NOV11 English HL P1

[laryxle]

It's been over 24 hours for me since the exam, so I hope it's okay to post this...

What were your thoughts about the exam?

I LOVED it! I did the poem (The Heaven of Animals)

Here they are. The soft eyes open.

If they have lived in a wood

It is a wood.

If they have lived on plains

It is grass rolling

Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,

Anyway, beyond their knowing.

Their instincts wholly bloom

And they rise.

The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,

Outdoing, desperately

Outdoing what is required:

The richest wood,

The deepest field.

For some of these,

It could not be the place

It is, without blood.

These hunt, as they have done,

But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.

They stalk more silently,

And crouch on the limbs of trees,

And their descent

Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years

In a sovereign floating of joy.

And those that are hunted

Know this as their life,

Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge

Of what is in glory above them,

And to feel no fear,

But acceptance, compliance.

Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle’s center,

They tremble, they walk

Under the tree,

They fall, they are torn,

They rise, they walk again.

At first when I read the two texts, the prose seemed far more appealing than this but after reading it a few times I came to like the poem. I said that it was essentially about the cycle of life; I talked about the relationship between 'it' (the landscape) and 'they' (the animals) to show how it was about the cycle of life and death, talked about how the heaven was essentially a simplified and idealised depiction of reality and how 'they' were essentially a simplification of all animals (and related it to humankind in that way), and how by dichotomising 'they' into the hunters and the hunted, the poet depicted this cycle of life. I ended by relating the poem to humankind and how the heaven and the animals are a simplified view of humankind as a whole and the world as a whole. I thought it was a great poem.

Talking to people in my class it seemed that way more people did the prose though, which also looked pretty good.

[Matthew Sinclair]

I didn't like it so much

I didn't even read the prose. I just glanced at it and was like, ok, I don't like dialogue and I don't like prose, poetry it is haha.

The poem I found was really ambiguous.

I also spoke about the cycle of life etc (pretty much everyone at my school who did poetry said the same thing)

I said that the main point was to depict the beauty and complexity of the cyclical nature of existence etc. I also said that it appears simple on a superficial level, yet it is really complicated, hence why the poem started with death and went backwards blah blah blah haha

There were also heaps of biblical allusions and allusions to evolution. I said that they suggested that the heaven of animals didn't exist and it leads one to question the meaning of life or something etc.

There was a tree that was referred to in the second last stanza, I said that it was an allusion to the tree of knowledge in Genesis. As the animals were said to not feel pain it means that the animals were without knowledge, so I said that's why they just accepted it etc, further illustrating that we may never know the answer to certain questions like heaven and meaning of life. etc.

asdkfjhsdjhf I was really wanting to just get up and leave the exam about 30 minutes into it :'( I didn't understand what I was saying haha. But by the end I read over it and it made sense and my conclusion sort of linked it all together so hopefully it was ok

[laryxle]

I think we covered similar points, i'm sure you'll be fine I was a bit like that at the start of the exam, because the poem seemed so kind of vague when you first read it. I think for the tree I talked about it being the tree of life, and said it was symbolic of our world in that the world is what links everyone together or something like that. I think all the religious imagery went right over my head, which is funny given that my english teacher spent two years trying to educate our class on religious imagery

[larry]

oops. Completely missed most of the religious imagery, zilch on evolution, nothing about finding the answers to life the universe and everything... I linked it to how humans think they want to attain this kind of bliss that only comes through the complete absence of conscious thought and living onl by natural instinct, but that we were incapable of it, or even of truly wanting it (from the stuff about the prey - we could never accept to be like that even if it was "heaven" for them)...

