The voice of Arundhati Roy is powerful, in her essays she discusses issues in society using examples, in which a lot of them revolve around society vs government. She discusses these issues with neither caution or fear of what the backlash of her statements could be because she stands by her values and beliefs, I think this makes her an idol to some people due to her self belief that she is fighting for the right reason and if something is wrong there should be no fear in mentioning it. The style of her writing is represent by her voice, it is extremely to the point and references a lot of similar situations around the world, her use of literary devices add depth to her points and further interest the reader who then wants to dwell further into the issue and her reason for writing about it. Such as in her essay; The End of Imagination – 1998″ she condemns India’s nuclear tests and its construction of enormous dam projects that continue to displace countless people from their homes and communities. It discusses the true repercussions of this form of warfare as well as the suppressed arguments made against it. It also includes her circulated and inspiring writings on the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the need to confront corporate power by hollowing out of democratic institutions globally. Her use of literary devices too add another realm and further the strength of her points; such as Rhetorical questions: What shall we do then, those of us who are still alive? Nuclear war has adverse effects on its survivors. The rhetorical questioning shows how there is no answer, how much such warfare would severely disrupt human lives and there would be nothing we would be able to do, it also helps get the reader question the discussion and thinking about her points and the essay’s purpose.

The article is not written only to promote Flanagan but to also provide the readers a fresh, new perspective on lockdown and the beauty of it. the target audience of the article are the Australians, the people who are familiar with him and his book but the article may also target the general public as everyone is going through lockdown and Covid – with majority of people struggling. The context of the article is focusing on the Covid – 19 pandemic and the struggles that come with it especially for the people who are isolated from everyone else, as it was written and published on September 19th. The style of the article is that of like an interview in which the writer account for a large amount of Flanagan’s words as well as his pauses and breaths, which makes it seem more like a transcript than an interview. The interview too is performed on the phone due to the Covid – 19 pandemic which adds a further Irony and depth to it as the discussion revolved around the effects of the pandemics on people and their way of living in today’s day and age.

What is this play about?

Glengarry Glen Ross is a play written by David Mamet, which focuses on the story of a group of salesmen based in Chicago. The play occurs when the group of salesmen become part of a competition in which only the top 2 salesmen will get to keep their jobs at the end of the month and shows the limits the salesmen are willing to go to in order to keep their jobs and get the best leads. 

Is it staggeringly inarticulate?

Unlike most plays, Glengarry glen ross is much more casual and common play in terms of its storyline which is a group of salesmen are fighting to keep their jobs, the conversations that occur in the play are a lot of banter and casual conversation which you may hear in real life. However it is the situation that attracts the readers and viewers and the tone at which these conversations occur. The techniques used in this play are much more subtle, yet as effective, than other plays.

How is the movie different?

The movie adds a lot more drama to the storyline and there are a couple of new characters added into the movie to create more tension and give a better background to the storyline in order for the audience to understand better. There is a slight deviation in the conversations to make the scenes more dramatic and interesting.

Medusa is told in the first person as a dramatic monologue by a woman who is insecure and worried that her husband is cheating on her. The poem begins: ‘A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy’ and it is this jealousy which has turned the woman into a gorgon and now everything she looks at turns to stone. Unlike our normal hate feelings towards the Medusa this poem evokes empathy for her as she is clearly distressed and suffering. Especially when she recollects, in the final stanza, the time she was young and beautiful, illustrating her complete lack of confidence.  Nevertheless, she is still presented as a foul character who threatens the reader, with the line ‘Be terrified’. The poem also ends with the line ‘Look at me now’ which has a double meaning. It could be read as a cry of distress or, as a threat as if you did look at Medusa you would die. This leaves the reader feeling conflicting emotions for the character, probably similar to how Medusa herself felt about herself throughout the poem. The poet uses a sibilance in the first two stanzas to create the sound of a hissing snake. Rhetorical questions, ‘Are you terrified?’ are used to involve but also intimidate the reader. The metaphor describing her husband’s heart for a shield suggests that he didn’t love her properly.

How has Carol Ann Duffy rewritten/transformed a known text or story? How can her versions have the same characters, but be “about” something different?

Carol Ann Duffy has used a common and well-known children’s story but has completely changed the meaning of the story. In her version, she has made the story more sexual and more violent with a much deeper meaning. It is her personal experience of having a relationship with an older man. The older man is represented by the wolf, as they are animals that are said to be evil and aggressive because she thinks of her experiences with him as troubling and feels that he took advantage of her lack of maturity. She uses the story of ‘Red Riding Hood’ as a way to tell her story in a way that many people may understand by using a well-known story as well as the same characters. In her version of the story, Red Riding Hood represents herself while the wolf represents the older man whom she had a relationship with and who took advantage of her lack of experience and immaturity.  The grandmother represents her grandmother in real life except in the context of the story the grandmother had been in a similar situation when she was younger and was trying to advise her daughter against falling into the same trap. The forest seems to represent the oppression of the relationship she had with the man and just like in the story when Red Riding Hood’s mother told her not to step off the path, Carol Ann did and this is how she ended up in that type of situation.

