Lord of the Flies Found Poem--Beastly

Beastly

(Taken from William Golding's novel Lord of the flies chapters 1-11)

      He sat on the fallen trunk

   With his left side to the sun

             Here, invisible yet strong,

         Was the taboo of the old life

                   He ought to be chief

                       So full of pride in his contribution

                     To the good of society

           Took off the school sweater 

                      Took off his glasses

                Palely naked

                    He began to dance

               And his laughter 

                     Became a blood thirsty snarling

      The conch exploded into thousand white fragments

            And ceased to exist

                  There were no words, and no movement

                         But the tearing of teeth and claws

Demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green…

                              Rushed out howling

                   Maybe there is a beast…                                                                              Maybe it’s only us… 

Lord of the Flies Found Poem-Utopia

Utopia
(Lines from William Golding's Lord of The Flies, pp 4-215)

A vision of red and yellow
White surf beyond the open sea
Still as a mountain lake
Shades of shadowy green and purple

Palm trees leaned, reclined
Green feathers up in the air
Palm fronds whisper,
Spots of blurred sunlight slid
Bright winged things in the shade

Noon, floods of light fell
Stark colours of the morning
Smoothed in pearls and opalescence
The heat, lying there, perhaps sleeping

The leaves were roaring like the sea
Something boomed up on the red rock
Shake, noise, steadily increased
The darkness was full of claws, awful, unknown
Between flashes of lightning, dark and terrible,
The boys followed him...

Final Reflection: Farewell Almasy

Although I have been saying how great this book is and how much I learned from it, I have to tell everyone that I was LYING. The English Patient is a book that bores you when you are reading and relieves you at the moment when you put it down. The plot progresses so slowly that you'd rather write out the ending with your own imagination. Among the 300 pages, 250 are garbage. Only the leftovers are what truly say something. The setting jumps so frequently (every paragraph sometimes) that you just want to choke the author. Yes, it is a valuable book because of the deep thinking it contains. However, the time you waste while reading is much more valuable than the knowledge you gain. Take out 250 pages, it would have been the perfect book ever. I would NOT recommend this book to anyone in my grade but perhaps to the old whose purpose of reading is merely to spend time.

Reflection #8: learnings

Finally completed reading The English Patient, I gradually understood the theme that Ondaatje tries to convey. With Hana's altruism, he advises us to care for the people around us. The love of Hana to her father, from Almasy to Katherine, and between Kit and Hana are perfect embodiment of the theme of love which is one of the story's main ideas. Also, the hopefulness Hana has to the patient exemplifies an attitude which the author wants us to adopt. Overall, this novel evokes really deep thinking from the readers and contains much useful information and knowledge which can be applied to our daily life.

Group Inquiry Project

Having picked altruism as our inquiry question, my group members and I started to take actions. We planned to collect books and donate them to Admiral Seymour Elementary school, thus demonstrating our altruism. We went to every house around the neighborhood, asking them for used books. At first, we encountered many problems. Some people were annoyed when we knocked the door and others did not want to take pictures with us, which made it difficult for us to do the Pecha Kucha. But as we got better at the job, we were able to get more books and grew more confident. The greatest success so far in our inquiry project is that we were able to resolve the problems we face. We will keep up with the things we do and continue with our inquiry.

The English Patient: The Connection

Altruism, a predominant theme in The English Patient, is closely related to my life. In the novel, Hana nurses her patient carefully and asks nothing in return. Her altruism is just like my care for the animals. Since grade 10, I have been attempting to raise animal conservation awareness in BC through social media, online advertisement, and local newspapers. What I am doing for the animals is similar to what Hana does in that we both do not ask anything in return. The novel confirms my belief in the animal rights movement and encourages me to keep up with what I am doing.

The English Patient: Altruism

Altruism is embodied in The English Patient primarily through Hana's meticulous care for Almasy. She reads to him, wipes his body, and feeds him every day without complaining about the trouble that she has endured. She cares for him with heart and soul without asking anything in return. Her behaviors are so inspiring to me that I started helping others and noticing more and more altruistic behaviors in the current society. The impact that the novel has had on me is tremendous, and this effect can only be achieved by a masterpiece. Therefore, once again, I have to say that The English Patient is a powerful literary work and I recommend it to everyone interested in reading.

The English Patient: Love VS Friendship

When I am reading The English Patient, this question keeps popping out of my head, "What is the difference between love and friendship?" Hana takes care of the English patient, yet she cannot distinguish her feelings toward him clearly. This makes me question some relationships in my life. Sometimes I mistaken friendship as love and take love as a friendship.
After thinking about the difference between them carefully, I came up with a method, or merely an idea, to vary the two. Imagine that you are alone in a dark house. You cannot get out but can let one person in to accompany you. The person who comes into your mind immediately is exactly your love.
Hope this will provide you with some thoughts. Comment if you have your own way of distinguishing love and friendship.

The English Patient: a way of writing

  Michael Ondaatje forms a unique and interesting narrative style in The English Patient. It follows neither the order of time nor the shifting of spaces. The narration constantly skips back and forth between past and present, and from place to place.

  This style of writing was really confusing for me at first. It is hard to determine what is going on in the story without sufficient information given. However, as I got used the skipping-back-and-forth, I realized that there is a key skill we have to develop in order to read Ondaatje's novel--identifying the point of shifting. Once we find out that the setting has changed, we then look for the specific time and place of the scene. Thus, the reading becomes much easier and a more enjoyable experience.