English Department
Year 9 Identity Unit
Introductory Phase: Anthology of Texts
Book One
Identity
2
Identity
Contents
Page
Identity Unit: Rubrics
4
Text One: “A Fire Fighter’s Dream” (Poem – Rupert McCall)
5
Text Two: "The Rising" (Lyric – Bruce Springsteen)
6
Text Three: “Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own” (Lyric – U2)
8
Text Four: “Father and Son” (Lyric – Cat Stevens)
9
Text Five: “She’s Leaving Home” (Lyric – Beatles)
10
Text Six: “Cats in the Cradle” (Lyric – Harry Chapin)
11
Text Seven: “Fast Car” (Lyric – Tracey Chapman)
12
Text Eight: “The Last of His Tribe” (Poem - Oodgeroo Noonuccal)
13
Text Nine: “I am Australian” (Lyric – Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton)
14
Text Ten: “Dead and Gone” (Lyric – T.I. and Justin Timberlake)
15
Text Eleven: “Lose Yourself” (Lyric – Eminem)
16
Text Twelve: “Paint It Black” (Lyric – Rolling Stones)
17
Text Thirteen: “The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination” (Speech
– J.K.Rowlings)
18
Text Fourteen: “Grief, and its consequences” (Feature Article from The Economist)
23
Text Fifteen: My Place (Website)
25
3
Identity
Identity Unit: Rubrics
Adolescence is a tumultuous period. Your identity is forming partly as an act of your will and partly
in response to the obstacles you encounter. In this unit, you will analyze a number of texts that deal
with characters whose identities are challenged.
The core text of this unit is Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee; yet, you will be required to compare
Anh’s experiences with those of others.
When you analyze each text, you may wish to use the following questions to develop your views on
identity:
1. With whom does the protagonist identity? (Family, friends, country, culture etc.?)
2. What are her/his values? (What do they fight for?)
3. What actions do they take to realize their values?
4. What obstacles do they encounter?
5. How do they overcome their obstacles?
6. What insights do they have? What wisdom do they learn?
4
Identity
9/11 Text
Text One
“A Fire Fighter’s Dream” (2010)
Rupert McCall
His voice boomed like a beacon and it echoed in my soul
From the land of opportunity, reverberations roll
All across the mighty sea to where the Southern Cross stars gleam
I was listening…and I heard it…when he said…I have a dream…
And the dream I had was beautiful – what more could someone pray
Than to wake up in the magic of a perfect summer’s day?
An aqua blue-like canopy pays tribute to the skies
And there I see this young kid with a hero in his eyes
The hero is a humble man and not the type to shirk
A proudly spoken fire-fighter on his way to work
His profession is his passion, his adrenalin, his spark
The hat he wears to battle is his way to make a mark
And waving from a window, now the boy begins to cry
You see the hero is his father…and he hates to say goodbye
Yes the dream we share IS hopeful in our darkest hour of hours
Beams of light now kiss the sky where, once, we saw two towers
Of this, be strong and steadfast - Of this, stand tall and say There are some things that an enemy can never take away
I can feel it through the flag that flies, defiant in the gloom
I can see it through the window where a boy waits in his room
He is waiting for his hero, still, to walk back through that door
The hat he holds is scuffed and scratched but this, he knows for sure
One day he will wear that hat and pride will reign supreme
Because his father’s gift was freedom and for that he has a dream.
And the dream I had was terrible, from nowhere they appear
Monsters in the New York sky that choke the day with fear
It can’t be real – the questions burn with why and who and how?
