Three short stories: Catherine Lim's Little Ironies , Paper and Lottery and D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner . http://www.dowse.com/fiction/Lawrence.html
In relation to Paper, you should explain exactly what the title refers to and why it is so significant to gambling, gains on the stock market and ultimately the conclusion of the story.
Tay Soon and Yee Lian who worked hard to earn their forty-eight thousand all put their money into the market shares. They earned a lot of ‘paper gains’ after a few days and could not stop buying more shares. Shortly after the market crashed, and all their profits were lost, Tay Soon suffered an emotional breakdown. Not long after that, he was hospitalized and he died. The paper house that Yee Lian made for him was ‘a delicate framework of wire and thin bamboo strips covered with finely worked paper of a myriad colours’. The paper house was seven feet tall and was made to Yee Lian’s specifications. It was burnt at Tay Soon’s funeral. The title referred to the paper gains and how it turned into a paper house for Tay Soon.
For The Rocking Horse Winner, write a paragraph of 100 words in which you point out who was responsible for Paul's death.
I think the reason for Paul’s death was mainly because of his obsession for luck. After successfully winning some money the money his uncle gave him the first time he gambled, he started to gamble more and more with bigger amounts of money. His mother’s explanation of luck also made him curious about luck and wanted to ‘arrive’ at where luck is. He ‘knew’ the winning horse of most races and won a lot of money. When he stopped ‘knowing’, he was upset and was determined to ‘know’ the result for the next race. His uncle’s and Bassett’s partnership also made him all the more determined. In the end, he had brain fever and died.
Lesson 4: Theme: Gambling
Lesson 3: Analyzing & Composing poem
The Son is in Secondary School by Affran Sa'at
My badge has a Latin motto
Hope for the future
The future is hope
Or something
At times black crows try to interrupt
When we sing the National Anthem
It is difficult to maintain
The whiteness of my shoes
Especially on Wednesdays
I must admit there is something quite special
About the bare thighs of hardworking scouts
The Malay chauffeurs
Who wait for my schoolmates
Sit on the car park kerb
Telling jokes to one another
Seven to the power of five is unreasonable
On Chinese New Year
Mrs Lee dressed up
In a sarong kebaya
And sang Bengawan Solo
The capital of Singapore is Singapore
My best friend did a heroic thing once
Shaded all A's
For his Chinese Language
Multiple-choice paper
In our annual yearbook
There is a photograph of me
Pushing a wheelchair and smiling
They caught me
At the exact moment
When my eyes were actually closed
What are the poet's thoughts? What were his feelings as he think back on these ?The writer probably feels amused at his friend's and his past actions. He also remembers the difficulty of secondary school life.
Think back on our days in Primary School. Do you share the same sentiments? What were your memories of those days? Write a poem of no less than 4 stanzas.
Then I was still in primary school
Joking and fooling around
Teachers chasing students for homework
Happens everyday
When the bell rings
At exactly 1.00 pm
The students will pack
And run from the classroom
Exams and tests come by
All sit in a quiet room
Trying to write something
To tell the teacher I know the answers
After six years of studying
We all will leave this school
Chatted endlessly
Before saying goodbye
My Favourite Poet
My favourite poet is Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). He was an English poet and a cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School and brother to both Tom Arnoold, literary professor, andWilliam Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator.
I think that his poems are interesting and engaging. Here are some of his poems :
Immortality
Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.
Growing Old
What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.
Is it to feel our strength
Not our bloom only, but our strength decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?
Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
'Tis not to have our life
Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!
'Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!
It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.
It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion none.
It is last stage of all
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.
Dover Beach
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold
http://www.love-poems.me.uk/biography_arnold_matthew.htm
They Did Not Expect This
by Vernon Scannell
They did not expect this. Being neither wise nor brave
And wearing only the beauty of youth's season
They took the first turning quite unquestioningly
And walked quickly without looking back even once.
It was of course the wrong turning. First they were nagged
By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog;
Then the rain began and there was no shelter anywhere,
Only the street and the rows of houses stern as soldiers.
Though the blood chilled, the endearing word burnt the tongue.
There were no parks or gardens or public houses:
Midnight settled and the rain paused leaving the city
Enormous and still like a great sleeping seal.
At last they found accommodation in a cold
Furnished room where they quickly learnt to believe in ghosts;
They had their hope stuffed and put on the mantelpiece
But found, after a while, that they did not notice it.
While she spends many hours looking in the bottoms of teacups
He reads much about association football
And waits for the marvellous envelope to fall:
Their eyes are strangers and they rarely speak.
They did not expect this.
How are the figurative language used in the poem? Give the specific word(s), explain what type of figurative language it is and why the poet chose to use this figurative language?
1) By a small wind that tugged at their clothing like a dog
The poet used both personification and simile to describe the wind. These expressions showed that the wind was disturbing the travelers by 'tugging'.
