Fly Away Peter Analysis

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

In his poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, John Updike uses a flock of birds to show that man can be uplifted by observing nature. Updike’s conclusion is lead up to with the beauty of autumn and what a binding spell it has on the two men playing golf. In Updike’s conclusion and throughout the poem, he uses metaphors, similes, and diction to show how nature mesmerizes humans.

In addition to this, the poem uses auditory imagery to shatter the dream-like atmosphere that has been created surrounding the suburb, with the “howl of the twin-cam war party” and the “techno pulse” destroying the tranquillity, and emanating the “invasion” of Australia by the Europeans over 200 years ago. This further works to evoke feelings of empathy from the reader by allowing them to observe “eye for an eye” philosophy, present throughout the poem, in phrases such as “areas we treat with the same contempt laid upon us”. These ideologies are present throughout Samuel Wagan Watson’s body of work, with many poems throughout the anthology displaying similar attitudes towards the colonisation of Australia, and the degradation of the spirituality of the land that followed.

Some of the soldiers were such cowards that they injured themselves just to be taken away in a helicopter and extracted from the war scene. The soldiers “spoke bitterly about guys who had found release by shooting off their own toes or fingers. Pussies, they’d say. Candy-asses” (22). However, deep down inside, the soldiers who did all the mocking “imagined the quick, sweet pain, then the evacuation to Japan, then a hospital with warm beds and cute geisha nurses” (22). The soldiers even dreamt at night about freedom birds. The men were flying on a “real bird, a big sleek silver bird with feathers and talons and high screeching… The weights fell off; there was nothing to bear” (22). The soldiers did not want to be at war, they imagined to themselves “It’s (the war) over, I’m gone!—they were naked, they were light and free” (22).

In “A Barred Owl,” Wilbur constructs a singsong narrative of two stanzas with three couplets each. This arrangement provides a simple and steady rhythm that echoes the parents’ crooning to their child when she is frightened by “the boom / [o]f an owl’s voice” (1-2). A light-hearted tone is established when they “tell the wakened child that all she heard / [w]as an odd question from a forest bird” (3-4). The parents’ personification of the owl makes it less foreign and intimidating, and therefore alleviates the child’s worry. The interpretation of the hooting as a repetitive and absurd question — “Who cooks for you?” — further makes light of the situation (6). The second stanza introduces a more ominous tone by directly addressing the contrasting purposes words may serve given a speaker’s intention. While they “can make our terror bravely clear,” they “[c]an also thus domesticate a fear” (7-8). This juxtaposition is

“Peter and the Starcatcher”, written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a prequel to the Broadway hit, “Peter and Wendy.” This comedic play reveals to the audience the origins of Peter Pan. This story tells how Peter Pan went from being an orphan in England without a name, to Peter Pan, the flying boy on the island of Never Land. The design of this allows the audience to reach their imaginative capacity while watching while highlighting and emphasizing key plot points throughout the story. The two design areas I will be describing and evaluating is the lighting and the scenic design. However, this play exemplifies all four aspects of design flawlessly; the lighting, sound, scenic and costume designs are said to be more sensible to the design than any other Broadway show. This is an extraordinary and excellent play because of the amazing design, the lighting designer and scenic designer used many ways to produce a variety of effects on the audience.

In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

The careful choices of literary devices Paterson had successfully conveyed his underlying purpose to the reader. This text also paints a picture of the mood of one of the facets of Australians in the war which is the main focus of this poem.

Malouf’s ‘Fly Away Peter’ uses an Australian frame of reference to display the horrors and absurdity of war. The way in which Malouf writes creates reality – the reader can suspend disbelief and believe that the events in the novella are actually real. When we read ‘Fly Away Peter’, we see the story through Jim’s eyes. Jim is a bird watcher, and he is Australian. Ashley, his employer, was born in Australia and educated in England. Ashley has inherited the land on which Jim watches the birds. The Australian frame of reference is seen through Jim, juxtaposed with

In what ways does David Malouf use interesting literary techniques in Fly Away Peter to explore ideas and themes?

Some believe that birds help express spiritual freedom and psychological liberation with the different colors of birds that are associated with various meanings; specifically the yellow bird means you should keep your guard up. In the novel, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, John Bartle becomes guarded and isolated because of his internal battles created by his experiences from war. Bartle struggles with the lack of control he has over the events that happen to him in during his time in the military. He fights with his helplessness when he tries to transition to his lifestyle at home. He also cannot control how he changes as a person. When we think of war we think of the physical damage we see on the exterior but what we cannot see is the psychological damage in the interior of a person.

There is certainly no doubt that Jim and Ashley are brought together by their appreciation of nature. Ashley has 'a quiet respect for the things Jim also respected', and the reader is made aware of the bond and mutual respect each feels for the other. These three characters, despite their social differences, easily relate through the birds. Ashley provides Jim with a place in the world through the sanctuary, and Imogen helps Jim to secure his place within the sanctuary through her photographs and the book. Ashley and Imogen are certainly significant factors in Jim's journey. They play a part in his final understanding and affirmation of self, in that they are encouraging influences upon Jim and help him to appreciate himself, however they are not the sole deciding factors in Jim's comprehension of life.

‘No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and the strain / have caused their stammering, disconnected talk,’ writes Siegfried Sassoon in the poem Survivors (1917). Sassoon’s irony in these lines condense a prevalent view of non-combatants during the First World War that the soldiers would recover from their physical injuries and mental illness after the phase of shock had concluded. In the short story Speed the Plough (1923), Mary Butts articulates scepticism towards the idea that Shell Shock will simply pass. Instead of employing the habitual indicators of war, the story showcases Butts’s fixation in avoiding them. Modernist writers, such as Butts, were interested in innovation and experimentation with language to create new forms of expression. The following analysis will explore how the modernist aesthetics shape this passage in order to express the experience of war but avoid recurring to the same language that explicitly evokes it.

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing

The idyllic world of sandpipers and kingfishers is contrasted with the brutal conflict amongst the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres through symbolism and binary opposition within David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter. The sanctuary owner and employee are drawn to war developing their identities as they endure a new world unlike anything they have experienced. Symbolism is a powerful tool used throughout the novel as a depiction of war and the celebration of life. Binary opposition of innocence and experience is addressed through the characters and setting to portray the ideas within Fly Away Peter.