GCSE Poetry

Does someone mind giving me a bit of feedback on the first part of my answer to the question: In Wind, how does the poet present the speaker's feelings about nature? (the poem is Wind by Ted Hughes)

thanks :smile:

Throughout the poem, the poet emphasises the force of nature and how we are powerless to it, using the storm as an extended metaphor for love, and how we are powerless to that also.
The poet emphasises the power of the storm in order to make us feel more vulnerable to it. The first stanza starts abruptly, dropping the reader into the middle of the action, with a “house [being] far out at see all night”. Straight away the reader notices how the house is at the mercy of the powerful, all-encompassing violence of the wind. By having the house represent a ship at sea, the poet is alluding to the fact that the relationship within that household is unstable. This is followed by a series of harsh ‘p’ and ‘b’ plosive sounds in “booming” and “stampeding”, and the zoomorphic language in “floundering” and “stampeding”, which makes the storm seem imposing and as if it is behaving like an out-of-control herd of animals. The lack of punctuation in the first stanza allows the reader to get caught up in the rhythm and the power of the storm, but we are soon broken out of this state with the caesura following “till day rose” at the beginning of the second stanza, at which point Hughes describes a change-night is over and it’s the calm after the storm. The vivid colour imagery of “blade-light, luminous black and emerald” puts the reader at ease after the storm. This change could also represent the calm after an argument. However the poet never fully allows the reader to relax because of subtle juxtapositions like “luminous black” that unsettle us as they don’t fit with the calm setting, which leads us to believe the calm after the storm won’t last. Here, Hughes is suggesting to the reader that just how nature is powerful and overwhelming, so is love, and both have the power to do good and bad. Love (and nature) may seem on the surface something positive and beautiful that we should look at in awe-but that is just a front for what goes on within.

-this is the 1st part, I was planning on doing 2 more paragraphs ????

Reply 1

redmeercat

15

Just having read it through quickly, here are some initial thoughts

- Make sure to double-check spag - it might be a direct quote from the poem, but if you quote is meant to say 'far out to sea', definitely change that! (edit - suggests that someone should check their spag and then has to edit my own sentence because I didn't check my own spag :biggrin:

)
- Check that all your ideas are fully explained. For example when you talk about how 'this change could also represent the calm after an argument'. How is this effect created?
- The introduction of the idea of love seems quite sudden towards the end of the paragraph... I'd be tempted to mention it a little earlier so that you're using your evidence to justify those conclusions more, to make sure that it fits with your point.

Strengths:
- Great quotation use
- Great discussion of specific literary devices.
- You have a convincing tone - overall, this is a great piece of work!

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 2

average_human

OP

16

Original post by redmeercat

Just having read it through quickly, here are some initial thoughts

- Make sure to double-check spag - it might be a direct quote from the poem, but if you quote is meant to say 'far out to sea', definitely change that! (edit - suggests that someone should check their spag and then has to edit my own sentence because I didn't check my own spag :biggrin:

)
- Check that all your ideas are fully explained. For example when you talk about how 'this change could also represent the calm after an argument'. How is this effect created?
- The introduction of the idea of love seems quite sudden towards the end of the paragraph... I'd be tempted to mention it a little earlier so that you're using your evidence to justify those conclusions more, to make sure that it fits with your point.

Strengths:
- Great quotation use
- Great discussion of specific literary devices.
- You have a convincing tone - overall, this is a great piece of work!

thanks for this :smile:

I agree with the point about love, I do want to introduce it earlier on in the paragraph but I'm just not sure where to make it.

Reply 3

average_human

OP

16

Original post by redmeercat

Just having read it through quickly, here are some initial thoughts

- Make sure to double-check spag - it might be a direct quote from the poem, but if you quote is meant to say 'far out to sea', definitely change that! (edit - suggests that someone should check their spag and then has to edit my own sentence because I didn't check my own spag :biggrin:

)
- Check that all your ideas are fully explained. For example when you talk about how 'this change could also represent the calm after an argument'. How is this effect created?
- The introduction of the idea of love seems quite sudden towards the end of the paragraph... I'd be tempted to mention it a little earlier so that you're using your evidence to justify those conclusions more, to make sure that it fits with your point.

Strengths:
- Great quotation use
- Great discussion of specific literary devices.
- You have a convincing tone - overall, this is a great piece of work!

also how much more would you say I need to write if the question is worth 24 marks :smile:

Reply 4

average_human

OP

16

This was kind of my plan for the next few paragraphs:
-The repetition of the eye in the two quotes "flexing like the lens of a mad eye" and "the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes". I was going to say something about how in the first quote it is mad and chaotic but in the second one, the speaker's eye has been hurt by nature, showing nature's brutality. I was then going to link it to love-‘beauty in the eyes of the beholder’ and ‘eyes’ you make at people when you are in love, showing just how nature can damage your eyesight, love can damage you also. You can be so in love that you can be ‘blind’ to the real situation-you might try to convince yourself that something/someone is better than it actually is.

