Setting of a story

1.The Real Durwan was set in Calcutta, in India. The Adventure of the Speckled Band and Pride and Prejudice were set both in England, in Baker Street, London and an unknown town respectively.
2.The Real Durwan was set in the the in 1950s where people are suffering from the aftermath of the partition. The Adventure of the Speckled Bandwas set in the late 1800s, in Victorian England. Pride and Prejudice was set in the 18th century, in Elizabethan England.
3. The setting gives me clues of the plot. Examples would be 'old dilapedated house', which tells your the house had long been abandoned and that it might be a hunted house; 'torrential rain' night indicate a gloomy setting. Also when the story is set might also give you clues. For example, if the story was set in the premedival ages, the plot might be something about the royalty or the wars between countries.

To Kill a mockingbird(II)

The Civil Rights movement
a. The civil rights movement began in 1896.
b. The civil rights movement was about attempting to bring equality and grant all African Americans full civil rights. It was mostly a nonviolent and also a long lasting struggle.
c. 1)The Brown v. Board of education was a court case in which ended with blacks being able to use facilities in schools that whites used.
2)The Montgomery Bus boycotts was a boycott of Montgomery Buses which led to the buses being desegregated.
3)Desegregating Little Rock was a case that ended with all schools in Little Rock becoming desegregated.
d.John Kennedy.
e.Discrimination became banned in the United States and the African Americans became enfranchised
f. The Civil rights movement was very popular then following Montgomery Bus incident and Harper Lee worte the novel at that time. It showcases the social injustice in the South and allow the readers, particularly the white readers, to sympathesize with Rosa Parks and the Blacks.

Montgomery Bus Boycott and Scottsboro trials
a.1) Montgomery Bus Boycott. On December 1st 1955 Rosa Parks was charged with disorderly conduct and violating bus segregation laws. Then, on December 5, she was convicted and fined. Upon hearing that, blacks began boycott of the Montgomery buses.Black leaders decide to form the Montgomery Improvement Association(MIA), and elected Martin Luther King Jr as president. Negotiations between MIA, the city officials and the bus company broke down several times. Leaders of the MIA were then charged of starting boycotts without just cause. A decision by the US Supreme court was then misinterpreted by many to declare bus segregation unconstitutional. Following that, many bus companies, including the Montgomery Bus company, desegregated their buses. However, state officials then issued a law compelling bus companies to comply by the segregation laws. The blacks then challenge the segregation on a court case. Segregation was declared unconstitutional throughout America soon later.
2) Scottsboro trials. Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and Roy Wright hitched a train on March 31 1931. A fight had broken out between a few white men and black teenagers. The white men escaped and, furious after losing the fight, reported to the authorities that black teenagers on that train assaulted 2 white woman. Officers then went on the train to find every black youth on it. The 2 alleged victims of rape, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, then began accusing the 9 black teenagers (Olen Montgomery, Clarence Norris, Haywood Patterson, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Charles Weems, Eugene Williams, Andy Wright, and Roy Wright) of raping them. The 9 black youths were then imprisoned in Scottsboro, Alabama, and were hence named the 'Scottsboro Boys'. A Scottsboro doctor investigated Price and Bates and reported that they did not show any signs of being raped. Samuel Leibowitz was called in as the defence attorney, and he worked on the case of the Scottsboro boys for several years without charging them fees. In the first trial most of the Scottsboro boys were found guilty and sentenced to death,but due to appeal the court declared a second trial. In the second trial of Haywood Patterson, Bates claimed that she and Price made up the entire story of rape, while Price maintained her original testimony. However, both Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris were given a guilty verdict and were sentenced to death. The US Supreme Court then found the trials unjust and demanded a retrial. The judge halted Haywood Patterson's retrial and went on with the trials of Andrew Wright and Charles Weems. After another series of trials, most of the Scottsboro boys were sent to prison.
b & c. Both trials were in the 1930s, and occured in the state of Alabama. Both stars a heroic character who tried to fend off racial discrimination and defend a black man(in the case of the Scottsboro trials, 9 black men)unjustly accused of raping white woman, which was illegal by law then.