Go and turn your TV on…please…just do it now…
An evil cloak in plumes of smoke replaces freedom’s gown
The flames reveal their tragic truth – the world is falling down
Falling, sprawling, screaming, calling, crying as they go
A fire fighter grabs his hat and flies to meet his foe
Forward into battle now – he hears a church’s bell
Forward into no man’s land - Forward into hell
And the dream I had was powerful – the best of humankind
Courage is a heartfelt word not easily defined
It doesn’t equal ‘fearless’ as some sideline experts claim
No…courage is ‘to be scared…but to go on just the same’
To rally in the moment then to rise up through the stairs
To save as many people as an act of courage dares
To dig and dig then dig some more – to be there for your mates
To look your leader in the eye and know the end awaits
Underneath the carnage, when the count is done and said
The only thing recovered is his hat of ‘firey’ red
And the dream I had was personal – I’ve put my kids to sleep
But the images still haunt me and reality cuts deep
I see the faces of the fallen – the tape forever runs
I see the mothers and the brothers and the sisters and the sons
And the comrades and the colleagues, they are never to return
But for every face, a candle…and tonight, that flame will burn
It burns for something precious – something every hero gave
It illuminates ‘ground zero’ and commemorates the brave
Of religion, race and rivalry, it burns across that scope
It is pure in its simplicity – tonight, it burns for hope
5
Identity
9/11 Text
Text Two
"The Rising" (2002)
-
Bruce Springsteen
I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There's holy pictures of our children
Dancin' in a sky filled with light
May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line
Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line
Come on up for the rising
Com on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life (a dream of
life)
Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here
Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight
Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li
Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li
Spirits above and behind me
Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright
May their precious blood forever bind me
Lord as I stand before your fiery light
Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li
6
Identity
Notes on Text Two
"The Rising"
"The Rising" is the title track on Bruce Springsteen's 12th studio album The Rising, and was released as a
single in 2002. Springsteen wrote the song in reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City.
It gained critical praise and earned Grammy Awards for Best Rock Song and Best Male Rock Vocal
Performance of the year, as well as a nomination for Song of the Year. Rolling Stone named it the 35th best
song of the decade.[1]
History and themes
The song was written late in The Rising's development, and was meant as a bookend to the album's "Into the
Fire".[2][3] Springsteen couldn't let go of one of the central images of that day, those who were "ascending
into ... what?"[2] Thus, the song tells the story of a New York City Fire Department firefighter, climbing one
of the World Trade Center towers after the hijacked planes had hit them during the September 11 attacks.[4]
The lyric depicts the surreal, desperate environment in which he finds himself:
Can't see nothin' in front of me,
Can't see nothin' coming up behind ...
I make my way through this darkness,
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me.
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed ...
On my back's a 60-pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile of line
The choruses are more upbeat, featuring a more pronounced drum part and "Li, li, li" vocal parts that suggest
Hallelujahs,[4] but as the song progresses the verses trace the ever more dire situation. Images of fire engines
and the Cross of Saint Florian are introduced, and then, in the cemetery-like "garden of a thousand sighs"
from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,[4] a series of final visions: his wife, his children, and all human
experience:
Sky of blackness and sorrow (dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow (dream of life)
The song's religious imagery also includes references to Mary Magdelene meeting the risen Christ on Easter
morning ("I see Mary in the garden"), and the Blood of Christ, although Springsteen has stated that the Mary
in the song could also be the hero's wife or lover.[3] Writer Jeffrey Symynkywicz evaluates the song as "an
Easterlike anthem arising out of the darkness and despair of September 11, a national Good Friday
experience if ever there was one."[4]
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_(Bruce_Springsteen_song)
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Identity
Text Three
“Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own”
- U2
Tough, you think you've got the stuff
You're telling me and anyone
You're hard enough
Well hey now, still gotta let ya know
A house doesn't make a home
Don't leave me here alone
You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Sometimes you can't make it
Best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go in alone
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
We fight all the time
You and I... that's alright
We're the same soul
I don't need... I don't need to hear you say
That if we weren't so alike
You'd like me a whole lot more
Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone
And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
(This is it)
I know that we don't talk
I'm sick of it all
Can, you, hear, me, when, I, sing
You're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera’s in me
8
Identity
Text Four
“Father and Son”
- Cat Stevens
It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.
I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It's always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.
(Son-- Away Away Away, I know I have to
Make this decision alone - no)
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them They know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.
(Father-- Stay Stay Stay, Why must you go and
Make this decision alone?)
9
Identity
Text Five
“She’s Leaving Home”
- Beatles
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes down the stairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years.
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby's gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.
She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years.
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.
She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn't know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can't buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years.
