Author: Tobias

Paragraph1: Macbeth

“stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more” Macbeth has an extreme amount of desire to know his own fate and if it bodes good or bad for him as he does not hesitate although he may not like what the future holds in store for him since he does not question this so you could say his judgement was clouded by this feeling.

Paragraph1: Scrooge

“I wish to be left alone”Scrooge enjoys being in a completely solitary environment with no one to challenge his self opinionated ruling opinion and the comfort of his possessions is all he needs to feel content knowing he has food on the table and the poor are working in factories for next to nothing makes him feel content also the symbolism of what Scrooge considers normal for a human.

Macbeth and Scrooge both possess a formidable amount of power in each of their stories but both hove very different roles Macbeth is bloodthirsty murderer who is used to the site of war and battle and Scrooge is a man who lords over the poorer people as a tyrant who cares not about those he considers beneath him and would rather they die to decrease the population as he deems it right They both have different feelings at the start of their plays and both go through an extreme emotional metamorphosis of opposite feelings.

Paragraph2: Macbeth

“I have thee not, and yet I see thee still… art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation” this quote is used by Shakespeare to show the madness in Macbeths mind and the fact he is seeing the dagger he will use to kill Duncan this also symbolises the reality of the witches premonitions sinking in to his mind and how they drive him to commit these acts of murder and injustice and the effect of corruption on the ambitious mind.

Paragraph2: Scrooge

“Hear me!” cried Marley’s Ghost.  “My time is nearly gone.” this quote is directed at Scrooge  from the dead ghost of Marley warning him of the fate he was subjected to in the afterlife and that he should change his ways or end up roaming the area around the bank for eternity unable to move on this creates a confliction in Scrooge and the way he should go about life from now on he realises his carelessness for human life and how he belittled those who he deemed worthless due to their emotional feeling towards Christmas or financial standing and how he was joyless in the most joyful time of the year

Both Macbeth and Scrooge experience a change loyalty to their ideals and beliefs the conflict in them both changes their opinion on the world and how they perceive the lives of other Macbeth considers all life in his way expendable and how Scrooge now believes the meaning of life is to be joyful and and be remembered for it and to be generous to those in need and that its not good what happens to the poor in those factories and how they are treated as less.

The arguments against torture are futile there is only one way of keeping us safe. Say a terrorist cell is planning an attack and the only way to stop it is to extract information from one of its members, would you want to wait a few days till he cracks? Or a few hours? These people knew what they signed up for when they became terrorists: most of them planned on killing themselves in the process, so torturing one suicidal religious extremist to save thousands of innocent civilians is worth it, don’t you think? They pose a threat to your family and friends – does the thought of losing them not sway your judgement?

As long as their plots are obscured from us we can’t defend ourselves against them. There is no natural look for a terrorist: we can’t tell them apart from the crowd. Terrorism is a crime which can’t be forgiven. These people won’t hesitate to burn a school to the ground. The fact of the matter is people choose to ignore this invisible threat out of fear. It took one strike to make a nation tremble. Even a country as powerful as America was petrified by an attack which still stands to this day as a monument to the power terrorism holds over us. Unless we act with aggression by stopping their plots, our safe comfortable lives are an illusion.

Arguably we are waiting for the terrorists to shoot first in this shadow war waged by a bunch of extremists who use their religion as an excuse to murder the innocent and who don’t believe in the same ideals.In the mean time, we have the political morons who decide to leave our doors open to everybody, as much as this isn’t about immigration, the more cells that get in the harder this cancer will be to cure.

Looking at it from this perspective, it’s spread far too much.

All we can do for now is prolong our countries body from falling ill to this disease that has taken root in our country. The way the media portrays these attacks should take priority over standard celebrity scandals that make up most of our news today. Sure, the news covers it, and shows it a few times bat after a few days it becomes lost I celebrity histeria and it becomes forgotten. The focus shows it few times but after a few days it becomes forgotten. People gossip about them and it comes up in conversation some times but people always expect these attack never to happen to them; this is the illusion that the chances of them being caught in an attack are remote.

