MAY11 English A1 SL P1 (TZ2)

[Naiya]

yes even it think the poem was magnificent!!! And my paper just finished couple of minutes before....

did anyone notice the time when the poem was written.... it was in 1954 that is post world war2... so commented on the reason for why Nicholson might have written it....

did anyone do the same stuff??? n yes the structure was really awesome seems there was an intricate thought process behind every subtle thing!! jst loved it!!

[IBn00b]

I love how the meaning of the poem was stated in the last guiding question: "How does the author express the dangers of thinking too much about the future" or something like that.

[Naiya]

I love how the meaning of the poem was stated in the last guiding question: "How does the author express the dangers of thinking too much about the future" or something like that.

yes absolutely correct bud!!!! actually that guiding question was like a big big hint to the interpretive meaning of the poem.... i doubt if i might have attempted the poem if that guiding question was missing....

anyways thanks to whoever set that!!!!

[Guest]

Exact same situation! I think we wont score as high in the presentation aspect but the 'understanding', 'interpretation', 'literary features' and 'language' aspects should be unaffected ... theoretically. I guess we just have to do well on paper 2. Which did you do prose or poem? I did the poem, it seemed decent.

Does anyone know what the poet was trying to get across when the boy's hair "un-clicked themselves"?

"I'm rising five" he said

"Not four" and the little coils of hair

Un-clicked themselves upon his head.

His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare

At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light

Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He'd been alive

Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more;

Not four

But rising five.

Around him in the field, the cells of spring

Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot

And stem shook out the creases from their frills,

And every tree was swilled with green.

It was the season after blossoming,

Before the forming of the fruit:

Not May

But rising June.

And in the sky

The dust dissected the tangential light:

Not day

But rising night;

Not now

But rising soon.

The new buds push the old leaves from the bough.

We drop our youth behind us like a boy

Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower,

But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit,

But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed

In the baby's cradle; we look for the grave in the bed;

Not living

But rising dead.

Norman Nicholson

Ohh I think we got different versions? I did prose and the poem that was there was different from the one you put up.. Yea the only thing we can do now is do well on P2.

[Guest]

Did you write some sort of concluding sentence?

@Keel - I focused on the repetition. I did poem as well. I didn't bother with the characters!

Not at all, I had to stop while finishing off paragraph 3

[Snoopchicken]

I did the poem as well. I interpreted it in quite an awkward way:

I explained the poem by its 4 stanzas. The first stanza serves to portray the little boy as innocent, and excited to be getting older. The innocence is specifically emphasized through the symbolism of "toffee," which also appears in the last stanza. I said the curly hair "unclicking" meant that he is leaving his youth behind. The second has a general atmosphere of life, through spatial imagery, diction, etc. Here, I said there is a theme of uprising - as in, the little boy seems to be "entering" life. Then, I said the third stanza serves to foreshadow the fourth, and how this atmosphere of life begins to get "darkened" by the "dust." Finally, I explained the last 2 metaphors of the poem in stanza 4: for me, the flower seemed to symbolize life, the fruit symbolized the promises of life, and the rot of the fruit symbolized how these promises are never fulfilled. The second metaphor is simply an example that we can all relate to. In general, I said the final stanza portrayed a theme of downfall through a mood of disappointment, and that led me to make my conclusion of the author's purpose, being to portray the reality of the human life cycle - it simply is a "downhill" road. The rise of tension starting from stanza 2, the peak in stanza 3, and the decrease in stanza 4 seems to portray the general trend of the human life cycle.

Any ideas if you guys think this interpretation is somewhat valid?

Edited May 7, 2011 by Snoopchicken

[Naiya]

I did the poem as well. I interpreted it in quite an awkward way:

I explained the poem by its 4 stanzas. The first stanza serves to portray the little boy as innocent, and excited to be getting older. The innocence is specifically emphasized through the symbolism of "toffee," which also appears in the last stanza. I said the curly hair "unclicking" meant that he is leaving his youth behind. The second has a general atmosphere of life, through spatial imagery, diction, etc. Here, I said there is a theme of uprising - as in, the little boy seems to be "entering" life. Then, I said the third stanza serves to foreshadow the fourth, and how this atmosphere of life begins to get "darkened" by the "dust." Finally, I explained the last 2 metaphors of the poem in stanza 4: for me, the flower seemed to symbolize life, the fruit symbolized the promises of life, and the rot of the fruit symbolized how these promises are never fulfilled. The second metaphor is simply an example that we can all relate to. In general, I said the final stanza portrayed a theme of downfall through a mood of disappointment, and that led me to make my conclusion of the author's purpose, being to portray the reality of the human life cycle - it simply is a "downhill" road. The rise of tension starting from stanza 2, the peak in stanza 3, and the decrease in stanza 4 seems to portray the general trend of the human life cycle.

Any ideas if you guys think this interpretation is somewhat valid?

yes i think it is valid!! its is a good one indeed!!

[Lawliet]

Geez, although you say that many of your friends have chosen the prose passage, you go on rambling about the poem. Oh well...

Anyways, read the poem, liked it, seemed kind of familiar to me, didn't pick it. I guess I'm kinda more into prose stuff, and liked how the prose passage was a bit enygmatic at first. Took me some time to get into it..

I just have a question, I wrote as part of my interpretation that the father of the "Edwin" was hiding his true identity from him as if he is wearing a mask. However as Edwin discusses in the passage, it is as if Edwin realizes the true identity (which shows contradiction in terms of the words he used to describe his father) of the behind story of his parents.

Also this is just my personal idea, I think his mother remarried someone else because based on the description of the picture, his friend talked about the uncomfortable clothing of his mother, and that showed social class of a different family (I think???) I wrote that Edwin overall thought that his mother was dead and he trusted his father more than anybody in the world, but realizing the lies behind it he felt "anger+betrayal" and mixed emotions eventually allowing him to experience all the pains in terms of physically, mentally, and especially emotionally. Relatively the downfall of his life as if him experiencing one of the largest barriers of his life.

How is my interpretation in general? I was not able to write everything in-depth because I lacked time... I wanted to say more interpretations.

P.S. I am just curious on the relationship between Edwin and his friend because it is as if he/she knows the background relationship between Edwin's parents more than he does. It is as if he/she is expecting him to know what had happened to both of them, but Edwin has no idea which makes him ask the same question twice towards the end of the passage.

I will thankfully accept your comments on my interpretations!

Hm yah, wrote something in that direction. Tried to tie all that emotional stuff into the text, with stuff like diction and syntax and imagery, like how his sadness and anger are linked to that cracking-pond metaphor...

But yah, also went into that direction. Though now that you say it I said less about the mother's picture. Focused on this interesting thing with his childhood being an illusion, and now he suffers from the revelation. Put some psychological thought into it