Directed Writing: Father-Son Relationship

(b) Later, the writer finds part of his father’s autobiography in the suitcase. In one chapter the father describes his thoughts and feelings about his relationship with his son. Write the opening of the chapter (between 120–150 words). Base your answer closely on the material of the original extract.

It had always been my deepest wish for my son to exceed who I was. It pained me, however, to realize that he expected nothing less himself. He inherited his writing abilities, I wagered, from somewhere in the family. From an early age he demonstrated a curiosity with which I was all too familiar. I would catch him rummaging through my suitcase like a archeologist in search of treasures after I had returned from a business trip. But I never let on. I would always hide little things, simple yet mysterious items that I thought a boy could not resist; sweets and old postcards, a bit of glass from a Parisian bottle factory, but most of all I wished for him to find and to read my journals. But always, he overlooked them. My shameful wish was to know what he might think of them. Would they be intriguing to a boy of thirteen, for if not then how could I publish them?
Yet always I found myself enquiring after his studies. And he would act as though he had never searched through my things. And I, embarrassed, never pressed the matter of that terrible suitcase.

Language Commentary – Father & Son Relationship

2 The following passage describes the writer’s relationship with his father.

(a) Comment on the style and language of the passage. [15]
The piece is an imaginative one, possibly extracted from the autobiography of the writer. The fact that his tone is personal and confidential supports this claim. In the extract, the writer seeks to recount some of the last moments he had with his father and to describe their relationship. He accomplishes this by using parallelism in his descriptions, and his father’s suitcase as an allegory for the relationship that existed between himself and his father.

In the extract, the writer weaves descriptions of his father and himself together, contrasting and comparing both. To this end he avoids visual descriptions and prefers focusing on detailing their character traits, and mannerisms. Both prefer to avoid “feeling too much sorrow. His father, the writer says “had no wish to endure hardship”. This is probably true of the son as well. The irony in this is that they have subsequently landed themselves in a sorrowful, superficial, and ‘trivial’ relationship. It is sad because they cannot truly connect. The cause of this is demonstrated by the father who “assumed his usual jocular, mocking air”. This is how the son knows his father. However, the use of the verb ‘assume’ indicates that this is not how his father really is; instead he has put on this trait as a facade. As the writer reveals in the sixth paragraph the father is “acting”, and tragically it is a “precaution” to ward off any awkwardness between them – this is indicative of the delicate and superficial father-son relationship. They have their “usual roles” that each must play in order to remain in comfortable fellowship.

In fact, it is a “shaming moment” for either of them to break character. To show weakness, or empathy, as demonstrated by the father’s wandering around his son’s study, is unacceptable. Thus their tragic fact about their relationship creates a macabre mood for much of the extract. Showing how the father comes to his son “slightly embarrassed”, the writer describes his father surrendering his suitcase full of notebooks over to him. Metaphorically, the father is extending a hand of friendship toward his son, a plea for genuine connectedness to exist between them. His use of the word “maybe” causes the reader to take pity in him.

Furthermore, the suitcase is a symbol of their relationship. It is a “painful burden” to their father, which shows why he is the first to reach out to his son – it weighs most heavily on him. Conversely, for the son the suitcase is a ‘friend’. It is a ‘powerful connection to his past’ and it was possibly his sole connection to his father. To him it is like a portal. His description of the “scents” and “things”, “cologne” and “foreign countries” illustrate the esthetic depths of this connection. Again, this further emphasizes the tragedy, because rather than actually spend time with him, the son tries to acquaint himself with his father through the suitcase, his father’s occupation and belongings. The son begins to feel the weight of their relationship later on, however, when he refers to the suitcase and the “mysterious weight of its contents”. The use of the word ‘mysterious’ highlights that the son does not fully understand why his relationship with his father weighs so heavily on him. It also implies that he hasn’t opened the suitcase in years. This creates a suspenseful, dark, and foreboding mood for the proceeded segment.

