Book Recommendations for the Summer Holiday

What your classmates are reading:

Ink Pulsing Through the Veins, Woldingham School

After, Morris Gleitzman
Arctic Adventure, Willard Price
Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys
Bog Child, Siobhan Dowd
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Delirium series, Lauren Oliver
The Diamond of Drury Lane, Julia Golding
Dirty Hands, Jean-Paul Sartre
Divergent series, Veronica Roth
The Fault in our Stars, John Green
First Love, Last Rites, Ian McEwan
Gone series, Michael Grant
The Host, Stephenie Meyer
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
Infernal Devices series, Cassandra Clare
The Inheritance cycle, Christopher Paolini
The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness
The Luxe, Anna Godbersen
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir
The Midnight Palace, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Mortal Instruments series, Cassandra Clare
Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
Numbers, Rachel Ward
The Painter of Silence, Georgina Harding
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
Private series, James Patterson
Sherlock Holmes series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Small Wars, Sadie Jones
Solace of the Road, Siobhan Dowd
A Song for Summer, Eva Ibbotson
Step on a Crack, James Patterson
Stravaganza series, Mary Hoffman
A Swift, Pure Cry, Siobhain Dowd
Throne of Glass, Sarah J Maas
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
War Horse, Michael Morpurgo
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

Other great books that you might enjoy:

1984, George Orwell
And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner)
The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Maus, Art Spiegelman
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Pigeon English, Stephen Kelman
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Room, Emma Donoghue
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
Still Alice, Lisa Genova
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

Happy Reading!

'Paralytic', Sylvia Plath

It happens. Will it go on? ----
My mind a rock,
No fingers to grip, no tongue,
My god the iron lung

That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not

Let me relapse

While the day outside glides by like ticker tape.
The night brings violets,
Tapestries of eyes,

Lights,

The soft anonymous
Talkers: 'You all right?'
The starched, inaccessible breast.

Dead egg, I lie
Whole
On a whole world I cannot touch,
At the white, tight

Drum of my sleeping couch

Photographs visit me-
My wife, dead and flat, in 1920 furs,
Mouth full of pearls,

Two girls

As flat as she, who whisper 'We're your daughters.'
The still waters
Wrap my lips,

Eyes, nose and ears,

A clear
Cellophane I cannot crack.
On my bare back

I smile, a buddha, all

Wants, desire
Falling from me like rings
Hugging their lights.

The claw

Of the magnolia,
Drunk on its own scents,
Asks nothing of life.

'Cornish Cliffs', John Betjeman

Those moments, tasted once and never done,
Of long surf breaking in the mid-day sun.
A far-off blow-hole booming like a gun-

The seagulls plane and circle out of sight

Below this thirsty, thrift-encrusted height,
The veined sea-campion buds burst into white

And gorse turns tawny orange, seen beside

Pale drifts of primroses cascading wide
To where the slate falls sheer into the tide.

More than in gardened Surrey, nature spills

A wealth of heather, kidney-vetch and squills
Over these long-defended Cornish hills.

A gun-emplacement of the latest war

Looks older than the hill fort built before
Saxon or Norman headed for the shore.

And in the shadowless, unclouded glare

Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where
A misty sea-line meets the wash of air.

Nut-smell of gorse and honey-smell of ling

Waft out to sea the freshness of the spring
On sunny shallows, green and whispering.

The wideness which the lark-song gives the sky

Shrinks at the clang of sea-birds sailing by
Whose notes are tuned to days when seas are high.

From today's calm, the lane's enclosing green

Leads inland to a usual Cornish scene-
Slate cottages with sycamore between,

Small fields and tellymasts and wires and poles

With, as the everlasting ocean rolls,
Two chapels built for half a hundred souls.

'The Highwayman', Alfred Noyes

PART ONE

I

THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

V

'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'

VI

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.



PART TWO

I

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

II

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

III

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
'Now, keep good watch!' and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .

VI

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

VII

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

VIII

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

X

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

'Frost To-night', Edith M. Thomas

Apple-green west and an orange bar,
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . .
And, "Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still."

Then, I sally forth, half sad, half proud,

And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,
The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied, --
The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!

A gleam of the shears in the fading light,
And I gathered them all, -- the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

In my garden of Life with its all-late flowers

I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
"Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still" . . .
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.