Trials of a true Southern Belle and Southern Gentleman
a.1)The Southern gentleman rules are not inherited, but learned, i.e. one might not be borned in the South but he can acquire the Southern gentlemen rules. The rules include: dressing up for ladies, learning how to speak with ladies, flirting, etc.
2)The southern ladies rules include: wearing REAL pearls, calling you father and mother 'daddy' and 'mama' no matter how old she is, wearing branded clothes.
b.They cook.
c.


a & b.Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville. In 1944, she graduated from Monroe County High School in Monroeville, and enrolled at Huntingdon College in Montgomery for one year,where she developed an interest in literature, and pursued a law degree at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949. Though she did not complete the law degree, she studied for a summer in Oxford, England, before moving to New York City in 1950, where she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC till 1958, when she sbegan putting more effort into writing.
c.To Kill a Mockingbird, Love—In Other Words,Christmas to Me,When Children Discover America, Romance and High Adventure
d.Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom
e. It was also something which had tremendous impact on the Americans and brought them new insights into the racial injustice dominant in the South then. It allowed Americans to empathise with and even advoate the blacks who started the Civil Rights movement when the book was published. All in all,it had a colossal influence on the views of the Americans on the blacks.

To Kill a mockingbird(I)

Slavery
a.Slavery began in the southern states in 1619. It began when 2 pirate ships were damaged in battle and decided to trade human cargo with the locals in Virginia.
b.They were brought from countries in Afica.
c.The Europeans traditionally brought and owned the slaves
d.The slaves were forced to abide by various unfair laws. It was illegal for the slaves to gather in groups of more than 4. They cannot leave their owners property without a pass. They could not own weapons. Neither were they allowed to learn how to read or write.
e.The notions of slavery were related to racism and prejudice in the novel. African Americans ,who were once slaves, were called 'niggers' and were not granted special rights.

The Civil War
a. The southern states are:South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia
, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina
b. Abraham Lincoln
c.Lincoln had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states that have slavery then. After Lincoln became president, many southern states knew that he would enforce a law prohibiting expansion of slavery. Hence, they called for succession.
d. It was fought between 1861 and 1865
e. The Union defeated the Confederate states.
f. They both attempted to give the African Americans rights. The civil war freed them from slavery, while the Civil Rights movement gave them freedom to vote and freedom from discrimination.

Jim Crow's Laws
a.Jim Crow refers to 'Jim Jump Crow', a song and dance caricature of the African Americans performed by a white dancer in 'blackface'.
b.The African Americans were segregated in various ways, including in education, public transport and even public washrooms.
c.The African Americans were very displeased with the Jim Crow laws and even started various civil rights movements after World War 2, where they felt that their services make them worthy of being full citizens of America, instead of remaining as those who were segregated and discriminated.
d.A black man was charged of raping a white woman with the presumption of guilt in To kill a mockingbird, unlike the usual presumption of innocence which was then a 'privilege' of the whites.

By wangshaodian | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

I choose the different pictures in the background for an obvious reason-because the race was long and so the background could not be the same throughout. I also did change the picture of the characters a few times because I found it necessary to show the attitude of the characters. I want to tell others of how proud the main character was at first and also how shocked he was when he saw that the old man had completed the race long before him.
The theme of this story is that one must not be too proud. I choose the pictures based on the theme. The main character was depicted as a very strong athlete in a few frames, while the old man has his back hunched and had to rely on a walking stick. People may wonder, if the old man can't even walk without support, how can he beat the young, muscular athlete?Also, one might realise that all the backgrounds I choose are without the sun, as I want to show how effortless it is to run then, without the strong and 'resisting' presence of the Sun. All these were done by me just to show that the powerful athlete should have won, but he didn't. So, his loss must be due to another factor, namely his pride.

Awesome alliteration

Let us begin with two words that are alliterations, say:
Assaulting Angels
What do you call this?
Alliteration (obviously)
Continue with two other words that are alliterations:
Attacking Angrily.
What do you call this?
Alliteration Again.
What do you call this?
And again. (It’s another alliteration.)

This thing that continues timelessly, what do we call it?
An Abstruse, Absurd Abyss. (It never ends.)
?What is this
Alliteration Again.
___________________________________________________________________________

Brings us back to the part before (What do you call this?)
*Note that each question is referring to the answer before it.

Discrimination

Discrimination means unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice. Most, if not all, discriminations are named base on the victim. For example, a free thinker and completely ordinary person discriminates a Christian, it's called discrimination against religion; a physically normal person discriminates a person who is visually impaired, it's called discrimination against disability. I categorise discriminations under against intrinsic or extrinsic characteristics. Intrinsic refers to innate characteristics that are usually unchangeable. Extrinsic, on the other hand, refers to things not given upon birth and could be changed. I do admit, however, that the categories are quite ambiguous. For example, with modern technology, it is possible to change the gender via transsexual operation and its sometimes unclear whether gender is an intrinsic or extrinsic characteristic.