The writer builds on this suspense by describing his ‘fear’ of what he might find in the suitcase. Once again, he will attempt to use the suitcase as a portal to connect with his father, only this time he’s afraid of it. This contrasts with how he used to “rush to open” the suitcase as a child. The reader is shown that the reason for this is that the writer is afraid his “father might be a good writer”. This presents the reader with a paradox, because at the same time the writer “wished to know what his father had written, what he had thought when” he was the age the writer is at this point. The writer thus, longs for a connection, but only so far as his father relates to him; he has no desire to be like his father. In fact, he has done everything in his power to be the opposite of his father. While his father had been a poet, the son became a writer (probably an academic dealing with mostly factual writing). He has pursued writing for twenty-five years whereas his father seemed to have given up writing. There are even minute differences such as the son possessing a “study” as apposed to his father’s portable “library”. All of this seems to stem from a bitter desire for vengeance, probably vengeance for his father’s failures; his failure as a father, his failure as a businessman and his “failure to take literature seriously”. Therefore the son does not take him seriously.

Ultimately, we see the converse parallelism in their relationship. But in the end, the son is shocked to discover his father’s “writerly voice”, a voice he does not recognize as his father’s, but one which he undoubtedly has deployed in his own writing; hence the use of the word “writerly” as apposed to “poet’s voice”, etc. He suspects that his father was not the same person, “might not have been his father” when he wrote. No doubt he wonders if that was the cause of the severing of their relationship. He may wonder if he contributed to the severing and if he was not really his father’s son when he wrote. He questions his “authenticity”. Thus we see the final comparison is between writing and a lack of authenticity. We also see through the parallelism demonstrated in the extract that, although they were both purposefully very unlike each other, both father and son were the same.

“Giving Aid to the Poor Does More Harm than Good” -Negative

-By Adino Trapani

Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know about you; but I have been thoroughly rung out here. Does anyone else feel like a sock being pulled from the laundromat of my colleague’s accusations? Giving is not complicated. It’s beauty is in its simplicity. And now you’re telling me that there’s a certain way to do it, a most appropriate formula for the most excellent gift? Fine. Let’s all sit around and hypothesize. If we solve the mystery of the perfect gift, then we’ll never make the mistake of giving to the ‘wrong’ person. Of course, we may miss out on the opportunity to give to a lot of the ‘right’ people in the process. It is your and my right to simply give. My colleague, however, says that ‘irresponsible giving’, of which we are all apparently guilty, is harmful to society. We must approach the poverty-stricken with caution, lest we remind them of their poorness and disrupt the exact science of perfectly giving. I think you’d be at odds with Mother Teresa, sir, who said; “Give, but give until it hurts”. We must not be afraid to take risks.
As my colleague rightly says, the receiver of the gift takes a risk in accepting it from you. Don’t we then owe him as much? We must be willing to risk our money, our time, our love. Without risk, there can be no growth. In fact, the seeds will never be sown in the first place. Risk, as demonstrated by experts on the subject such as Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Mother Teresa, and every explorer, pioneer, or inventor who made a historical breakthrough, produces success. Yes, there are always failures. There are times when our giving will yield no fruit. But we have to start somewhere. “Giving of any kind,” said Mbali Creazzo, “taking action… begins the process of change, and moves us to remember that we are part of a much greater universe.”

Furthermore, giving is only natural. It must occur, frequently, and in various degrees. Let us not disqualify the gift because of its value – my opponent I’m sure would agree. We have no idea what a small gift may render in the future, and we may never see its metamorphosis complete. As Antonio Porchia puts it; “I know what I have given you, I do not know what you have received”.

“For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles”. -Barry Lopez.

And I close with this, don’t worry about the appropriateness of the gift, or the depth of the chasm, trust that the gift will bless the receiver, and just take the leap.

Speech: “Giving Aid to the Poor Does More Harm than Good” – Affirmative

Gentlemen, ladies, friends and esteemed colleagues; my opponent and I have been invited to speak to you today about, what I believe to be the most controversial and most frequently debated topic, giving. After all, who can claim to hold the monopoly on the subject? And even if you don’t take to discussing it amongst friends, no doubt you’ve argued with your own conscience. The truth is, most of us don’t even know why we give in the first place. There’s always that nagging doubt in the back of one’s mind, no matter what my colleague would like to believe, that our gifts are badly timed and our targets ignorantly chosen. What becomes of the spare change we give to the beggar? How long will it last him? And how long before he requires the same kind of charity again? Personally, there is no other impact worth having than a lasting impact. As Charles Dudley Warner once said: “The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than its value”. Many of us mistake value for appropriateness, and therefore become irresponsible givers.