A personal essay is a broad essay that often incorporates a variety of writing styles. Most personal essay assignments ask writers to write about an important person, event or time period in their life. The goal is to narrate this event or situation in a way that the reader can fully experience and understand.The personal essay has loose structure and conversational tone. It is usually written in the first person. The writer uses self-disclosure, honesty, and truth. The writer can write about any subject, topic, or personal experience.

1. What choices have been made to be “good TV”?

Compared to the essay, the episodes have changed some details to maybe attract more viewers and make the story more relatable and interesting. In the essay, it says that the guy kept repeatedly breaking the woman’s heart but however in the episode, it was the woman who broke the guy’s heart when she slept with another guy, this may have been changed, from the essay, as it is more relatable to viewers – it also creates more drama which most viewers enjoy. Another thing they changed from the essay to the episode was the situation they met in, in the essay it mentioned that they had been in love in college but in the episode, it showed that they had met in an interview in which the guy gave up his interview so he could meet up with the woman or else he would have missed her. This may have been done to emphasize how strong the initial attraction was between them, especially for the guy. It also made the viewers feel more sympathy for the guy when he found out she cheated on him.

2. What would you have done differently? Why?

I would have tried to keep most of the details the exact same as they were in the essay because I feel that a story is best said the way it happened in real life. Yes, some details were changed as they were good marketing strategies to help popularise the episodes, but some of the changes in the story made it lose its true essence, in my opinion.

If Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter represent Mario’s two loves (romantic love, literature), then what does the book seem to say is more important to happiness?

In my opinion, I don’t think the book is portraying one love as more important to the other – it is saying that both loves contribute a great amount to his happiness. Sometimes his love for aunt Julia may be more important based on his situation and Vice-Versa, but overall they both matter and amount to his happiness. His love for Aunt Julia is romantic, its something thta brings joy to his life not only when he is with her but also when he thinks about her and their relationship. His love for literature is more like his passion for his job, the thing that motivates him to wake up everyday, go to work and try to make a difference. Both these loves contribute to different aspects of his happiness, but they both equally contribute to his personal happiness.

1) The Mario Vargas Llosa telling the story is obviously older than the “Marito” who is living it . . . How would you describe the tone? What is the attitude of the narrator to the young man he was? 

Mario Vargas Llosa writes the story as if his younger self was as mature as he is now and the tone stays the same throughout the book. He doesn’t seem to condescend or criticise his younger self and makes it seem as if his younger self made decisions the same we he would now. The tone is quite neutral and he doesn’t seem to disagree with anything.  

2) If every other chapter, basically, represents one of Pedro Camacho’s serials —if they didn’t happen, in other words, what is the point of spending so much time on these characters/events/conflicts?

I think the point of this is to show that Pedro Camacho is quite lonely and to make up for this isolation and loneliness he creates his own world, through his stories, where he is in control and it can be whatever he wants it to be. The stories and characters he makes up are his ‘friends’ and company on a daily basis, they are the people who get him through the day and never stop listening, the people who aren’t too busy to be with him.

3) If a story is basically, “one time, in one place, something happened” then it’s not really literature —it’s journalism or history or maybe even just gossip. Literature is usually thought to express something timeless —something true in a bigger sense. What might this novel be saying about life?

This novel is talking about how one’s life has so much going on, all at once, to the point where people don’t get a break. It shows how life can take you to different and unexpected places and throw unprecedented things at you. This novel really shows how life is timeless and so are the events that occur during life.

In class, we looked at a few advertisements for Kobe Bryant’s shoe. In these advertisements, we didn’t see the shoe at all but we saw a few ‘successful’ and famous people, such as Kanye West, Richard Branson, etc. I believe the main focus of the advertisement was too sell Kobe Bryant and his brand rather than just the product. By not showing the shoes throughout the ad, it made the audience more curious and interested in seeing the product, which is quite an interesting marketing strategy. A lot of Nike’s shoes are extremely and unnecessarily expensive and to a lot of people this gives them less incentive to buy them, but by doing this Nike ends up selling shoes which would have been previously considered expensive. By showing such popular and famous people in this ad, it seems to target quite a large range of people, those who aim to be successful in life and seeing people like Kanye, Kobe, etc, just makes them more interested in the product. Women, however, may view this differently due to the fact that most of the successful people shown were men and this may upset a lot of women.