Monologue- Sher Khan
My foolish subjects, why do you blame me for being a tyrant? What sin have I committed which was not in the best interests of the residents of this mighty jungle?
Yes, I have tried many times to kill the human cub known as Mowgli for many years. I admit it ... I hate humans. Filthy creatures. Always cutting down trees. Polluting the rivers. Killing us, the most noblest of animals for… Food!
I was killing humans to protect you all from them. Mowgli is, and always will be a human. It was necessary to eradicate all traces of them from the forest. He was no friend of the jungle, he coveted my place as king. He was a spy for his people, had he not fled from the jungle, he would have led his people to us. To kill us. So that they may rule the jungle.
Being the king, I hunted him down and was about to end his petty existence, but I gave him mercy and told him he had ten second to run. I upheld my promise and went after him but the traitors known and Baloo and Bhagera however thwarted me. I however valiantly defeated them and pursued the cub.
Once I found him I challenged him to a fair fight but instead the coward threw dirt in my eyes, temporarily blinding me. He ran as fast as he could but I still persevered and followed, but alas fate had it that the cub would find fire. Although I could have fought and been burned to death I chose to retreat and save myself so I may lead the jungle yet again.
As rightful king.
{{{Gursevak singh}}}
Monday, January 07, 2008
Specialist study.
Anita and Me is a semi-autobiographical novel written by British-Asian author Meera Syal. It follows the early life of the protagonist of the novel, Meena. Meena is a nine-year-old girl torn between the ethnic culture of her Punjabi parents and that of the white British sixties. The relationship between Meena and Anita changes and reflects the changes in Meena as she denies her heritage and then finally accepts who she really is. This essay will show how Syal effectively conveys the theme of friendship and through the use of characterisation and narrative structure.
The novel is told from the point of view of Meena, and is in her own words.
As a result, the events told by Meena are unreliable but as we see everything through Meena eyes we understand her better and we have a better knowledge of her feelings. The fact she is the narrator makes us take her side and prejudge characters from what we are told from Meena’s point of view.
The first time we meet Anita she is at the local shop and stops to talks to Meena. Anita tells Meena - who is looking at a navy poster - that the officer on the poster is in fact her father. This is a blatant lie, but Meena’s naivety leads her to believe anything Anita says. Meena can’t believe that Anita, the girl that she has admired for such a long time has actually talked to her: It had been the first time Anita had ever talked to me and I wondered what I had done to deserve It. This shows the extent of Meena’s idolisation of Anita, as she feels that she has to have done something wonderful to deserve Anita talking to her.
As Anita and Meena’s relationship progresses, Meena is just a tag-a-long to Anita’s group, the wenches brigade: ‘I was happy to follow her a respectable few paces behind knowing I was privileged to be in her company’, showing that she isn’t really a part of the group as she is behind the others. This further adds to the fact that Meena idolises her. Meena tries to conform to Anita’s views: ‘I wanted fish fingers and chips like Anita’, instead of Indian food, this shows that Meena rejects her own culture in favour of Anita’s as she giving up Indian food in favour of English food.
In time Anita and Meena become firm friends and Anita even has dinner at Meena’s house, this is a big step in their friendship, as Meena has never ‘eaten Indian food in the presence of a white person before’, This shows that Meena trusts Anita enough to share her culture with her . This shows the relationship between Anita and Meena growing stronger; Meena is including Anita in the Asian parts of her life. However she begins to realize what Anita is really like when the Wenches brigade turns against another girl: ‘I had seen how in an instant, those you called friends could suddenly become tormenters, sniffing out a weakness or a difference, turning their own fear of ostracism into a weapon with which they could beat the victim away’. Meena realises that she will also be ostracised because of her ethnicity. This shows us that Meena realizes the social power Anita has.
The final realization of Anita’s true personality occurs when a family friend is paki-bashed by Anita’s boyfriend. Meena overhears Anita laughing about a racist incident, which her boyfriend instigated. Meena finally begins to alienate herself from Anita, and she ends their friendship soon after: ‘I don’t give a toss what your sister does, Tracy. You can tell her that from me’. This shows us that Meena has matured and has finally learned to stand up for her self, and feel more comfortable in her identity.
This essay looked at the themes of friendship and identity, his has been shown using characterisation and narrative structure.
