GCSE AQA English Literature - June 2016 *Official Thread*

I know a few people who did it! I said about how they both didn't have a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme and both used enjambment to show that they're stream of thoughts and they both switch between past and present tense to convey how they're in a state of distress. I used two other points to contrast them but i think they were mainly about imagery and structure

NEED HELP!!!

I think i may have messed up???
For english literature unit 1 that went okay

But for unit 2 on poems today i did character and voice. I did question 02 and compared medusa along with the river god. I went into depth about language, form and structure and a tiny bit of context although context is not awarded marks. i did 2 pages for question 02 but i wasted 15 mins in the beginning on deciding which question to choose. I revised medusa yesterday but only superficially on one of mr bruff's 2 minute videos. I had to finish the poem comparison question quickly and moved onto unseen poetry.

For the unseen poetry i only managed to write half a page i talked about personification and made some points and backed it up with quotes and also embedded some. However, everyone else I know has done more than me. I only spent 20 mins on unseen poetry. Have i messed up? I want atleast an A

I compared Coy Mistress to Ghazal when everyone in the class chose Hour aha i am doomed

I also compared THCM and ghazal.
I tried to do a paragraph each on language, structure and form but for THCM, I forgot the points for form. 😔

What were your points for the comparison.

Did anyone compare poppies with come on come back ?? i think they suited quite well

!!! I'm not alone choosing Ghazal ah

I said how the structure in Coy Mistress represents the speakers argument towards the woman in the three stanzas used as he feels they belong to eachother so he has to argue this view across to her, whereas in Ghazal it uses rhyming couplets to possibly show how the speaker also feels they belong with the other person in the poem as a couple

Can you tell I'm going to fail English waheyy

These points are good. I didn't think of those. I mostly focused on THCM= love is better not than later and for Ghazal= unrequited love. But I always have a habit of not linking my points back to the question.

I did!!! i compared to his coy mistress to sonnet 43 whereas most people compared it to in paris with you. I wanted to do brothers but there wasn't much for me to say about it

Does anyone want to take a look at the (more-or-less) duplicate answer I wrote for Question 6? I've been worrying about it for like, hours and I finally churned out a copy that looks quite similar to what I wrote in the exam? Would anyone be willing to take a look at it and maybe mark it?

Oh ok that's relieved me Not sure how good my points were but I tried to make the distinction that Belfast Confetti depicted the first-hand experience of conflict, while Poppies showed the effects on relatives/those indirectly involved x

I wouldn't stress over it. What's done is done. Of course, there's no harm in having it looked over

1. The structure of Poppies, at first glance, is laid out in neat stanzas, so this makes you think that there is no incoherence in the poem. However, when you look deeply into it, you see that there are lots of caesuras and enjambments, and this makes the reader understand that though Weir seems to be holding herself together, outwardly, she is falling apart inside, as her thoughts ramble and obsess over the thought of her son. The line 'Three days before Armistice Sunday' shows that perhaps, her son was lost quite a while ago, hence people expect her to be holding herself together, but she can't show them that she is still grieving even after all this time.
However, in TYP, Minhinnick doesn't adopt the same personal narration as Weir, and focuses on using the characters in the poem to invoke the same feelings of sympathy and understanding in his readers. The idea of a 'muezzin's eyes wild with despair' proves to the readers that the muezzin is facing a difficult time in his life, as his home, his comforts and his bond with God have been tainted by the war. This shows the reader that the Palestinians are facing a struggle in their lives and Minhinnick, a mere passerby recounts their life experiences to allow the reader to understand the true hardships that these people face in their lives.2. Secondly, the choice of words in Poppies such as 'blockade', 'crimped', 'disrupted' and 'spasms' have violent connotations of death and destruction. Even the Poppy itself, despite being a symbol of remembrance, can also be viewed as a wound, with the bullet entry at the center. These destructive images throughout the poem form the idea of a violent death of her son. However, as this is not a certainty, Weir does not know for sure, and hence, her lack of closure leads to the desperation and frustration for her son. This lack of a peaceful death reflects on the mother's constant obsessing, showing that the son's death has created a torpedo of emotions in Weir's life, making it more difficult for her to move on. This ultimately prolongs her period of suffering.In TYP, Minhinnick uses words with similar connotations of violence and destruction, such as 'poison (gas)', 'barbarian', 'despair' and 'blood' to highlight the difficulties that the different people of the land are facing. These words are each used to describe a different aspect of the poem, hence showing that people across Palestine are facing difficult times, due to the war. The idea of a 'barbarian sun' makes the reader think that even nature is against the people of the land, and that there is no hope for them. This further enforces the idea that hardships have become an everyday part of their lives.3. Lastly, both poems have the idea of hope in their penultimate stanzas, only for it to be taken away later on in the poem. For example, in Poppies, Weir says 'I went to your bedroom...released a songbird from its cage'. This line, specifically the songbird representing the son, shows that Weir wants to let go of the past and the pain that his death has caused her. It shows that she is ready to move on and finally end the vicious circle of desperation, obsession and frustration over her son's passing. However this hope is taken away, when she says 'without a winter coat..gloves', showing that despite being ready to "let go", when it comes to visiting the war memorial plaque, nothing matters more than tracing the inscriptions on the memorial, not even dressing up properly. Again, this leads to Weir's everlasting desperation over her son's death, showing that she will never truly be free of grieving for his loss.This is repeated in TYP, as in the penultimate stanza, Minhinnick says 'a beggar child..blessed it [the missile] with a smile'. This is quite an odd image, as children represent progress and advancement whereas missiles represent destruction and conflict. This contrast makes the reader question why a child would be smiling at a missile in the first place- is he happy because it's not being aimed at him and the people he loves? Therefore, this line enforces the idea of hope, that maybe the children will be allowed to grow up, experience normal things and be with their parents. However, again, this hope is snatched away in the following stanza, with the line, 'the fruit fell into his arms'. The fruit, representing growth and progress, in Palestine, 'falling' into the child's arms shows that the last hope for rebirth in the country is gone, as it has been overruled by the people's inherent instinct of survival - to eat, to drink and to sleep, and therefore, the hardships in their lives will never cease.
Thank you so much!

Didn't read your question properly - my mistake (I thought you were referring to the unseen). I could still have a look, but I don't think I'm in a good enough position as someone who has studied your cluster (and therefore the poems you are referring to).