hamlet’s life. Shakespeare typically uses the idea of fate to make death prominent in his plays.

This is similar to the “shuffle off this mortal coil” quote because it gives death respect, releases the feeling that the “calamity of so long life” will always end in death, death will always win. This is a sense of real hopelessness, that Hamlet demonstrates by surviving through life or “opposing them

 

 

 

The Tories have been in the news a lot these past two weeks. Firstly for the new tampon tax. A move described best by comedian Katherine Ryan, “the government are introducing taxes on luxury items such as tampons… Obviously this won’t affect me…I have no need for them…I’m a single mother not royalty” This manoeuvre has been branded as sexiest by many people, not just feminists. They have it all wrong, it’s just purely a misunderstanding of the country’s wealth. David Cameron needs to realise not everyone is willing to pay an arm and a leg for their tampons like he is. Rumours that George Osborne couldn’t afford his tampons in the wake of his tax credits faux paus have yet to be confirmed but MI5 revealed that Good old Dave promised him on the phone that they could share, as long as George stopped making pig jokes.

Another running theme from the Tories at the moment has been people opposing their new laws or budget buisness…AND BEING ALOUD?!? Furthermore, people dislike the drivel spurting out of Cameron’s snout so much, that he doesn’t have enough people to even make a law..lawfully… but don’t worry, they have realised that the upside of being in power is you can make laws that suit yourself. Such as shutting down the chance of any potential opposition stopping laws passing. Not dissimilar to the methods Adolf Hitler used when on his rise to power/evil during the 1930’s. David must be taking inspiration from Adolf’s infamous speeches, after calling Jeremy Corbyn a “Britain Hater” because he did not sing the national anthem. In fairness Hitler’s speeches dont sound so good when you can understand the words in them, perhaps they should have given the gig to Boris instead.

Jeremy Corbyn? A Britain hater? As the prophet Frankie Boyle put it ” Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t be more British if he bled tea!”  Let’s be honest, being underdressed for an occasion, facing the dilemma of the only thing clean enough to wear to work is that sweater your grandma gave you and reading your emails at work, are all common things that sum up British people. If only Ed was back, he sung the national anthem all the time, in pristine suits, and never failed to gain respect of the public.

A nice example of some hypocritical dross coming from the Tories recently are the trade union plans. There now has to be 50% of a trade union who want to strike for it to legally go ahead- compared to the mid twenty % majority that saw Boris Johnson elected. This is a costly consequence for a dispute that was most probably about issues with Boris Johnson’s oyster card. Turns out it was in his dirty trouser pocket, but the situation had gone downhill so he gave the drivers a day off out of the kindness of his heart. He probably used it as an excuse not to go to work, which has co-incidentally recently been centered around knocking children over, or falling over himself whilst participating in team sports wearing tight suits. It is good to know a politician is finally giving this county a good reputation.

But don’t worry, Good old Dave can make friends too, specifically dictators. Dave has had visits from both the Chinese leader, and the Egyptian leaders this week. It is also rumoured that Kim Jong Un is coming round for tea next week, however the date is still pending as Kim may be busy winning the Olympics for the fourth consecutive time this year, along with the two winter Olympic titles, the ashes, the football world cup, and the dressage world championships (but lets be honest, they had that one in the bag)

On the other hand I cant sometimes help to feel sorry for the PM, because not everyone knew he was a tw*t last time around. He was surrounded by a racist drunk, who clearly became a politician as part of a dare, a clueless man who you never quite knew if he had a cold or not, and a the respective gangsta of them all- Nick Clegg, who didn’t care about telling the truth or keeping his promises. Really his only oppsition was that of the SNP, but luckily they are based in Scotland so cannot come to parliament and embarrass him all the time…This time his opposition is Jeremy Corbyn. This is worrying for Dave because the British public haven’t got behind an OAP this much since Susan Boyle won BGT.

I am practicing my freedom of speech writing this, I have to, it could be gone soon. Mr.Cameron is planning on riding this country of the excruciating chains of Human Rights and instead creating his own list. Anything could be on this list, I like to think there would be a lists of: his personal top 5 favorite DVD box sets, his top 10 most physically attractive politicians (male and female), and finally his 3 least favorite Eaton initiation ceremonys.

 

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Diary entry:

Dear Diary

Today was a boring day. So when I got home I quickly made myself some toast but then a wretching smell filled the room, I had burnt the toast. I rubbed my hand across the bristley texture of the toast, it felt like the surface of the moon..at least I imagine. Next, I turned on some distorted music (distorted due to my faulty ageing CD player) and threw off my heavy, rusty, black school shoes. I then decided to eat the toast I had burnt previously which wasn’t a good idea because my mouth filled with an ashy like taste. I spat the toast out Lastly I went to bed and that was what happened today.

Dystopian:

The bread made its descent down into the toaster, with no flickering knowledge of its own fate. I was to find out 3 minutes later when a wretching smell filled the room, making non wretching smelly particles scramble and separate. The smell engulfed all space it could. After retrieving the offending blackened article from its destroyer, I rubbed my hands against the thick layer of Luna bumpy rock the bread had acquired. The smell then engulfed my entire being as I made an adventurous mistake of attempting to consume it. My mouth felt like ash and subsequently tried to relive itself of the self inflicted agony.

 

 

 

 

 

The poem “Futility” is a war time poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1914, and is one of the first and most famous war poems ever written. It is therefore a very traditional war poem that is centered around the harsh feelings that are unraveled by the horror of war, such as grief and hopelessness. The poem is very raw, which is demonstrated by the narrator dwelling on the sun, crop fields, flowers, snow and the earth. This sense of rawness awakened in “Futility” is very common of a war poem, “Futility” has no decoration yet has an enormous amount of context that surrounds it.

Futility’s narrative is the narrator expressing grief that the sun can not wake up a dead soldier, having done that for all of his life, both at home and in France.  Owen is despairing with the sun, despite the exuberating power and heat it beholds, the sun can still not wake up one man lying down facing towards it. Wilfred Owen is expressing his anger and despair with war by indicating that it even destroys the sun’s powers.

Futility evokes feelings of anger and regret within me, because I feel like war has been glorified as the allies won it, however reading poems like this is very humbling and reminds me that, for the soldiers, war was pretty much the same no matter what side you were on.

Harper Lee uses this passage to present Miss Maudies views about Maycomb by adding biblical traditional Christian ideas and values that give light on Miss Maudies characters and overall moral compass.

Harper Lee draws a lot of attention to Miss Maudies religeon because it helps to represent Maycomb better. Maycomb like every other southern state is very religeous and ms maudie being christian shows the community cohesion that  exsists in maycomb

In the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee there are many different ideas about class that are portrayed through characters. These ideas are a symbol of each character’s entire moral compass, and can often be linked to real life icons. Here are three characters positions on social class:

Aunt Alexandra : Aunt Alexandra holds quite an old fashioned view of social class and shows this by not letting her nephew and niece play with Walter Cunningham just because he is of a different and lower class than she is. ‘And I still say that Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this house’ and ‘because he is trash’ both indicate animosity towards the Cunninghams. The use of the word ‘trash’ shows that Aunt Alexandra believes that the Cunninghams do not deserve the Finches precense. This only accounts for people on whom she is at a social height over, and it would be interesting to see how she would find Jem and Scout playing with a child of a higher class than there’s. For Aunt Alexandra class is based around many things and can rarely be changed.

Jem- Jem however disagreed with Aunt Alexandra, he says that class is only based upon how well and when your family started to read and write. He tells Scout that he doesn’t think it is right but it’s the only possible explanation for the class system and why exists