One could argue then that the danger in giving lies in its inappropriateness. Trust me, I’ve been on the giving and on the receiving end of many inappropriate gifts. They leave a person feeling empty, wasted, and spent. Think about it, the receiver of the gift has taken a risk in receiving said gift from you. Was the risk worth it longterm? Or did it only leave them feeling envious? “One must be poor to know the luxury of giving,” said George Eliot. So in the end, what we are really doing is boasting in our riches, feeding them crumbs that they acquire a taste for so that they are never tempted to enjoy the same luxuries as us. We label the poor as poor because we treat them as poor. In order to not be poor, you’d have to be rich, but we don’t want them to be rich, because if we did we would give them riches. We would empower them. What a conundrum. That would be a truly appropriate gift.

Consider this, the most stark contrast between the rich and the poor is their ability to give. Imagine not being able to give and you’d know what it feels like to be poor. “It’s bad enough,” someone once said, “to do without something YOU want; but confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give someone something you want THEM to have.” If you want to give, empower the poor to be givers. Otherwise, you may as well not give at all.

“The Future is Being Revolutionized” – by Adino Trapani

If you are old enough to remember those pre-iMac days; when hard-drives weighed as much as a small suitcase stuffed with underwear, and the screens were thick and cumbersome and looked like Quasi Moto, then you’ll know how much technology has changed in the last twenty years. I was born in the previous millennium, which sounds impressive until I tell you I was born in 1996. Even so, I got a taste of the limitations surrounding technology in those days. I remember when DVD’s where expensive, and the words “touchscreen” and “portable” only made contact in science fiction telenovelas. Man, have we progressed or what? Imagine what the next twenty years will unveil.

For starters, we might be faced with an even bigger selection than ever before. We owe a lot to people like Steve Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee when it comes to our mobile devices and computers, and the market just keeps on exploding. In this corner, we have Samsung, weighing in at 13% of the market; and in this corner… Apple, weighing in at 15%. Whether its phones, game consoles, tablets, or home computers, the choices have never been more varied, and they’re likely to get even more diverse as time goes on. Not only have the interactive device dreams of the pioneers been realized but they’re being multiplied. Pretty soon, the selling point of a TV will be that it is “more 3D than its competitor”.

Gone are the days of paper glasses with red and green plastic lenses for watching a 3D movie in the cinema. Things are so advanced you can even bring the cinema home with you like Chinese leftovers in a doggy bag. Big screen tv, plus 3D, plus VCR, equals the ultimate home movie experience. Recently, I discovered the Netflix App for iPad which enables you to download movies to watch while you’re on the go. When I was kid, I remember how bad I wanted to have those tv’s that you could have sown into the back of the driver’s and passenger’s seats. That would’ve been helpful on the six-hour-long drive down to the coast. Now, turns out, all you need is a tablet with Wi-Fi. Just imagine how the entertainment business is going to evolve in the next two decades.

Matter of fact, the revolution continues into the travel industry. “If you can dream it, you can do it”. Well I can dream up some pretty big things. Anyone got timeshare in Hawaii? Apparently, they’ll be offering voyages into space soon, just like in that Pixar movie “Wall E”. Have you seen that photograph of Richard Branson in his space suit? Nope, that’s not an Instagram from a costume party, that’s publicity for Virgin Galactic. Looks like they’ve reached the final frontier after all.

However, suppose its not the final frontier? What then? What next? You know, at one point explorers thought the final frontier was the edge of the globe. Turns out, there is none. “Shrug,” says Columbus, “I thought it was India”. But it wasn’t. If twenty years can make we thought could only exist in our dreams into a reality; what else can another twenty years accomplish? The last dimension, the final frontier, will only be reached when mankind ceases dreaming.

The Man in the Bowler Hat – by Adino Trapani

There was great culmination of feathers upon the walkway. They were greased like snowy, aristocratic, white hairs. And every now and again there came a down feather that blew by as if from a ravaged pillow.
An oppressive commotion in the air seemed to be having more leverage over the feathers than gravity had. The noise was unbearable. Rebekah shielded her ears from the clamoring of wagons and carts, and the steps of horses on the stone that imitated the sound of piano keys without voices. All seemed part of a rising storm, and the girl knew she must find the eye of it.

Winds that were not winds but were rather the essence of something else, whipped her hair out from the back of head and around it. Here dress was caught up in the same way and a breeze alternating, first from warm to cold and then to bitterly freezing and around again, burrowed its way into her coat. The same air seeped into her boots like rain water.

