Milly's Online Journal

1. Dear Ma and Pa                                                     15/10/1959

Are you well? 

My train arrived in Swindon at 1500 where I waited and watched the Pigeons scuffle over a piece of stale bread. Then at 1600, I hopped on my train to Bath. I was a bit of an unpleasant ride at I was sitting next to a little baby that would not stop crying. 

I arrived at 2000 where I got a cab to the nearest pub in town. The boarding house there was full but a nice old chap gave me directions to a boarding house just down the road. 

There were two places I could stay and I chose to stay at the Bed and Breakfast that had a nice dog lying in front of the fire and elegant green velvet curtains. The lady was really nice and welcoming however she had only had 2 guests in the past which was a bit odd seeing she was such and nice lady and it was a nice house. 

She had shown me around the house and then brought me into the living room where she oddly made me sit down and have a tea with her. She talked me through her pasts guests whose names I recognised but I could not figure out where from. They were called Christopher Mullholland and Gregory Temple – are you aware of those names at all?

Lots of Love

Your little boy

Billy

Title – Will I Stay or Will I Go?

3. I suddenly woke up during the night with a pounding headache and a sick feeling in my stomach. I briskly moved myself into the bathroom and proceeded to throw up into the toilet bowl. I stood up and reached for the rusted antique doorknob but swiftly fell to the ground. As lay back on the cold hard floor my throbbing head feels like it’s being smashed by a bulldozer. I shut my eyes and lay there contemplating what had gone wrong. Thoughts rushed through my mind, there was something odd about the lady, had she poisoned me? I felt my heartbeat through my ears get slower and slower each beat. Was this going to be the end of me?

In the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou she uses rhetorical question, direct address, poetic comparisons, violent verbs and historical references. These techniques are used in Still I Rise to create the particular effect of the reader feeling like the poem is directed to them and to really make them think about it.

Maya Angelou uses rhetorical questions and direct address throughout the text. She uses rhetorical questions to make the reader think and question the text. Maya Angelou also uses direct address to really engage the reader and to make them feel like she is talking directly to them. ‘You may write me down in history’ is an example of this. She starts off the sentence by using a direct address to accuse the reader and make them feel targetted. She talks about her name being written down in history for standing against Jim Crow laws. 

‘You may shoot me with your words, 

you may cut me with your eyes, 

you may kill me with your hatefulness’. 

This part of the poem is started off by a direct address as well. She starts off each line by being very polite and then moves onto a repetition of very harsh and violent words (You may shoot me, cut me and kill me).

Maya Angelou uses poetic comparisons (similes, metaphors and juxtapositions) within the text. Poetic comparisons are used to create the effect of great achievement in the face of near-impossible odds. ‘You may trod me in the very dirt but still like dust I’ll rise’. There is a major difference between trod and rise. Maya Angelou is using juxtaposition to compare this. Trod is to crush, violently stand on and is a very harsh word used to put down to emphasise the fact that she has not been treated well in the past. She is saying that she can move above the bad things that have happened to her and that have put her down. ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells pumping in my living room.’ She uses a simile and hyperbole to show and exaggerate her wealth to the people around her. Maya Angelou refers to it being in her living room because it is a private part of her life (her home).

Maya Angelou uses violent verbs and historical references throughout the text. They are used to create the feeling of a harsh and difficult history/presence. ‘Shoulders falling down like teardrops.’ Maya Angelou is comparing her shoulders to teardrops. She has them in the same sentence to emphasize her sorrow and relate the shoulders back to something sad. During Jim Crow laws African Americans weren’t allowed to walk with their shoulds back and upright, they had to walk with their head down and shoulders slumped to show that they were inferior.                

‘You may shoot me,

you may cut me, 

you may kill me.’ 

These are all examples of violent verbs. They are things that the African American race has experienced over the past 4 centuries and is sadly still happening today. George Floyd’s death, BLM riots and protests that have been happening recently all relate to this.

In the poem “Still I Rise”, Maya Angelo uses different techniques to engage the reader and make them really think about the text. The techniques she uses are rhetorical questions, direct address, poetic comparisons (juxtaposition, similies and metaphors), violent verbs and historical references. In my opinion, Maya Angelou uses techniques skillfully throughout the poem, captures the reader’s attention and has really made me think about the things that African Americans have gone through in the past and sadly still today.

The poem is about a young girl who wants to go to the black civil rights marches. Her mother said no and told her to go to church instead. The daughter went to the church, and then the mother heard an explosion. The mother raced to the church and found her daughters shoe but not her daughter.

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair – getting ready for church

Mother Dear, small brown hands, no baby, sing in the children’s choir is a list of things that make the girl appear sweet, young and innocent in the text.

What is the effect of having two different methods of narration?

We learn about the sweet, kind family and the mother talking (dialogue) makes it more emotional because it is coming straight from the daughter to the mother. The stanza 5, 6, 7 are about the young girl getting ready for church and about the mother finding out about the bomb and her not being able to find her daughter. The last stanza switches halfway through from third person to dialogue. The author does this so the mother is talking about her little girl and to make the reader feel the real sadness that the mother is feeling.