Kant does raise valid points about the difference between a tape recorder and human being, meaning that you can kick and hit the the tape recorder. While not very effective it doesn’t hurt anyone, but it is not the same with a human. A human still has feelings: hit the human and it causes pain to this person.People being tortured are usually referred to as torture victims: this is actually quite true – it hurts and no-one wants to see or feel the effects of torture. In films torture doesn’t seem to affect the victim much physiologically, but that is not the case for real life victims and torturers: the one inflicting the torture is also haunted by the screams of his victim. There is also another word argument against torture: “if” it’s all good, “if” there are bombs hidden somewhere, and what “if” there isn’t? This uncertainty does raise a point of only putting someone through this painful method of information extraction if there is hard evidence to support that the person in question is hiding something. A pure utilitarian, however, also brings a good argument about the greater good and that torture may be necessary for the greater good of the people who are in danger and how they would agree that it is necessary if many lives are at stake.

The utilitarian approach to torture encourages us to believe the end will justify the means. But perhaps this leaves us uneasy whether torture is the correct way of stopping these threats. Who will we trust to administer the torture? What would we do if the torture victim was innocent and how would we remedy this? There is huge void of knowledge in terms of torture’s effectiveness and its effect on the victim’s body and mind, making it very hard to justify from a moral point of view and perhaps almost impossible.

Overall when we are faced with the current threats from various different angles, groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram present us with a unique threat to our civilisation which can’t be taken lightly therefore despite the difficulty of it torture can be used but under heavy regulation.

In the opening of Macbeth he is portrayed as a fearless warrior and courageous leader but one flaw with this already is he enjoys killing in the battle him and Banquo  were labelled fearless and a true hero in the battle against the thane of Cawdor so in he beginning Macbeth is titled a thane with a high state of honour and respect.On the other hand Scrooge is presented as a heartless overlord with no care in the world but for his wealth and he even believes that the poor are worth nothing and them dying is a good thing he also doesn’t believe in Christmas or anything to do with happiness so in the beginning he is presented as a monster.They both start out as the opposite of each  other in terms of reputation.

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough”

This quote shows the fatal flaw Scrooge has at the beginning of the play, his greed and lack of any love for Christmas he assumes all who are poor don’t deserve the luxury of joy and that he wont indulge himself in this luxury either. Since Christmas to him is “humbug” which means deceptive portraying he believes Christmas is an illusion for the poor to be happy even though they are poor. At this time in the play  Scrooge doesn’t understand that wealth is not needed to experience joy but also that he is to lonely to feel it for himself. Dickens wanted to show how Scrooge had no sense of Christmas spirit and believed being happy was wrong if you were poor at the time the quote uses a rhetorical question to challenge his nephews beliefs Dickens used this to show happiness isn’t bought and it doesn’t matter if you are poor that can still experience joy at Christmas.

“As cannons overcharged with double cracks, so they Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe”

This quote describes Macbeth and Banquo in the battle against Norway the captain describes them as fearless and brutal in combat by killing their enemies twice over this give hints to Macbeth’s nature as a person and why he would be able to  kill with ease Shakespeare wanted to foreshadow Macbeth’s flaw and make him seem like a blood thirsty soldier with that being his only true nature this gives hints to Macbeth’s actions later in the play and how dangerous he could become if he was given the temptation of even more power.

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

This quote shows Scrooges fear and disbelief at Marley’s  ghost scrooge never makes jokes and is cold and oblivious to the supernatural he makes that joke to hide his fear from the ghost by trying to act smart the fact its Marley’s ghost chills him to the bone Scrooge tries to explain how this ghost is before him and says he is an illusion due to indigestion this helps him hide the terror from his seven year dead partner with a cold dead stare this same type of event also happens to Macbeth later in his play when Banquo’s ghost appears due to his guilt but but marley appears to save Scrooge from his current fate which is to be chained in the afterlife and forgotten by society

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly”

This quote shows Macbeths first flaw which is his ambition driven by a prophecy and a manipulative wife he seeks to kill The king Duncan but in reality he is against this but doesn’t have the will to resist his wife this shows his arrogance in its purest form he doesn’t weight the bad consequences against the positives making him even more flawed nor does he think he will suffer from guilt by trying to act cold and calculating this is very similar to Scrooge since he is also very arrogant towards the idea of Christmas and doesn’t want to see the benefits of helping others like Macbeth  doesn’t care who killing Duncan will effect nor the chaos it would plunge his homeland into chaos

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I disagree with your interpretation of the girl who tells you she texts “about 250 times a day, or something”. This girl most likely only feels like she texts this many times, but I personally doubt it. This one teenage girl also does not represent the entire teenage generation, so your claim about social media affecting all teenagers is unfair and invalid. In my experience, the adult generation are just as bad; many adults spend a majority of their free time on social media so cannot be said to set a good example. Some parents even encourage their children to go on social media.