-I was also going to bring up this idea of comparing two situations by talking about the poet's life. I was going to talk about the quote "the stones cry out under the horizons" a bit, and then link that to how the poet used to throw stone's at his wife's window to attract her attention before they were married. I was then going to say that what was once a harmless, fun act of love & purist, stones are now a symbol of pain (‘crying’) which shows just how easily love can turn sour-makes us question was it love in the first place or just ‘passion’? This ending line (stones crying out) is powerful as the poet sends a message to all: love controls our lives-we are at mercy to it.

I'm just finding it a bit hard to make that connection from nature to love.

If you could help at all that would be massively appreciated :smile:

Reply 5

redmeercat

15

Original post by average_human

This was kind of my plan for the next few paragraphs:
-The repetition of the eye in the two quotes "flexing like the lens of a mad eye" and "the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes". I was going to say something about how in the first quote it is mad and chaotic but in the second one, the speaker's eye has been hurt by nature, showing nature's brutality. I was then going to link it to love-‘beauty in the eyes of the beholder’ and ‘eyes’ you make at people when you are in love, showing just how nature can damage your eyesight, love can damage you also. You can be so in love that you can be ‘blind’ to the real situation-you might try to convince yourself that something/someone is better than it actually is.

-I was also going to bring up this idea of comparing two situations by talking about the poet's life. I was going to talk about the quote "the stones cry out under the horizons" a bit, and then link that to how the poet used to throw stone's at his wife's window to attract her attention before they were married. I was then going to say that what was once a harmless, fun act of love & purist, stones are now a symbol of pain (‘crying’) which shows just how easily love can turn sour-makes us question was it love in the first place or just ‘passion’? This ending line (stones crying out) is powerful as the poet sends a message to all: love controls our lives-we are at mercy to it.

I'm just finding it a bit hard to make that connection from nature to love.

If you could help at all that would be massively appreciated :smile:

Honestly it's more about quality than quantity... 3 points and a brief conclusion is probably sensible, and some people aim to write about 750 words per GCSE English essay, but if you're doing this as homework then focus on the points and development rather than the words! It's better to have the skills and then practice fitting them into exam conditions than to only work in exam conditions and miss out of skill development! The number of marks schieved and how to achieve them also depends on the specification and the question.

That looks like a comprehensive plan, just keep doing what you've been doing for the most part, and keep working on the pointers I gave you above. You also want to insert context into your answer, rather than having your answer revolve entirely around context. At A level there are certain papers where this isn't the case, but at GCSE level you should mainly use context as a part of your analysis - everything needs to link to the text and to the question.

Ideas about eyes, nature and love:
- nature often represents free, unconstrained emotions and therefore flourishing love.
- The idea that love is natural and beautiful, and so represented by nature -> think about the natural images used and how their connotations relate to the idea of freedom. E.g. in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 29, the vines can represent suffocating or overwhelming love.

I'm not sure what spec you're on so I can't be too specific, but it looks like you're doing well so far, so keep the work ethic* up and you'll be fine!

*a good work ethic is about time management, not about studying constantly. Conscious breaks are part of a good work ethic!

Reply 6

average_human

OP

16

Original post by redmeercat

Honestly it's more about quality than quantity... 3 points and a brief conclusion is probably sensible, and some people aim to write about 750 words per GCSE English essay, but if you're doing this as homework then focus on the points and development rather than the words! It's better to have the skills and then practice fitting them into exam conditions than to only work in exam conditions and miss out of skill development! The number of marks schieved and how to achieve them also depends on the specification and the question.

That looks like a comprehensive plan, just keep doing what you've been doing for the most part, and keep working on the pointers I gave you above. You also want to insert context into your answer, rather than having your answer revolve entirely around context. At A level there are certain papers where this isn't the case, but at GCSE level you should mainly use context as a part of your analysis - everything needs to link to the text and to the question.

Ideas about eyes, nature and love:
- nature often represents free, unconstrained emotions and therefore flourishing love.
- The idea that love is natural and beautiful, and so represented by nature -> think about the natural images used and how their connotations relate to the idea of freedom. E.g. in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 29, the vines can represent suffocating or overwhelming love.

I'm not sure what spec you're on so I can't be too specific, but it looks like you're doing well so far, so keep the work ethic* up and you'll be fine!

*a good work ethic is about time management, not about studying constantly. Conscious breaks are part of a good work ethic!