Jack Martin's English Journal

Stanza from the poem ‘to a mouse’

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy! (1st quote)

The poem sums up how everyone in the story is suffering and not succeeding in their dreams. It also shows the lost of relationships within society being as they treat people on the basis of how much work they can do and not their personality’s. ‘For promis’d joy!’ this tells us that the dreams of the characters are unreachable which is demonstrated by the word promised. This quote also shows the characters are not joyful from not fulfilling their dreams.

1) The advertisement is a public health message referring to the fast food brand McDonald’s as an example. ‘Macdeath sir?’ is the adverts message which suggests to us eating fast food like mcdonalds will lead to death. The adverts message is that fast food is bad for you and by eating a large quantity of it you could possibly die.

2) The visual techniques used in the advert is the famous McDonald’s M logo which is present at the start of the statement (question). This shows us the relation between the statement and McDonald’s but on a larger scale fast food generally. Also the colours of the word ‘macdeath’ is yellow and red which are the colours belonging to McDonald’s. The word ‘sir’ is in the colour black the colour black showing importance and the superiority.

Both of the articles are about the bill to legalise gay marriage in the UK which are both bias and in favour. Both articles share factual information for example the proposal to delay the bill. In example the first article written by Hannah Furness says ‘written to mr Cameron imploring him to delay a vote on same-sex marriage until after the next election’ , and the second article written by Juliette Jowit ‘urges the prime minister to reconsider or at least or at least delay the plans’. The second fact shared in both articles is the stating of people who wrote the letter to Mr Cameron however one of the pieces of information is incorrect due to the figures being different in each. In Hannah Furness ‘a group of 20 senior local conservatives’ whereas in Juliette Jowit ‘a letter signed by 22 current and former chairmen.

Why wasn’t Shakespeare’s plays popular at the time?

Reference:

1) The Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare Theatre, author Wendy Greenhill and published by Heinemann library in 1995.

2) Snapping-turtle guides, Shakespeare, published in 2003.

3) Website- http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/eng/lfletcher/henry4/papers/mthomas.htm

The local London audiences would go to view these plays ever Monday to Saturday afternoon. The plays performed were considered very popular and enjoyable in which a large audience could fill up to 3000 people ranging for rich to poor. This piece of information supports that Shakespeare’s plays were indeed very popular but only within the local London audience not commercially.

When we look at the location of the shakespearian theatres they were positioned alongside the Thames on the southbank not actually in London. London officials at the time said that Shakespeare’s plays breached religious rights and contained many acts of extreme violence which the did not want to be shown in their city. The term commercial failure means the money invested into producing and showing his plays the profit didn’t cover the costs. Shakespearians plays were produced in the Elizabethan era meaning men dominated the audience being as women would normally stay at home. Their are a couple of reasons why Shakespeare work wasnt a commercial success in which I would like to talk about. The first reason I would like to look at us publicity. Communications across the world wasn’t as strong as they are today with the increasing technology use and the access to be able to travel anywhere in the world therefore I think the plays didn’t get the right amount of publicity globslly. When we think of Shakespeare we have to remembee that his plays were proformances/productions shown in his theatres. This information is quite important taking in regard you could only view his work if you went to one of the theatre that were in london. If we look at the use of less technology in the Elizabethan era the work wasn’t able to be filmed and then shown on international tv because that was also unavailable to Shakespeared and society. Another reason would be that his plays were very graphic but also complex and typically fitted in with the london way of life. The language and story’s seem to attract and entertain british people which I think it wouldn’t do the same for people abroad due to culture differences. My final reason would be that the language is in English and is  complex it couldn’t be translated into other languages for people to understand because the work wouldn’t have the same effect. I also think people underestimated Shakespeare at the time and us only looking back at his plays can understand how talented and special he was.

Over the holiday I have studied several pieces of texts and films which all link to one theme. I would like to talk to you today and share this idea with you. The theme is man’s inhumanity to man which is quite a wide area to explore in our corrupt world. I hope during this presentation you can understand my opinion on this theme and create you own.