Analysis of ‘A single mum’s Xmas tale’ by Nick Morgan
(670 words)
In the following piece of writing, I will be explaining the way the writer, Nick Morgan, uses the story of a single mother to highlight what can be the quandary of lone parenting. Ann, now a single mum, is presented as declassed in the world having worked as a secretary and been in a relationship. The reader is to empathise with the single mum being in a predicament where she appears pretty helpless.
The writer starts by telling us of Ann with her ‘pale face weary’. This is the first sentence and the reader immediately conjures up an image of this young woman experiencing difficulties in her life and feeling depressed and tired. It expresses life is a hard struggle for this lady. The ‘old broken guitar with a broken string’ in the corner of the room may be a metaphor for her present situation. She has a casual approach of not looking forward to Christmas albeit resigned to an unexciting one. She is almost excepting she cannot see anyone because she has no money and is a one-parent family. She says it feels like ‘charity’ for her friends to take her out. She cannot ‘swallow her pride’. The writer is trying to emphasise to us that she has become a victim of her situation. This is further underlined by her ‘reluctant’ manner and the feeling she would ‘be the odd one out’ with her relatives. The haggard image of her is telling.
With James, the little son, the reader is invited to feel the boy is an innocent party to his mother’s situation. With his ‘golden curls’ playing around and reading books, he is shown as a bright little boy although the reader gets the feeling that he is suffering too from his mum’s position. The boy can sometimes be ‘quick-tempered’ and ‘unsettled’ the mother says. The writer tries to make the reader comprehend their predicament where this boy is stuck indoors with his mother all the time with nothing really to do except play with his book to which she says ‘though, it’s not one of mine’. The reader senses she cannot afford anything special for him because of her somewhat desperate position. Obviously, she cannot leave but she feels ‘like I just want to get out’.
As if the mother’s plight was not tough enough, there is the fact it is Christmas. At Christmas, there are plenty of images and adverts of a time of plenty, happy families, and warm decorated houses. Here the writer uses this emotive subject to contrast the mother’s family to others’ experience of Christmas. She is ‘reluctant’ to see her family. Ann’s feeling is that everyone in the family seems ‘sorted’ and it is her, single, ‘on her own again – the odd one out’ which unfortunately only compounds her difficulty at the festive time.
The reader is shown that money is Ann’s main worry. The writer comments on Government policy with ‘it could get worse ‘. The reader is already told of the mother’s financial predicament regarding clothes and toys for her son. James’ clothes are ‘handed down’. To be losing money on her benefit would ‘hit’ her. This conveys that Government policy is hammering the people already hardest hit. The writer points out that she can ‘provide the very basics’. The reader thinks about Government strategies and how they may fail to help women in these situations; reinforcing this impression with the phasing out of her ‘means tested ‘benefit. Ann does not ‘think about the future’.
The writer has made his case for us to sympathise with Ann and James and the situation of single parents. As we leave 2021, from skyrocketing petrol and gas bills to ever-increasing inflation and price increases, this year the UK is seeing a considerable increase in living costs. Single parents are often only just managing to scrape by and people like Ann remain on that financial ‘knife edge’.
Help Single Parents at Christmas. Gingerbread.org.uk provide information to help single parents support themselves and their family.
Shakespeare – Sonnet 29
(440 words)
In this piece, I will give a brief appreciation of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, number 29. Here the sonnet encapsulates the mood of a depressive man trying to deal with his thoughts though it also indicates a mood change to love as a consolation.
The poem begins with a speaker who is lost in himself. He looks out to the world as if he is falling behind with his ambitions as a man. He has become very introverted while thinking that everyone has left him alone. The first line shows this with the “disgrace” he feels while using “men’s eyes” to show he thinks people are questioning him. As an ‘outcast’, the poem implies he is hopeless. The strength of the sonnet is shown by the first eight lines where the reader is drawn into this man’s despair. The use of the phrase “curse my fate” gives the reader a feeling of sorrow for this man who has lost faith in himself. There is a suggestion he has suffered from despair and anxiety.
Lines 9 to 12 lead the reader to the speaker’s mentality. Though the speaker almost considers himself to be despicable for being cast down as in “despising” of himself, he is looking at his point of view as if he is telling himself subconsciously to look at these negative words with a different perspective to open his considerations. This takes the reader away from the low feelings the speaker had. The speaker now thinks of the love of his life where he uses the word “haply”. This change of thought can be used as his way of bringing himself away from the despair he had for himself. The reader can feel the speaker’s mind start to turn. There is some comfort when he “think of thee”, the absent lover.
