English IGCSE home

How does Ishiguro create a sense of isolation and otherness in this passage? *Madame clutches her briefcase to her chest, self-protective gesture – even before she sees the children, we sense that she is scared…also implies that she may need to guard the documents carefully. Multi-layered hints that Madame is not just a kind adult – there are unsettling elements to the way she is described * In this scene, there is a strong sense of two groups – the children who have made a ‘scheme’ and a ‘plot’ versus Madame. The children assume that they are in control, as they are the ones who have carefully planned for this moment for so long, ‘on a signal from Ruth’, ‘the plan we’d come up with’. However, the shock of this episode, is that actually the children are the ones who are most deeply disturbed and scared by the encounter with Madame, not the other way around. There is a turning point, ‘the strange change that came over us’, when the children realise that Madame does not consider...

" Love and friendship when time is limited, in the of mortality" *Dystopia/Organ donation/Clones only added as an afterthought *Love is vital because we're going to die... *Being 15,16,17 we feel like we are outsiders... all these people feel outsiders but they are the same as one other person (clones) and they seek their 'possible' they are looking not only for the origins and some sense of family but also trying to find that one person that is the same as them. Which arguably, is the same longing experience in falling in love....

What do we notice about the way Tommy is introduced? Tommy's temper tantrum - 'with a shrug' - Kathy is controlled by the people watching from the windows, and therefore she does not want to show any real concern for Tommy publicly. This foreshadows how she will later give in to peer pressure again and not ask Tommy out. - 'Mad animal' Tommy is referred to as an animal by Ruth and another student compares him initially to an urinating dog, 'like a dog doing a pee',  Tommy is one of the only students in the school who is open with his emotions, and yet he is dismissed by the students as an animal.  - Mud on T-shirt - he is dirty, shameful, like a child who can't clean himself up...vulnerable, loss of control - We can sense that Kathy is attracted to Tommy but she feels compelled to hide this - Tommy accidentally hits Kathy.....and even though she knows it isn't intentional, she still responds in exactly the same way as the other girls, ...

Hamlet is a dark play that centres on a young man (Hamlet) who spends the whole play in a state railing against the Universe, deeply tormented and destabilised by being thrown into an adult world too soon, a world where your own family turn against you - a world where murder and incest threaten and you can never be sure who to trust.    Hamlet is thrown by the death of his father and as an audience we are never quite sure what is happening to him. Is he grieving? Has he been driven mad? Is he on a clever revenge mission? Is it some combination of all three? This complexity and ambiguity is at the heart of what makes the play so intriguing for audiences. 

https://prezi.com/flbrdgx1morz/hamlet-why-they-did-and-why-the-didnt/ It's always good to refer to productions of Shakespeare that you have seen - see this link for some ideas of how you could do this for Act 3, Scene 1. Probably the most obvious contrast between Hamlet and the other characters is the different way he is dressed. Although all the characters are in modern day clothing, Hamlet is significantly more casually dressed than the others. Especially when Hamlet and Ophelia are alone together is this contrast most apparent; Hamlet is wearing a t-shirt and jeans where as Ophelia is in a very elegant and formal dress and the rest of the characters are also wearing more formal attire. This costume choice creates a stronger sense that Hamlet is becoming more and more isolated from the people around him and Hamlet’s position as a pariah amongst his family and friends becomes amplified visually. The distinction of Hamlet’s more casual clothing compared to the rest of the c...

Ophelia sings about someone who has lost their virginity and her Father’s death, (‘Quoth she, before you tumbled me you promised me to wed’ ‘He is dead and gone lady.’) This shows that she is still controlled by her former lover and her father. She is unable to move on. Shakespeare uses songs to allow Ophelia even in her manic confusion to express something of her distress. Apart from the song lyrics, Ophelia is unable to express herself, all that she says makes no sense.  This is such a sharp contrast from the articulate, beautiful Ophelia at the beginning of the play when she had her whole life still before her. In Act 5, Scene 2, we see a distorted, broken version of Ophelia who has been so deeply damaged by all her experiences at the hands of men that she will never recover. In the David Tennant production, the director used a wide pane of broken glass to symbolise how broken Ophelia’s mind and life is. This is an effective way of emphasising how deceptive appearances can be, ...

Tips: Planning your Controlled Assessment Essay Please make sure that the plan is detailed, so that based on the plan I can assess the quality that your essay would be.  Here is a suggested paragraph structure: P: Initially Hamlet seems cruelly dismissive of Ophelia. He flatly denies having ever given her gifts, ‘No, not I, I never gave you aught’. The repetition of negative words here shows how emphatic he is + could be accompanied by the actor throwing the gifts back in her face, which would seem heartless to an audience. But + is Hamlet mad + or acting knowing that he is being spied on? Ambiguous not only to the audience but also to Ophelia. + Link to Cousin Kate? She is also thrown aside by her lover – but her lover seems even crueler because there are no extenuating circumstances for him. You don’t need to write in full sentences but I want all the points and ideas to be clearer there. Word process because they you can tweak it much more easily! ...