I agree with your opinion on social media sites about how they can make relationships hard to distinguish between the real world and virtual world moreover they encourage casual short term relationships online with strangers, inhibiting our ability to socialise in the actual world. Social media can be a dangerous place for some people who are vulnerable and tend to take things that happen on these sites to heart. It can also become a great distraction for many students who try to multitask social media and studying; a wide range of research research shows a drop in academic performance when they do this. Social media puts a lot of pressure on teenagers to be available at any time of day or night. Many teenagers feel like they should be available to reply at any time making them lose sleep over social media. A study from 16/9/15 shows that teenagers can end up losing over 2 hours of sleep per night leading to anxiety and depression if they don’t respond straight away.It seems that even if a teenager wakes up in the middle of the night instead of trying to go back to sleep they will go on their social media instead – a study showed 1 in 5 teenagers will do this as a normal habit.

On the other hand, social media allows people to get in touch with old friends. As well as widening your circle of friends it’s also a place many teenagers can go to go for advice on sensitive topics which they may not be able to discuss with their family, school or friend. For example suicidal feelings, loneliness, gender identification and so on. Social media enables teenagers to arrange events with friends easily allowing them to go out as a group and meet up and do extracurricular activities. Rather than stopping people from meeting up it actually does the opposite. It even helps to cross racial and cultural barriers between mixed groups of people although even with all these benefits the danger of meeting dangerous characters outweighs the benefits.

Social media’s influence on political events can rapidly change the predicted  outcome, allowing people to share their opinions in real time with each other. This can open people’s eyes to what really happens in politics and allows them to have a voice and respected opinion whereas before younger people were not allowed to express the opinion of the majority and not just agree with the government’s view on things. The Arab Spring of 2011 was when the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia led to an uprising of an entire country through social media these benefits need to be managed to allow people to do it safely.

Social media overall has become a part of human society and nowadays it is always taken for granted by the younger generation and at the same time is put down by the older generation. As Samantha Taylor said, it does take some control of teenagers’ lives, however I personally doubt social media will disappear any time soon. As much as social media is flawed it does have many practical uses and does help, and in many cases it brings people closer together rather than minimizing their people skills we need to educate and regulate how young people use social media.

Flag and At the border both are about how war can force people to leave their home or die to defend it shows what home means to people both poems are actually about the end of a conflict flag is when the a piece of cloth brings a nation to its knees and the border is about a refugee returning to their home country after a long conflict as she waits ‘at the border’ to return.

Flag is a poem about the power of a nation symbol on a piece of cloth that can make people fight each other for it or die for it and overpower whole countries in the poem the narrator says “its just a piece of cloth that brings nations to its knees” this shows the narrator understands and fears the Flag himself. The second stanza reference to the Flag “its just a piece of cloth that makes the guts of men grow bold.” this shows many things about why people fight for it because it makes them feel like its worth dying and killing for with no mercy to anyone not on their side the third stanza encourages this further by saying “dares a coward to relent” this shows that anyone will fight to defend their homeland against invaders also many people will have other motives such as family and friends to protect innocent people who cant defend themselves. Flag’s last two stanzas are about the effect the flag has on those who fight for it and how it will outlive

OOTB is a poem based on 9/11. The poem is written from the perspective of a person in the world trade centre at the time of attack in first and second person.

In the poem one of the obvious language devices is repetition and rhyming and in the first stanza the protagonist says how you can see him through a camera shot and that the viewer will see “that a white cotton shirt is twirling,turning.” this quote uses present continuous verbs and these things the protagonist mentions are describing his surroundings. In the second stanza repetition of the word waving is used quite frequently and he describes him self as small in the clouds but still waving this shows hen hasn’t given up hope and still believes he will be rescued but then says “does anyone see a soul worth saving” this is a rhetorical question where the protagonist wonders if anyone will be saved since

How have structural choices made by the poet enhance our understanding of the themes explored by the poem Hawk Roosting?

