Harry Grubb's English Journal

Question 1:
How does Millar present ideas about witch-hunts in the crucible?

Arthur Millar presnts ideas about witch-hunts during the novel through many different techniques.

– Millar uses Hale to be the with hunter at the court trial.
– The court room contains tension between the acused girls and the judges and the dury.
–

‘Simply because we were locked a hundred years before we started, there’s no reason for us not to try to win.’

This response to Scout from Atticus shows how Tom Robinsons case was affecting his life. He expresses his passion to try and defeat the court. He tries to show Scout his determination about Tom.

In the ‘Yellow Palm’, the poet shows how conflict has affected the religion of the people and destroyed the places of worship. “But there was blood on the walls and the muezzin’s eyes were wild with despair”.

In my perspective, Robert Browning and William Shakespeare present love and hate similarly. They both show love and hate in one action. My argument will be supported by Julius Caesar and many poems written by Robert Browning.

Julius Caesar, the great ruler of Rome, written by Shakespeare is a classic play that showed us how relationships can ruin a leadership. Brutus was always loved by Caesar. However, Brutus is known as an honourable man who is loved by many citizens of Rome. Cassius states in his soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 3, ‘Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see thy honourable metal may be wrought from that it is disposed.’ This shows that Cassius respects him and he is excited as he knows that he can overthrow his enemy. We know this because Cassius saved Caesar’s life when he was drowning. However, he did not gain any respect from him for doing so. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, he thinks too much: such men are dangerous’. This quote shows the audience that there will always be an unsettled relationship between the two. The metaphor of a hungry look shows that Caesar thinks that Cassius is greedy for power. This is why Cassius wants Brutus to become the figure head of the conspiracy so that he could use him to gain power from Caesar.

This quote can also be interpreted as a different meaning. The audience at the time may have interpreted the quote differently. They may have thought that Cassius may have said ‘mettle’ instead of ‘metal’. This is a play on words as they both sound the same but have completely different meanings. This is called a homophone. Mettle is a person’s ability to confront with difficulties. This shows that some of the audience members thought that Cassius was praising him about his rise of power.

Caesar was brutally murdered by the conspirators very early on in the play. He was killed because of his ambitions but for the love of Rome. The conspirators were afraid that Caesar was going to be too powerful and use the citizens of Rome to his advantage. We know this from Brutus’s speech after he killed him in Act 3, Scene 2. Brutus stated ‘Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen?’ This quote promotes his love for Rome to the readers. However we know also that part of Brutus did love him but his love for Rome meant that his action was necessary for the best of Rome.
At the scene of Caesar’s death, Shakespeare uses the powerful leader to show the final sense of love from Brutus. ‘Et tu, Brute? – Then fall, Caesar!’ He asked Brutus this after all the other Conspirators delivered their vicious blows. If Brutus wants to deliver the final blow, then he is willing to die at his feet. From this one action from Brutus, we can observe his love for Rome and Caesar but also the hatred of his ambition and ideology. This is why I believe that Shakespeare uses just one action to express the love and hate from different characters.

Calpurnia is another good example of how Shakespeare show the love and hate for Caesar in one specific moment in the play. Calpurnia didn’t want Caesar to leave her in Act 2, Scene 2 after a horrible dream about a lion in the streets and ghosts. She was begging Caesar not to leave as she has suspicions about the conspirators. ‘Do not go forth today. Call it my fear that keeps you in the house, and not your own.’ This quote shows the love for Caesar’s well-being but the hate if he decided to go. Caesar would have no excuse about not knowing the danger that lied ahead if he decided to go to the conspirators.

In my point of view, Robert Browning’s poems also show love and hate in a similar manner to William Shakespeare. The poem ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ is a poem that emits a combination of mixed emotions, including love and hate. The scene of the poem is set in a quiet but little house near a lake. A man was sitting in his armchair when a beautiful girl called Porphyria gently strolled into the room from the cold outdoors. She sat next to the man and was murmuring her love for him. We as readers know that he loves her as much as she loves him. However, the man’s love for Porphyria was too extreme. He was worried that he might not be able to keep her to himself as she was so beautiful. ‘For love of her, and all in vain.’ he decided on the spot to strangle her with her own long strands of blonde hair so he could keep her. This shows that he expressed love and hate in that single action. He despised the feeling that she could break his heart, however, loved her as he could keep her forever in his heart. We know this due to the aftermath of the murder. ‘Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss.’ The kissing after her death shows that he still loves her and that the murder wasn’t fully hatred of her. It was hatred of the possibility of wrecking his life.

