Birthday Letters SOS Thread! (1 Viewer)

[glitterfairy]

Hi all,

There's not of a lot of discussion on this prescribed text so here is a big nudge from me to get it going We had lots of SOS threads last year and they are a wonderful last-minute kind of resource - straight, easy, to-the-point, answer questions as they come etc.

So tell us which poems you're doing, what your problem areas are, and what you have to share!

Collective brainpower = collective good marks

 

[b0b444]

Hi,

I plan to do your paris, and either sam or fullbright scholars. In the other thread you mentioned that we should be weary about using Plath poems and that the aim was to analyse the truth not Ted and Sylvia's relationship. Could you elaborate?

In the only sample answer that I have seen from this text, the person used a Plath poem and a picture of Plath for ad. mat. and just talks about truth in their relationship and the various representations of that relationship, that seems a pretty fair way of doing it to me. But you seem to be against that. What do you suggest?

Edit: Furthermore to that if you have a look at the syllabus, amount other things it says "Each elective in this module requires the study of one prescribed text offering a representation of an event, personality or situation. Students are also required to supplement this study with texts of their own choosing which provide a variety of representations of THAT event, personality or situation."

???

Bob

 

[lislabella]

You can still use, for example, Sam and Whiteness I Remember and look at the text. I found that they worked very well because they show how two people veiw the same event.

You'll find essay questions for TTT usually mention truthS its alot easier to deconstruct (in relation to TTT) Sam in comparision to Whitness... and although you aren't analysing thier relationship remember that Hughes' 'truth' had an agenda - to clear his name in the eyes of critics, such as feminist groups, who saw him as the monster that drove Plath to suicide - and therefore his use of metaphor in Sam to talk about thier relationship and her suicide is very important because it attempts to paint her as insane (his truth) and him as a victim of speculation.

edit: THAT situation needs to be examined in showing the techniques, context...the usual english deconstruction stuff...in relation to the TTT module... not just THAT situation. so talking about platha nd hughes' relationship is ok - but don't make judgements on the situation like you would if it were Module B.

 

[b0b444]

...

THAT situation needs to be examined in showing the techniques, context...the usual english deconstruction stuff...in relation to the TTT module... not just THAT situation. so talking about platha nd hughes' relationship is ok - but don't make judgements on the situation like you would if it were Module B.

fair enough, but in terms of picking additional material, am i right in suggesting that the syllabus tells you to pick material that relates to the situation with ted and sylvia and not just truth in general, and then analyse that situation in relation to telling the truth?

 

[glitterfairy]

^ If that were true, then all the people who did NOT use Sylvia-related additional texts would have been stuffed. As it happens, I wasn't (I used To Kill a Mockingbird, and still got a Band 6 for adv eng), so that disproves that theory.

The reason I'm finicky about having people chose Sylvia's poems are that a) almost everyone in the state will do them, and b) way too many people fall into the trap of focusing on their relationship. And considering that the vast majority of people tend to side with either Hughes or Plath (as lizabella has stated above), they don't analyse the texts from the perspective the syllabus wants.

From an essay standpoint - YES, if you can make your focus how truth is represented in the text, using representations of their relationship as one of your arguments, fine. But remember that the prescribed text is and always should be your focus. Again, as has been stated above, there is more than one reason Hughes wrote the poems, and if you were to - purely for the exercise of it - block out the Sylvia references, there is a heck of stuff about the degradation of memory over time etc etc.

I think it would be very difficult to write a TTT essay without mentioning Sylvia at least once. But if you can look outside the incredibly dense Hughes/Plath saga, you can see a lot more about truth and how it is represented in the text. IF after that, you'd still like to use a Plath text, then fine. But if you can't write a TTT essay without using one of Sylvia's poems, does that suggest that your argument is too centred on their relationship?

 

[elle148]

Yeah you have to say how he mainpulates the audience... like what they feel reading his poems and how he has made them feel that way.

So use language techniques
Alliteration, assonance, simles, contrast etc
and find examples in his work.

And then your related should compliment this by saying how those composers represent their truth, what the audience feels etc

 

[khaslop]

oh geez. this was our last (boring) module and now i have no idea what to do in the exam.
faaark.
ill kill my teacher!