Channel Firing By Thomas Hardy

C.S. Lewis one said “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”. Facing hardships and breaking free from their normal world allows the hero inside of people to come out. Many stories document this journey of a hero through the Hero’s Journey Archetype. In the short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, a man named Rainsford stumbles upon an island where humans are hunted by a crazed man. The hero’s journey archetype is implemented throughout Rainsford’s experiences in the story. Richard Connell used the Hero’s Journey Archetype to structure the plot and develop the theme that with clever thinking and the use of past experiences, one can succeed at anything.

Although each stanza has a bit of alliteration, the second stanza is the most dominant. Dunbar writes, “Why should the world be over-wise,/ In counting all our tears and sighs?/ Nay, let them only see us, while/ We wear our masks” (6-9). The alliteration in this stanza is used heavily with the letter “w.” With the use of this alliteration, it creates a sense of flow that helps the speaker get his point across more smoothly. Although the poem is more cacophonic, and harsh, rather than euphonic, and harmonious, the use of alliteration helps highlight the importance of this stanza’s sayings. The alliteration aspect of this stanza

Smoke Signals, released in 1998, is a classic film that provides insight to the lives of Native Americans living on reservations. There are very few films that attempt to portray Native Americans at all, yet alone in a respectful manner. The characters are all played by genuine Native American actors including: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, and Tantoo Cardinal. Additionally, it is directed by Chris Eyre, another Native American. This film tries to overcome stereotypes of Native Americans that are prevalent in society, and does so in a humorous way. Smoke Signals takes the viewer along on a journey with the two main characters, Victor and Thomas. They leave their reservation in Idaho to travel to Arizona in order to collect Victor’s father’s ashes. This film is a classic because of it’s timeless theme: forgiveness. Smoke Signals portrays the theme of forgiveness by featuring Victor, a character struggling to forgive his late father for being an alcoholic and leaving him as a child; Victor takes Thomas along on a trek to Arizona to retrieve Victor’s father’s ashes.

Garrett Morgan, an inventor of the 20th century, saved many lives with his inventions. The Scope article, “The Fire Breather”, Informational text, “Could You Be the Next Garrett Morgan?” and the Discovery ED video “Garrett Morgan” all give good evidence on Garrett's most remarkable inventions and his perseverance.

In poetry the poets use poetic devices to make the poems more interesting, this helps the reader keep interest in what they are reading. In ‘The Man from Ironbark’ the poetic devices used include; rhyme, rhythm, repetition, imagery, alliteration, and metaphors. The rhyming patter is a,a,b,b,c,c and the rhythm is shown by the rhyme and the flow or the poem. An example of alliteration is

America’s answer for dealing with crime prevention is locking up adult offenders in correctional facilities with little rehabilitation for reentry into society. American response for crime prevention for juvenile’s offenders is the same strategy used against adult offenders taken juvenile offenders miles away from their environment and placed in adult like prisons.

Para-rhymes, in Owen’s poetry, generate a sense of incompleteness while creating a pessimistic, gloomy effect to give an impression of sombreness. Strong rhyming schemes are often interrupted unexpectedly with a para-rhyme to incorporate doubt to every aspect of this Great War. Who are the real villains and why are hundreds of thousands of lives being wasted in a war with no meaning? In ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, the consistent sonnet rhyming scheme is disturbed by a half rhyme, “guns … orisons”, to show how the soldiers all died alone with only the weapons that killed them by their side, and a visual rhyme, “all … pall” to indicate that the reality of war is entirely the opposite to what it seems - no glory, no joy and no heroism, but only death and destruction. Owen occasionally works with this technique in a reverse approach to create similar thought. For instance, the assonance, consonance and half rhyme based poem, ‘The Last Laugh’, contains an unforeseen full rhyme, “moaned … groaned”, to emphasise that nothing is ever fixed in war except the ghastly fact that the weapons are the true winners. Different forms of Para rhymes often work together with common schemes to ably bring out the main ideas of Owen’s poetry.

with a cadence which holds true through out the whole poem (Team, Shmoop Editorial). Service’s application of literary devices like alliteration enhances the flow of the poem; “roam 'round, cursèd cold, foul or fair, half hid, and brawn and brains” (Service).