I hope my marker's into... stream of consciousness writing - some of my structure was awful

[tenaciousdan]

Yeah I went in larry's direction as well, talking about the juxtaposition of heaven, which is a human concept, and animals, which are said to be "soulless". But I think I got my thoughts muddled. Didn't like how I did overall :/

[Matthew Sinclair]

Yeah my structure was AWFUL :'(

No joke. I decided to go chronologically and I split it into like 3 different sections. The first I said was to do with death, the next life, and the last birth. But then as I was going through I realised that that was stupid as there are references to life/death etc throughout the whole thing haha, so it was more like a line by line analysis and it had some random paragraphs here and there lol.

There weren't any similes/metaphors/stuff like that was there? If so, I didn't find it haha.

Oh, and the whole thing was full of enjambment, so I said it made it become like one giant stanza and that was my rationale behind grouping it into sections based on content hahaha.

I also argued that it depicts the deterministic nature of existence and how we don't have free-will etc and I linked that to the animal's acceptance or something lawl.

In retrospect, I could've gone heaps more into the whole tree of knowledge/genesis thing. Considering how genesis depicts the creation :/ ie life or what ever. I also didn't really comment on the structure in terms of why it was in stanzas...

The parts I linked to evolutionary theory was the 'outdoing outdoing' bit with the landscape and it shows the struggle and also 'instinct'. I said that the Heaven probably didn't exist as they were 'souless' which is contradictory to going to heaven, well that's what I said anyway haha. And I said 'come here' was ambiguous and that incited the reader to question the 'Heaven of Animal's' and if it is real etc.

I also said 'teeth grown perfect' etc was a reference to evolution as they have evolved to adapt to their environment or something like that.

I think I ultimately had like 5 different theses that I was arguing lksdjfkasjhdfakjsdfhlkasdfjlkasjdf ohh well I tried =)

I totally took a biological/psychological approach to that exam hah

I also said that there was sibilance with 'stalk..silently' and alliteration 'bright backs' which I said was juxtaposition of the soft and plosive sounds to emphasise a change in tone/illustrate the attack or something like that

I said that the last line 'they rise' was ambiguous as I said it could refer to either an ascent to heaven or being born/reborn, further making the reader question the existence of 'The Heaven of Animals'.

[laryxle]

I structured it like there were 3 sections too:

firstly, in the first three in stanzas he establishes the heaven, and the relationship between the creature and the heavens, and shows it to be really simple and stuff

next, the identity of 'they' is split into two groups; the hunters and the hunted, how the poem starts getting more complex and how the whole is split up into little bits, making the heaven become less simplified and hence reflect reality more

then lastly how the end of the poem kind of relates these two things together, showing how 'they' are basically representative of a whole and in that encompass the cycle of life and death, and how heaven is essentially a simplified version of our world, done to show how the world facilitates the cycle.

So I did it chronologically too, any other way is too hard

I noticed the enjambment too, except the first three stanzas ended in full stops, so I said something about how at the beginning the heaven is presented in such a simplified way that the full stops is reflective of the simplicity, and the enjambment in the rest of the poem shows how life all sticks together, how things are more complex or something like that, although that sounds like total crap now that I think about it

[Matthew Sinclair]

What you said/did sounds really good, actually!!! I was just looking up on the net and apparently the poet himself said that the heaven was a symbol for earthly life or something to that extent. But IB will let you argue whatever you want as look as you give it reason =) so for anyone reading this, don't worry. It's poetry/prose, argue what ever you want!

HOW did I not notice the full stops??? Ahh that makes me look so oblivious! I even said each stanza linked cause of it (thinking there weren't any full stops at the end) I was just rather out of it when I was writing that second paragraph about the structure. Just after my intro I explained the structure/literal depiction of the poem. Can't believe I overlooked that! Oh well, I will just expect a realistic grade.

[laryxle]

lol it wasn't a big thing so I doubt that you would get marked down for that (although I have no experience at all with IB marking )

[jose.a.]

How do you do that thing where your subjects appear below your post???

Edited November 11, 2010 by sweetnsimple786
You should ask about features in the "About IB Survival" Forum. To add your subjects, you want to go to your profile and click the "Edit my profile" button on the right and go to "Change my signature."