Lets Play
Who Wants to be a
Millioniare
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Q1:What does representation acknowledge?
The innate truth in
texts
Texts are devoid
of context
Meaning is not
constructed
The social construction
of texts
Well Done!
History: document past
Memory:
personal/collective
experience
History:
Factual accounts
Memory:
devoid of emotion
History:
personal/collectiv
e experience
Memory:
document past
History:
Devoid of emotion
Memory:
Objective
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Q2: Which above model best describes how history
and memory are traditionally represented?
White
Yellow
Orange
Blue
Correct!
In Thai Binh (Peace) Province
I’ve used up all my film on bombed hospitals,
bombed village schools, the scattered
lemon-yellow cocoons at the bombed silk-factory,
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Q3:What is the effect on the representation of the
Vietnam War by describing the hospital, school,
factory as being destroyed?
represents the
effectiveness of the war
Symbolises the
positive attributes of
war
represents the destruction of
innocence that war causes
Depicts the tough
decisions generals must
make
Splendid!
The poem depicts the Vietnam War through a negative
representation. It achieves this by evoking images of
destroyed places that strongly symbolise peace. The
poem ironically discusses that the speaker wants to
forget these memories however their attempts through
juxtaposition only serve to cement them into the mind
of the responder. Thus the feelings of repulsion that
we feel when we imagine these images are transferred
to the cause of the destruction; namely the Vietnam
War
…The scattered
lemon-yellow cocoons at the bombed silk-factory
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Q4: What technique is used in the above quote and
what tone does it have on the representation of the
Vietnam War?
Personification, destruction
life, negative tone
Personification,
rebirth, positive tone
Metaphor, destruction
life, negative tone
Metaphor, rebirth,
positive tone
You’re a Clever
Cookie!
‘Lemon-yellow cocoon’ metaphorically alludes to the
corpses surrounding the bombed out factory.
Cocoons are empty shells and evokes images of death
and decay. Cocoons also suggest the potential of life
which the war has prevented. ‘Lemon-yellow’ serves
to show the sourness of war. The overall tone is
negative conveying the Vietnam War as devoid of life.
Another child with its feet
blown off,
a girl, this one, eleven
years old, patient and
bewildered in her home, a
fragile small house of
mud bricks among rice
fields.
So I’ll use my dry burning
eyes to photograph within me
dark sails of the river boats,
warm slant of afternoon
light…
and a boy and small bird both
perched, relaxed, on a quietly
grazing buffalo.
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Q5: The poem uses juxtaposition to cause an emotional response
towards the destruction of the war. However the speaker admits
that they will only select one memory to keep. What effect does
this have on the concept of memory?
Questions its
reliability
Questions its
objectivity
Questions its
validity
All of the above
Nice One!
A Time Past
The old steps live only in me:
my feet and thighs remember
them, and my hands still feel
their splinters.
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The wooden step acts as a metaphor for the speaker’s memory of a
past love. What tone is created in the above extract through the word
‘splinters’?
Humorous
Melancholy
Happiness
Anguish
You Ain’t Wrong!
The speaker’s admission that memory is
selected and that some memories are repressed
calls into question the validity of memory.
However it is interesting that despite this
admission both memories are actually
published and in fact give a fuller representation
of Vietnam and the war.
those wooden steps
are gone now, decayed,
replaced with granite,
hard, gray, and handsome.
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Q7:What is the effect of the personification of the granite as
‘handsome’ have on the meaning of the poem?
represents her
husbands change in
love towards her
That the steps looks
nice
That the steps
represents her desire
for change
That her husbands love
has increased overtime
Amazing!
The steps are also used to signify the historical
significance of the event for the speaker. The
‘ancient’ wooden stairs being replaced by
granite steps is reminiscent of the change of
historical periods. Levertov is thus representing
personal experience (the domain of Memory) as
important and valid as History.
Viewer question
• Your task is to write 200 words on the below question and bring it in
by next lesson. Best answer will win a prize.
• ‘A Time Past’ is depicting the memory of a
personal event (i.e. breakdown in marriage).
Does Levertov’s representation of the event
increase the validity of the concept of memory?
How does she achieve/not achieve this? (Make
reference to at least two techniques and their
effect)
A Letter to Marek about a Photograph
In houses like these
your family of millions, Polacks, Wops,
Scotch-Irish, people shut now into ‘projects,’
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What effect does the hyperbole have on the
representation of history and memory in the
above extract?
That history
isolates people
That he has a big
family
History is a collective
experience
That family is more
important than friends
Top of the Class!
Levertov blurs the lines of what is history and
what is memory. The hyperbole is used to create
a shared identity amongst those that are
marginalised. Moreover memories are validated
as being able to produce the unwritten history
of the oppressed.
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What effect does the ‘Letter to Marek’ being written as a poem
have on the concept of literary genre?
Traditional models of
genre should be
adhered to
Genre is constructed and
can be subverted
Genre should limit
composers
Composers should
not subvert genre
Magnificent !
The purpose of Marek’s poetry is depicted as being
a tool to record a marginalised peoples’ history;
blurring the lines between the supposed ‘distinct’
constructs of history and memory. This is
corroborated by the fact that this is supposed to be
a ‘letter’ to Marek however it does not adhere to the
structural elements of a letter. Hence it serves to
symbolise the blurring of genre/conceptual
frameworks and the purpose of texts literary
production.
to lift
griefs out of the blind pit
of unknowing,
placing glass and
mercury under the
tongue of dreams –
magical quick
silver that measures
the fever it is to be
human.
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What effect does the metaphor of thermometer and the
personification of human ideals have on the
representation of history?
Suggests that poetry
dilutes historical truth
Alludes to the negative
impact of poverty
Symbolises the empowerment
that poetry provides when it
records history
Symbolises the speakers
disillusionment of poetry to tell
history
Congratulations!
YOU WIN !!!!
One Million Dollars!
Sorry! That Answer is
Incorrect.
Next Contestant
Please!