When one is hunting, do they ever stop to think about how it feels to be the prey? In Richard Connell’s short story, “The Most Dangerous Game”, the character Rainsford has a change of opinion and feelings to this very question. In the beginning of the story, Rainsford is on a ship with a colleague and expresses that he is only concerned about the feelings of himself as the hunter and not those of the “huntee”. Not long after falling off the ship and arriving to a nearby island is it that Rainsford experiences what it is like to be the huntee. Connell uses many transitions within in the story that leads the reader in suspense and encourages them to keep reading. The transitions are first when Rainsford falls off the ship and approaches the island, when allows him to come into his house and stay, and when the hunt results in the two going against each other.

A word that follows another word with the same consonant sounds is alliteration. Alliteration is used quite often in poetry as it helps create a certain tone or mood for a poem. Words that use alliteration are effective as it uses sound to bring focus to specific parts of a poem that are vital in making an idea or an emotion known. The use of alliteration is very clever as it is a simple trick authors use to grab a reader’s attention and help readers understand what they are trying to say. Edgar Allen Poe uses alliteration quite often in his poem “The Raven” to create a somber and ominous mood. Poe uses phrases like “weak and weary” and “doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before” to emphasize the darkness of the poem. The alliteration used also gives readers a sense that nothing good will come at the end of “The Raven” as the phrases that use alliteration are dreary and unwelcoming.

Whenever you hear the word evil or immoral, what pops up into your head? The character General Zaroff from a story called “The Most Dangerous Game” written by Richard Connell pops up into my head. General Zaroff is a man who lives on an island called Ship-Trap Island. Zaroff proves his immorally so many ways in the story. He lures sailors onto this island by using a bright light to trap them into a fake cannel, kidnaps the sailors, and then hunts them. Zaroff is an evil person who kills humans for the fun of it. Zaroff considers killing humans a sport, does not think it is murder, and forced the main character, Rainsford, in the book to be hunted.

Allusion is also an important part of this poem because of the way the author uses it to connect to the outside works that may also encourage the reader to think in a certain way that goes along with the themes of the poem. The first allusion, found in lines 7 and 8, are to the Greek gods Icarus and Prometheus. This allusion requires the readers to think about gods and religion, which is a major part of the theme of this poem. Another allusion I see is in line 20, which refers to another one of Blake’s poems, “The Lamb.” This allusion is significant because the speaker asks, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (20) And he wonders whether or not the same creator who made something so gentle and pure could also make such an evil animal. The allusion itself brings the reader to think about the other poems and to contrast the two completely

In addition to his manipulation of idiom, Hardy chose specific and concrete words to place within The Man He Killed. By selecting precise words, which are informal, he achieved an instant emotional reaction to the meaning of the poem. "I shot at him as he at me," is a line that creates a vivid picture in one's mind of two individuals shooting at each other. The exactness of the last stanza sends a chill through the reader: "Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown." The chill established creates a realization that war does actually change friend to a foe. Overall, the use of casual specific words for diction, allows the general meaning and impact to be greatly amplified.

In contrast, Channel Firing shows not blind fate but a cruel and uncaring god who is running the show. The poem begins as the dead are awakened by the loud noise of guns being fired by a ship at sea. Hardy writes:

Hardy uses many techniques for the rhythm of his poem, some that work together and some that disrupt the harmonious cadence that they create. The poem is written in an iambic meter, the pace is preserved through as it has a regular iambic rhythm, alternating through trimeter and tetrameter on each line. This rhythm effects the pace of the poem, making it slow and joyless, as it creates an unsteady, eerie atmosphere by using the alternating meters, again enhancing the reader’s imagery and feelings of darkness and isolation. This is also maintained through the use of alternating rhyme at the end of a line, ‘gate […] desolate’ as it presents a rhythm and almost relieves the tension that the speaker creates for the reader. However, the iambic meter and the alternating rhyme is disrupted by the use of imperfect rhyme throughout the poem, ‘desolate […] day’ this causes variation in tone and an inharmonious feel, contrasting with the regular rhythm and rhyme, intensifying the eerie feel that the descriptive language creates. Another technique Hardy uses that contributes to the tone and pace of the poem, is enjambment, ‘[…] broken lyres / And all […]’ , the way Hardy uses this in his poem creates a durable passage through time, it does this by slowing the pace of the poem down.