Month: February 2015

In both the falling leaves and futility, there is an underlying theme of death. The theme runs its course through each poem. For example in the “The falling leaves”, “brown leaves dropping from their tree” is used as a metaphor for the soldiers dying. The metaphor is very important as it gives a sense of the time frame it was written in. During Autumn, trees shed their leaves. The tree is supposed to represent Britain and gives a portrayal of the amount of deaths and the affects of the warfare. The poem was written by Margaret Postgate Cole, this is important as it gives a view point of war but not on the battlefields as this wouldn’t have been possible in the 1940s. Margaret Postgate Cole was a pacifist and believe that this war was unnecessary.  This is similar to “Futility” which is a poem written based upon being in the front line of war. The poem is about trying to revive a dead soldier. For example “if anything might rouse him now” is used by Wilfred Owen to suggest that there is a chance the soldier might be alive, however the reader is aware the the person being carried is dead. The poem states that the sun might not “rouse” the corpse, this suggests that the the sun which was responsible for bringing life had abandoned humanity because of war.

The extent of war being an attrocity is explored during the falling leaves. As i previously stated, the leaves are used to represent the dying soldiers, but instead of the deaths being seen as individuals. The soldiers being grouped as one creates an absence of personality. This theme is quite popular in warfare, soldiers were often buried in long graves, containing multiple corpses. This is also present in Futility where the corpse is not referred to with a name however just words such as him, creating an absence of personality. This is quite powerful as objects aren’t referred to with names but instead terms such as it. This creates a feeling of absence of life

The Dream Chaser

The room was ripped apart and dragged towards the void. He swam, navigating his way through the wormhole, narrowly avoiding the book-shelf and the books that followed. A connected display of colours spread through the wormhole. The stars were shining brightly as he gazed upon the universe in all its beauty. The wormhole was everything and more than what he expected it to be……. But as he knew, all good things must come to an end as Joe plummeted into the wormhole.

Joe had always been an average guy, average job, average car and even an average wife. He never had any characteristics or traits that set him apart from the crowd, there just was nothing particularly special about Joe, he was neither handsome nor ugly, he had a standard head of hair, a natural blonde comb over, no gel, and day by day, he carried himself with no real meaning. I guess you could call him your average Joe, but the presence of mediocre qualities, made Joe all the more anxious to reach his goal of creating a medium to reach the dream world. Joe was what you would call a master builder, things just seemed to fit together in his hands, an important feature generally found in construction workers, but the difference with more was the fact that there was no restriction on his imagination, allowing him to create objects in search for innovation and the portal to the dream world was the perfect project to embark on. Of course Joe had already reached the dream world, in fact, Joe had reached it 7348 times in the 28 years he had spent in new York and 1003 times in the 4 early years of his life which he had spent in London, but a working portal would allow him to commute to and fro at will. So while Joe’s wife, Jane was at work, Joe continued on Project Morpheus V3.0, versions 1 and 2 had resulted in 1st degree burns, but to joe, this time was different, he approached with a “third time’s the charm” mentality, version 3.0 added strong blue cheese for increased productivity while asleep. Finally, with everything in place, Joe was ready to launch the alpha test for Project Morpheus 3.0, as he strapped and the augmented reality headset lowered, Joe could not help but feel anxious, but he knew, it was far too late to turn back as the fans powered on and the headset began the mandatory safety procedures, “BRACE YOURSELF, KEEP YOUR HEAD BACK, FACE FORWARD AND KEEP YOUR LEGS AND ARMS INSIDE THE VEHICLE AT ALL TIMES”, the safety procedures were an extract taken from an amusement park roller coaster but this would suffice for the alpha test. “3, 2 ,1, Go!Go!Go!”

The room was ripped apart and dragged towards the void. He swam, navigating his way through the wormhole, narrowly avoiding the book-shelf and the books that followed. A connected display of colours spread through the wormhole. The stars were shining brightly as he gazed upon the universe in all its beauty. The wormhole was everything and more than what he expected it to be……. But as he knew, all good things must come to an end as Joe plummeted into the wormhole. He woke in his room, with Project Morpheus strapped onto his head, he removed it and pinched his self.