Paper 1 perfect

The following extract is a leaflet written by Norman Angell in 1914. The text expresses the desire of avoiding war and the idea of Enhland fighting with Russia in the war. Angell uses several literary devices along with the use of the underlying theme of pacifism to get his major ideas across to the British audience. The text was released in 1914 at a time when England was at the brink of war and had made a likely agreement with Russia. Normall Angell uses literary devices, logos and pathos in order to help convince his audience

The audience is clearly identified as the British people but more specifically people who don't have much of an understanding on the current state of England in their alignment in the war. This can be inferred from the line “What is Russia”, this clearly indicates that the author assumes the audience is unsure about the war and doesn’t really know what is happening. The author also possibly refers to unemployed people as it’s target audience since on the bottom of the leaflet, the author states “Get your local notables to hold meetings of protest against England”, this takes into effect that the author is trying to get some people to take action to stop England fighting with Russia and so unemployed people fit the bill as they do not work or do anything time consuming. The purpose is clearly to convince the audience that fighting for Russia is a bad in idea in the war. The main big writing on the bottom stating “Britain, Stand Clear!” clearly gives reference to the fact that Britain should back away from Russia and change its plans. The author’s main headline “Why Fight for Russia?” clearly refers to the main idea of the daunting possibility of England's position in the war. The author continues to use statistics such as 50 billion pounds spent in Crimea in a way to lure the audience from the likelihood of fighting with Russia.

The content is linked to the the history in World War as in this leaflet, the author Norman Angell talks about the prospects of a war coming up and what is the right ideology for Britain to have in this circumstance. “The greatest enemy of British ideas of liberty and justice”, this directly supports how Angell contrasts the 2 different perspectives of the 2 different nations heading into the war and how that should deter Britain from participating with Russia. “The most opposed to all which we value”, this line from Angell again refers to the different ideology and how that sets the table for the right thing that Britain should do. The theme is of pacifism as Norman portrays Britain in a positive light as he is British himself so there is bias for the British side. He portrays them as peaceful. “It is the Russian Government which has been shooting down workmen”, this is an indirect reference to the peacefulness Britain holds as the author aims to show that Britain is a rather safe nation while Russia clearly isn’t.

The author writes about Russia in a very critical tone. He clearly speaks in a very harsh manner about it using extreme words such as “greatest enemy” and “most opposed to all which we value”to indicate how bad Russia really is. The author then refers to what Russia actually is and what they are supposed to have in a degrading manner as he is trying to play down Russia and indicate the negative aspects of it in order to drive his purpose through. This sets a mood of the British people wanting to take action as the audience has convinced the audience well enough to do something about the frightening prospect of working with Russia. “Write your memeber that you will try and turn him out”, this takes into account the effect of quick action the author puts on the audience as he clearly sends a message to them to do something about this issue.

The author uses logos to convey his message across. “65 million civilised Germans, of our own race and blood”, the use of logos aims to create sympathy towards the audience as in context the author refers to Germans relationship with Russia to make the audience feel bad as the author indicates the closeness of the relationship by stating their own race and blood. The author brings up how Russia is the country in which “we spent 50 million pounds in Crimea”. This demonstrates how Britain did take action and help Russia out but they did not give back to Britain. Author uses pathos when calling Germans part of Britain’s own race and blood to help let the audience sympathize the connection between the 2 nations. The author uses anaphora as he states “Russia is” twice which helps give a great emphatic statement on what Russia truly is and makes the audience realize Russia’s true identity and what it is and what it is not. He always uses a rhetorical question in “Why fight for Russia?” which helps the audience recognize and think for a moment on why are they actually thinking of siding with Russia.

The author uses a large font in saying “Britain, Stand Clear” as a summarization of his main idea but also to get the big message across of staying away from fighting with Russia. The author uses very small font in the bottom in a very sneaky way to get people into taking action about fighting against Russia. The author uses a big font on the very top asking the audience “Why fight for Russia” this helps in emphasizing what the audience should actually do as fighting for Russia may not be the best thing. The author uses big font to strike out his message in a emphatic manner to his audience so that they get what he is truly talking about.

Overall the author uses ethos, pathos and varies his font size in a variety of ways to truly get his points across in convincing the audience on why they should not fight for Russia. The author is very critical and at times sneaky in helping convince the audience.

English propaganda post

I do believe and agree that the term propaganda tends to always refer to something that is negative. The definition of propaganda is information of a biased or misleading nature normally used to support a political view. Propaganda by meaning doesn't necessarily mean something negative as using it to help support a view that one thinks is great could be a positive outcome but when it's used in context, it tends to always refer to something negative. I think this because even though one side is politically supported in a good way, it always comes at the expense of the other party/country/side. A support of one side completely is an insult to the other side as in propaganda that the compliments and the favoritism of one party reveals to the audience that the other side doesn't do and is incapable of doing the things that side itself is doing. It is also negative as political rivalries tend to hold a lot of negative implications and I feel that it is always used to call out the other side for failing or not being able to do something.