She's leaving home. Bye, bye
10
Identity
Text Six
“Cats in the Cradle”
-
Harry Chapin
My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"
I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
11
Identity
Text Seven
“Fast Car”
-
Tracey Chapman
You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove
You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living
You see my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did
You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs
You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving
You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way
You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way
I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone,
be someone
12
Identity
Text Eight
“The Last of His Tribe”
- by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)
Change is the law. The new must oust the old.
I look at you and am back in the long ago,
Old pinaroo lonely and lost here
Last of your clan.
Left only with your memories, you sit
And think of the gay throng, the happy people,
The voices and the laughter
All gone, all gone,
And you remain alone.
I asked and you let me hear
The soft vowelly tongue to be heard now
No more for ever. For me
You enact old scenes, old ways, you who have used
Boomerang and spear.
You singer of ancient tribal songs,
You leader once in the corroboree,
You twice in fierce tribal fights
With wild enemy blacks from over the river,
All gone, all gone. And I feel
The sudden sting of tears, Willie Mackenzie
In the Salvation Army Home.
Displaced person in your own country,
Lonely in teeming city crowds,
Last of your tribe.
13
Identity
Text Nine
“I am Australian” (1987)
- by Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton
I came from the dream-time, from the dusty red soil plains
I am the ancient heart, the keeper of the flame.
I stood upon the rocky shore, I watched the tall ships come.
For forty thousand years I've been the first Australian.
(Chorus) We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We share a dream and sing with one voice:
I am, you are, we are Australian
I came upon the prison ship, bowed down by iron chains.
I cleared the land, endured the lash and waited for the rains.
I'm a settler, I'm a farmer's wife on a dry and barren run
A convict then a free man, I became Australian.
(Chorus)
I'm the daughter of a digger who sought the mother lode
The girl became a woman on the long and dusty road
I'm a child of the depression, I saw the good times come
I'm a bushy, I'm a battler, I am Australian.
(Chorus)
I'm a teller of stories, I'm a singer of songs
I am Albert Namatjira, I paint the ghostly gums
I am Clancy on his horse, I'm Ned Kelly on the run
I'm the one who waltzed Matilda, I am Australian.
(Chorus)
There are no words of comfort that can hope to ease the pain
Of losing homes and loved ones the memories will remain
Within the silent tears you’ll find the strength to carry on
You’re not alone, we are with you. We are Australian.
(Chorus)
There are so many heroes whose stories must be told
They fought the raging fires of hell and saved so many souls
From the ashes of despair our towns will rise again!
We mourn your loss, we will rebuild. We are Australian!
(Chorus)
I'm the hot wind from the desert, I'm the black soil of the plains
I'm the mountains and the valleys, I'm the drought and flooding rains
I am the rock, I am the sky, the rivers when they run
The spirit of this great land, I am Australian.
(Chorus)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkrjYitgeA
14
Identity
Text Ten (Some course language)
“Dead and Gone” – T.I. and Justin Timberlake
Let me kick it to you right quick, man
That on some gangsta **** man, on some real ****
Anybody done been through the same thing, I'm sure you feel
the same way
Big Phil
This for you pimpin'
Oh, I've been travellin' on this road too long (too long)
Just tryna find my way back home (back home)
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone
And oh (eyyy)
I've been travellin' on this road too long (too long)
Just tryna find my way back home (back home)
The old me is dead and gone, dead and gone, dead and gone
Ever had one of them days wish would've stayed home
Run into a group of niggas who gettin' they hate on
You walk by
They get wrong
You reply then **** get blown
Way outta proportion
Way past discussion
Just you against them, pick one then rush 'em
Figure you'll get jumped, hell that's nothing
They don't wanna stop there now they bussin'
Now you gushin', ambulance rushin'
You to the hospital with a bad concussion
Plus ya hit 4 times
Plus it hit ya spine
Paralyzed waist down now ya wheel chair bound
Nevermind that now you lucky to be alive
Just think it all started you fussin' with 3 guys
Now ya pride in the way, but ya pride is the way
You could stuff around, get shot, die anyday
Niggas die everyday
All over bull ****, dope money, dice game, ordinary hood
****
Could this be 'cos of hip hop music?