She found herself with her hands pressed against her ears and her elbows set up as defenses against the bite. Warmth has its own bite; sickly and powder-like. It was a chain-smoker.

So too apparently, was the cab driver. He held his pipe to his mouth in lofty, cockney, spectator fashion. Though really he had nothing to be lofty about. The white insides of his pockets hung out, indicating a just-before action of inspecting them. His efforts had turned up two pennies… and they now jingled in the palm of a vagabond, quickly making off with his reward. The pipe knocked against a stranger’s boot.
As the cab driver was deducted from the crowd, the gaps between shoulders tightened -Rebekah tucked strands of her red hair into her jacket collar to stop them from blowing into her eyes- a dove, as cream and as smooth as porcelain rocketed from the eye of the swirling mass.

The hurricane of birds spiraled into a perfect cylinder. From time to time, Rebekah caught what appeared to be a black bubble popping out and popping into the cylinder. A bowling ball? she thought. Perhaps it was one of the wicked devices, like a crystal just before the magi notices something fatal in store. It would pop out and in to the rhythm of a tune. And whoever was whistling the tune appeared to be inside the bird-tornado; comfortably too.

Any effort to see who it was would’ve been futile; Rebekah knew this. Her shoes were not designed to balance a person on the tips of their toes. The shoes were skillfully rounded in the front and painted black. This made the action as well as the thought of standing on ones toes entirely unspeakable; for once a person puts scratches on a pair of black shoes they are no long black shoes and are likely never to be worn out in public again. So instead she attempted simultaneously jumping and hoisting herself up through the shoulders of the gentlemen in front. This ultimately whipped the curls out from behind her collar.

The gentlemen also were not fond of being used as ladders and immediately turned around and invoked their walrus faces; which all burly gentlemen in bowler hats and with whiskers seemed to have.
There was but one alternative for the desperate girl. She got down onto all fours, thanked the heavens that it was so tightly packed around her that no one would see what she was doing, and proceeded to wriggle her way to the front of the conglomeration.

The road was smeared with bird droppings and axel grease. There was an overturned automobile lying on its doors like a dog waiting to be scratched. Rebekah foolishly assumed there had been an accident. But the cab was far too comfortably posed for this. There were engine parts missing and a fog of wire-like smoke puffing from the bonnet. The grease pooled around the victim, tell-tale of its dismantlement. But it hardly groaned. It was like watching a silly theatre show in which the actor plays at being dead, but really they’re not, and the cheeky grin around their face gives it away.
The gentleman inside the swirling bird storm stood precisely a yard away from the automobile like the calculated criminal. Everyone knew he’d done it, but no one knew why, and he was in such close proximity to them that they were queasy about asking him. The conspicuous black orb popped up and out, and the back in, and Rebekah thought she recognized it as a hat. Whatever the man was doing in his feathery dressing room, he had time to throw his hat up. A tinkering noise accompanied his whistling. There was also a whirring sound, like something being spun around and around really fast. The birds cooed, and the man whistled, and the thing spun, and the commotion grew steadily.

No one dared breath…

The cab driver returned just in time to see the explosion. The birds scattered in every direction and a thunderous boom echoed through the streets. The cabby tightened his grip on the two pennies. Nothing had been destroyed, however. It was not that kind of explosion. Rebekah blinked to stop the ringing in her ears.
When she looked up again, the man in the bowler hat winked at her. He stood like a cheeky boy on Christmas Day; hands behind his back and knees pointing to opposite ends of the compass. His spectacles reflected the sunlight. He smiled and Rebekah noticed the vacancy of a walrus mustache. Then he straightened and smartened himself, like a man about to begin a journey. Ahead of him, in sweet silhouette on the horizon, Ben boomed an expectant calling. It was four-o’clock.

Swiftly, the man mounted his bicycle – jingled an answering bell on his handlebar – and peddled towards the sun. What looked like metal balloons gently hoisted him into the sky.

Student Activity Comment on Style and Language of Past Paper May/June 2009

Student Activity. Past Paper 1 Passages for Comment: May/June 2009

(a) “Comment on the style and language of the passage.”

The extract is an imaginative writing piece, most probably from an autobiography. In this account, the writer’s purpose is to demonstrate how destructive it can be submitting to pressure and ignorance rather than listening to your own conscience. He does this by showing how ignorant he was and by using the elephant as analogy for the things which ignorance and conformity destroys. The death of the elephant also captures the loss experienced as a result of separating oneself from other living things.