2) Only the street and the rows of houses stern as soldiers.
Simile is used here by the poet to show that the travelers are strangers to the area, seeing the houses as 'stern soldiers'.
3) Midnight settled and the rain paused leaving the city
Personification is used here to show that midnight has come and the rain has stopped.
4) Furnished room where they quickly learnt to believe in ghosts.
Symbolism is used here to show that the room the travelers' room were uncomfortable and tend to give them an uneasiness.
5) Their eyes are strangers and they rarely speak.
Metaphor and symbolism is used here by the poet. Both of these devices show that the travelers were unhappy with their current situation.
Tell us why you like this poem in no less than 100 words.
I like this poem because it shows a the difficulty of some people leading a life. The poem starts with a couple arriving at a foreign city. Their arrival was not a good one as it was raining and makes it hard to move around in an unfamiliar place. They only found a place to stay at after the rain has stopped. Even so, the place that they found was not comfortable. I also believe that they were in financial trouble and the 'marvellous envelope' could be their salary. The financial problem could also well be the reason for them ignoring each other.
I like this poem because it shows a the difficulty of some people leading a life. The poem starts with a couple arriving at a foreign city. Their arrival was not a good one as it was raining and makes it hard to move around in an unfamiliar place. They only found a place to stay at after the rain has stopped. Even so, the place that they found was not comfortable. I also believe that they were in financial trouble and the 'marvellous envelope' could be their salary. The financial problem could also well be the reason for them ignoring each other.
(103 words)
The Book that Made an Impact in My Parents' Lives
Once, I asked my mother about the book that impacted her the most. After thinking for a while, she said she once read a book about a Taiwanese boy when she was in primary school. The book was written based on a true story and it was very touching. The title of the book 汪洋中的一条船, or 'He Never Gives Up'.
This book tells of a young boy in Taiwan. When this boy was born, his had crippled legs. As his family was poor, they thought of abandoning him as he was a great burden. However, his mother banished the idea and continued to raise him up.
Because of this physical disability, he cannot walk or run. Everyday, he crawls to school from his home. Even though it was very difficult, he continued to go to school. Sometimes, his friends carried him around on their backs. He moved around like this until he graduated university.
Besides having a hard time in his school years, he had to cope with the pressure of working and adapt to adult life. Because of his determined and hardworking attitude, he finally succeeded and earned a lot of money. He also got married and had a family.
My mother said that she learnt a lot of values from this book. It can also teach us how to face problems and never give up. A movie was also made based on this book and was screened in 1979.
My favourite character in Village by the Sea
My favourite character in Village by the Sea is of course Hari, the main character of the story. I like how he wields the responsibility to support his family. He stopped going to school just to work in the farm and do other jobs to earn a living for his family.
After failing to earn money in Thul, he even went to Bombay himself to find work there. He was also determined to save as much money as possible by not spending his hard-earned money. Besides working hard, he also has a keen interest in learning new skills.
He met an old watchmender who taught him the skills of watchmending. Within a short time, he has mastered the skill and started earning money throught watchmending. Hari was also a kind-hearted person. When he heard of Mr. Panwallah, the watchmender, being sick, he was very worried over him. He took an afternoon off and went to visit the old watchmender.
As can be seen throughout the whole story, he also rarely fights or argues with anybody. He is very independent and hardworking. This is why he is my favourite character in Village by the Sea.
Village by the Sea
During the first few weeks of English lessons, our LA teacher told us to buy a few novels required for our classes. It was then that I first laid my hands on this novel 'Village by the Sea' by Anita Desai. I liked the cover art. It depicted a village in India, which I have never seen before.
As the Term 2 Literature exam nears, I started to read it. It tells of a young boy named Hari, whose father and mother were both incapable of supporting the family due to various reasons. The problem of the dysfunctional family was worsened as Hari's father was violent due to excessive drinking. Besides affecting his health, Hari's father also incurred great debts.
As Hari becomes more confused and angry by the situation, he finally ran off to Bombay in search of jobs and to run away from the unhappy problems at home. In Bombay, he found a job and worked very hard. He also never spent any of his hard-earned money, instead saving them to bring it home. Besides working at a restaurant, he also learned the skill of watchmending. After some time, he finally went back to his home and started a new life. His father was roused from this drinking stupor and apologised for his actions. Hari's mother was also cured after staying in hospital.
The part that I like most in this story was Hari's stay in Bombay. Besides the interesting storyline and turn of events, this part teaches the readers a lot of moral values. Hari's determination to save as much money as he can without himself spending it is a good example. We should all save money and resources and appreciate what we have. Imagine people living in poverty who do not have sufficient food everyday, while we throw our food down the drain just simply because we cannot finish it. Hari is also an independent and hardworking boy, being able to adapt himself to the hard life while working in Bombay.
I recommend this book to readers of any age. This book certainly tells us a lot about industrialization with its effects and also poverty.