Or did the ones with the good sense not use it?
Usually niggas don't know what to do when their back
against the wall so they just start shootin'
For red or for blue or for blo I guess
From Bankhead or from your projects
No more stress, now I'm straight, now I get it, now I take
Time to think, before I make mistakes just for my family's
sake
That part of me left yesterday
The heart of me is strong today
No regrets I'm blessed to say
The old me dead and gone away
15
I ain't never been scared, I lived through tragedy
Situation could've been dead lookin' back at it
Most of that **** didn't even have to happen
But you don't think about it when you out there trappin'
In apartments, hangin', smokin', and rappin'
Niggas start ****, next thing ya know we cappin'
Get locked up then didn't even get mad
Now think about damn what a life I had
Most of that ****, look back, just laugh
Some **** still look back get sad
Maybe my homboy still be around
Had I not hit the nigga in the mouth that time
I won that fight
I lost that war
I can still see my nigga walkin' out that door
Who'da thought I'd never see Philant no more?
Got enough dead homies I don't want no more
Cost a nigga his job
Cost me more
I'd took that ass-whooping now for sure
Now think before I risk my life
Take them chances to get my stripe
A nigga put his hands on me alright
Otherwise stand there talk **** all night
'Cos I hit you, you sue me,
I shoot you, get locked up, who me?
No more stress, now I'm straight, now I get it, now I
take
Time to think, before I make mistakes just for my
family's sake
That part of me left yesterday
The heart of me is strong today
No regrets I'm blessed to say
The old me dead and gone away
I turn my head to the East
I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the West
Still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the North
Swallow that pill that they call pride
That old me is dead and gone
But that new me will be alright
I turn my head to the East
I don't see nobody by my side
I turn my head to the West
Still nobody in sight
So I turn my head to the North
Swallow that pill that they call pride
That old me is dead and gone
But that new me will be alright.
Identity
Text Eleven (Some course language)
“Lose Yourself” - Eminem
Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted-One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to
drop bombs,
but he keeps on forgettin what he wrote down,
the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's choking now, everybody's joking now
The clock's run out, time's up over, bloah!
Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He's so mad, but he won't give up that
Easy, no
He won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropes
It don't matter, he's dope
He knows that, but he's broke
He's so stagnant that he knows
When he goes back to his mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again yo
This whole rhapsody
He better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo
The soul's escaping, through this hole that it's gaping
This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a, new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to post
mortem
It only grows harder, only grows hotter
He blows us all over these hoes is all on him
Coast to coast shows, he's know as the globetrotter
Lonely roads, God only knows
He's grown farther from home, he's no father
He goes home and barely knows his own daughter
But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmoe who flows
He nose dove and sold nada
So the soap opera is told and unfolds
I suppose it's old partner but the beat goes on
Da da dum da dum da da
No more games, I'm a change what you call rage
Tear this roof off like 2 dogs caged
I was playing in the beginning, the mood all changed
I been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage
But I kept rhyming and stepwritin the next cypher
Best believe somebody's paying the pied piper
All the pain inside amplified by the fact
That I can't get by with my 9 to 5
And I can't provide the right type of life for my family
Cause man, these goddam food stamps don't buy diapers
And it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life
And these times are so hard and it's getting even harder
Trying to feed and water my seed, plus
Teeter totter caught up between being a father and a prima donna
Baby mama drama's screaming on and
Too much for me to wanna
Stay in one spot, another day of monotony
Has gotten me to the point, I'm like a snail
I've got to formulate a plot or I end up in jail or shot
Success is my only option, failure's not
Mom, I love you, but this trailer's got to go
I cannot grow old in Salem's lot
So here I go is my shot.
Feet fail me not cause maybe the only opportunity that I got
You can do anything you set your mind to, man
16
Identity
Text Twelve
“Paint It Black”
-
The Rolling Stones
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a new born baby it just happens ev'ry day
I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and it has been painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facin' up when your whole world is black
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the settin' sun
My love will laugh with me before the mornin' comes
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
Hmm, hmm, hmm,...