Another good example of my argument could be found also in ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Regime’ which is a poem written by Robert Browning. This poem is very similar to Porphyria’s Lover, however, this poem emits more hatred than love. Pauline, the speaker of the poem, has found out that her lover is cheating with another woman named Elise. Pauline knows that her man and Elise are with each other while she is ‘Pounding at thy powder’ At the moment, Pauline is expressing a lot of anger while she is preparing a poison too powerful for herself to touch with her own bare hands. She wants her lover to see the pain on Elise’s face while she is suffocating from the poison. Robert Browning’s aim is to show Pauline’s hatred for her lover through the death on the girl he is cheating with.  This is because Browning wants to show minuscule amount of love for her partner by not killing him. ‘He is sure to remember her dying face’ Pauline doesn’t want to hurt her lover physically but she wants to scar him for life mentally. This shows that in Pauline’s single action  of making the powder, she is expressing love and hate for both Elise and her own lover. ‘Next moment I dance at the king’s.’ In my interpretation, I believe this metaphor is showing her passion to be back with her lover and dance with him in a romantic place. This language device, used by Robert Browning, is powerful as it shows her passion for her lover which over rules her hatred for what he has done.

If we are comparing how love and hate are shown in both the Robert Browning poems and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, I would suggest that they both use similar methods in showing it in one action. The metaphors that they use can show us two sides of the story. For example, ‘For love of her, and all in vain’ is from Porphyria’s Lover. This implies that the speaker loves her but also hates her because their relationship could destroy his own life. Whereas with Julius Caesar, ‘Et tu Brute? – Then fall, Caesar’. This shows that Caesar hates the fact that Brutus is involved with his murder. But his love for Brutus is also shown because if Brutus wants him dead as well, then there is nothing to live for and that he accepts his punishment. This is why I believe that Shakespeare and Robert Browning display love and hate in one action from specific characters in their stories.

I believe that love and hate can be expressed in a single action. In Julius Caesar, Brutus does this in scene 3, act 1 whe he delivers the final blow to Caesar. Brutus does this for his love of Rome and for his love of Caesar but does it for his hate of Caesar’s ambitions.

Dear Mr Humphrys,
I fully understand your opinion on the change of English Language which was published by the Daily Mail in 2007. I am also not against your opinion about the ‘I h8 txt msgs’ quote. However, you obviously have a different perception of ‘change’.

You are describing the change of language as though it is ‘raping our vocabulary’, however I strongly disagree. I believe that change in our language is beneficial for people in our generation. Everything evolves so it can adapt to the surroundings. The short abbreviations that the younger generation created don’t have a negative impact on anyone. It is simple and easy to comprehend. Whether or not you have a problem with the development in our language, the youth are not to blame. The schools environment has a massive impact on our generations language. Students inside schools only learn from others like teachers and parents. Unless they change the method of the use of language in schools, then the modern language will remain.

However, I do understand your perspective on the use of longer abbreviations that don’t make sense at all. Although, David Crystal stated in ‘the Guardian’ that the Anglo-Saxons scribes used similar abbreviations as in modern text messages. It wasn’t our generation that created these long-winded abbreviations. We cannot change the history of our country. This type of language has been around for many years. This language has made who we are today. Your not being ambiguous enough to understand other styles of language.

Yourself, and many others, are trying to maintain the ‘Correct’ language. However, I believe that there is no correct language. There are a variety of ways to express feelings and experiences. Shakespeare, for example, used a different style of language to create the most successful plays. However, at the time it was alien to the other people. No one questioned his style of writing because it was a huge breakthrough in the English language. This we know as his spectacular way of writing is being taught today in schools.

The context of a text message to your friends is only going to be short and very informal. It’s not a conversation to your boss asking for a pay rise. It makes sense to use abbreviations in text messages. Why use full winded sentences in a text message when it takes so much time typing it. The 9 key pads on mobile phones were the first type of phones that allowed the new advanced technology in 1992. This meant that there had to be multiple presses to get a hyphen on the screen. This annoyed many people and meant that it was much easier to just type abbreviations or just two simple words .