‘Before you knew you owned it’, Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger

Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why

So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

'To This Day', Shane Koyczan

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal

one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body

I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been

a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home

I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”

this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises

news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname

pork chop

to this day
I hate pork chops

I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize

it does

she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog

to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing

he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit

to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity

we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell

but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong

they have to be wrong

why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
fuck off we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me

of course
they did

but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY

‘Five things about the lake’, Flora de Falbe

1. The lake is no slave to fashion, but she is proud of her frothy skirt of trees. Her dark, svelte figure.
2. She doesn’t want to talk. The air rushes over her, whistling how have you been? – and she responds with a glassy stare.
3. The lake raises an eyebrow when she is speckled with rain. She doesn’t do anything else but the rain takes the hint.
4. When the lake picks out her foliage she does so with impeccable taste. Even the fallen leaves have agreed on a colour scheme.
5. The lake enjoys being looked at (though she wouldn’t admit it). She likes that I’m writing this.

‘In Flanders Fields’, John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Book Recommendations for the Easter Holiday

What your classmates are reading:

Animal Farm, George Orwell

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Between Shades of Grey, Ruta Sepetys

Black Lands, Belinda Bauer

The Butterfly Room, Lance Dow

Delirium, Lauren Oliver

Divergent series, Veronica Roth

Finders Keepers, Belinda Bauer

Gone series, Michael Grand

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Human Traces, Sebastian Faulks

Hunting Lila, Sarah Alderson

The Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins

If I Stay, Gayle Forman

Life of Pi, Yann Martel

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

Over Hill and Dale, Gervase Phinn

Percy Jackson series, Rick Riordan

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

Scar Tissue, Michael Ignatieff

Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut

Warm Bodies, Isaac Marion

Other great books that you might like:

1984, George Orwell

The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill

The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak

Brick Lane, Monica Ali

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louise de Bernières

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

Maus, Art Spiegelman

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

Pigeon English, Stephen Kelman

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

Room, Emma Donoghue

Still Alice, Lisa Genova

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

For our Latinists:

Cattus Petasatus, Dr Seuss and Jennifer Morrish Tunberg

Winnie Ille Pu, A. A. Milne and Alexander Lenard

Happy Reading!

Literature Essay Outline: Shattered Dreams (student work)

Introduction:

• ·         Dreams thwarted by the natural tendency to provide for oneself – context of Great Depression – competitive environment – dreams shattered by the selfish actions of others (sexualisation of CW) (including discrimination, which is a form of self-preservation - eliminating the competition).

Lennie/George/Candy – the Dream Farm

• ·         It is the only tangible dream in the novel – brought closer by Candy’s monetary contribution.
• ·         Source of hope and purpose throughout the novel -‘each mind was popped into the future when this lovely thing should come about’. Necessary as it brings the characters together with a common goal that motivates them in the hostile environment of the Great Depression.
• ·         It offered potential for security and independence in a time of great economic and emotional unrest 
• ·         Motivates Lennie to ‘stay outta trouble’ and fulfil his dream of tending the rabbits. Motivates George to abstain from drinking and visiting the whorehouses – ‘I ain’t putting out no two and a half’.

• ·         The dream rejuvenates Candy – he is described as ‘grinning with delight’ at the prospect – shows that dreams have the potential to free people from the constraints of a judgemental society.
• ·         When the dream is shattered through the death of Curley’s wife, the characters are condemned to their lonely, disappointed lives as migrant workers
• ·         ‘Old Candy lay down in the hay and covered his eyes with his arm’ – shows the way that shattered dreams can reduce a person and condemn them to their situation ‘the halter chains rattled’. Covered his eyes with his arm – he is left to face his own redundancy as a crippled ‘old’ swamper.
• ·         The shattering of this dream was inevitable (Lennie’s lethal combination), and shows the dangers of investing hope in the future and other people in such a volatile environment (GD)
• ·         The dream was based in an idealistic world, not in reality. This realisation – George ‘tiredly’ accepts a drink – demonstrates the futility of having aspirations when the ‘best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley’.

• ·         As the dream subsides in the last pages of the novel and resignation takes over, the reader is left with a sense of the despair and pain caused by the Great Depression.

Curley’s Wife

• ·         Curley’s wife’s shattered dream justifies her vindictive nature – she is bitterly disappointed by her failure to become an actress in a male dominated, misogynistic society.
• ·         Her dream demonstrates how vulnerable women were in a time where people were ‘machines’ used by one another for work and selfish gain. Her dream was never a possibility, simply the result of her role as a gullible, ignorant woman who was manipulated into believing she could have been successful.