I wanna see it painted, painted black
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black
Yeah!
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Text Thirteen
“The Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination”
Harvard University Commencement Address by J.K. Rowling
President Faust, members of the
Harvard Corporation and the Board of
Overseers, members of the faculty,
proud parents, and, above all,
graduates, the first thing I would like to
say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard
given me an extraordinary honour, but
the weeks of fear and nausea I've
experienced at the thought of giving this
commencement address have made me
lose weight. A win-win situation! Now
all I have to do is take deep breaths,
squint at the red banners and fool
myself into believing I am at the world's
largest Griffindor reunion. Delivering a
commencement address is a great
responsibility; or so I thought until I
cast my mind back to my own
graduation.
The commencement speaker that day
was
the
distinguished
British
philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.
reflecting on her speech has helped me
enormously in writing this one, because
it turns out that I can't remember a
single word she said. This liberating
discovery enables me to proceed
without any fear that I might
inadvertently influence you to abandon
promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of
Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked
myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned
in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to
celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as
you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial
importance of imagination.
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
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Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for
the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance
between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents,
both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took
the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a
mortgage, or secure a pension.
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A
compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern
Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched
German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out
for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard
put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an
executive bathroom.
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.
There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment
you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise
my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I
have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty
entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and
hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride
yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in
the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing
examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have
never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against
the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an
existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very wellacquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for
success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of
success, so high have you already flown academically.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager
to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a
mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally shortlived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in
modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had
for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark
one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of
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Identity
fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the
end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the
inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to
direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at
anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I
truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still
alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so
rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live
without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at
all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught
me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will,
and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly
above rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever
after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your
relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is
painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness
lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your
CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.
Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that
will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it
played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime
stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is
not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all
invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the
power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed
much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my
earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in
my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in
London.
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men
and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to
them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their
desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their
injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of
kidnappings and rapes.
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Identity
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their
homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government.
Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what
had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had
become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he
spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was,
and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station
afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite
courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from
behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door
opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the
young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own
outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to
live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public
trial were the rights of everyone.
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to
gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I
saw, heard and read.
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known
before.
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their
beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective
action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are
assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My
small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my
life.
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having
experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other
people's places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use
such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably
within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have
been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can
close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to
know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any
fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental
agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters.
They are often more afraid.
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Identity
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever
committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the
age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author
Plutarch: “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It
expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other
people's lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your
intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you
unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority
of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the
way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond
your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no
voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the
ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not
only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people
whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world,
we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The
friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's
godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been
kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were
bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and,
of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally
valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if
you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old
Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of
ancient wisdom: “As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.
Speech on YouTube
Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kh_tSiqL1U&feature=related
Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqGotirF20w&feature=related
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Text Fourteen
The Economist, Sep 10th 2011
Grief, and its consequences
By Bagehot
PUBLIC grief can be hard to
express in a holiday town, built
around the promise of heedless
fun. Yet late last month, the
seaside resort of Weymouth put
on a remarkable, heartfelt
homage to James Wright, a 22year-old local man killed
fighting in Afghanistan.
Mourners report, with pride, how
the town’s main church was
A nation mourns, a town remembers
filled to capacity by his family,
school friends and neighbours, as well as by his comrades from the Royal Marines. Several hundred
more people gathered outside.
Military traditions were observed. A Royal Marine firing party offered a three-gun salute, a bugler
the Last Post. Elsewhere though, the personal and the informal reigned. A cannon fired from a
Victorian fort on Weymouth Bay signalled a minute’s silence throughout the town, organised not by
the authorities but by a caretaker at Marine Wright’s former secondary school. Further calls for
quiet were broadcast at Morrisons supermarket and at the town’s department store. Along the faded
Regency seafront, souvenir stalls halted trading, led by staff at a sweet shop where Marine Wright
once worked. Oblivious to the grieving around them, tourists chattered, some—it is said—thinking
that the cannon’s boom marked a lifeboat launch. Townsfolk lined the pavements in silence, in
places three or four deep. Later, the funeral procession was applauded by those along its route.