Your hate for the lack of punctuation in text messages is described as ‘Pillaging’. This quote suggests to me that something has been robbed with violence. This is not the case because in this scenario, it is only someone simply missing out a few commas and full stops. This metaphor and many others in your article are wildly inappropriate for the topic you are writing on. Therefore, I hope that you have acknowledged my speculation on your article and think about a response to all of my concerns.

The poet starts the poem with ‘GRRRRR’ which show that the speaker is angry about something. The poet also finishes the first stanza with the line ‘Hell dry you up with its flames’. This shows that the speaker is speaking to someone and that the persin has done someth8ng wrong. As the poem is called a Cloister, they must be in a place of worship. This links with the word hell. This implies that maybe the speaker is a monk.

In the second stanza the speaker shows more love as it starts with ‘At the meal we sit together’.

I believe that the speaker in the poem, ‘Poppies’, is a veteran from a big war in the past. This is because of the last stanza. It says, ‘I listened, hoping to hear your playground voice catching on the wind’. In my perspective, it shows that a old man fought in the war with his mate and he survived but his mate didnt. As it was Armistice day, he is respecting him and trying to hear his voice one last time.

However, there is a possibility that the speaker could be a mother of a soldier that has died fighting. This is because in stanza two, she is pulling of all the cat hairs off ger sons shirt which shows a motherly figure. Also, the playground in the last stanza could be a link towards her son being a chold and playing in the playground.

The Room

Sweet, soft air running through every strand of hair on her body. Her long, silky hair flowing in the quiet wind. There is no noise. You can here a pin drop. Birds, side by side, flap their graceful wings parallel to the arms of the short, but well-built woman. Nothing but chalk-white surrounds her. The clouds are as white as the pillows that lie underneath the head of the woman. The alarm clock on her right shows 2:17am but she has no idea as she is high up in the sky with the clouds.

The cold, dark room has an old, wooden wardrobe in the right corner next to the damp, mouldy window. A shadow hovering opposite the. Presuming it’s just a coat hung on a hanger, however, it’s too dark to observe what it actually is. The small but narrow bed is unusually located in the centre of the room with an old, vintage mirror attached on the closed-door next to it. A figure laying under the pale white sheets, so still, people may think it’s unresponsive. Although she is stationary in her bed, in the sky, she is soaring all over the ocean blue skies.

A burst of sunbeams strikes the back of the flying woman, creating a similar figure on the immaculate clouds below. As the time on the alarm clock gradually passes every minute, the speed of the woman slowly decreases. The clouds get darker and misty. The gorgeous birds with abnormal wings begin to shed their feathers. The claws grow bigger and razor-sharp. Their eyes start to glow a blood-red colour and starts to shriek conspicuously. The light is fading away through the clouds. Alternatively, a minuscule stripe of sunlight suddenly appears through the inch big gap on the stained curtains.

At this moment of time, the storm like clouds stop moving past the woman. The unveiled birds start circling her and start to approach her anatomy. Now just from touching distance, the woman suddenly drops through the black clouds. Feet first, free-falling straight down from a inconsiderable height. The luscious black hair is following upwards as though she was electrocuted. The ground vastly approaching the stretched out feet. There are slow signs of movement in the bed. The view of the spikes is getting clearer every split second. The sound of high pitch voices start getting discomforting louder as she is closer to the knife-edged spikes.

Screaming starts to occur. The woman starts to move in discomfort inside the room. Tossing and turning under the  The spikes are ten seconds away. The eyes begin to open. Nine, eight, seven. The head looks back up to the dark sky. Six, five, four. The sound is so high, it is almost impossible for a human eardrum to pick up. Three. Two. One. The girl looks straight ahead with her deep brown eyes. Bang. The woman is in front of the vintage mirror. Starring into her own huge pupil eyes, the sweat drips off the edges of her fringe. She looks right to the alarm clock which shows 8:24am. It has finished. The room is light in every corner. You would never see these images anywhere else but inside room.

In Act 3, scene 2, Antony is at Caesar’s funeral. At the funeral, Brutus tries to persuade the people of Rome that he, and the conspirator’s, killed Caesar for the good of Rome. However, Antony uses different methods to persuade them. One of his methods is using Caesar’s will. Antony uses persuasive language to do so.