This is a short story about the shooting scene in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where Okonkwo accidentally fires his gun and kills a young man in the tribe, but in a modern setting.
The crowd suddenly went quiet, and a fizzle was heard throughout the silent field. A dangerous rocket plunged towards the dark night-sky, and a sudden boom was followed by a glowing rain falling over the mesmerized spectators. A few shattered shouts of amazement could be heard. Everyone tensely watched the falling sparks fade away to the dark void, awaiting what everyone knew would follow. After a short moment of complete silence, the sky exploded in the colours of the rainbow, and shouts drowned the whole field.
Okonkwo, too, intoxicated by the ardent starfalls. This year, he had brought his own rockets. As he watched the fireworks with awe and a bit of jealousy, he assembled the set. Just as another missile flew skywards, Okonkwo lit the fuse. While he rose to step back, he stumbled over the leg of another, as ferocious celebrator.
His eyes caught a glimpse of fire. He fumbled with the explosive rocket. The fizzling sound rose for a moment, and a red bolt burnt through the wild crowd. A piercing screech halted the slightest movement. Okonkwo sat with the scorched rod from his firework in his hands. In front of him lay a child. Dead.
Here is an alternate beginning of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.
Rewritten beginning
Suddenly Kino awoke from his sleep, as if on instinct. His eyes surveyed the dark realm in which he had slept. A piece of coal burnt dankly and secretly as his wife rapidly fanned it alive, spawning a vicious fire licking the atmosphere with its long flames.
To avoid the ardent spears which the fire spew, Kino turned his head to Coyotito, his innocent son laying in a seemingly safe vessel. The child’s harmless face kept Kino’s gaze for a while, when the Utopian moment was suddenly disturbed.
The tranquil silence slowly mixed into the sound of tripping feet. A minor movement stole Kino’s focus. In the light of the fire’s fierce flames, a scorpion lead astray was climbing the rope hanging above Coyotito’s vessel.
His mind clouded with ferocity and love for his child, Kino viciously threw his paw against the poisonous insect threatening what he held so dearly. Too early slipped the vile threat, and it struck as it fell upon the child’s soft neck.
Enraged, Kino smashed the scorpion against the dirty ground of his hay shelter, stomping and crushing it into oblivion. Meanwhile his wife tried to draw the secrete from Coyotito’s wound, but it was too late. The venom was spreading in his helpless body.
Rationale
In order to make the story seem more interesting, I started the introduction with an event, ignoring unnecessary adjectives describing the setting, since the setting will be revealed throughout the story anyway.
The word “suddenly” is charged with a certain feeling, feelings of ferocity, haste and to an extent recklessness. By introducing the story with such a mood, I make the reader alert and awake. The main character’s name is used very early, which indicates that he is important for the plot. Conveniently, Kino is a primitive name that leads one’s thought to barbarism, village-dwelling and low-developed tools.
Since I want Kino to be portrayed as a vicious and primitive beast in the beginning, I associate the words “instinct”, “survey” and “sleep” with him. To emphasize the primitive setting, the room in which Kino awakes is dark, and he sees only the tiny flame which Juana is reviving.
All that is associated with danger keeps one awake and interested, which is why I choose to put focus on the fire. Aggressive adjectives and personifications are utilized to describe the fire and its flames. Because of the personifications, the reader is required to think, and therefore stays interested as long as they are not too far-fetched.
The second paragraph consists of a transition between danger and safety – it first continues the danger theme with “ardent spears”, and switches to a safer vocabulary with words such as “safe”, “child” and “harmless”. Emphasizing this safety too much would result in boring the reader, and therefore the paragraph is abruptly canceled with a cliffhanger.
“The sound of tripping feet” is often associated with harmless insects, which is why I use it in this manner – the reader is surprised when the scorpion is revealed, which makes them even more awake. By mixing the fire with the scorpion, an inherently dangerous creature, a very tensed atmosphere is achieved.
A vocabulary hinting of anger and recklessness is still being used (”clouded”, “ferocity”, “viciously”), but it is blended with words of secrecy and lethality, such as “poisonous”, “vile” and “venom”. This makes the reader further think of Kino as a vicious beast, an effect which is also achieved by using the metaphor “paw”.