• ·         This shows the desperation of those who have been displaced by the hostile environment they are living (that of the Great Depression) – CW clings on to the idea – ‘I coulda been in the movies’ because it is better than admitting her own insignificance.
• ·         It absolves her character from any blame that may be placed upon her – ‘all the meanness and the planning and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face’ after death. This shows that her negative characteristics were a result of the environment she lived in, rather than any real malice. She was just a confused young girl – a victim of her situation.
• ·         This shows how disappointment can embitter a person and cause them to act destructively in an attempt to cling on to their dreams. ‘After a long time they get mean’.

Crooks

• ·         Crook’s shattered dreams demonstrate the injustice in a society where minority groups are marginalised – racial discrimination ‘They don’t want me in the bunk house…cause I’m black’.
•  His dreams of being educated and independent ‘-tattered dictionary’ -never have the potential to be fulfilled – he is a victim of cruel, selfish environment which suppresses minority groups in ‘survival of the fittest’.
• ·         He takes a stand of independence against Curley’s wife, but is instantly ‘reduced to nothing’ by the social threats associated with his voice being heard (lynching, etc.) This shows how social prejudices allow people to be manipulated and their personalities and dreams to be crushed. Context of GD – millions of people from minority groups would have been treated with the same disdain and dismissed – Crook’s shattered dream is not that of an individual, but one that millions would have experienced.

Conclusion

• ·         Significant because outside the microcosm of the story, it underscores the hopeless desperation many thousands of people faced during the Great Depression.
• ·         Offers potential for characters to develop throughout the story as they come to terms with their own failings and accept the inevitability of their situations. 

Literature Essay Outline: Anger (student work)

·         Anger is the most significant theme in the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’ because it is the only theme that affects all the characters throughout the text. This is seen with all the main characters in the book.

·         Anger affects George as he becomes frustrated and angry at Lennie when he has to repeat everything and most of the time it doesn’t have a significant impact on his memory. ‘I gotta tell you again, do I? Jesus Christ you’re a crazy bastard!’  This shows how George is affected by anger because he gets angry at Lennie because in a way he is angry at himself and Lennie provides a scapegoat on which to place his blame. This is also seen when George points out that he should have left Lennie a long time ago. Racism is not as important a theme as anger as it does not affect George it only separates him from crooks but they talk to each other civilly when Lennie intrudes into Crook’s hut.

·         Also angry that he has to keep on moving the whole time and that his dream is unreachable that is why he blames Lennie

·         Anger affects Curley because: anger at humiliation, CW anger prevents them if wanted to from a proper relationship they are always looking for each other, Georges anger towards him makes everyone else feel anger towards him for example slim ‘I’ll get the rat myself’. Inferiority complex creates anger towards bigger men such as Lennie creating anger towards himself ‘come on ya big bastard’. Friendship does not affect him

·         Anger affects Curley’s Wife because: Angry at herself, angry at her mother, angry she is married to Curley ‘the girl flared up ‘sure I got a husband’’, angry Lennie messes up hair, ‘she cried angrily, ‘You stop it now, you’ll mess it all up’’ always seems angry and when dead her usual anger doesn’t show. Angry when men don’t tell her things

·         Anger Affects Crooks because: anger that his rights are not significant, ‘a black man’s gotta have some rights even if he don’t like them’, he is separated from other men, ‘they play cards in there, but I can’t play cause I’m black’, Angry his race is different, his rights that he has aren’t being respected ‘ you got no rights comin in a colored man’s room’

·         Anger affects Candy because: Dog killed because of anger, anger he didn’t kill it himself ‘I shoulda done it myself’

·         Anger affects Carlson because: Anger towards dog and kills it, doesn’t feel friendship and could be seen to be a predominately angry character. ‘Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys’

·         Anger affects Lennie because: affected by G’s anger towards him, anger at puppy and CW when they die blames it on them, ‘God damn you! Why you got to get killed?’

·         Anger however is not shown with Slim’s character. Steinbeck does not directly articulate that Slim feels anger. It is implied in the final pages that slim feels anger. On the contrary ‘I’ll get that rat myself’ anger reciprocal of Curley’s anger

·         This has shown how anger is the most important theme because of how it directly and indirectly affects all the characters.

Literature Essay Outline: Candy (student work)

Candy is a significant character in the novella Of Mice and Men. Although he starts off as a more minor character, as the novella progresses his marginalised character grows and he becomes more interactive with other workers and more involved with the theme of best laid schemes.

