I found that the film Unbroken by Angelina Jolie to be a very good film. It has a very great message about human strength and found the movie gives off a good feeling, as it makes you think about what you would do in the same situation. I also found that the ending was nice, showing photos of the different characters, as well as showing that Louis Zamperini got to live his dream of running at the Tokyo Olympics. Some more strengths of the movie were the feeling of comradery that the movie showed between the different prisoners, and how they would look out for each other. I also liked how accurate the movie was to the actual actions according to Louis Zamperini. One issue I had with the film was that it showed a heavy bias to the Americans throughout the film, especially in the POW camps, as they constantly portrayed the Japanese soldiers as being ruthless, when Japanese people went through terrible conditions as well in the United States. I think that, if the movie were to be made from the Japanese’s perspective, the film would change greatly, as it would show how the Americans were disobeying the orders, and would try to portray them as the enemy, which is the difficulty of making war movies. I think that, overall, this was a very good film, and would definitely recommend it to people, as it has good action in the movie, as well as a great story.

Intro III

This song would go on page 140, where Thomas talks about his triumph over fear and remembers the old lady who called him a coward when there was the recruitment in his hometown. The song talks about the author triumphing over his fear , and this fits in well with him triumphing over his fears.

Home

This song would go on page 152 and 153, during which Thomas is mad that Charlie gets to go home but he doesn’t. This song has a slight anger town, but also has a sense of longing to return home, which I feel really fits in well with what Thomas is feeling at this point in the story.

<a href="http://&lt;!– wp:paragraph –> <p>Tears in Heaven</p> <!– /wp:paragraph –> <!– wp:paragraph –> <p>This song would go on page 161, when Thomas starts to mourn the death of Anna. This song fits well, both with the theme of the girl he likes dying, as well as the dark thoughts that one would have in the great war, where he is just waiting for himself to inevitably die. This fits in well, especially the introduction, where the singer talks about when he is in heaven, would you recognize my name.</p> Tears in Heaven

This song would go on page 161, when Thomas starts to mourn the death of Anna. This song fits well, both with the theme of the girl he likes dying, as well as the dark thoughts that one would have in the great war, where he is just waiting for himself to inevitably die. This fits in well, especially the introduction, where the singer talks about when he is in heaven, would you recognize my name.

Fight for Me

This song fits in on page 178, when Charlie refuses the order to leave the dug-out in no mans land to protect Charlie. I feel that this song fits in well because it has a strong, persistent beat, which fits with what Charlie is doing. In addition, the lyrics also fit in with what is going on, as it talks about someone defending their friend, and this fits in well with the story.

In Flanders Field

This song would be played on page 190 and 191, when Charlie gets shot and killed. This is a much more mournful song, and fits in great with the mood of the story. The song is about the dead of World War 1, and the music and singing is slow, which gives a very good mood for the story.

Blog post 12

“Nice,” I reply.

“It’s not just nice, Tommo,” Charlie says. “It’s wonderful, that’s what it is. Ruddy 

       wonderful. Tell you what – if anything happens to me it’s yours, all right?”

After we captured the german soldier, the officers awarded the 5 of us remaining with a small break from the front lines. To celebrate, we went to the Estaminet for beer, as well as eggs and chips. While there, Charlie gave the lot of us the idea to write home about what happened. So full of eggs, chips, and beer, I began writing.

Dear Mother Big Joe and Molly, April 20th, 1917

We have just gotten back from the front lines, and have been given the time to write to you. Charlie and I, along with others from our squad captured a hun. If you were to have put him next to some of us, I would not have been able to tell a difference, he was also just a scared boy, dragged into this mess. Anyway, how are things at home? The trenches are fine but quite messy. Our new Captain is very nice and lets us sing all the time. We sing Oranges and Lemons all the time when marching as a way for us to remember you all back home. I have been keeping Charlie safe, and he can’t wait until the war is over and we can return home to you guys.  We have been well fed because there is a very good restaurant near our station. We haven’t had any major fighting, and the lines are very peaceful right now. I can’t wait to return home to see everyone. I have to go now, but I miss you all.

With Love,

Tommo

This Post does contain spoilers for the book and movie Private Peaceful

In the first and second chapters, Michael Morpurgo sets Charlie up for his role later in the book. One example of this is on pages 31 and 32, where he fights Jimmy Parsons so that his little brother stays safe, and gets punished for it later. Towards the end of the book, during an attack where they are pinned down in a bunker with a machine gun aimed at the exit, the commander orders for them to leave the safety of the bunker and continue the attack. Charlie goes against the order, instead choosing to stay with Thomas, who is injured. He is later court marshaled for his act of cowardice and ends up being sentenced to a firing squad, and dies. Another small piece of foreshadowing also appears between the first and second chapters to the rest of the book. On page 17, Mr Munnings, Charlie’s teacher, talks about gaining another Peaceful in the school, asking what he did to deserve this. This leads the reader to believe that Charlie acts up in class, and doesn’t respect the authority in his life. Later on in the book, during their training for the war, Charlie is the only one to stand up to their Sergeant, when nobody else seemed to have the courage too. This shows both his bravery from a young age, and how it transitioned into his life at war, and also how he did not have respect for authority, and still doesn’t. Charlie is a very important character to the story, and the first 2 chapters set him up for the rest of the book well.