Intrinsic
1)Ancestry. One person might be a descendant of a notorious person in history, and many might think that he would follow the footsteps of his ancestors and thus discriminate him.
2)Race. Negroes were once discriminated in America and they were not granted many rights.
3)Gender. Many believe girls are better behaved than boys; therefore boys usually get a harsher scolding for committing a same offence as a girl.
4)Disability. Many look down on the physically disabled and think that they are inferior to them. Some of them might even rub salt into their wounds by insulting them.
5)Psychological disorder. Many mock the weird actions of the mentally unsound and also look down on them.
6)Age. People believe that old man are usually unable to do manual labour and therefore they never allow them to do so even if they can.
7)Intelligence. People believe others of inferior intellect are inferior to them in other ways too. THey even insult the intellectually inferior.
8)Appearance( face, etc). Some people judge the book by it's cover and believe that people with particular looks are immoral and therefore habour feelings of hate against them.
9)Family. People might believe in things such as 'like father, like son'.

Extrinsic
1)Education. A person who has been taught by an elite school would think that another person taught by an ordinary school is inferior to him and hence look down on him. He might even take some actions against the person taught by an ordinary school just to prove that he is superior.
2)Reverse Discrimination. A person might hate someone discriminating him and decides to let him 'have a taste of his own medicine'.
3)Political Affiliation. A person might from a stereotype-based prejudice against someone with a particular political belief. For example, he could say that 'all anarchists are violent', and starts insulting them.
4)Employment. People might discriminate others based on their jobs. For example, cleaners are stereotyped as smelly and dirty people. Some people intentionally avoid them or even purposely cover their nose in disgust when walking past them.
5)Nationality. Some people insult others based on their nationality. Europeans once discriminated Africans and Asians and bought them as slaves.
6)Marital status. People might think that old unmarried people are incapable of marriage and thus insult them for being incapable.
7)Social Status. People might hate the rich simply because they are richer and discriminate them.
8)Appearance(clothes, etc). (Same as 'appearance(face,etc.)')
9)Religion. Hitler once discriminated the Jews and massacred them.
10)Reverse reverse discrimination.

Of course, there are many other forms of discrimination that are not typed above.Also note that the discriminations might sometime be against two characteristics of the victim, for example, people might discriminate the child of a rich person because they are jealous of the comfort he enjoys. In this case it's discrimination against social status of family.

Literature and life

The little boy and the old man by Shel Silverstream
1)The underlying message that is being conveyed in this poem is that little boys do not usually get the attention they desire from adults and sometimes little boys would rather do something embarrassing like wetting their pants and crying often than not gain the attention of adults, which goes on to show how much attention is desired by little boys. The little told the old man various embarrassing things he did, most probably to get the attention of the old man.
2)Yes, the entire poem was in dialogs so as to describe the conversation between the little boy and the old man more clearly, to emphasize on the short replys the old man gave to the little boy, just to show how much the old man wishes to refrain from engaging in a conversation with the little boy and therefore show that the adults do not give the little boy the attention he desired.

Messy room by Shel Silverstream
1)This poem is humorous in an ironic way. The persona criticizes the owner of the room for the untidiness of it and said that whoever who owned this room should be ashamed. However, in the end, the person realises that the room is actually his own, and he was actually criticising himself all the long.
2)The aspect of the human character highlighted in this poem is the innate tendency of human beings to blame others, whether or not they are at fault.Around the end of the poem, the persona started speculating on who the owner of the room is, blaming Donald, Robert and Willie for the untidiness of the room when the one who made the room untidy was actually himself.

Cloony the Clown by Shel Silverstream
1)The irony was that when cloony the clown desires people laughing at him, what he got was sympathy, and when he desires sympathy, what he got was people laughing at him.
2)Shel Silverstream managed to convey the fact that when we want something, what we get would be something else; and when we want something else, what we get would be the thing we originally wanted.
3)Shel Silverstream used repetition various times to convey the message. Repeated passages include "But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all", and parts of sentences that are repeated include "Everyone...", "He had a...", "He told...", and "They laughed...". These passages were used to emphasize on the actions of the persona and other characters.

I find that I can identify with "Messy Room by Shel Silverstream" the most. Messy room gave an vivid illustration of that particular aspect of the human character, the tendency to blame others whenever they see something embarrassing. When faced with an embarrasing situation, the human mind will instinctively, and often arbitrarily, point the finger at someone else. Whenever you see something embarrassing, in this case the messy room, there would be a 'voice' in your subconscious that says "This is not done by me". Sometimes you don't even bother checking if it is or isn't done by you, because the 'voice', your dignity, would just 'tell' you "This is not done by you". Even though you never heard these voices before, it is implied from your sometimes unreasonable actions that this 'voice' in your subconscious actually exists. This 'voice', called dignity, is probably an innate aspect of a human being, just like the conscience. Men are born with it, and sometimes, it is the one that influences decisions, decisions that might change yours whole life