Definitions of blank verse and prose

Blank verse - a metrical pattern consisting of lines of iambic pentameter without any rhyme

Prose - written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure

Act 1 Scene 1

• Chaotic
• Panicked
• Overwhelming
• Dramatic
• Loud
• Grabs the audience's attention
• Power hierarchy switched
• Transience of power

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Good things about multiculturalism:

• Learn about lots of different cultures and experience new things such as food, music and art
• Diversity
• More open-minded/accepting
• Less ignorant and more understanding
• New perspectives and ideas
• Religious pluralism
• Gets rid of stereotypes
• Positive effect on the economy
• Unity

Bad things about multiculturalism

• People believe stereotypes and therefore treat people negatively
• Religions may clash
• Negative attitudes (taking jobs etc.)

The immigrant experience:

• When Changez meets the stranger, he is stereotyped immediately (page 1)
• Islamic people with beards = assumptions
• Attraction or fear - reactions to difference
• Beard = symbolic of his pride
• Changez is told to shave after 9/11, however he wants to be less American
• Meeting Erica's family - he wears traditional clothing, Erica wears a Minnie Mouse t shirt - highlighting the difference between America and Pakistan
• Stereotype that he doesn't drink - Erica's father wants a similarity
• Drinking is considered a sin/illegal however everyone still does it (opposite of fundamentalist)
• Conflicting emotions, he is unsure of his identity (he smiles at 9/11)
• On his first business trip, Changez acts American
• In the car park, he has a confrontation with an American - this is the first time he sees violence as a solution
• He is stopped by the police - humiliating and his underwear emphasises his vulnerability
• Narrative framing device - chooses 1st person and direct address
• The character takes on the role of the reader
• The stranger is suspicious of Changez
• Both characters may think the other one is trying to kill them
• Changez = fundamentalist?

Style choices in The Kite Runner

Style choices


Disappointed - parallelism, repetition
Unwilling to adapt, feels patronised, sarcasm (learning the language)
Anecdote - symbolic of a wider issue
Sees request for ID as disrespectful - lack of trust for immigrants
Shopkeepers are also immigrants - they are two groups of immigrants against each other, adds to the pressure of simulation
They weren't questioned in their home country - loss of status
Triplet - "dust, sweat and gasoline" - manual labour, brutal
"Widower" - love for his home, something missing, simile, analogy, figurative, bereavement

Attitudes and style choices in The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Attitudes


Page 3 - Changez describes Princeton as a "dream come true"
Page 82 - Changez is in a hotel but he is not being treated differently to anyone else, unlike he normally is
Page 62 - 63 - Changez is having a conversation with Erica's father
Page 4 - System to choose candidates
Page 77 - Changez is looking into the Philippino man's car and feels more like him than the people he is in the car with




Style choices




Page 3 - "This is a dream come true", "Everything was possible" - he is making assumptions and preconceptions of Princeton, something which is common with immigration
Page 82 - "Cloaked by his suit", "Invisible" - he is confused as this is probably the first time he has not felt like an outsider.

Goblin Market

• List of exotic, unusual fruit - list emphasises passion of the goblins
• Encouraging attitudes
• Dimeter - strong, hypnotic rhythm
• Similar to a magic spell
• Aiming their list at the maids (at the time maids were young, virgin women)
• Sensuous figurative language
• The sisters contrast each other
• Laura - more adventurous and tempted by the list
• Lizzie - frightened
• Idea of temptation
• Boundary - something is forbidden
• Limitations of women are explored
• Tension all throughout the poem
• Goblin's are animalistic - not at all human
• "Come buy, come buy" - attraction of the forbidden
• Laura - romantic poetry - literary, natural similes and metaphors
• Described like a ship being launched - got rid of restraints
• Attempting to find freedom
• Gives in to temptation, enthused in it
• Rhyme, rhythm and repetition - enthusiasm
• Uses hair to buy fruit - magically valuable (wore jewellery with hair on it at the time)
• "Golden curl" - tension and fear giving them power
• Gives the goblins control over her
• Contrast between the two locations - the Glen and their home
• Lizzie warns Laura - tells her a narrative story about a girl
• Sense of an addiction
• Description of domestic setting - no men or parents
• Females supporting each other
• Listing of similes - detailed and figurative (sisters together)
• Draws the reader closer to them
• List of duties - iambic tetrameter - slower than dimeter
• Large contrast between duties and fruits
• Return to the Glen - Laura can't hear goblins cry anymore
• Increases the conflict
• Description of Laura's decline - heading towards death
• Description of the goblins joy - mischevious and evil
• List of how they act - dimeter, strong rhythm
• Lizzie wants to help her sister - obstacles and limitations
• Distressing, violent and intrusive attack - Lizzie laughs as she sees how she can help Laura
• Climax of the poem - confrontation between good and evil
• Erotic desciption of the sisters - transgressive
• Controversial at the time
• Not intended to be sexual - motive to cure her sister
• Saves Laura
• Repetitive and rhythmic ending - shows purpose of the poem
• Dedicated to her sister
• Ambiguous poem
• An analogy - sexual temptation?**
• Fruit = symbol of sex?**
• **Parallel with the bible
• Similar to the "Eve of St Isles"(???)
• Rape? Possibly warning against male sexual appetite
• Influenced by fairytales, folktales and dreams
• Lizzie is Christ-like
• Drug addiction - opium was a problem at the time
• Rossetti worked with women with problems
• About sisterhood

Twice

• Heart is symbolic and valuable - she is offering her life to someone
• Parallelism of 1st lines of the 1st and 2nd stanza highlights the change in possession
• Use of imperatives in the first stanza
• The use of brackets represents an aside (thought process)
• "Yet a woman's words are weak" - alliteration - "w" is a very soft and weak sounding letter which emphasises the weakness of the woman's words
• The heart is compared to fruit - it is unripe
• "Better wait awhile" - vague and unconvincing
• Trochee emphasise the caesura in the 3rd stanza "...broke - Broke"
• Switches to present tense halfway through the 3rd stanza
• The male in the poem is rejecting the female compared to No, Thank You John where it is the other way around
• The structure of the 1st half of the poem is mirrored in the second half
• References to judgement day
• "Yea, judge me now" - confident tone
• "O my God, O my God" - said aloud unlike "O my love"
• Judgement is a biblical illusion
• Fire to purge sins - suffering is needed
• "I shall not die but live" - self belief - declarative and confident
•   "All that I have I bring...I give" - determination to live for God and parallelism is similar to that of a hymn or prayer
• "But shall not question much" - won't question anything from God