I open my eyes and see a dead crow hanging from the fence, his beak open. Was he shot, shot in mid-scream, as he began to sing, his raucous tune scarcely begun? He sways, his feathers still catching the wind even in death, his family and friends cawing in their grief and anger from the high elm trees above us.

It could have been him that drove away my robin and emptied her nest of her eggs. My eggs, five of them there had been, live and warm under my fingers.

Then without any warning he gets up and walks to the back of the church where he opens the door. When he gets back he explains to Mother what he’s done in his loud voice, and Grandma Wolf, sitting beside us in her black bonnet, scowls at him, at all of us.

To an Athlete Dying Young By A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

To an athlete dying young is a poem about a town, mourning the death of an athlete. The author uses an athlete because it gives the feeling of wasted potential. This adds more disappointment, as it makes you feel that the person could have had something happen in his life, but they won’t ever get the chance. To change the imagery in the poem, A. E. Housman has a great contract between the first quatrain and the second quatrain:

Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,

(3-6)
He uses some of the same images, with the town’s people carrying the athlete, and in the second quatrain, they are carrying him through the town, but in a coffin. This shows how much different the town is once the person they look up to die.

On the technical side, A. E. Housman uses a dominant pattern of iambic tetrameter, meaning that there are 4 feet in each line, and they usually are iambic. each quatrain has a rhyming pattern of AABB, meaning that the first two lines rhyme, and the second two lines rhyme. He breaks the iambic tetrameter pattern to make it sound less robotic, and that allows the poem to sound more natural. Very few of the lines are enjambments, as most lines end in a comma or period. The poem also does not have any caesuras, as this would make the poem sound very choppy, and it would not have a good flow.

This is a poem I made in a Trochaic Tetrameter, based around the name Harshall. One of the challenges I had was in the 7th and 8th line. I did was struggling getting everything to fit into the pattern, but was able to add for sure, to make it fit into the pattern. I also had a challenge in the 2nd line, where I couldn’t find a word for basketball that would fit. I ended up using b-ball, because it changes the sound slightly to make it stand out, and fits into the feet.

When I Was Your Man (2012)

Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now Our song on the radio but it don’t sound the same When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down ‘Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name It all just sounds like ooh, ooh ooh hoo hoo Mm, too young, too dumb to realize That I should have bought you flowers And held your hand Should have gave you all my hours When I had the chance Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance Now my baby’s dancing But she’s dancing with another man My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life Now I never, never get to clean up the mess I made, oh And it haunts me every time I close my eyes It all just sounds like ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh Mm, too young, too dumb to realize That I should have bought you flowers And held your hand Should have gave you all my hours When I had the chance Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance Now my baby’s dancing But she’s dancing with another man Although it hurts I’ll be the first to say that I was wrong Oh, I know I’m probably much too late To try and apologize for my mistakes But I just want you to know I hope he buys you flowers I hope he holds your hand Give you all his hours When he has the chance Take you to every party ‘Cause I remember how much you loved to dance Do all the things I should have done When I was your man Do all the things I should have done when I was your man

I like the lyrics of this song. They are much simpler than most other songs you hear on the radio, but the song conveys a lot of emotion. It talks about the jealousy that he feels that he didn’t treat his girl right, so she started to date someone else. He finishes the song by telling the person she is now dating where he failed, and how to treat her right. This gives the song a sense that Bruno Mars realizes what was done wrong, and knows that her back. He can’t get her back and has comes to terms with that. He has also realized that he wants her to be happy more than anything, and it doesn’t matter who she is with, as long as she is happy with them.

My brother is one of the nicest people I have ever met. He cares about you and wants you to be happy. The one problem with my brother is that he never forgets the little things. We could be sitting at dinner, or watching a movie when he gets a random memory.

“Hey Andrew,” He will say.

“What is it?”

“Do you remember the time, that we went to that one store, and bought
that one thing?”

“Yeah, what about it,” I respond, not paying attention, but no longer focusing on whatever I was doing.

“Nothing.” He will say, without a care in the world, leaving you wondering what led him to remember that moment, and why he brings it up. This little detail, this little action, this little quirk in his personality is something that we never question about him. He has always done this, and it has just become one of the things we expect out of him. We all wonder what goes on in his head and jokingly say, “we would explore his brain, but we would probably get lost in the most random of thoughts. “

“Cappy’s brain, the Final Frontier,” we say, jokingly. He, of course, either doesn’t hear us say these things, or he pretends not to hear them. When he does hear us, he practically explodes with a wave of anger, and we know we have pushed him too hard, and that we now have to survive the brutality of an angry child.

We have a family saying, we only tease you because we love you, and while it is true, I understand that it doesn’t always feel like that. I used to be the member of the family constantly picked on, and I feel like I have been liberated from the constant mockery from my parents and siblings. Maybe replaced is the better word for this, but all I know is that it is nice not to be the one that everyone mocks and jokes about constantly.

I remember once, we were having a conversation at the dinner table. We were all participating in the conversation, and my brother was quieter than usual. Once everyone noticed, we joked around, saying that he went to the little world in his head. As the joking started to pick up, my brother, as if he was listening to us the whole time, just chirps, “I’m back.” We don’t know what he does when he spaces out, but we would all really like to know. In a way, I guess that makes my brother very similar to an elephant. He, much like the mighty animal, never forgets.