Quotes

  1. Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,Why hath it given me earnest of success,Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:

    If good, why do I yield to that suggestion

    Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

    And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

    Against the use of nature? Present fears

    Are less than horrible imaginings:

    My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,

    Shakes so my single state of man that function

    Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is

    But what is not.

    ——————————————————————————————–

  1. false face must hide what the false heart doth know

3.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

 

“Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.

 

“What’s done cannot be undone.”

 

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires

 

When our actions do not, our fears make us traitors

 

 

Fern Hill – 1.10

Title: Fern Hill

Text Type – Poem

Author – Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea

The overall theme of this poem is comparing ones life of now and their childhood. What I think Thomas is trying to express in this poem is how the world seemed like a different place when he was a child and that he had such an innocent view on the world. As a child the narrator felt like he was in control of the Fern Hill “And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns” this quote shows that he didn’t need others to make him feel powerful, he was respected by his surroundings and he was dominant in his own world. The author uses imagery, similes and metaphors to describe how he viewed the landscape around him as a child; “All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air and playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass.” Thomas clearly shows the desire to relive his past as he misses the feeling of not having to worry about anything. He clearly has fond memories of this place he is revisiting and as a reader it feels sad because it reminds us of how limited our time is on this earth and how fast it can go.

I feel like this is a very easy poem to relate to as everyone who has reached a mature enough age knows how it feels to look back on their youth and recall memories and think about how different times have gotten. Even though I am still considered to be young I still often find myself reflecting on the past and how much of a different person I am. When I look back on myself when I was really young my flaws then really stand out, as a young child I was ignorant, selfish and stupid. I still have many flaws to this day but I know that no single human being will ever be perfect. I think when reading this poem that it’s nice to look back on when times were easier but I think that it’s important to understand that I am a different person know and in my opinion a better one. I know that in ten years time I will look back on today and judge myself harshly because my opinions and outlook on life will be very different. Recalling on your life should be a fun activity and there’s no point of moaning about when times were better. I still have a big future ahead of me and I want to use that to change the world as opposed to reliving the easier times because it’s impossible to go back.

This poem is very deep and has many layers attached to it. I think that portrays how quickly time flies and how looking back, everything is so different. It accurately portrayed what the past feels like.

Divergent 1.10

Title: Divergent

Text Type – Novel

Author – Veronica Roth

Divergent follows the character Beatrice in a dystopian future where society has been split into five different factions which revolve around one specific personality trait. The factions consist of; Dauntless (who value bravery), Abnegation (who value selflessness), Amity (who value peace), Candor (who value honesty) and erudite (who value intelligence). In this society you are born into a faction but when you turn sixteen you may choose to stick with your faction, which is what the majority of people do or you can change factions. Beatrice is born into the faction of Abnegation but when she is of an age to choose she transfers over to Dauntless which is extreme because Abnegation children are generally considered ‘goody two shoes’ but then she goes to Dauntless who are extreme and live life on the edge. During this time Beatrice finds out that she is ‘Divergent’ which means that she fits the traits of multiple factions and this is considered to be extremely dangerous. When she joins Dauntless she must endue many trials to test her bravery like combat training, survival training and facing your worst fears. One of the first trials she withstands is free-falling into a pit, she is the first of the group to jump and gets her name changed to Tris as she begins her new life. Through out her trials she makes many friends and foe but one of the instructors known as ‘Four’ becomes her love interest. Four helps Tris through her training but then she finds out that Four is also divergent. Everyone is the Dauntless house gets given a mysterious serum and one night Tris wakes up to see all of her peers mind controlled walking single file like perfect soldiers. She joins the line trying to act the same but is very confused. Along the way she meets Four and he is unaffected by the serum. It is revealed that due to them being divergent. Tris and Four have to work together to destroy the leaders of this new-found uprising.

For me reading Divergent I could easily relate it to the world because of how in the book the society forces everyone into this black and white world where you can only be one thing and it’s considered bad to think differently to everyone else. This is displayed throughout the entire book because Tris is told that being divergent is dangerous and unacceptable. The only reason why the government doesn’t want anyone to be divergent is so they can control everyone. Living a closed-minded life style is encouraged in order to enforce control. Tris even gets told by other divergents to hide her true self because other people shouldn’t know. Tris was a very strong Female protagonist, “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.” This is a quote in the book that really represented her character well. She over comes so many challenges just by believing in her self and her ability to get anywhere. She is able to control and manage her biggest fears by the end of the book.