Moreover, the metaphor “(Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)” rebounds against what the speaker has said. This is where Shakespeare’s sonnet shows great deliverance. From a desperate moment to the desire of his “sweet love” shows his mood swing. The final two lines which use the words “sweet love” and “such wealth” show the speaker’s change in feeling and his brighter outlook. There is a definite transformation in the speaker’s frame of mind.
This sonnet could appeal to most people as a universal declaration with this contrast of dark thoughts through to where Shakespeare calls attention to noble emotion encapsulated with his last words “change my state with kings” to drive the despondency away. The anonymous Renaissance London lover has addressed the person he loves. There is a power of true love.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Thought of the day
Annihilate a heckler
Thought of the Day: One way to annihilate a heckler
…’My friend, I’m not going to answer any more questions. I hope you won’t take this personally, but I am reminded of something my old uncle told me, long ago, back on the farm. He said, “What’s the sense of wrestling with a pig? You both get muddy all over, and the pig likes it.”(Cyrus Stuart Ching)
Unconscious Acts
It’s all well and good teaching language in conversation, but have you ever noticed you open your mouth when you are about to ask a question, or raise your eyebrows when surprised or expecting a question, or even rapidly inhale when you are ready to speak? It all adds to the flavour of practicing conversation and students’ nonverbal actions.
Character analysis of Mr. Ferraro – an un-Catholic businessman
Special duties by Graham Greene
(598 words)
Religion to Mr. Ferraro is what he believes in, to him the path he takes will lead to forgiveness. However, to an outsider or even a true Catholic, is it a true way of belief? Graham Greene’s Catholic satire contemplates the actions of a millionaire businessman Mr. Ferraro and Miss Saunders his three-year employed secretary to go to London churches to pray for Mr. Ferraro and do penance for him.
Mr. Ferraro is very business-like; all his life is business-like, he deals with Catholicism in this way. He is concerned for his soul but to him, God is a business and by him paying taxes (indulgences) he will be on the better side of God and this will bring him salvation. He can work out his salvation in the same manner as his finances. The thought that telling someone to take your indulgences for you is real to Mr. Ferraro and he does not seem to question himself. Miss Saunders, a former head girl at the Convent of Saint Latitudinaria, is more than qualified for her job of getting Mr. Ferraro as many indulgences as possible. She even won a special prize for three successive years of piety. Mr. Ferraro is tallying up the amount of days reduction Miss Saunders’ work is helping him get off Purgatory. ‘As you remember, Miss Saunders that none of us is getting any younger’, says Mr. Ferraro. His religious arrangements are in the belief that he is doing it right, even though someone is doing it on his behalf. His view of Catholicism is the one and only he believes in. He is religious and there is nothing to say that his views are totally wrong. If he did the indulgences himself he might see it in a different light and actually get the point of religion.
As a businessman, Mr. Ferraro in a way excels, because he has people working for him doing his work, even his prayers. Mr. Ferraro looked after his salvation in a more independent fashion. Again, he delegates responsibility to Maverick to buy him famous paintings. Mr Ferraro has six Renoirs, four Degas, five Cézannes. However, he will later in the story in seeming angst have these pictures remind him of death duties. It is noted where others would be more than happy with one famous painting, Mr. Ferraro bought wholesale. There is a lot of trust he puts in his workers.
Mr. Ferraro does think that everybody is doing their job properly. Relying on his workers to do their job, thinking that they would not do anything less. His checking of the books and double-checking of things keeps things in order. However, Mr. Ferraro goes to Canon Wood thinking that he will see Miss Saunders at a church there only to find there is no such place. Miss Saunders has betrayed him for the last 3 years. The protagonist, Mr. Ferraro, has found his antagonist Miss Saunders.
In all, Mr. Ferraro sees the Catholic life as he perceives it, the choices he makes, and the mistakes he has made will be right and if not, the Catholic religion will save him from wrong. Above all, he finds himself three years nearer death through Miss Saunders failed special duty. In the end, Mr. Ferraro does not reach his aim to attain indulgences. Is Mr. Ferraro a Catholic as his actions seem to contradict to real faith? However, Mr. Ferraro is ever the optimist, “Tomorrow I will set about getting a really reliable secretary”.
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