{{{ Gursevak singh's essay. }}}
Anita and Me is a semi-autobiographical novel written by British-Asian author Meera Syal. It follows the early life of the protagonist of the novel, Meena. Meena is a nine-year-old girl torn between the ethnic culture of her Punjabi parents and that of the white British sixties. The relationship between Meena and Anita changes and reflects the changes in Meena as she denies her heritage and then finally accepts who she really is. This essay will show how Syal effectively conveys the theme of friendship and through the use of characterisation and narrative structure.
The novel is told from the point of view of Meena, and is in her own words.
As a result, the events told by Meena are unreliable but as we see everything through Meena eyes we understand her better and we have a better knowledge of her feelings. The fact she is the narrator makes us take her side and prejudge characters from what we are told from Meena’s point of view.
The first time we meet Anita she is at the local shop and stops to talks to Meena. Anita tells Meena - who is looking at a navy poster - that the officer on the poster is in fact her father. This is a blatant lie, but Meena’s naivety leads her to believe anything Anita says. Meena can’t believe that Anita, the girl that she has admired for such a long time has actually talked to her: It had been the first time Anita had ever talked to me and I wondered what I had done to deserve It. This shows the extent of Meena’s idolisation of Anita, as she feels that she has to have done something wonderful to deserve Anita talking to her.
As Anita and Meena’s relationship progresses, Meena is just a tag-a-long to Anita’s group, the wenches brigade: ‘I was happy to follow her a respectable few paces behind knowing I was privileged to be in her company’, showing that she isn’t really a part of the group as she is behind the others. This further adds to the fact that Meena idolises her. Meena tries to conform to Anita’s views: ‘I wanted fish fingers and chips like Anita’, instead of Indian food, this shows that Meena rejects her own culture in favour of Anita’s as she giving up Indian food in favour of English food.
In time Anita and Meena become firm friends and Anita even has dinner at Meena’s house, this is a big step in their friendship, as Meena has never ‘eaten Indian food in the presence of a white person before’, This shows that Meena trusts Anita enough to share her culture with her . This shows the relationship between Anita and Meena growing stronger; Meena is including Anita in the Asian parts of her life. However she begins to realize what Anita is really like when the Wenches brigade turns against another girl: ‘I had seen how in an instant, those you called friends could suddenly become tormenters, sniffing out a weakness or a difference, turning their own fear of ostracism into a weapon with which they could beat the victim away’. Meena realises that she will also be ostracised because of her ethnicity. This shows us that Meena realizes the social power Anita has.
The final realization of Anita’s true personality occurs when a family friend is paki-bashed by Anita’s boyfriend. Meena overhears Anita laughing about a racist incident, which her boyfriend instigated. Meena finally begins to alienate herself from Anita, and she ends their friendship soon after: ‘I don’t give a toss what your sister does, Tracy. You can tell her that from me’. This shows us that Meena has matured and has finally learned to stand up for her self, and feel more comfortable in her identity.
This essay looked at the themes of friendship and identity, his has been shown using characterisation and narrative structure.
{{{ Gursevak singh's essay. }}}
spec study
“Things fall apart”, written by Chinua Achebe, set in Nigeria in the 1960s is a three dimensional story. It is built around Okonkwo who later commits suicide. This study will examine the downfall of Okonkwo to deduce from it whether he is responsible of his tragedy or it is simply a matter of fate used by the writer.
Okonkwo is a man physically strong and a member of the Igbo tribe. He had won fame as the greatest wrestler since his earlier age in the villages surrounding Umuofia and he is also well known throughout the clan because of his wealth.”Okonkwo’s fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan”: this shows how he has risen from nothing to a powerful ,wealthy and proud man.
His life is pretty much directed by his culture and his religion(his ancestors beliefs).
Although Okonkwo is seen as a great and determined man he has his weaknesses. He never shows his feelings and this is due to the Igbo culture that says that any man being too sentimental is a weak man in other words a “woman” which is “Agbala” in Igbo. And being that hard on himself by not showing his real feeling is a sign of weakness. This weakness is the fear to be called a woman. He also tends to follow word by word his culture and wants to be a model by ruling his family with an iron fist:” No matter how prosperous a man was if he was not able to rule his women and his children ,he was not really a man”: this a word of Okonkwo referring to his father who was a debtor. He owed everyone in the village and never pay attention to his child future.” he neither inherited a barn nor a title nor even a young wife”. Okonkwo,based on the bad reputation his father has in all clan does not want to resemble him. This is why he is harsh with his family and himself. His downfall is due to his extreme harshness and starts when his gun explodes during the funeral of one of the great man of the clan .He is called Ezeudi. During the funeral of Ezeudi his gun didn’t just explode but killed a young boy. Okonkwo’s nightmare starts since then as he has to leave the village for seven years.
