AWARENESS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY ORAL EXAMINATION
Softly and Humbly to the Gulf of Arabs,The convoys of dead sailors come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,But morning rolls them in the foam.
Between the sob and clubbing of the gunfire Someone, it seems, has time for this,To pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows
And tread the sand upon their nakedness;And each cross, the driven stake of tidewood,Bears the last signature of men,Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,The words choke as they begin –
"Unknown seaman" – the ghostly pencil Wavers and fades, the purple drips,
The breath of the wet season has washed their inscriptions As blue as drowned men’s lips,
Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall,Whether as enemies they fought,
Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together,Enlisted on the other front.
El Alamein.
Although not blatantly obvious at first, Kenneth Slessor’s emotive and poignant poem Beach burial is a poem concerned with raising the awareness of national identity. Now I found this hard to believe at first – For me to be able to use this poem, (as it has been my one of my favourites for years) I though that for it to have ANYTHING to do with national identity I would have had to use my creative ability to dissect and warp aspects of the poem that COULD have something to do with national identity if the poet had actually CHOSEN to write about national identity. Basically a lot of windbagging- and as much I was looking forward to see how great my powers of persuasion were I finally realised that they wouldn’t be necessary. I realised that even though Slessor’s Beach Burial doesn’t ramble on about the Australian lifestyles and the Australian landscapes, It is a poem solely based on the importance of national identity… heck- it doesn’t even mention the word ‘Australia’ in it! But what Slessor is trying to say here doesn’t refer just to the Australian identity it refers to the importance of every countries national identity and, in the long run, the unimportance of it.
To give you a bit of a background, Kenneth Slessor was an eminent Australian Journalist for a great part of his life, and because of this, When World War 2 came around he was chosen be Australia’s official war correspondent. He was to report on the Australian act...
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...d in this poem have been from both sides of the war. The bodies were floating alongside enemies and allies, yet from the beginning of the poem Slessor made them all equal in death. As I pointed out earlier this can be seen in his reference to the dead sailors as convoys; groups of dead men that were travelling together with the same personified feelings and actions. World War 2 was, is in its simplest form, one nation against another nation, fighting for land, fighting to increase their national identity. For the expansion of their own national identity, humans were willing to kill other human beings. Just because of different national identities, the soldiers treated the enemy inhumanely.
"the sand joins them together, Enlisted on the other front" The land for which they fought, joins them together in death, the reference to ‘enlisted on the other front is an eloquent metaphor for the sailors deaths. They are now enlisted into the world of the dead, just as they enlisted to join the navy. It is ironic that these men, so proud and patriotic of their national identity, have lost not only the record of which country they were serving but also their own identity.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
For many soldiers and volunteers, life on the fronts during the war means danger, and there are few if any distractions from its horrors. Each comradeship serves as a divergence from the daily atrocities and makes life tolerable. Yet, the same bonds that most World War literature romantically portrays can be equally negative. James Hanley’s “The German Prisoner”, shows the horrifying results of such alliances, while “Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemmingway reveal that occasionally, some individuals like Lieutenant Henri seek solidarity outside the combat zone. Smithy of “Not So Quiet” and Paul Baumer in “All Quiet on the Western Front” demonstrate the importance and advantages of comradeship while giving credence to the romance of these connections. Pat Barker’s “Regeneration” depicts Siegfried Sassoon, as an officer who places comradeship and honor above his own personal anti war convictions. Regardless of the consequences, each demonstrates not only the different results of comradeship but also its power and level of importance to each character in the abovementioned writings.
Wealth inequality and income inequality are often mistaken as the same thing. Income inequality is the difference of yearly salary throughout the population.1 Wealth inequality is the difference of all assets within a population.2 The United States has a high degree of wealth distribution between rich and poor than any other majorly developed nation.3
to the Pet cemetary. Louis answers her honestly and later Rachel and him have an
The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.
There are many people that think there is economic and wealth equality in the United States , but with all the statistics I provided it can be clearly seen that inequality in America is a serious issue , and it's getting worse with every year. I do believe that there should be some income inequality because that drives people to succeed , but I also believe that too much inequality limits a lot of people from achieving financial success.
Wealth inequality is a real issue that needs to be fixed. The imbalanced growth of the upper class compared to the middle class is a danger to American society as a whole. The rich becoming richer while the middle class remains the same leads to a power imbalance, with the rich using their money to run the country the way they see fit while the middle class speaks to ears that do not listen. The issue of wealth inequality needs to be fixed by raising taxes on the rich.