The writer portrays himself as being, or as having been an ignorant, inexperienced young soldier. He views the things he is not accustomed in a nearly childish way. He opens with “But I did not want to kill the elephant”, in a tone quiet similar to how a boy might complain about having to do a chore. He is inexperienced, “a poor shot”, and often seeking the approval of his elders; as is demonstrated by when he “turned to some experienced-looking Burmans” for council. This is one of the reasons why he can so easily be manipulated into doing things by other people. Although he “had never shot an elephant and never wanted to” the fact that he “had got to act quickly” shows how he was under pressure from the Burmans to kill the elephant. He feels he will be like a “toad under a steam-roller” if the elephant charges, however this more likely is a description of the heavy load of responsibility he feels is being placed on him to act.

Often the writer can be seen trying to reason himself out of “murdering” the elephant. This is not only a common characteristic amongst impressionable people trying to find a way out of succumbing to pressure, it is probably what he has been trained to do as a british soldier. At first, we see him considering “the beast’s owner” the “worth” of the “beast”. It can be seen through use of word’s such as “beast”, “large animal”, and “elephant”, that his rational thinking is causing him to view his target objectively, as a merely a thing in the “cross-hair sights” of his “beautiful German” rifle. When he does “pull the trigger” we see him again reverting to this perspective by using words such as “shrunken” or the similes “like a huge rock” or “like a tree”. By doing this, he reduces the act to something trivial, similar to how he “could shoot” if the elephant “charged”. This places the blame on the elephant and separates him from the act.

This trivial perspective on living things is also a characteristic of the Burmans who expect him to shoot the elephant. They are “happy” when he takes aim, and watch like “people who see the theatre curtain go up at last”. The death of the elephant means nothing more to them than “a bit of fun”. It is as if the soldier has contracted this mindset from the people around him, like it is an infectious way of thinking. In the end he gives in, much like how the elephant fell with his “belly facing” the soldier, an act of surrender.

We know what his true feelings are by the fact that he “did not want to shoot the elephant”. He views it as equivalent to the “murder” of a human being. He personifies the elephant as a “preoccupied grandmother”. He also knows it is a tame elephant belonging to a “mahout”. When it comes to down to it, it is not that he is “squeamish about killing animals”, but rather that he feels a vague connection with this elephant. Although he has probably hunted animals before (he knows that “one never does hear the bang or feel the klick when a shot goes home”), however, he has a sense of the life and humanity in this one. In the end he regrets the “murder”, is sickened and ashamed that he did not listening to that connected feeling as the elephant dies “in some world remote from him”. This is the consequence of him separating himself from the elephant and nature. At the end of the piece, however, one can catch fading glimpses of the connection with the elephant; similar to how the elephant is “powerless to move” and “powerless to die,” the soldier feels he was powerless to prevent the “murder” and is just as powerless to “finish” the elephant. A more senior officer might have been able to save the elephant, but the soldier being ignorant was easily manipulated. These thoughts are probable what tormented him until he “could not stand it any longer and went away.”

Commentry on Excerpt of D.H. Lawrence Article

Student Activity: “Comment on the style and language of the final paragraph of the original text in a similar style to that of Student A.”
In the fifth and final paragraph, D.H Lawrence describes the death that the war of machinery would bring about for nature. He describes the sound of guns firing in the “wood”, a morbid anti-thesis which shows how saddened Lawrence is by the idea that such destructive machinery should be placed in the beauty of nature. He relates the effect of the “fire” of guns to the effect a forest fire would have. The “crackling” and “bursting” of the guns seems to mean more to him in regards to nature or the life (in whatever form) it will destroy. He questions what the true goal or mark of war is. Why should a man be conformed into a mass and made to fight so that those in power can gain more power and land. It seems foolish to him to kill and destroy when at the end of it nothing will be left of the land or life that others are trying to conquer. The result of violence is ‘darkness’ and ‘dying’. He cannot understand why people must die and destroy land in order to take over or defend land. If he is to take part in this war, made by machines and under the leadership of people who seem to think like machines, who would rather die quickly, shot by a ‘bullet’ than have to endure more agony wrought on him by machines in the form of long-lingering wounds from a ‘shell’. All that machines bring are pain, and piercing and tearing, and at the end of the war nothing shall be left of the beauty and the green of nature. To Lawrence, who ”cannot understand” nor does he want to understand how to think like a machine, it would be better to die.

