Dystopian:

Down to the office, staircase by staircase, tunneling through the corridors like grimy worms. Thick stone blocks any light, feeble candles show me the gloomy path to my future dread. ‘Knock knock’ the wood near makes way for two simple taps on the door. I must have only a little while left now, at least I thought.

Satirical:

The most important and fun part of my day, a light stroll down to the principals office to discuss my enthusiasm! The bones of past pupils scattered the corridor. A jolly voice greets me to join him, one day I wish to have his job. Shouting at defenceless kids sounds like a lot of fun.

Mametz wood is a poem connoting the discovery of bodies, dug up by farmers years later to disturb their peace and endless rest. Written in 2005, the piece is set long after the battle had ended and the bodies buried. The Poem has a feeling of remorse and regret for the history of mankind and our tendency to pointlessly kill others.

Metaphors are powerfully used in this piece to present the fallen soldiers as equivalent and just as important as the rubbish and debris left under the field. ‘A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, the relic of a finger, the blown and broken bird’s egg of a skull,’ the effect is rather grotesque with every part becoming indistinguishable from one another. ‘Relic’ is used with a spiritual connotation and the ‘bird’s egg of a skull’ symbolising the fragility of life.

‘As if the notes they had sung have only now, with this unearthing, slipped from their absent tongues.’ This ending passage contains haunting similes to conclude this war poem. This seems to show an absence of mind of soul leaving the bodies to rest and give a permanent reminder to what war produces. As the message is trying to be communicated, the farmers ignore and the attempt to help the future has gone unnoticed and the soldiers have died for no reason.

Come on come back is a war poem reflecting the use of biologogical weapons and death camps used by the Nazi’s to inflict pain and harm people. By using imagery and the use of a character accepting death after a near escape the poet creates a story that visually describes the circumstances.

The overall subject of the poem presents a haunting realisation of a punishment not worthy of any man or woman. The overall feeling of the poem, in my opinion is bleak, a feeling of acceptance to death, dispair and mostly emptiness.

Semantic fields surrounding the piece provide the hidden and more complex meaning of the poem. ‘Sitting alone on a round flat stone’ has a mysterious and almost ritual like field- knowing what Vaudevue had to do. ‘A child’ and ‘an idiot’ strengthen the semantic field of acceptance and reflect back on her own life- something usually described to happen to people on death’s doorstep. She was once a child in her life and the idiot, anyone looking on the situation would think she was crazy to plunge into the ‘icy depths’ in her weakened state. They would not understand what had previously happened to make her want to do this to herself.

The authorial technique of hiding information from the reader is used and clues in the text have to be used to help the reader achieve the satisfaction- and self realisation (like Vaudevue’s) of what has happened.

Personification is used in my opinion to strengthen the thought that whatever is swallowing her up is human which could mean two things: either a religious being or that the living world have killed her, reffering to people in the world, although she wants it to be natural causes. ‘Seizing her in an icy amorous embrace’ presents the water as a being. The water is also described as ‘treacherous’ which could not be as it is non sentient.

The poem is written in the 1950s and at that point in history many war tragedys had just happened meaning we can devipher more of the text and understand the implications of terms such as M L 5 (a made up chemical) and Memel- being a coastal town in Lithuania, Nazism being popular with antisemitism apparent.

The book is titled from the main character’s name. You could call this self titling (the book being in first person) arrogant and self-centered- even before inserting the middle name of ‘God’ and plot-line of his accusation of mass murder. Already Vernon seems to be starting to become an antihero, backed by the reader but doubted by most people in the book.

‘Forget about before – even murderers are loved by their families, you know…’ Ma has the love hate relationship with her son. With absolutely unthoughtful attempts at reassuring her son (such as this one) she is a prime example of someone, even as close as she is with her Son, doubts the truth and believes the harsh allegations surrounding his involvement with the school shooting and mass murder his best friend was in. This alone could make her an antihero present in the Novel. She sticks the the main characters side all along but also doubts and gives in easily to her son’s supposed actions. Along with that she ignores Vernon’s cry for help and takes her priorities in a man making profit from broadcasting and portraying Vernon in a negative light for the public eye. Many selfish actions undertake her ability to be a hero in the story.

The Author uses speech, more particularly swearing to show Vernon in a light that is nowhere near perfect. Permanent complaints and pessimistic comments throughout the book bring the reader onto personal level with the character. Using the word ‘fucken’ (a colloquialism) a total of 407 times, a clean and idealistic view of a classic hero has simply gone down the drain. Other remarks and descriptions of ‘knife-turners like my ole lady’ use metaphors such as: ‘[spend their] waking hours connecting s*** into a humongous web, just like spiders.’ Comparisons like this show a huge amount of spite and anger towards others and portray Vernon as the antihero we are looking for.

