Aberfan and Earthquakes- Paper 2- Question 4 Source A- Aberfan, the writer suggests... The landslide is portrayed as being utterly devastating and destructive. ‘Which instantly smothered more than a hundred of them’. The disaster was known to happen soon. ‘A killer’, ‘a rotten heart’, ‘inching ominously’, ‘seen danger in them’. The village was already a not very nice place to be. ‘Uniform ugliness’, ‘traditionally grim and perilous’. Added to the misery in Aberfan. ‘With their lungs full of coal-dust’, ‘decaying rail-tracks, a river as black as the Styx, a general coating of grime over roofs and gardens, and the hills above blistered with a century of mining waste’. This was a reality for mining villages. ‘Mining villages has to learn to live with it’, ‘endured as a fact of life’. Source B- London, the writer suggests... The earthquake was so weak that the minor damage it caused is surprising. ‘In some places it even did damage’. The earth is very powerful, so this was a natural disaster. The earths powers are below our feet. ‘Lies on the great volcanic belt’, ‘huge quantities of imprisoned gas’. Etc. The earthquake wasn’t that much of a big deal, so this writer is felt to be mocking serious disasters. ‘Never forget the feeling’. That the earth is unpredictable and natural disasters can’t be controlled. ‘We are situated on a deep bed of clay’. The writer of source A describes the landslide ‘which instantly smothered more than a hundred’ people as devasting and destructive. The adverb ‘instantly’ denotes the speed of the accident and conjures negative connotations. The adverb also conveys that the accident was a surprise for the village and there was little time for preparation. The dynamic verb ‘smothered’ suggests that the children were being suffocated, which is what actually happened. Furthermore, the personification is used, which reinforces this statement, the tip ‘was a killer’ and had ‘a rotten heart’. Killers cause devastation, just like the landslide. Personification may have been used here because the writer wanted to suggest to the reader that it was our fault as humans that this landslide occurred. The noun ‘heart’ implies the human qualities in the tip, is an example of this. Even though the tip had a heart, it was a ‘rotten heart’, showing the horrible qualities of the landslide, this makes the landslide seem alive as if it was ‘dumped by the hand of God’ Since God created humans, it could be God’s fault. Also, a plosive ‘d’ sound is used to convey the devastation. ‘Disaster, in fact’ is used at the start of the sentence to heighten the devastation conveyed to the reader. In contrast, the writer of source B practically mocks devastation. As the reader, we know how minor this earthquake was compared to the landslide in Aberfan. The writer proceeds to explain the damage of the earthquake, ‘in some places it even did some damage’. The adverb ‘even’ tries to emphasise the damage of the earthquake, but as the reader we can’t take it seriously. The writer is trying to describe the earthquake as very dangerous but in fact, it only ‘displaced bricks’. The verb ‘displaced’ mocks how dangerous earthquakes really are. The writer is trying to make the situation very dramatic, when it only displaced a few bricks and it ‘even did some damage’. This just shows how the writer is making a mockery over natural disasters. If only a few bricks were displaced, why is he making the whole situation so intense, by exaggerating everything? As the reader, we find it hard to take what this writer is saying seriously. The writer of source A conveys the realities for mining villages. The miners have their ‘lungs full of coal dust’ and ‘mining villages has to learn to live with it’ as it is ‘endured as a fact of life’. We get to understand how painful it must be for the villagers; we get to try and understand their emotions. The noun ‘fact’ implies that this life that they live will never change. Facts are certain, so if this fact, is certain they know their way of life may never change. This is very sad for them. We get to hear the effects on humans through the writer explaining what has happened to them. They have lungs full of coal dust, this is very sad for the reader to hear especially due to the fact it may never change. The adjective ‘full’ really emphasises how bad it is for them, since their lungs are literally full of coal dust. If they have to do this horrible job, not by choice it could suggest that they can’t afford healthcare, which makes us very sad as this reinforces the fact things can’t change and they are just going to get worse. The writer uses the verb ‘learn’; this links back to how the school was the first place hit. This landslide seems to revolve around learning, the people have to learn to get on with it. But it is the people who learn who get the punishment. This could imply that the world is unfair. Even though they have to ‘learn to live with it’, this doesn’t change anything as the tip is still ‘inching ominously’ down the hill. So, it’s sad to learn, they can’t do anything about their life, even if they wanted to. The adverb ‘ominously’ shows how the danger is creeping up on them. We see emotion and we feel connected to the people in the text as we feel sympathy for them, even though they are trying to live with it, it won’t make a difference. In contrast to this, writer B describes how the earth is very powerful and all the earths power is just below our feet at the very start of the text. He states that we ‘lie on the great volcanic belt’ and that there are ‘huge quantities of imprisoned gas’ below us. The adjective ‘huge’ presents how all the writer wants to talk about is the earth and how there are all these dangers. This contrasts greatly with source A, since in this source we don’t get to hear about anyone’s emotion or how they are feeling. This simply may be because no one cared about the earthquake as it was so minor. We get the feeling that he is a less compassionate writer than the writer in source A. The fact he starts off with what’s beneath our feet proves this point. If he was really compassionate, he would start off with how the people were affected. We can’t connect to people’s emotion at the start because there are none to connect with. As soon as he starts with the earths qualities we know as the reader, what sort of person this is. We want to know how the people feel, we don’t want to go over scary facts about the earth. Why try and scare us from the start by using the adjected ‘imprisoned’ gas, the adjective has connotations with prison, which are usually negative. Therefore, he is not going off on a great start.