Commentry on The Picture of Dorian Gray

Student Activity 2 (Page 25)

“Identify and comment on the figurative language within the context of the extract.”

The opening to the extract from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” uses figurative language to portray an instant in which the young Dorian begins to understand the “brevity” of youth. As he inspects the portrait of himself that his friend Basil Hallward has painted for him, at first he is pleased. His cheeks “flush” and a look of “joy came into his eyes”. The word flush normally describes how something is filled or drained, and in this case is used to figuratively describe how the “look of joy” was visible to those around him. Dorian, however, gradually is saddened to think that the youth which he possesses, and which has been captured in this painting, will soon be lost to him. He begins to think of the effects that time will have on his mortal body and yet not on the painting. Oscar Wilde dramatizes these woes, and helps us to understand them better by personifying the effects of time that Dorian fears. He fears that his figure will be “broken”, “his eyes dim”, “the scarlet pass from his lips”, and “the gold steal from his hair”. In effect, Dorian not only feels the ‘thievery’ of his youth to be depressing, but also to be unfair. The painting, then, both saddens him and causes him to feel bitter, which in the story are some of the first ‘unwholesome’ feelings he has harbored. Thus begins his transmogrification into a being who manages to maintain his outward youthfulness, but inwardly ages his conscience.

Oscar Wilde unfolds this saga with sensory detail imagery, describing how Dorian’s emotions are suddenly awoken to the uncertain prospects of the future. It frightens him, and he feels a pain, “like a knife”. This simile, as well as the figurative “hand of ice” which Dorian feels being laid upon his heart, further demonstrate how Dorian is being impacted by the painting. The experience is a metaphor to show the reader how the true sign of age is not what we can detect on the outside, or in a mirror (as with Dorian comparing himself to the portrait), but that aging is that which we feel within ourselves, in our emotional core, and conscience.

Dorian’s metamorphosis is interrupted by Hallward’s aporia, “Don’t you like it?” Hallward cannot understand Dorian’s reaction to his work. As much as he has tried to capture the inner being of his subject, Basil Hallward is a person who is very much focused on the external. Outward beauty is what demands his attention, and he strives to preserve it. Lord Henry interrupts him, however, by affirming, “Of course he likes it”. His goal is to limit Basil’s impact on the boy and he rebuffs any further ‘meddling’ on Hallward’s part with the rhetorical question, “Who wouldn’t like it”. Lord Henry senses the impact that the painting has already had on Dorian Gray. His mind is intensely aware of the inward workings of man, in a sense he is the exact opposite of Basil. The two represent the contrasting forces at work within Dorian at this present moment; the part which wants to focus on the external, enjoy life’s bliss, and be care-free, and the other which wants to unearth the inward strengths, possibilities, and dreams in the young man. Lord Henry effectively wins the fight by answering his own rhetorical question with a superlative, “It’s the greatest thing in modern art,” he says.
Lord Henry, at first, wishes to buy the painting so that he can always keep it near Dorian and remind him of the “revelation” he has just experienced. It is part of his scheme to keep Dorian thinking inwardly, and thereby gain an ally. He is even more pleased when Basil tells him that the painting belongs to Dorian. Says Lord Henry, “He’s a very lucky fellow”.

“How sad it is!” is Dorian’s reply, a paradox to what Lord Henry has just stated. By this we learn that although the picture of Dorian Gray is a gift for him, it is also a curse; as is the case with the eternal youth which he inadvertently acquires. This sad fact is a commiseration, another form of figurative language, for the reader.

The usage of figurative language could not be better suited to this particular story. The essence of figurative language is that it draws comparisons between the literal and ‘intended’ or ‘figurative’ meaning of a word or sentence, and wields both in order to craft a story, or intention for the reader to interpret. The story of Dorian Gray is similar. The characters of Basil and Lord Henry in this excerpt each vie to be Dorian’s ‘mentor’. His decision to look inwardly, at his ‘metaphorical’ and ‘figurative’ qualities is what declares Lord Henry the champion.

b) “Comment on the structure of the text.”

