P1 November 2012 HL English

[Jaydon]

Now that 24 hours have well and truly passed since the exam, we are free to discuss it.

How did everyone go? Did you choose the prose or the poem? What did you talk about?

Personally, I chose the prose extract from Middlesex. My essay was about how the dominant, opressive environment enforced by the factory within the scene was created through its tone, use of imagery and most importantly - the personification. I think if you missed the personification in this extract, you missed a lot.

I'd like to hear what you guys chose and wrote about, it'd be interesting.

[Kayla Jackson]

I picked Poem. No idea why. I always pick prose for practices.

[Jaydon]

To be honest I thought I always picked prose. I ended up choosing poem for my mock exam however. No idea why, but I went with my usual trend and picked prose again this time. I couldn't understand the poem on first glance, so I resorted to the prose. Plus, the prose was so much richer with stuff that was easy to talk about.

[ibhistoryishard]

I chose the extract as well. I thought it was quite good. I also interpreted the factory, or the Rouge as oppressive, controlling through the variations of imagery it used, personification and some instances of irony I picked up. My thesis was different though, I chose to talk about how the characterisation of the workers showed the loss of individual identity and how they represented the masses: picked up on the reference to world war one and industrilisation in the final paragraph as well.

Anyway, glad it's done! Only one more English Paper to go, (the unfortunate one)

Edited November 6, 2012 by ibhistoryishard

[Jaydon]

Only one more English Paper to go, (the unfortunate one)

Yeah, and unfortunately it's straight after Chemistry Paper 3.

Generally I tend to go better in my Paper 2 exams though, I only got 18/25 on my mock P1 yet got 21/25 on my mock P2.

[ibhistoryishard]

Ha, me too. I think it's due to the fact that I can actually somewhat prepare for this paper whereas paper 1 is really all about thinking on the spot.

Good luck with chemisty.

[silverykiwi]

I picked the poem - I always pick the poem, didn't even bother looking at the prose. What can I say, I love poetry!! And the exam poem was no different, I really enjoyed writing about it and there was so much to say.

I was really really happy, it was an awesome poem. I wrote about human mortality vs. the immortality of the written word, and concentrated on structure and graphic imagery in my analysis of techniques. I also focused on the time in which the poem was written vs. today, and the 'universal themes' therefore evident in the poem.

Can't believe exam time is finally here!! I hope everybody's exams go well

[silverykiwi]

Oh and also, Jaydon, I have Business and Chem together on Friday, then English and Chem on Monday!! It's going to be killer I only have 2 double ups and they both involve Chem!! I sympathize with your exam double-whammy.

[sarahlouise]

I chose the poem, found it much better than the prose even though I normally do the prose in practice.

I found a meaning pretty easy to find in the poem, and thought the exam was pretty decent on the whole.

[Jaydon]

Oh and also, Jaydon, I have Business and Chem together on Friday, then English and Chem on Monday!! It's going to be killer I only have 2 double ups and they both involve Chem!! I sympathize with your exam double-whammy.

Thanks for the sympathy. Luckily it's only Paper 3 (which in my opinion is the easiest of the papers, as we take Options A and B and I take HL Biology). From memory, I only have one double-up, but a lot of consecutive-day exams.

[Jimena]

so i did the poem I though the interpretation wasn't to hard but maybe i just didn't get it...what were the things you guys talked about for the poem? i hope i get it right...i said how book are the tool humanity uses to transcend through times...

Edited November 6, 2012 by Jimena

[Jimena]

Also, I am quite afraid that i rambled too much... I wrote the full 10 pages so i am likely to have repeated myself? this is bad isn't it??

[Jaydon]

Also, I am quite afraid that i rambled too much... I wrote the full 10 pages so i am likely to have repeated myself? this is bad isn't it??

You might lose presentation marks if it isn't that clear, but as long as you made your points you should retain the rest of the marks.

[Tony Stark]

I did a largely Marxist reading of the extract; after googling it to find out more about the novel I feel like an idiot for doing so.

[sarahlouise]

I did a largely Marxist reading of the extract; after googling it to find out more about the novel I feel like an idiot for doing so.

What was the name of the novel it was from? I don't recall it.

[break&burn&end.]

^ Middlesex; I remember I briefly mentioned the title with regards to dehumanisation etc.

Edited November 11, 2012 by break&burn&end.

[Tony Stark]

Here's the extract:

My grandfather’s good mood accompanied him all the way to the trolley stop. Other workers were already waiting, loose-kneed, smoking cigarettes and joking. Lefty noticed their metal lunch pails and, embarrassed by his paper sack, held it behind him. The streetcar showed up first as a hum in the soles of his boots. Then it appeared against the rising sun, Apollo’s own chariot, only electrified. Inside, men stood in groups arranged by language. Faces scrubbed for work still had soot inside the ears, deep black. The streetcar sped off again. Soon the jovial mood dissipated and the languages fell silent. Near downtown, a few blacks boarded the car, standing outside on the runners, holding on to the roof.

And then the Rouge appeared against the sky, rising out of the smoke it generated. At first all that was visible was the tops of the eight main smokestacks. Each gave birth to its own dark cloud. The clouds plumed upward and merged into a general pall that hung over the landscape, sending a shadow that ran along the trolley tracks; and Lefty understood that the men’s silence was a recognition of this shadow, of its inevitable approach each morning. As it came on, the men turned their backs so that only Lefty saw the light leave the sky as the shadow enveloped the streetcar and the men’s faces turned gray and one of the mavros on the runners spat blood onto the roadside. The smell seeped into the streetcar next, first the bearable eggs and manure, then the unbearable chemical taint, and Lefty looked at the other men to see if they registered it, but they didn’t, though they continued to breathe. The doors opened and they all filed out. Through the hanging smoke, Lefty saw other streetcars letting off other workers, hundreds and hundreds of gray figures trudging across the paved courtyard toward the factory gates. Trucks were driving past, and Lefty let himself be taken along with the flow of the next shift, fifty, sixty, seventy thousand men hurrying last cigarettes or getting in final words—because as they approached the factory they’d begun to speak again, not because they had anything to say but because beyond those doors language wasn’t allowed. The main building, a fortress of dark brick, was seven stories high, the smokestacks seventeen. Running off it were two chutes topped by water towers. These led to observation decks and to adjoining refineries studded with less impressive stacks. It was like a grove of trees, as if the Rouge’s eight main smokestacks had sown seeds to the wind, and now ten or twenty or fifty smaller trunks were sprouting up in the infertile soil around the plant. Lefty could see the train tracks now, the huge silos along the river, the giant spice box of coal, coke, and iron ore, and the catwalks stretching overhead like giant spiders. Before he was sucked in the door, he glimpsed a freighter and a bit of the river French explorers named for its reddish color, long before the water turned orange from runoff or ever caught on fire.

Historical fact: people stopped being human in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we’ve all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds.

From http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/70922/Eugenides_-_Middlesex.html

I missed the personification; in fact I still don't really see it. Anybody care to elaborate?

[sarahlouise]

Here's the extract:

X

From http://www.e-reading..._Middlesex.html

I missed the personification; in fact I still don't really see it. Anybody care to elaborate?

I don't see the personification either!

But I wouldn't stress about your reading of it - there's not a RIGHT way to read it, so as long as you could substantiate your Marxist reading it'll probably be fine

Edited November 11, 2012 by sarahlouise

[jebsjebs]

Does any of you remember the title of the poem?

Thank you.