Depictions of psychopaths today have become exaggerated based off of what you see in movies and films. The psychopaths in movies are believed to be dangerous or have an anti-social personality disorder. Not all psychopaths can be defined in that manner. Psychopaths are identified as people who are emotionally unstable. They are ultimately suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. There have been studies ultimately wondering if a psychopath is born, or is it raised? Genetics and environment combine to produce conditions that create psychopathology. By paying attention to environmental variables we can potentially reduce the amount of people who become dangerous psychopaths.
The radical leftists are quick to deem this gap a malevolent injustice and have vowed to eliminate it. But is wealth inequality something that we should trust the government to eradicate? Even further, is wealth inequality itself something we want to eradicate? What people need to understand more than ever, is that income inequality is inevitable in a capitalistic free market. Income inequality is not a cause of social unrest, nor a dictation of disproportional living standards, but a positive reflection of a functioning economy, and a powerful instrument in increasing productivity and prosperity. The government has repeatedly proven itself incapable of making effective policies when it comes to running the economy, and when it comes to income inequality, the government should have absolutely no involvement whatsoever.
The soldier is compared to a fallen lance, a weapon, that lies on the ground” (1). Most of this poem involves metaphors and imagery, which help the reader understand the theme. The fallen soldier lies dead on the ground and as time passes he begins to deteriorate yet he remains in the same location, just like the lance. Frost also condemns war and all of the consequences that occur because of it. Furthermore, another Frost poem that contains the theme of death is “Nothing Gold Can Stay’, the poem indirectly references the theme of death.
Rosenberg’s “Dead Man’s Dump” takes place during WWI, and like Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est,” this poem illustrates the realities and brutalities of death in war. The bodies that are being discussed are the bodies of fallen soldiers, who, like the title of the poem are tossed into a ‘dump’ with others that have died. This dump is not biased, nor is it only for specific soldiers: “[t]hey lie there huddled, friends and foeman” (Rosenberg 10), the dump is not discriminatory as to who it collects in death; it is for men of all colors, ranks, and sides.
There is also a sense of acuteness as the words in this stanza are short and sharp, and the lines clash and seem to contrast greatly. " Whispering by the shore" shows that water is a symbol of continuity as it occurs in a natural cycle, but the whispering could also be the sound of the sea as it travels up the shore. The end of this section makes me feel as if he is trying to preserve something with the "river mud" and "glazing the baked clay floor. " The fourth section, which includes four stanzas of three lines, whereas the third section included four-line stanzas and the second section included two-line stanzas, shows continuity once again, as if it's portraying the water's movement. "Moyola" is once again repeated, and "music" is also present, with "its own score and consort" being musical terms and giving the effect of harmony.
The wealth gap otherwise known as wealth inequality is best described as the unequal distribution of assets within a population. Here in The United States there is a wider gap of wealth between rich and poor than any other major developed nation.
We called at some more places with farcical names…all along the formless coast bordered by a dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose ba...
This is a poem about a sea and a beach that is truly beautiful, but hold much deeper meaning than what meets the eye. The poem is written in free verse with no particular meter or rhyme scheme, although some of the words do rhyme. Arnold is the speaker speaking to someone he loves. As the poem progresses, the reader sees why Arnold poses the question stated above, and why life seems to be the way it is. During the first part of the poem Arnold states, "The Sea is calm tonight" and in line 7, "Only, from the long line of spray". In this way, Arnold is setting the mood or scene so the reader can understand the point he is trying to portray. In lines 1-6 he is talking about a very peaceful night on the ever so calm sea, with the moonlight shining so intensely on the land. Then he states how the moonlight "gleams and is gone" because the "cliffs of England" are standing at their highest peaks, which are blocking the light of the moon. Next, the waves come roaring into the picture, as they "draw back and fling the pebbles" onto the shore and back out to sea again. Arnold also mentions that the shore brings "the eternal note of sadness in", maybe representing the cycles of life and repetition. Arnold then starts describing the history of Sophocle's idea of the "Aegean's turbid ebb and flow". The sea is starting to become rougher and all agitated. Also the mention of "human misery" implies that life begins and ends, but it can still be full of happiness, and unfortunately, at the same time, sadness. "The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore." The key word in that stanza is once, because it implies that he (Arnold) used to look at the sea in a different way than he does now. Throughout the whole poem, Arnold uses a metaphor to describe his views and opinions. Now he only hears its "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar." It seems as though Arnold is questioning his own faith. The whole poem is based on a metaphor - Sea to Faith.