The concept of making everyone follow a ‘social norm’ really relates to me and how I feel about the school system. At school it feel really frustrated to be forced into this system where everyone is compared but in a way where everyone has to be the same. The biggest culprit is the school uniform, every day at school we are forced to dress the same and it just feels like they’re trying to stop us from truly expressing ourselves. We have to wear these uncomfortable stale clothes and after a while it feels like it seems to influence the behavior of the students. I defiantly feel more sluggish and bored when wearing the uniform because that’s the effect the clothes have. During mufti ways I feel more energetic and comfortable cause I feel like I can be me. Another example of when I see this happen is NCEA itself, we are constantly being compared on how well we can do what the system wants. Someone can be really talented but just because they don’t do what the school system wants they get classified as dumb or unworthy. This reminds me of an Albert Einstein quote: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This is a problem that the school system has and Divergent is able to show this very well because Tris is easily the most capable of passing the simulation she is held back by the expectation of society.

Baby driver 1.10

Title: Baby Driver

Text Type – Film

Director – Edgar Wright

Baby Driver is a movie about a young criminal who goes by the name of Baby. Baby is a good willed person who drives getaway vehicles during crimes and heists in order to pay of his debt. Once his debt is payed he starts seeing a girl called Deborah and starts living a normal life. This is short lived because as soon as he ends his life as a criminal the leader of the criminal organisation who goes by the name of Doc calls him in for another heist due to his incredible driving skills but Baby refuses until Docs threatens him with the life of this girl Deborah. When ever Baby is driving he listens to music on full blast and drives to the rhythm of the song. In almost every scene of the movie Baby will be wearing ear buds or listening to a radio because of his hearing problem which he got in a car accident, he claims that listening to music helps with the noise in his ears. During his heist he is partnered with three other criminals; Bats, Buddy and Darling. These people are real criminals who have an intention to harm for their own benefit. During the final heist in the movie we see the crew putting pressure on Baby because he has such a good will that it could be detrimental to the plan. As the heist plays out we see the crew perish one after another until it’s just baby left. Baby tries to escape by moving across the country until the police catch up with him and arrest him. His sentence get reduced due to his good character.

One message that was apparent to me while watching Baby Driver was how money influences so many of the choices we make but it’s not the key to happiness. In the film we see these despicable criminals risk the lives and work of innocent civilians just so they can make a profit. But Baby is the one exception, in the movie he doesn’t want the money and he especially doesn’t want to hurt anyone. We can see this through his actions. An example of when this happens is during one of the get away scenes we see Baby hijacking a car, which is justified as he is trying to escape. He removes the women from the car and before he drives away he throws her handbag to her. This strongly shows Baby’s good intentions as he’s trying his best to do the right thing for the good of others. The scene that I think shows this concept the best is when Baby is escaping, instead of trying to flee the city he drops back into his apartment to rescue his deaf foster father, he tries to give his foster father, ‘Joseph’ all of the money that he has collected through his crimes but Joseph responds in sign language by saying “I don’t want your dirty money.” This shows that Joseph understands that money isn’t the key to happiness. So Baby drives him down to a nursing home and leaves and audio messages for the staff to ensure that Joseph gets what he needs. This scene shows how empathetic Baby is to his family and that he never joined the crime syndicate for money but to protect the ones he loves. He picks up his Deborah and they drive off without caring about money or anything, they find happiness in each other.

After watching Baby Driver, I felt like Baby was a very strong relatable character due to his empathetic, selfless personality. Just like me Baby is young, impressionable but strong. I like to think that if I was in a lot of the situations that Baby was in I would do the same things he did. Also Baby is very aware that money is not the key to happiness as opposed to his partners in crime who base their lives trying to make money. I can relate to this idea because I live in Wanaka which is a town with a fairly high average household income and I see people around me constantly trying to have a new piece of technology or clothing because they think that will make them happy or popular. For my school it seemed like everyone had a smart phone except me but this never bothered me as I knew that my real friends wouldn’t care about what piece of technology I had. Only recently this year I actually bought my own smart phone just to move with how mainstream culture is heading.

Overall I think that Baby driver did an exception job at portraying a situation where a person with a good heart and good talent, what they would do in a dangerous crime syndicate. One of the strongest aspects of this movie was the sound track and they fitted songs perfectly into every scene. It could show the intensity of the scene or set the mood well. It also helped me connect with Baby as it could portray his emotions a lot of the time. Although I don’t think that the overall theme of the movie was to show how money can’t buy happiness I think it was very prominent and added a whole new dimension to the movie.