In Britain, public sympathy for the military has not been this intense for many years, arguably since
the Falklands conflict of 1982. It was headline news in late August when hearses bearing casualties
of the Afghan conflict stopped driving down the high street of Wootton Bassett, a market town that
for four years has saluted the war dead with tolling bells and flag-bearing veterans. The prime
minister, David Cameron, thanked Wootton Bassett on the nation’s behalf, and vowed to monitor
whether mourning families felt welcome on a new route to be used by funeral cortèges (chosen after
a change of the airbase used for repatriations).
Set against that intense support for the troops, polls consistently show the British opposed to the
war in Afghanistan (though only a minority want the troops home immediately, with a larger
number hoping for a swift-ish exit that denies the Taliban total victory). A 2011 poll by YouGov
found the “cost in human lives” the top reason for opposing the war.
A single column cannot offer a scientific survey of this phenomenon. Nor can it offer adequate
memorial to Marine Wright, by all accounts a remarkable athlete, soldier and family man, whose
death stunned friends who thought him “invincible”. Instead, hopefully, some broad hints can be
drawn from the response of one southern English town to a military death (the 378th in Afghanistan
since 2001).
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Graham Winter is mayor of Weymouth and the neighbouring isle of Portland, and he taught James
Wright at primary school. Mostly, he ascribes the turnout at the marine’s funeral to the young
man’s popularity and high profile in a small community. But he also notes a trend of rising
attendance at veterans’ events. There were large crowds at a homecoming parade in July for Royal
Tank Regiment troops back from Afghanistan. The underlying cause, he suggests, is growing
awareness of the dangers faced by troops overseas, rammed home by press reporting. That
awareness should not be confused with endorsement of government policies, the mayor says: if
asked why troops were in Afghanistan, many “would find it hard to answer”.
On the Esplanade, Hazel Coleman, a sixth-form student with a part-time job at a souvenir shop,
observed the minute’s silence for Marine Wright. But she says—not unreasonably—that the war
has “gotten more complicated over the years”, so she only “vaguely” knows why troops are still in
Afghanistan. To her, the public mood is “about respect, and people dying”.
The Wootton Bassett effect
During interviews in Weymouth, the example of Wootton Bassett comes up a lot. Locals needed no
persuasion to organise a minute’s silence, says the school caretaker behind the tribute, Geoff Bright.
But, he admits, there was a sense of: “If Wootton Bassett can do it, so can Weymouth, no getting
away from it.”
Whatever the model is, it is not Falklands Britain. Trawl through archive copies of the local
newspaper, the Dorset Evening Echo, covering the period of that conflict, and a barely-recognisable
country swims into view. In 1982 deaths are reported briskly, and upper lips are still stiff. Opening
a large Falklands homecoming fete, a naval officer declares tersely: “I wish you could have seen
how our chaps behaved under not ideal circumstances.” Returning troops are greeted with a mixture
of amateurish cheer, bunting and alcohol: there are endless reports of “champagne welcomes”, an
improbable “sherry reception” for commandos, and—in Dorchester—1,000 free pints of beer.
Three decades on, a new tolerance for public emotion has strict limits, however. One of Marine
Wright’s former teachers, now retired, caused anger by telling local reporters that, as well as pride,
he also felt sorrow at a “futile waste of a young life”. A “totally inappropriate” comment, retorts a
serving school colleague.
Yet if the current public mood is patriotic, it is not deferential. Phil Thomas, headmaster of Marine
Wright’s old school, senses local communities sending a message to the government: “We are
recognising these individuals, they are dying on your behalf, make sure you have your policies
right.”
Such talk alarms British military commanders. They yearn for public support for the troops, not
sympathy, and fret about a debilitating focus on individual losses. A visit to Weymouth suggests
they are too late. Overt grief is part of life now, stoked by a public and media hungry for human
interest. Will it make future wars harder to fight? Probably. But there is no going back.
From http://www.economist.com/node/21528604
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Text Fifteen
My Place (Website – opportunities for creative writing)
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