The hawk is revelling in its own perfection as it rehearses how it wants to kill its prey the second and third stanza show how the hawk believes it is the perfect being and how nature itself is helping it hunt as he inspects his hunting area the third stanza shows the Hawks arrogance when he says “it took the whole of creation to produce my foot, my each feather: now I hold creation in my foot”.The final two stanza’s are about the Hawks lifestyle and how he feels nothing about his victims and the fact he wouldn’t change anything this show the howl has no sentiment about its victims and that it rules the world .The human race and the hawk have many similarities like the fact we think we are the master race of nature and that we are prey to nothing and mankind will kill each other off for the sake of dominance over land and religion the hawk kills because it believes it is its soul purpose and the world is its playground it does not care about anything that isn’t a hawk so he kills it for the sake of it because he believes that this is natures will .

The poems layout starts with the hawk sleeping and imagining how it will and eat its next victims with the second stanza the hawk describes its surroundings and acts as if that is nature helping him to hunt his victims showing that nature takes the hawk’s side of battle in the food chain just like civilians get caught in violent acts by military and Terrorists with no way of defending themselves just like the Hawk’s prey they are both caught in an conflict they don’t have any involvement with or want to fight for.

The two poems I will be comparing are ‘Belfast confetti’ and ‘the border’ the two poems are about people affected by war and the consequences it has on people in the border poem a woman is returning to Iraq after a conflict forced her from her home and how she feels about returning home after a long time and in Belfast confetti the main protagonist is caught in a civil conflict for Ireland he describes how Belfast has become a war zone with military closing in on every corner and how it makes him feel being in the middle of this conflict.

Belfast confetti describes a war zone in Ireland where Molotov’s are being thrown and shots fired at civilians over the religion in Ireland but northern Ireland wants to stay as part oh the UK this created a civil war between protestants and Catholics for the future of Ireland but the protestants have the military on their side as they clear the area street by street the protagonist of the poem is overridden with fear as he uses metaphors to describe how the army shouts as they chase the Catholics down with guns. The protagonist of Belfast confetti seems like an innocent bystander in the middle of this conflict in the process of losing his home and how he feels trapped in his own town and what its like through his eyes.The concept of this poem is about how war can happen anywhere and what it makes people feel this is shown by what the protagonist describes as “raining exclamation marks” probably a metaphor for what the protagonist can hear such as explosions,gunshots and innocent people crying out.The protagonist also mentions how he know the area with “I know this labyrinth so well” another metaphor for his local area every alleyway and street is shown as a dead end this shows that the protagonist is becoming increasingly stressed and entrapped.In the final stanza the protagonist begins to question his origins where he comes from? where he is going? “a fusillade of question marks” this shows he has lost his mind in fear and proof of what conflict can do to the human mind and its effect on the innocent.

At he border is about what it is like to return to their home when a civil war is over at the beginning the refugee says “everything will taste different” meaning it will be a changed country in the third stanza the refugee’s sister makes a joke about one leg being in one country and the other leg in the other for this the border guards told her off probably because their country now needs harsh security to keep it safe.The refugee’s mother says the roads will be cleaner,the land more beautiful and the people much nicer since they are not in danger or under threat any more there were other families in line to cross the border one of them says “I can inhale home”

21st century speech on terrorism

terrorism is in my opinion pointless no one has the right to take another persons life for any reason especially against  unarmed men,women and children  there are cults such as IS that don’t abide by these laws.In my opinion it is a dangerous threat due to the fact ordinary people have succumbed to their rule and wish to aid them in there efforts however this is their choice but we have not tried to stop this there are several ways this menace can be ended one of which is all out war for which I  believe should be the first action. They show no mercy.the other problem is racism on the Muslim religion due to to speculation that all terrorists are Muslims and are from the middle east.