The art department always want the best from you. Through your school career the quantity always out ways the quality because who likes nice art? It is amazing to see this done as all of the jobs in society nowadays revolve around the arts.

Another way the novel shows small town life to be is highly segregated by class. Jem’s realisation that everyone in Maycomb hates each other sparks questioning in his mind. As we know, the Finch family were born into a higher class, being literate and not struggling with everyday tasks. This was not ordinary around that time in rural areas because of the impact of the great depression.

From the wall street crash the Cunnignhams and farmers were ‘hit the hardest’. By this they unable to pay with money and often needed to do so in different ways such as with produce instead. Many citizens in Maycomb are displayed as prime examples of people that do not agree that the classes should mix. Contrary to today, where the classes do not necessarily exist as they used to and people can easily escape from on to another as they are judged not by what they were born as but what they have achieved or the material they have to offer. the quote ‘you can polish Walter until he shines but he will never be like Jem’ demonstrates what the people around the time thought about the matter.

Social class is a phrase and subject permanently referred to in the novel, the question of how different groups in society are looked upon and shown is raised by the new adolescence of Jem Finch. Scout and Aunt Alexandra are also involved in arguments over people from different classes.

From the quote in chapter 23 ‘you can scrub Walter Cunningham until he shines … but he will never be like Jem’ Aunt Alexandra’s viewpoint on the mixing of classes is extremely clear. Her belief is that classes cannot be mixed and changed from a person’s birth status. The analogy that Walter could never become like Jem is because the Cunningham’s are poor farmers and were ‘hit hardest be the crash’ (referring to the wall street crash and great depression) and Jem Finch is obviously from a class that is not struggling in basic needs in life such as keeping clean. This is similar to what was seen in the court scenes where Mr Ewell would apparently never become cleaner if the were to be continuously bathed and scrubbed from the dirt that coats his skin. This was said because of his ability to never becoming of a higher class tham what he was. Scout challenges this by asking what were to happen if he were of kin and is replied to that if he were of any relation he would still not be allowed to come over to the finch household because he was filth.

The class on society for the people of maycomb was separated by three groups of people: the ordinary white people, negroes and people struggling by the dump such as Cunningham’s and Ewell’s. Jem comes to the realisation that each of these classes hate each other and would be ashamed to be associated with the other. Ordinar white people would racially discriminate against ‘coloured skin’ men along with the Ewell’s, and the coloured people to not wanted to stoop what they considered to be lower-the dump around the Ewell’s. This vicious cycle would always rely heavily on class and ethnicity to stop people from switching between one and another. The only way presumably to do so would be to completely ignore and destroy the living memory of past family and generations to obliterate what the person was born into. Jem feels strongly about this theory and is beginning to become distraught about what else could be the reason for segration and misfortune in Maycomb and America.

Scout on the other hand is naïve and innocent to all of this so does not understand why a simple request of being able to have a friend come round would be denied due to the inequalities of society. Her position is against as she openly questions what many others have simply accepted for generations. The connotations of trash and ‘polishing of a turd’ are unfortunate, being born as an unaccepted piece of filth

Sparking from the Brown vs Topeka board of education court case, integration was due to take place in schools- ‘Little rock high school’ to be one of the first to mix white and black students. At the beginning of the 1957 term 9 black students, selected as some of the top in the country were admitted into the school in Arkansas. These were named the ‘Little rock nine’. Upon first day entry a large crowd of protesters blocked the gate, to stop the black students from entering. Some of these people came from different states around the South of America to stop integration and the civil right movement by any means possible. They even had support from the national guard with them, abuse was shouted and they were disallowed entry despite the legislation from the senate.

The next day the same happened to the nine. The following day body guards were positioned to force people to let the students in. Although this could be said to be an achievement, the laws set in the North were clearly not being acted upon in the South. 400,000 were due to be desegregated, and even this was only a small proportion of children and students in America. Little Rock high school was also closed down at the end of the academic year meaning all of this progress was ineffective

Harper Lee uses allusion to reference and give further understanding of the current time by talking about Hitler and Jews in Nazi Germany. The hypocrisy of the white community is that they are feeling sympathy for the Jews yet discrimanting against the black people.

This means that both the Jewish and the black people of maycomb can be juxtaposed to each other and also referred to as mockingbirds.

“Jews are the best people in the world and I don’t get how Hitler doesn’t realise” is a quote stated by a white person from maycomb, this is satirising the event.

The white community in To kill a mockingbird is rightly satirised because of their lack of priorities and hypocrisy. Despite the chilling fate of Tom Robinson they care more about the gossip surrounding the Finch Children. From the