Coyotito is portrayed as innocent by words like “helpless”, since this amplifies the effect of him being the victim of the scorpion’s poison.
In Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, the importance of different social classes is used to great extent. In fact, the whole play is based on the difference between social classes: If they did not exist, Mr. Higgins’ and Colonel Pickering’s bet would never have taken place. The whole plot is based on Eliza Doolittle’s ascension from a “draggletailed guttersnipe” (Higgins) to a full-fledged duchess and princess.
Throughout the play, there is a clear distinction in the ways and manners between people from different social classes. The obvious example is in the beginning of act 1, when Eliza’s accent is transcribed: “Theres menners f’yer!” (The Flower Girl). Another poor accent is that of Eliza’s father: The H is omitted in his lines (”Iggins”). This is in contrast to the accents of the ladies and gentlemen, which are transcribed just like regular, written English.
I believe that it is important to note how the professor’s transformation of Eliza is reflected in the manuscript: The change in her accent — which is even pointed out as being too good for a native speaker — is much more emphasized than the change in her manners and her looks, for only the first day is it mentioned that she takes a bath, and only once are the jewels decorating her during the garden party at the Buckingham Palace mentioned.
Morals, however, are completely independent of social class. Shaw shows us both types of personalities in both classes: Eliza, the good girl despite her being very poor, and her father, who ruthlessly touches rich gentlemen in order to make them aid him economically. The Colonel is very generous and gentle, even if Mr. Higgins is not always so.
My conclusion is that the social classes in Pygmalion are deeply emphasized and of great importance to the play. However, there are human qualities that not even social class can change.1100 tracfones ringtone nokia6102 nokia ringtonenokia 6255i ringtonefree ringtone 3310 nokia codenokia ringtone 3588i free phoneringtone converter 445 downloadringtone for 4600 mobileringtone blackberry 8700 Mapaccredited collection agencydiploma online school accredited highschools accredited online in canadafinancial tools union america first creditrealestate corrispondance a courses creditedfinancial solution planners accreditedcanada in training accreditedexterior 2007 tax door credit for Map
This is reflection about the introduction to the book “The Fine Line: Communicating Clearly in English in an International Setting” by Ellen Wallace. The Fine Line is a collection of (among others) grammar and spelling rules recommended for International Baccalaureate students.
One single sentence, that’s all Ellen Wallace needed to entrance me. The introducing paragraph immediately grabbed my attention with its warm words, setting a nice atmosphere, and at the same time putting my brain at work – as soon as I realized where Wallace was going with her multinational breakfast, I thought about me, and she was right on so many points, not only the breakfast. This undoubtedly interested me, and forced me to keep reading.
Without ever losing her grasp of my interest, Wallace goes on to identify the problem. Which English is the better one? Mine. Therein lies the rub. Shakespeare quotes add a sense of class and education to a text that only Shakespeare quotes can.
The next page contains a sub-heading. The format in which it is presented at first confounded me – it seemed like a part of a table or a definition list – however, I noticed that it is indeed easy to overview while being original, in my frame of reference, that is.
Another reason that I like this text is the spread-out anecdotes and tales, such as the one about eggys/eyren. They really make the text personal, and it feels like the author reaches out to touch you. As opposed to a boring, fact-filled documentary on the English language’s evolution and diversity, which I was expecting, I got a mesmerizing essay, personalized just enough to show that the author was dedicated to the work.
Another part that caught my attention was the ending: The formality that we count on to give us credibility too readily pushes us into obtrusiveness. That sentence lingered in my mind for a while, and actually that helped me understand it. It’s also wonderful to see Wallace apply the theory about which she is writing in the text itself – if ever, it is at this point that you have the fullest understanding of the technique in question.credit consolidation debt card aaacanada california card credit merchant accountcredits music mile 8of accreditation education health alliedimpact credit account transfer scoreagency accreditation australiaagency consolidation creditor debtdistance accredited learning degree master Maploans status consolidation in-schoolhome loans ing equityform loan installmentsettlement instaloansuk loans car instantloans instant depositloans personal instant online approvalpayday explained loan instant Mapxxx pics porn ebonyporn ebony previewsporn rss 2.0 ebonyporn ebony starpinky star ebony pornthumbnails porn ebonyebony porn torrentebony tubes porn Map
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