One of the main issues is the fact they execute other people for what believe and thinking that there religion is right and superior even thought there actually is no higher calling and especially since it turns out most victims of terrorism turn out to be Muslims and followers of the same religion are attacked this is actually true to me this makes no sense Muslims migrating from places like Iraq and Syria if they can are asylum seekers looking for a normal life countries like the UK and America we should try to make it safe for them to return home and help them have a normal life.

To be perfectly honest I don’t see how we can prevent terrorism in the UK since there is no way of knowing who is a terrorist now we have racial groups such as British first attacking Muslims and any other racial groups since 9/11 we have been victim to several terrorist attacks on public transport there have been debates about attacking Syria and other terrorist cells throughout the western world personally i think we don’t have a choice since they wont stop attacking till their way of life is accepted. We can retaliate and fight back to show we are capable and not going to back down to them.

If terrorism isn’t stopped now it will grow and eventually take over its just like a cancer if we stop it early we can end it but if it spreads it can devastate the worlds future as a whole and what future generations will face so we must try to stop it before long otherwise it will become more powerful we should help the western world become a functional and peaceful nation and allow our nation to be protected in the process.

It was a dark stormy night the rain hammered down on my wind shield  I was arriving at the abandoned asylum the lightning cracked the heavens and roared there the water seemed to cover the whole courtyard my window wipers were broken from such downpour then all of the sudden the moon broke through the clouds staring at the earth below the moonlight bounced of the puddles filling the area with a gloomy light I parked on the curb the front door was worn down ancient it was obvious this place needed work as I looked around there were several scaffoldings I saw a way in I proceeded inside.

I had entered some kind of waiting room there were hospital beds piled up on sides next to each other i pulled out my camera for some footage i figured i should record most of this on camera since I was the only reporter dumb enough to go here for some money the rooms were dirty and full of beds the corridor had green tiles falling of the walls and blood stains on the walls the floor had cracks all over it seemed as if an elephant had waltzed through here several times.As I wandered the seemingly endless corridors the only sound to reach my ears were the flickering lights and my own footsteps then out of nowhere I stumbled upon a metal door with a window and a desk next to it I pushed the door with all my might little did i know that the bolts holding the door were not unhinged.

After making up for my stupidity and heading inside the room was gloomy with a dimmed light and several lockers the only thing of interest was a security terminal at the end of the room it seemed as though someone else had logged on rather recently which i figured should not have been possible since this place has been abandoned for a few years now unless someone else had come here before me but there were no signs of any recent activity but then i heard it, what had caused the cracks in the floor it stopped outside the door i felt my spine depart me. Startled i hid in one of the lockers it smashed on the door the hinges rattling on every hit then the door flew of its hinges and crashed into the wall on the opposite side.

I couldn’t tell what I was looking at whether it was real or an illusion its skin rotten, white eyes,no lips,very decomposed it had no clothes apart from some rugged jeans it had arms that could punch through a brick wall it.The thing  strolled around the room I was undecided on what it is some kind of undead being or a patient with some kind of new disease personally I didn’t want to stay long enough to find out.After waiting a minute or so it left and went down the corridor I came out of the locker and observed it go round the corner it went back the way I came so I proceeded in the opposite direction. It seemed the only way to leave this godforsaken place was to go around to the other side without noticing I had entered the hospital wing this room had a really bad vibe then the screams of man reached my ears I looked in his direction my eyes started to weep.

It was just an ordinary man but his disfigurement he had no eyes or limbs and a scar scaling the whole of his chest, he screamed and screamed the the door behind me opened it was another one of the “infected” people I had seen earlier but he had grey hair and could talk he was skinny and wore an apron with blood stains in the shape of hands on it I ducked under one of the empty beds this “doctor” was carrying some kind of machete he drawed open the disfigured man’s chest and pulled out part of his intestines.As I watched this deformed psychopath go at his patient I considered my options there were three ways out a window,and two doors I weighed each one against the other then the doctor went through the door I came in from laughing maliciously then without hesitation I sprinted through the other door and there it was the lift as I pressed the button the sound of footsteps coming closer as the lift descended the doctor dived between the gap of the floor and top of the lift he was laughing as the elevator crushed him but he got one good swing to my right leg I fell back in searing agony the elevator jammed and one of my legs bleeding heavily I just sat there crying waiting for the end….