Candy is an old, disabled man who works as a swamper, showing his low position in the hierarchy of authority on the ranch. We learn Candy lost a hand while working on the ranch, “He pointed with his right arm, and out of the sleeve came a round stick-like wrist, but no hand”, in the time of the great depression there was a lot of competition for jobs and the fact that Candy is disabled puts him at a disadvantage to the other working men. Fortunately for Candy the Boss continues to employ him however when Candy is no longer able to work he will be fired and have to find someplace else to go. This is significant because it shows the injustice of his situation and it represents human fragility. It becomes evident that humans seem to have no control over how things turn out in the grand scheme of things. Many other migrant workers would have experienced a sense of human fragility when their crops and livelihoods were destroyed through no fault of their own but due to the weather.

Key events that Candy is involved in are:

·         Dream with L+G

o   Candy becomes involved in a common American dream at the time of the great depression, of being able to live independently and off their own land.

o   Candy aspires to the dream that he will one day be able to work for himself, “I planted crops for damn near ever’body in this state, but they wasn’t my crops”

o   From joining with L + G Candy’s dream becomes reachable and with this comes a new sense of hope and stability for candy.

·         Dog’s Death

o   Candy cares for a very old, well loved dog that is his only companion. When Carlson bullied Candy into letting him shoot his dog Candy is shown as weak and vulnerable. “He looked helplessly “.

o   It is quite a significant event for Candy because consequently he realises that he should not have let people push him around and he should stick up for what he believes which he later does against Crooks and Curley’s Wife. He says to George he wished he’d shot his own dog.

Themes

·         Vulnerable

o   Candy is vulnerable because he has no stability in his position on the ranch, he has no backup plan. However his confidence grows when he joins the dream farm with Lennie and George because he does have a future.

·         Dreams

o   The fact that Candy wants to join in with L+G shows he still has aspirations and when they become reachable he is determined to make them happen.

Conclusion…

Literature Essay Outline: Human Fragility (student work)

Introduction

·        The theme of human fragility is significant in this novel as all of the characters are fragile in different ways. As all the characters are living in the great depression times were hard for all of the migrant workers and people on the ranch, however they all have their own specialised weakness.  

 LENNIE: 

·        Lennie lacks intelligence and is dependent on George, this means he is vulnerable to people, such as Curley, taking advantage of his total dependence on George.

·        Doesn’t understand how strong he is- fragile as it means that he is unreliable and viewed as unsafe by the end of the novel “they’ll lock him up? He’s nuts, Slim”

 

CURLEY’S WIFE:

·        Curley’s wife is fragile as she is a woman and the only woman on the ranch and so is viewed as a sexual object by the men on the ranch. She has no name- described as Curley’s wife- Curley’s property

·        Attention seeking ------ goes to Lennie for attention – neck broken—weak spine

CROOKS:

·        Skin colour seen as below everyone else on the ranch- defined by his colour “ the negro stable buck”

·        Most marginalised on ranch- separate room- Curley’s wife “ I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it aint’ even funny”

 

CANDY:

·        Only friend in the world is a dog- shot

·        One hand

·        Old and weak – swamper--- worst job on ranch

·        People view him as old so they don’t think he is very useful “ the old man”

·        Other people can bully him into things – dog being shot

 CARLSON:

·        Arguably he is not weak or fragile because he is not swayed by emotions and has no emotional attachments to anyone so in the end he comes out on top “ what the hell ya suppose is  eatin’ them two guys”

·        However he is a stereotypical migrant farmer so he is lonely and friendless

“Guys like us that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world”

SLIM:

·        Slim is a character with few weakness as he is respected by all and although he is not in a position of authority he is respected for is skills and seems to have more power than Curley

·        However  Curley’s wife likes Slim so Curley doesn’t like slim

 GEORGE

·        George’s weakness is his unrealised dependence on Lennie, and his use of Lennie a reason to why his life is a failure.”I could get along so easy and nice if I didn’t have you on my tail”

·        Also George does not seem able to accept his situation as a migrant worker – he is always talking about what his life will be like or what it would be like without Lennie.

 CONCLUSION

·        Human fragility is a main theme in this novella as each of the characters weaknesses have a major part to play. They shape the characters and thus shape the story as each of the characters weakness are the main source of their problems, for example

·        Lennie’s not being able to recognise his own strength lead to the death of Curley’s wife and ultimately his own death.