In the extract from “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the author uses punctuation and grammar to achieve a dramatic mood for the piece. Commas are used especially to create a fluid reading and heightens the drama as detail is added to detail in describing Dorian’s reaction and interpretation of his self-portrait. For example, when he realizes how he shall grow old and the painting remain youthful, commas divide the aging process which he imagines for himself into parts; “his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colorless, the grace of his figure broken.. the scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair… He would become dreadful, hideous and uncouth.” Commas allow for more details, more graphic adjectives such as these to be added into single sentences. This allows the reader to understand better the overwhelming depression that Dorian feels brought on by the idea of growing old.
These lengthy sentences with all their detail are interrupted on occasion by short, poignant sentences such as when Oscar Wilde is telling us of how the sense of Dorian’s beauty “came on him like a revelation”, and this is interrupted with, “He had never felt it before.” Or how when Dorian’s reaction to Basil’s flattery is being described; “He had listened to them, laughed at them, forget them,” this is an example of how the young man is not only being overwhelmed with his own beauty, but also by the voices of his friends; the short sentence, “They had not influenced his nature,” interrupts this overbearing train of thought. Short, poignant sentences in this extract add to the drama and achieve an affect “like a knife,” in that they stab right into the flow of narrative, and give the reader a chance to inhale before plunging back into the sensory descriptiveness (e.g. “the scarlet lips, golden hair, hand of ice”) of the passage.

The grammar is well suited to this kind of story, set in London’s high society neighborhoods. The descriptions, again, make use of strong, romantic adjectives, which a writer in this period would be likely to use. For example, instead of just saying, “Dorian’s eye’s filled with blue tears” the writer instead says, “His eyes deepened into amethyst,” this has a far more vivid effect, especially within the context of the setting. Other words such as “uncouth, listlessly, and panegyric” describe the text well, but they are also words which you might expect to find in Dorian’s vocabulary because he is a young aristocrat. The application of certain grammar to the character of Lord Henry is also appropriate. He speaks in a very pompous, bloated, overly-grand sort of way; as he might be expected to do considering his position. An example of this is when he says, “It is one of the greatest things in modern art,” which most likely is a exaggerated compliment.

Comment on Grammar and Punctuation

The first piece is extracted from the fictional work “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” by Mark Twain.

“Close upon the hour of noon the whole was suddenly electrified with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet undreamed-of telegraph; the tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to house with little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon; the town would have thought strangely of him if he had not. A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter – so the story ran. And it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself in the ‘branch’ about one or two o’clock in the morning and that Potter had at once sneaked off – suspicious circumstances, especially the washing, which was not a habit with Potter. It was also said that the town had been ransacked for this ‘murderer’ (the public are not slow in the matter of sifting evidence and arriving at a verdict), but that he could not be found. Horsemen had departed down all the roads in every direction, and the Sheriff was confident that he would be captured before night.
All the town was drifting towards the graveyard. Tom’s heartbreak vanished, and he joined the procession, not because he would not a thousand times rather go anywhere else, but because and awful, unaccountable fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place, he wormed his small body through the crowd and saw the dismal spectacle. It seemed to him an age since he was there before. Somebody pinched his arm. He turned, and his eyes met Huckleberry’s. Then both looked elsewhere at once, and wondered if anybody had noticed anything in their mutual glance. But everybody was talking and intent upon the grisly spectacle before them.
‘Poor fellow!’ ‘Poor young fellow!’ ‘This ought to be a lesson to grave-robbers!’ ‘Muff Potter’ll hang for this if they catch him!’ This was the drift of remark, and the minister said, ‘It was a judgement; His hand is here.’
Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle, and voices shouted, ‘It’s him! it’s him! he’s coming himself!'”

In the above extract, Mark Twain made good use of semi-colons and comas to slice his sentences up into a smaller bits. In this way, the narration unfolds much like a progression of thought. For example, “Of course the schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon; the town would have thought strangely of him if he had not.” This demonstrates I kind of townsfolk/country logic that adds to the genuineness and simplicity of the story. To say that the schoolmaster “gave holiday” is not how the idea would be generally expressed in modern society, nor indeed in many societies during the time of the Mark Twain’s writing of this story. Though in a small town such as the one in which the story of Tom Sawyer is set, a kind town in which Mark Twain himself undoubtedly grew up in, this would have been the common colloquialism.
Another example would be “a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself in the ‘branch'”. Or, “Potter had at once sneaked off – suspicious circumstances, especially the washing,” This demonstrates how in the above scene, Mark Twain made good use of punctuation to structure sentences in a way that conveyed village gossip; short, interrupting bits comprising sentences much like how village folk in those days might have butted into each other’s contributions.
The short sentences versus the long ones also serve another purpose in that they help to build the suspense. In the beginning of the extract, many of the sentences are lengthy. The villagers are discussing the prospect of a murder and the reader can feel the heightened tension as more and more details of the event are heaped on top of each other. Towards the end, Mark Twain begins to shorten his sentences. As the tension reaches its climax, the reader is given a taste of the stress and the shock that Tom Sawyer experienced when “Somebody pinched his arm”.

