A Letter To Daniel Learning Intention; I can take notes and annotate a non-fiction text Background • Letter to Daniel was written by BBC correspondent Fergal Keane to his newborn son back in 1997. • The letter combines the memories of a man in his role as a foreign correspondent, then working in Hong Kong, with the reflections of a recent father. Background All Keane had done, at his editor's request, was to describe being a first-time father. At first he declined. Then one evening, cradling his sixday-old son, he started to write, remembering the children of war he'd encountered and embracing his own estranged father, an actor ruined by drink. "I am as proud of it now as I was at the time. Counterfeit emotion I have no time for. But that was exactly what I felt and thought." Narrative Technique • The piece is addressed to “My dear son” and the narrative technique is that of a letter – speaking directly to Daniel.” Overview • Basic level – father’s expression of joy and hope at the birth of his first son • Deeper level – considers how fatherhood has changed Keane’s perceptions Structure • Opening Section – full of hope and joy at the birth of this precious son • Section Two – Reflects on desolation visited upon children in war-torn countries • Section Three – tells the “story” of his own origins (told from an omniscient narrative stance) • Final Section – Evokes a powerful mood of hope and reconciliation Annotation • “In writing I spoke not just about becomming a father, but also about my own past, about loss and the failure of dreams, about the pain of different children I had met along the roads of war, about my father and how alcohol had taken him from me. • Listening back now I see that at that time, he inhabited my life as a ghost, far from me, yet always present.” • My dear son, it is six o'clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are asleep cradled in my left arm and I am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I've ever known her, is sound asleep in the room next door and there is a soft quiet in our apartment. “My dear son” > Direct address to the son Dear – highlights the affection and love throughout text “cradled” > Connotations of gentle hold/of being protective towards son “more tired yet more happy” > Repetition of more – emphasises that this is something new – he is wondering at the changes already happening in his life. The happiness helps cope with the job of bringing up a baby “soft quiet” > A calming quiet – one that has brought the writer peace and a chance to reflect on things. Contrast to his normal job as war correspondent. • Since you've arrived, days have melted into night and back again and we are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding and winding and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet. The length and punctuation of the sentence echoes what the writer is saying – this helps the reader understand how his life has changed. “a new grammar” > emphasises the newness of the child and their task “melted” > reinforces idea that their days and nights are becoming one. Also “melt” has connotations of becoming more tender and loving” “long sentence/punctuation marks” > appropriate images because he is a writer “occasional moments of quiet” > reinforcing “soft quiet” creating a calm and peaceful mood to this section of the text “occasional” > realistic portrayal of a new baby – lots of crying! • When you're older we'll tell you that you were born in Britain's last Asian colony in the lunar year of the pig and that when we brought you home, the staff of our apartment block gathered to wish you well. This anecdote simply underlines and emphasises the central idea of this section of the text – that Daniel is a child born of love and happiness • Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that. We had wanted you and waited for you, imagined you and dreamed about you and now that you are here no dream can do justice to you. Outside the window, below us on the harbour, the ferries are ploughing back and forth to Kowloon. Millions The use of a list helps to stress just how much this baby means to Fergal Keane. All the phrases have connotations of love and wanting and accentuate the points made before. The sentence ends on a climax and helps to describe the indescribable joy of having a baby The description of the busy harbour and city – helps to highlight the peace and quiet of the apartment through the use of contrast • We have called you Daniel Patrick but I've been told by my Chinese friends that you should have a Chinese name as well and this glorious dawn sky makes me think we'll call you Son of the Eastern Star. So that later, when you and I are far from Asia, perhaps standing on a beach some evening “glorious” > beauty and splendour – helps to emphasise the positive feelings felt by Keane as a result of the love for his son. “So that later/perhaps...” > Reveals that Keane is already dreaming and planning on a future with his son (contrast to his own experience with his dad?) • Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out. So much that seemed essential to me has, in the past few days, taken on a different colour. Like many foreign correspondents I know, I have lived a life that, on occasion, has veered close to the edge: war zones, natural disasters, darkness in all its shapes and forms. “upside down and inside out” > Metaphor – describing the way that his life has changed – not only in terms of routine/daily life but in how he views life and his own priorities. Reinforced by image “taken on a different colour” “veered” > Sudden change of direction – reveals how dangerous his life was once. “the edge” > conntations of falling/again reinforcing the danger Again Keane uses a list with a climax at the end – he is not only listing the physical dangers of being a war correspondent but the mental ones • In a world of insecurity and ambition and ego, it's easy to be drawn in, to take chances with our lives, to believe that what we do and what people say about us is reason enough to gamble with death. Now, looking at your sleeping face, inches away from me, listening to your occasional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever thought glory and prizes and praise were sweeter than life. Rule of three > all words with negative connotations – illustrates how he feels about his job/old life Metaphor > “gamble with death” > shows the risks they are prepared to take (tied in with “take chances with our lives) just for their reputation “sigh and gurgle” > associated with happy babies – reinforces the contented, peaceful mood of Keane sitting in his room > contrast to the high stakes world he normally works in Sums up the message of this paragraph – sense of responsibility now that he has to value something more than his own sense of worth • Ten-year-old Andi Mikail dying from napalm burns on a hillside in Eritrea, how his voice cried out, growing ever more faint when the wind blew dust on to his wounds. The two brothers, Domingo and Juste, in Menongue, southern Angola. Juste, two years old and blind, dying from malnutrition, being carried on seven-year-old Domingo's back. And Domingo's words to me, "He was nice before, but now he has the hunger." Mention of ages to emphasise the victims youth and innocence Repetition of dying from underlines