gcse english essay

heyyy i have a mock on friday could someone please read through this and tell me any imrpovements i could make and what you would grade this? also ignore the spelling mistakes i was typing it on word and was kind of rushing

Compare how the power of nature is presented in ‘Ozymandias’ and in one other poem from the Power and Conflict anthology.

In both Ozymandias and Storm On The Island, nature is portrayed as a force vastly more powerful than humanity. However, while Shelley explores the slow, inevitable decay of human creations through nature's silent dominance, Heaney portrays nature as an immediate and violent threat that destabilisies humans confidence. Both poets use imagery, structure and contrasting ideas to emphasise nature's overwhelming influence and to expose mankind's arrogance and vulnerability.
In ozymandias, nature is illustrated as gradually destorying the statue, revealing natures unstoppable force and showing nature and times power over human pride. The use of oxymoronic language 'collosal wreck, bare and boundle', emphasises the score of Ozymandias' great ambitions contrasted with the wreck, the use of alliteration (plosives), with bare and boundless emphasies the power of nature by making it seem limitless but in reality its bare as nature and time will always outlast power. Nonetheless, in Storm On The Island, the sea being described as 'exploding comfortably' is an oxymoron to contrast fear and safety, nature is in great control and is very happy with what its doing, it's a striking and unusual descripition for the reader as it seems contradictory. It suggests that this is something it has done before and will do again, this vivid use of imagery appeals to our snese as it is soemthing we can visualise and imagine the sound of.
While both Ozymandias and Storm on the Island explore nature's power over humanity, they create very different tones to express their messages: Shelley's poem is ironic and mocking, highlighting human arrogance, whereas Heaney's poem is tense and fearful, showing the immediate threat nature poses. In Shelleys poem, Ozymandias responds to nature with an ironic and mocking tone, his prideful statement 'Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!' signifies his boastful attitudes. The imperative 'look' as a stressed syllable highlights his commanding tone, the statement is ironic as he is telling people to admire the size of his statue in despair but really they should despair at the fact that power is only temporary. More importantly, the line highlights his narcisttic attitudes, as he tells otjhers to despair as their achievements will never equal his work, the exclamation mark after despair reflects on his triumphant attitude to try and intimidate his enemies. In contrast to Ozymandias, Storm on the island makes us feel vulnerbaility and fear, 'we are bombarded by empty air', the powerful,violent verb of bombarded was used, and the fact were being attacked by something that cant be seen suggests the unpredictability of attacks and powerlessness to defend against the enemies which raises worries of fears of the unknown as we never really know whats coming when it comes to nature.
Both Ozymandias and Storm on the Island use their structure and form to reinforce the poems' messages about nature's power and human vulnerability. Ozymandias is a sonnet, which is a 14 line poem usually associated with romance, however ironically its about decay and loss, the sonnet changes in style to reflect his change in power, the structure of the poem is normal until a volta at line 9 which reflects how human structures can be destroyed or decayed. The rhyme scheme is an irregular sonnet rhyme schemce which shows how human power and structures can be broken. On the other hand, Storm on the island is written in a lot of blank verse and enjambment, this creates a conversational and anecdotal tone, it has little rhyme which illustrates that nature is uncontrollable, and contains iambic pantmeter to show the poets desperate attempt at controlliing nature.

Both Ozymandias and Storm on the Island powerfully illustrate nature's dominance over mankind, but their portrayals reflect the poets' unique historical and cultural backgrounds. Shelley, a Romantic poet, often criticised the arrogance of rulers and the oppression of power of ordinary people, which is reflected in the poem's ironic tone and imagery of decay. While Heaney wrote about the harsh and unpredictable Irish landscape, using the storm as a metaphor for the political and social tensions that threaten the community.

Reply 1

nikiiiiiii

Hey! I didn't study these poems so I can't say anything about the accuracy, but I have some general advice that'll hopefully help.

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"Nonetheless" doesn't work in that context

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you kind of veer off topic with your point on the tones of each poem - make sure to connect back to the question with every point - what does Ozymandias' boastfulness show about nature?

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the added context is good and relevant, however would have worked better if incorporated into the analysis ,rather than tracked onto the end, to show how the context influences the poem

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I think perhaps zooming into the quotations more would be good - you already do this however I think going into more detail with some of the words you zoom into would strengthen your points

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" bare and boundless emphasies the power of nature by making it seem limitless but in reality its bare as nature and time will always outlast power" This doesn't really make sense to me. Are you saying that nature is bare, limitless, and outlasts everything?

Overall, I think you have some great analysis here, and you're good at picking out poetic devices - the structural points specifically are great with how you've linked them to analysis. To improve, my main advice would be to make sure to always link everything back to the question and add context into your analysis.
Good luck!