What effects do the following techniques bring to the poem – assonance, alliteration, metaphorThe author used alliteration and metaphors throughout the poem. He uses alliteration to repeat words and emphasise those words in the reader and listeners mind – (for I fear those guns will fire). Dudley Randall also uses metaphors. He uses metaphors to help put an image in the reader and listeners head of the scene/feeling that he is explaining – (she clawed through bits of glass).

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

“I walk like I’ve got oil wells pumping in my living room.” – Oil wells give people wealth, confidence and pride. This simile is showing that she is walking with wealth, confidence and pride. It says that it is in her living room because nobody has oil wells in their living room and it’s her saying that it’s in her house meaning that it is in a spot that she is in every day and would spend a lot of time in. She is showing to that audience that if you believe in yourself you can have great commercial success in life.

“I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.” – This metaphor is Maya Angelou saying that you can move lake and rivers but you can’t move oceans. She is referring to herself as an ocean and saying that it can’t push her and knock her down and that she is powerful enough to stand against it and move away from it. The rhyme throughout the paragraph is proving to the audience and readers even more how unstoppable she is.

“Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops.” – This simile is comparing lowered shoulders to teardrops. When someone is sad they cry (teardrops) as they get sadder the faster the teardrops will fall. She is saying that the more racist comments made peoples shoulders will fall faster and faster. This is the saddest stanza in the poem, she is emphasizing to her audience and readers that no matter how low you go and if you’ve hit rock bottom you will come back from it and you can become stronger than before.

Describe a key relationship between two or more characters or individuals in the text. Explain how this relationship helped you to understand at least one of these characters or individuals.

In the novel, the Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, Peekay is a young boy who lives in South Africa and is surrounded by racism. He forms a good friendship with an old man named Doc who he then looks up to. This becomes a key relationship in the book.  The relationship between Doc and Peekay helped me understand Peekay’s issues with belonging and the sense of hope that Doc gave him.

Peekay and Doc’s relationship helped me understand Peekay, particularly on the night of the concert where he gives hope to the prisoners. Doc sees that the prisoners were lacking hope and he used his musical talent to unite the tribes at the prison. He spends hours practising at night so the prisoners end up calling him a frog. The prisoners believed that Peekay inspired the concert to happen because Peekay is also known as the tadpole angel (the child of the frog). The concert created togetherness between the prisoners and therefore a sense of hope. “Eventually the composition would be played by philharmonic and symphony orchestras around the world, accompanied by some of the world’s most famous choirs, but it would never sound better than it did under the African moon in the prison yard when three hundred and fifty black inmates lost themselves in their pride and love for tribal land.” In my opinion, Doc and Peekay gave the prisoners hope and showed them that there were still good things left in this world.

The relationship between Peekay and Doc helped me understand Peekay with regards to belonging. Doc gave Peekay a sense of where he felt he belonged, where he felt valued and therefore where he felt at home. This relates to belonging because Peekay had never had a place where he felt at home and where people valued and cared for him. Because he had a greater sense of belonging he then felt the need to help the people that surrounded him. “I had become an expert at camouflage. My precocity allowed me, chameleon-like, to be to each what they required me to be.” This means Peekay had usually tried to hide and shows that he wasn’t comfortable in being himself. In my opinion, Doc was almost like a father role model to Peekay and helped Peekay with his belonging in this world.

In conclusion, Byrce Courtenay uses Doc and Peekay’s relationship in the novel, the Power of One, to portray Peekays issues with belonging and how Doc offers him hope. Courtenay’s book made me think about my morals and beliefs. It also made me think about how lucky we are to live in a place as beautiful as we do.

1.  Provide evidence from the first two paragraphs of the chapter that shows that Peekay is humble.

“I quickly earned a reputation, rather unjustly, for being clever.” I think this means he was humble because he didn’t think he was as smart as he thought he was and didn’t think he needed to be known as being smart and didn’t think he deserved it.

2. Peekay describes Doc’s house – and, as always, his description gives away more than he realizes – Doc has a drinking problem. Find evidence to support this.

In the book Pekay packed a bottle of alcohol for Doc when he was going to jail. This is something that not many people would pack if they were only able to pack a few belongings out of their house. This shows that alcohol is important to Doc and that he most likely enjoys drinking it. He also wouldn’t drink the whisky out of the bottle when the cops were. This shows that he appreciates the taste of the whisky and he got annoyed when they left half a bottle lying on the ground and said to them “Hey, that’s good whisky.” He also only has three rooms in his house, one for reading, one for music and the other for drinking.

3. Sometimes Doc would say ‘Peeky, the wolves were howling in my head last night’. What do you think this metaphor is referring to?

I think he said that his head was racing with thoughts and was never ‘quiet’ of a thought. He used this term to describe it because wolves owl all night and you can make them be quiet.

4. What do you think is the significance of the headline in The Goldfields News ‘NO SPY BUT STILL A GERMAN’?

This is saying that it doesn’t matter whether he was a spy or not it mattered that he was a German and that that was a big enough crime in itself.