Revision for Paper 1 - some useful links

Political cartoons: https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/analyzing-political-cartoons#

https://www.blitznotes.org/ib/eng-langlit-sl/cartoon_conventions.html

Comic strips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEj-2uD7CSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gsOANQZ-fI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4PVTF9RI6U

Comic book cover: https://language-literature.com/ib-dp-language-a-language-and-literature-sample-text-analysis-comic-book-cover/

Basic plots: https://medium.com/swlh/writing-the-basic-plots-634443e764ee#:~:

Welcome to Atonement

What we'll try to do (the order might vary, at first based on the first part, then the whole novel):

1) Background search on different contexts (share sources and info):

* Ian McEwan as the author

* Britain in 1935

* the class system in Britain between World Wars

2) Finding non-literary texts that would allow us to revise different text types and enlighten us about something related to this novel at the same time (ongoing work)

3) Putting together a detailed timeline

4) Compiling character profiles

6) Describing how the Tallis household functions (social class and power issues)

+ Briony reads The Waves by Virginia Woolf --> read (fragments) here if interested (6 different viewpoints interspersed with detailed descriptions of the sea, which function as means of moving from one consciousness into another):

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201091h.html

After reading the whole novel:

Ongoing work on the timeline, character profiles (with quotes, and events that bring about changes in the characters), finding non-literary texts, and discussing important issues.

+ Discussion questions

(See this, too, for one opinion: https://jacquemoreau.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/the-tallis-household/)

+ Brian Finney essay: http://web.csulb.edu/~bhfinney/mcewan.html

+ Convince me to like or hate Briony

+ Object descriptions

+ Fiction and metafiction

+ Metonymy and class

+ Watching the film

+ Some creative writing (if you'd like to have some)

Some useful resources for the background search:

Ian McEwan homepage: http://www.ianmcewan.com/

Britain 1930s timeline (if you google this phrase, you'll get a lot more, maybe some even better):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/timeline/worldwars_timeline_noflash.shtml

1935 in the UK: 

Everyday life in Britain in the 1930s: http://www.localhistories.org/1930slife.html

Thirties Britain (The National Archives):

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/thirties-britain/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2641959/British-Council-film-archive-reveals-life-1930s-40s-Britain.html

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7483/economics/the-uk-economy-in-the-1930s/

http://www.capx.co/what-did-britain-really-look-like-in-the-1930s/

Some on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqpNcHTG4uM (poverty, 12:25)

A short video on the stately house in which part 1 of Atonement was filmed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LFB6EdlR08 (Stokesay Court, 6:16)

Google for pictures: British manor houses 1930s

You can listen to a bit of Minding the Manor: the Memoir of a 1930 English Kitchen Maid by Mollie Moran here: http://www.amazon.com/Minding-Manor-Memoir-English-Kitchen/dp/0762796839

The fate of Britain's historic homes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2101933/Englands-lost-Downtons-Or-endless-homes-ended-bypasses-office-blocks-golf-courses.html

Task: When reading, if you notice anything mentioned that might have existed in real life (people, places, politics, etc.), google them and find out more, e.g. Bernini's Triton in the Piazza Barberini in Rome (p18 in the 2002 Vintage publication I own, first page of Chapter 2)

Read for background and a video-related task:

https://g20languageandliterature.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/atonement-background-context/

https://youtu.be/CvuVfgZ9wcI (26:41)

Poem about Kambili

 Kambili, a gentle soul, so kind
Her spirit shines, makes us blind
Aunty Ifeoma sees her grow

Her courage like a flower in the snow
From darkness, she has risen to light
Her heart, shining bright
Aunty Ifeoma holds her close
Her future, a path with hope

A purple hibiscus, so rare
Her spirit, a symbol, of what's there
Aunty Ifeoma is proud of her
Kambili, a flower of power

Poem

 About my thoughts and feelings, that I have in my mind

Of a daughter named Kambili, whom I love with all my heart

But with my actions, I've torn us far apart.

She's gentle like a hibiscus flower, delicate and fair

With a soul that shines brighter than the sun, beyond compare.

But I've chased power, wealth, and control, with a heavy hand

And in the process, I've hurt her, breaking her spirit and command.

I've silenced her voice, that was once so soft and sweet

And left her in fear, with no peace in her feet.

I regret the pain I've caused, the love I neglected

And I want to make amends, to heal what I've affected.

So, Kambili, I ask for your forgiveness, and to take my hand

Together, we'll heal, and find a better land.

Atonement

 Can be read here but not downloaded:

https://www.studocu.com/en-au/document/the-university-of-notre-dame-australia/english-3/ian-mcewan-atonement-pdf/20996449

Jaja as Persona - Poetry o'Fred

Truth's hurt

Papa launches a missile at our dinner, after I refuse to cower

His feckless, hissing words, pleading God! for power

Mama's face - seething grows, breathing tough from behind long-lost boos

She wilts like a flower

My truth hurts you, because embedding is sour

Kambili, words struggle this hour

Your hurt's true too 

What more could bravado do

Let's sit and join, merrily devour

'd by the Wrath

Yet this path is no truth 

to Power 

Violence

1) Trace Papa's abuse: What causes it and how do family members respond?

Possible introductory paragraph:

There are numerous issues that many societies tend to share across time and place. One of such is violence, be it on personal or societal level. Nigerian-American author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has investigated this theme in her 2004 novel "Purple Hibiscus" through the Achike family dynamics, especially the father of the protagonist, who presents himself to the community as a kind, benevolent man but inside the family compound is overly strict and controlling and abusive of both his spouse and children.

2) Main types of violence in Purple Hibiscus:

• domestic

• gender

• psychological

• colonial

Discussion:

1. What has made Papa such a violent father? 

2. What kinds of things trigger his violence? 

3. Why don’t his wife and children actively resist his violence earlier? 

4. What do you think of Amaka’s statement “Some people can’t handle stress”? 

5. Do you think Mama’s action was justified? 

6. Why do you think Jaja wanted to take the blame for her crime? 

7. What kind of message does the novel as a whole give us about domestic violence?

(https://www.cram.com/essay/Violence-In-Purple-Hibiscus/FKJJ7T8K5J)

8. How would you behave in a similar situation?

9) What advice would you give each character?

3) Make a 3-4-minute oral essay on the topic you drew in class (based on Purple Hibiscus):

* An exploration of the connections between differing forms of violence in Nigeria after colonialism.

* Gender-based violence manifests in the form of domestic violence.

* Papa uses violence to enforce his own kind of oppression on his family.

* Just as colonialism resulted in a corrupt independent government, so papa's violence compels Mama to poison and murder him.

* Papa is a "colonial product", a man who has bought into the colonial mindset. 

* Women of different status are shown to use different means of resisting patriarchy and violence in the quest for liberating relationships.

* Exploration of the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, postcoloniality and power.

* Exploration of violence sprung from cultural conflict.

4) Reflection on Violence (1969) by Hannah Arendt

A pair-writing task for your portfolio

Choose one page of the essay on violence that you believe is most representative of her writing style and the main issues in this essay.

Treat it like a Paper 1 text. Come up with your own guiding question, and write.

This will help you recall how to tackle Paper 1: https://philpot.education/mod/page/view.php?id=19

Have another pair read your essay and suggest improvements / additions / alternative approaches.

Hannah Arendt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

5) Exam preparation:

Find a page-long extract from Purple Hibiscus that you believe best reflects abuse and violence in the novel. Compare this to a text provided in class.