the suffering of the young children Description of voice growing faint highlights the length of time of the suffering and the detail emphasises how painful it must have been. Shocking imagery for the reader Quote from the boy highlights the suffering – that Domingo not only has to carry his brother but that his brother has changed and that they are both starving • Last October, in Afghanistan, when you were growing inside your mother, I met Sharja, aged twelve. Motherless, fatherless, guiding me through the grey ruins of her home, everything was gone, she told me. And I knew that, for all her tender years, she had learned more about loss than I would likely understand in a lifetime. -Shows that Keane was reckless while his wife was pregnant – that it is only the birth of the son that has changed him. -Contrast to Daniel who is surrounded by love and his family – it is this contrast which Keane finds so hard to bear. -“grey ruins” – connotations of broken/dust/dull - ruins shows her whole house has been destroyed and that she has not only lost her family but where she lived • There is one last memory, of Rwanda, and the churchyard of the parish of Nyarubuye where, in a ransacked classroom, I found a mother and her three young children huddled together where they'd been beaten to death. The children had died holding on to their mother, that instinct we all learn from birth and in one way or another cling to until we die. -Ransacked classroom – normally a place of safety/stability is now a place of danger and death -“Huddled” /”beaten to death” – juxtaposition of two contrasting images – one of love and warmth and one of terror and death – highlights the horror of the image -Links to Keane’s overall message of the love that links families together. Allows him to link back to his son and the love he feels -“cling” to hold onto tightly/to never let go • Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel for you, the tenderness and the occasional moments of blind terror when I imagine anything happening to you. -Link sentence -Fierce protectiveness (oxymoron) Highlights the love and care Keane feels towards his son but also the ability to fight for those we love Emotions felt by every new parent Personal experience of Keane • But there is something more, a story from long ago that I will tell you face to face, father and son, when you are older. It's a very personal story but it's part of the picture. It has to do with the long lines of blood and family, about our lives and how we can get lost in them and, if we're lucky, find our way out again into the sunlight. -Change in narrative stance – starts to tell a story – about a real event but as he wasn’t there (or being born) we know this has moved beyond a simple letter -Compares a life to a maze – reveals a realistic view of life and the challenges faced with people. The sentence ends with hope and the image of sunlight (link back to the dawn/Daniel’s birth) • It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant home. She's walking because there is no money and everything of value has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has become addicted. -The beginning of the story -Highlights the suffering of the woman – because of the alcoholism of her husband. “Her husband” – Keane is distancing himself from his father perhaps because of the painful associations with his dad -Reveals information about his mum – maybe picking out information from her own retelling of this story? • It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant home. She's walking because there is no money and everything of value has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has become addicted. -The beginning of the story -Highlights the suffering of the woman – because of the alcoholism of her husband. “Her husband” – Keane is distancing himself from his father perhaps because of the painful associations with his dad -Reveals information about his mum – maybe picking out information from her own retelling of this story? • It begins thirty-five years ago in a big city on a January morning with snow on the ground and a woman walking to the hospital to have her first baby. She is in her early twenties and the city is still strange to her, bigger and noisier than the easy streets and gentle hills of her distant home. She's walking because there is no money and everything of value has been pawned to pay for the alcohol to which her husband has become addicted. -The beginning of the story -Highlights the suffering of the woman – because of the alcoholism of her husband. “Her husband” – Keane is distancing himself from his father perhaps because of the painful associations with his dad -Reveals information about his mum – maybe picking out information from her own retelling of this story? • He is truly happy. Hungover, broke, but in his own way happy, for they were both young and in love with each other and their son. -Short sentence – shows the unequivocal nature of his happiness -Foreshadows the unhappiness to come. “his own way” > shows that his son (Keane) has some acceptance/understanding now - Traditional happy image of a family and echoes Keane’s own situation now. • But, Daniel, time had some bad surprises in store for them. The cancer of alcoholism ate away at the man and he lost his family. This was not something he meant to do or wanted to do, it just was. When you are older, my son, you will learn about how complicated life becomes, how we can lose our way and how people get hurt inside and out. By the time his son had grown up, the man lived away from his family, on his own in a one-roomed flat, living and dying for the bottle. -Link sentence – moving away from the idealised image of a family to the harsh reality -Metaphor – reveals the damage and pain caused by alcoholism but also an understanding that it is a disease something that controlled Keane’s father not the other way around -Final three words are emphasises in this sentence – shows a fatalistic acceptance of what happens. No blame attached -Final, hopeless image of his father – controlled not by the love of his family but by alcoholism. He was alone without the comfort of his family. Sadness not anger is emotion felt by Keane • But his son was too far away to hear his last words, his final breath, and all the things they might have wished to say to one another were left unspoken. -Far away not only physically but emotionally -Hopeless image – nothing Keane can do to fix this now. • Yet now, Daniel, I must tell you that when you let out your first powerful cry in the delivery room of the Adventist Hospital and I became a father, I thought of your grandfather and, foolish though it may seem, hoped that in some way he could hear, across the infinity between the living and the dead, your proud statement of arrival. For if he could hear, he would recognize the distinct voice of family, the sound of hope and new beginnings that you and all your innocence and freshness have brought to the world. -Back to present and his son -A realistic view, but hope is there due to the birh of his son – all he has is hope -Image to reflect how far away his father is – that death means he will not get the resolution he wishes for -Final sentence sums up the key themes of the text: -The power for family -Innocence and hope that a baby brings.