I can link this to the documentary Control Room. In the documentary, Al Jazeera was biased in different ways as Iraqis said that they were more in favour of Americans while the Americans said that they were favouring Iraqis.The bias here was with Americans trying to convince the Iraqis how big of a threat Saddam was and another huge use of propaganda was the American official who said the pictures used by Al Jazeera were fake as Al Jazeera would find people and portray them in sadness. This links to the fact on how propaganda can be seen negatively as the bias from Al Jazeera held negative implications as they were providing people with false information by portraying Iraqis in a worse light.

This can also be traced to article by Jessica Lynch. Jessica Lynch was portrayed in the media as a success story and as a hero because of American soldiers being able to rescue her from an Iraqi capture and attack. She was portrayed as shot and then helped by American soldiers which thus results in propaganda being used in the media as a negative means of portrayal since they intended to make Iraqis look more like the "bad" nation. The Lynch story was then scrutinized later on as there was no proof of American soldiers taking Jessica Lynch to hospital and saving her life as doctors and medical workers denied that. There was a claim made that Americans were taking videos to show to the American public how they were on the road to saving Jessica Lynch but however there is so evidence proven that the American's theory of saving Lynch is true. The propaganda here clearly put Iraq under fire and created a lot of negative implications.

Bias Article

http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-suspect-brilliant-science-student-230349806.html

James Holmes, the predator and perpetrator behind the movie theatre shooting at a screening of Dark Knight Rises, hailed from San Diego, California.

His university success by graduating at UC Riverside later turned into a down point in his life and he turned his life into a living mess.

Holmes enrolled last year at University of Denver in a PHD program. The sadistic man ended up withdrawing from the program without any given reason.

Despite his academic achievement, Holmes life was heading nowhere and he never fulfilled his potential. He may have been at the "top of the top" in university but that resulted in no good cause when he entered the real world.

The man ultimately reached his breaking point and effectively wasted his potential by entering into the movie theater under a gas mask, painting his hair red to emulate "The Joker" as the film played in the cinema was Dark Knight Rises and he wore all black.

There is no reason as to why he may have done this as no evidence from social media usage was traced with Holmes but it can be possibly due to depression with his own life.

Runaway IOC practice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TttrnSfLILg

Munro Practice IOC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixwft89aEA

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback would be nice.

This is Water Analysis

"This is Water" is an essay written by David Foster Wallace. The main point of Wallace's essay is to make us the audience be more aware in general of our surroundings and have more compassion and empathy towards the people who we pass by everyday. He encourages his audience to make decisions on what to focus on and he wants his target audience to focus on life before death.

Throughout his essay/speech, Wallace integrates several real life/realistic examples in order to be able to make that connection between him and his audience. As an example, in the beginning of the story he talks about 3 fish which confuses the audience as throughout the story we struggle to find what Wallace truly means with the example of the fish. I think he tries to show an interaction between 2 average people in life and illustrate to the audience what that average mentality is like. He develops his thesis by characterizing us as being ignorant to our surroundings at times.

Throughout the rest of his essay, he consistently speaks to the audience about how we humans tend to ignore the most basic things in life and how we always tend to brush off some of the most obvious sightings in our everyday lives. I really liked the way Wallace describe the normal everyday settings and the ordinary situations we find ourselves in always and I certainly agree with the point he makes about being unable to look at these situations critically and realize what exactly is going on even though we may be thinking about what is going on around us. He portrays us as always wanting to be in the center of attention and ignoring all the moving parts that surround the "centerpiece" which in this case is us. 

Literature here is able to develop empathy overall because as an example even I started to realize about some of the common everyday situations I've been through and all that has actually been going on opposed to what I think has been going on. Wallace's example of standing in a queue and being ignorant to the lady who tells us to have a nice day after we purchase is an example of our ignorance as we don't know the subtext behind that woman and we just look at these types of situations superficially. It develops emotional intelligence mainly because of being aware of what is around us and also being able to connect with other people's situations as Wallace talks in the story about assuming what that woman working at the supermarket would actually be like. 

Literature Reflection

We read literature to explore more about what the world is like and also be open to endless different interpretations of different works. We read literature to help ourselves create a better understanding of literature. Women's literature is basically a tool used by women themselves to express on how they feel and write about what they have experienced throughout their lives. Women will write about the social issues they have faced in society as they have been consistently been subjected to problems and been on the receiving end of sexism and before things such as having rights to do certain things or even so just having rights in general.

Alice Munro uses a lot of elements in her work which represent the common lives of women. She isn't necessarily a feminist but she does write about the realistic experiences that are very common to women such as being a housewife and living the everyday life of a woman. She doesn't exactly write about all the struggles of women but she does make the character similar in real life to other women. She puts a lot of thought and depth behind her characters and it's of the things that I like about her work. She represents her characters in good detail along with a good plot like Runaway or Family Furnishings. She starts off her stories in the middle of an issue and then lets the story progress which is something unique.

Reading Munro's work continues to make me realize more about the gender divide in society and see the difference between the roles of both women and men. I see how women have always been the ones who have been doing the dishes of the household and when a man does that part, it seems a bit ''awkward''. This is definitely due to the gender divide and some other things I learnt was how literature can make you realize about things like these. I have not read so much literature so therefore by reading her stories I have been more exposed to how people deliver the messages they want to send and why people read literature to a great extent.