He has to start all over again on his mother land. That was not as dreadful as seeing his clan being taken over by missionaries when he gets back after his seven years in exile. He could see himself not considered as a great man of the clan because of the arrival of the missionaries.:” nobody organised a feast to welcome him”. Another thing that increases his anger is that Nwoye,his son, integrated the missionaries and was no longer observing the laws of their ancestors. Okonkwo can also be sometimes ill-tempered and act without thinking carefully. He can not control his anger: “answer me!!” roared Okonkwo,”before I kill you! “.That was the way he reacts when he finds out that his son was going to church. Seeing his clan splitting apart by the new laws of the white men he was grieved .A revenge has then risen from his side as he is a proud and well attached to his ancestors’ beliefs. He wanted Umuofia to go for war but as a matter of coincidence five messengers have joined in the meeting. There was where Okonkwo attacked the head messenger and killed him. There again he has been without help from Umofia because they left the other messengers escape. In result he was not sure anymore of why he did so:” why did he do it?”, he heard voices asking him. This again shows how quickly he gets enraged. After that acting and having seen that no hope was left for him ,he hung himself. This is because he didn’t want to be killed under the law of the white men. As a proud man and a conservative person he saved his pride to please his ancestors.
To sum up, the status, strength and belief of Okonkwo all together lack an element which is how to control his anger. Also his exaggerated pretence of not being a” woman” makes him a bit mad. Since he believes that a man can manipulate his own destiny, he is the subject of his downfall.
Okonkwo is a man physically strong and a member of the Igbo tribe. He had won fame as the greatest wrestler since his earlier age in the villages surrounding Umuofia and he is also well known throughout the clan because of his wealth.”Okonkwo’s fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan”: this shows how he has risen from nothing to a powerful ,wealthy and proud man.
His life is pretty much directed by his culture and his religion(his ancestors beliefs).
Although Okonkwo is seen as a great and determined man he has his weaknesses. He never shows his feelings and this is due to the Igbo culture that says that any man being too sentimental is a weak man in other words a “woman” which is “Agbala” in Igbo. And being that hard on himself by not showing his real feeling is a sign of weakness. This weakness is the fear to be called a woman. He also tends to follow word by word his culture and wants to be a model by ruling his family with an iron fist:” No matter how prosperous a man was if he was not able to rule his women and his children ,he was not really a man”: this a word of Okonkwo referring to his father who was a debtor. He owed everyone in the village and never pay attention to his child future.” he neither inherited a barn nor a title nor even a young wife”. Okonkwo,based on the bad reputation his father has in all clan does not want to resemble him. This is why he is harsh with his family and himself. His downfall is due to his extreme harshness and starts when his gun explodes during the funeral of one of the great man of the clan .He is called Ezeudi. During the funeral of Ezeudi his gun didn’t just explode but killed a young boy. Okonkwo’s nightmare starts since then as he has to leave the village for seven years.
He has to start all over again on his mother land. That was not as dreadful as seeing his clan being taken over by missionaries when he gets back after his seven years in exile. He could see himself not considered as a great man of the clan because of the arrival of the missionaries.:” nobody organised a feast to welcome him”. Another thing that increases his anger is that Nwoye,his son, integrated the missionaries and was no longer observing the laws of their ancestors. Okonkwo can also be sometimes ill-tempered and act without thinking carefully. He can not control his anger: “answer me!!” roared Okonkwo,”before I kill you! “.That was the way he reacts when he finds out that his son was going to church. Seeing his clan splitting apart by the new laws of the white men he was grieved .A revenge has then risen from his side as he is a proud and well attached to his ancestors’ beliefs. He wanted Umuofia to go for war but as a matter of coincidence five messengers have joined in the meeting. There was where Okonkwo attacked the head messenger and killed him. There again he has been without help from Umofia because they left the other messengers escape. In result he was not sure anymore of why he did so:” why did he do it?”, he heard voices asking him. This again shows how quickly he gets enraged. After that acting and having seen that no hope was left for him ,he hung himself. This is because he didn’t want to be killed under the law of the white men. As a proud man and a conservative person he saved his pride to please his ancestors.
To sum up, the status, strength and belief of Okonkwo all together lack an element which is how to control his anger. Also his exaggerated pretence of not being a” woman” makes him a bit mad. Since he believes that a man can manipulate his own destiny, he is the subject of his downfall.
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