In this excerpt, Mark Twain used grammar and punctuation effectively, not only to demonstrate and to describe the culture and times of his setting, but also to masterfully weave a plot that was suspenseful, and adventurous.

The second piece is an extract from the Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter. In the extract, the author recounts a time when his subject was a young boy, leaving the King Edward’s school on both a happy and a sad note. This was due to the fact that Tolkien had particularly enjoyed that school, however he left under pleasant circumstances; being able to make the most of his last night there.

“Now that his immediate future was assured he was no longer under pressure in his school-work. But there was still plenty to occupy him in his final terms at King Edward’s. He became a prefect, Secretary of the Debating Society, and Football Secretary. He read a paper to the school Literary Society on Norse Sagas, illustrating it with readings in the original language. And at about this time he discovered the Finnish Kalevala or Land or Heroes, the collection of poems which is the principal repository of Finland’s mythology. Not long afterwards he wrote appreciatively of ‘this strange people and these new gods, this race of unhypocritical lowbrow scandalous heroes’, adding ‘the more I read of it, the more I felt at home and enjoyed myself’. He had discovered the Kalevala in W. H. Kirby’s Everyman translation, and he determined to find an edition in the original Finnish as soon as possible.
The summer term of 1911 was his last at King Edward’s. It ended as was usual with the performance of a Greek play with choruses set to music-hall tunes. This time the choice was Aristophanes’ The Peace, in which Tolkien took the part of Hermes. Afterwards (another King Edward’s custom) the National Anthem was sung in Greek, and then the curtain dropped on his school career. ‘The school-porter was sent by waiting relatives to find me,’ he recalled years later. ‘He reported that my appearance might be delayed. “Just now,” he said, “he’s the life and soul of the party.” Tactful. In fact, having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance.’ But suddenly it was all over. He had loved his school, and now he hated leaving it. ‘I felt,’ he said, ‘like a young sparrow kicked out of a high nest.’
In the summer holiday that followed, he made a journey to Switzerland. He and his brother Hilary were among a party organized by a family named Brookes-Smith, on whose Sussex farm Hilary was now working, having left early to take up agriculture. There were about a dozen travelers: the Brookes-Smith parents, their children, Ronald and Hilary Tolkien and their Aunt Jane (now widowed), and one or two unattached schoolmistresses who were friends of Mrs Brookes-Smith. They reached Interlaken and set out, walking.”

In the excerpt from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Biography, grammar is expertly wielded to suit the subject of the piece. J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor, gifted in the art of language, particularly the english language. There are no colloquialism, so to speak, but strong verbs are used to great effect; for example, “occupied, discovered, illustrating, and organized”. There are also many proper nouns which are capitalized and name topics, ideas, and positions that young men in 1911 England would have been familiar with; “Secretary, Debating Society, Literary Society, Aristophanes’ The Peace,” and so on. Names of places like Sussex, Interlaken, are also capitalized along with names of languages like Finnish, and Greek. These details inform the reader about the kinds of things that were a part of Tolkien’s life. This is very important, especially in a Biography, in which the goal is the narrate the life story of another person, with all or as many details as are appropriate, to the reader.
In terms of punctuation, it should be noted that a key aspect of the Biography is that their are many references to thing which the subject (Tolkien) said enclosed in quotation marks. For example, “‘having just taken part in a Greek play, I was clad in a himation and sandals, and was giving what I thought a fair imitation of a frenzied Bacchic dance.'” Quotations often add depth to Biographies, as they allow readers to experience the events from the subjects point of view. Like narratives, which are enhanced with dialogue, biographies are stories which can be better told through the addition of words spoken by participants in the events, especially if it is the subject himself. The Biography of J.R.R. Tolkien effectively tells his story through the use of punctuation in this way, and the grammar enhances the affect in that it uses the kind of language that might’ve even been used by the subject himself. In short, it’s applicable to the world of this Biography.