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March 29, 2024, 06:30:32 pm

Author Topic: English Standard Assessment task imaginative writing. Please give feedback  (Read 478 times)

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Frederick Pridham

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Please give feedback it is due tomorrow!!!
A Mother’s Regret
As Mrs. Thompson walked inside and took off her coat and hat she turned around to her son, “Charles wash your hands and have your vitamins at once". “And don’t forget to take your jacket off!", she sharply demanded.
Little salty tears ran down Charles ‘cheeks.
“What’s the matter” asked Mrs. Thompson in a soft voice.
“You speak to me like a naughty dog. You imprison me in this steamy hot jacket and force vitamins into me. I am confined in this prison day and night. I try to talk to other people and make friends, but you pull me away as if I am speaking to demons. No friends, no fun, no freedom.”
Mrs. Thompson stood speechless in front of her tearful child. And a small but noticeable tear fell from her eye and seemed to soften her hard face.
“Son”, she said, “let me tell you my story…
When I was a young woman, I lived the life of a queen. I was glamorous and beautiful. I had all the money in the world. I had silk gowns, and hundreds of elegant hats. Everything went my way. I met the most handsome, admirable and honorable man in Britain. He was fair, polite, kind and loving. We had a fairytale wedding.”
She looked off into the distant past with a smile on her face…
“We had a beautiful, cherubic baby boy, his eyes twinkled and sparkled like the diamonds in my ring. He got into all sorts of trouble, but he was the light of our lives, the sugar in our tea. What wonderful times we had together, his first steps, words and day at school. As joyful as they were these years past quickly.
On a misty winter morning a knock on the door abruptly awoke me from a nap in front of the popping and crackling fire. I walked sleepily to the door with my eyes just open enough to see. As I opened the door the bone chilling cold of the British winter blew my sleepiness away.
I opened the door to see the postman, “Telegram, Madam”, he said, in a polite expressionless tone. As he passed me the telegram, my eyes grabbed the golden engraved words on the envelope, ‘King George VI’s Young Gentleman’s Academy of London’. My darling Edward’s school. I opened it excitedly like a poor man with a paycheck.
It read ‘Dear Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, it is with much regret and sadness that we inform you that, your son Edward has contracted the Spanish Flu. We request that you collect your child to stop the spread.
My face was bleached of colour and my heart ached with uncertainty. My eyes flooded with tears and my face became a river of worry and sorrow. I wiped away the tears with a shaky hand. “Not everybody with influenza dies”, I said, in a defiant tone.
I arrived at the school determined not to show my worry. A small pale and weak child sat shivering on a seat just inside the school. His eyes were weary, and his head was heavy. “Edward”, I said. His little head looked up and the smallest smile appeared on his face void of joy.
For weeks he lay on his bed. No, not in the hospital. It was full of victims of this hungry influenza beast. The doctor visited and did what he could. Nothing seemed to work, every time he left Edward’s room, he had worry written on his face.
Edward kept weakening. It seemed like he was melting away. His temperature was horrifying even for the thermometer. Eventually his breathing was shallow and wet, every breath sounded like water going down a drain. His face full of suffering was colourless and thin. His eyes seemed to be hibernating in his head, rarely opening to the light. His life was slowly being sucked out of him by the monster within him. He was a living skeleton.
Just days after he was discharged from school, he breathed his last bit of life. His eyelids tightened. His heartbeat faded out. And he expired. Now there was a motionless skeleton draped over his bed.

Tears now ran uncontrollably ran down her face as if they had been dammed for years. She pulled her lace handkerchief out of her handbag and dabbed her soaking eyes. Her son’s face was full of wonder, as he sat in awe of his mother's face, which had turned from as hard and dry as a stone to a soft damp swamp of unhealed wounds. Charles’s heart once filled anger and upset toward his mother was overflowing with compassion and understanding.
Then regathering herself she said, “Ever since I have imprisoned myself in my coat of sorrow and hid myself under my hat of regret. “I told myself I would never let one of my children be taken away again. That is the reason for your imprisonment. My worries. My regret.”










Reflection

My narrative entitled ‘A Mothers Regret’, is inspired by the picture book ‘Voices in the Park’. In this picture book the young boy Charles is regulated by his mother and in every picture, he is wearing a coat. His mother seems to have a look of sadness and his face looks hardened by trauma. This inspired me to use the boy’s distress to explore what has caused Mrs. Thompson to be hardened and have so much unhappiness. I chose to explore using narrative form as I believed this would allow me to fully develop a context and plot wherein such psychological damage could be formed and be authentically portrayed.
In my narrative I felt I needed to adopt a third person narrative voice so I could give the reader an insight into the emotions and mood of multiple characters. The perspective shows Mrs. Thompson as a deeply grieved person and through the anecdote, Mrs Thompson’s character is portrayed not to be unpleasant but plagued by memories and regret. ‘For weeks he lay on his bed. No, not in the hospital. It was full of victims of this hungry influenza beast.’  Through the negative connotation this anecdote shows the harsh reality of the sickness her son had contracted. Use of the metaphor ‘hungry influenza beast’ portrays the influenza in a visceral way, as a hungry beast. Thus, portraying the nature and fear of the virus.
‘Eventually his breathing was shallow and wet, every breath sounded like water going down a drain. His face full of suffering was colourless and thin. His eyes seemed to be hibernating in his head, rarely opening to the light.’ Using truncated sentences builds tension and shows the gravity of the situation. The simile ‘every breath sounded like water going down a drain’ creates a graphic image in the readers mind of dramatic and horrible scene of dying child. The metaphor ‘His eyes seemed to be hibernating in his head’ enraptures an image of eyes drawn in and almost always closed.
This help the reader to understand the feelings of Mrs. Thompson.
Charles is shown to be highly distressed about his mother harshly containing him. His character is essential because it brings out reasoning behind his mother’s harsh and demanding dementor.

The climactic point of “A Mothers Regret’ is when Mrs Thompson is telling her story about, her first-born son who died of influenza, in which I have included imagery to give the reader a picture of distress and suffering. “Eventually his breathing was shallow and wet, every breath sounded like water going down a drain.” This illustrates gruesome noises in her memories of her son dying.  Good, put in more evidence and some which highlights her grief.

The resolution of my story is composed of dialogue. The mother explains to Charles, the reason she has been restrictive. She also explains the meaning behind her coat and hat. Through the motif of the repression of the jacket in the start by Charles, ‘“You imprison me in this steamy hot jacket”’ and then at the end his mother says “That is the reason for your imprisonment” this brings about a resolution to the story. ‘“I have imprisoned myself in my coat of sorrow and hid myself under my hat of regret.”’ Using imagery, I have linked the idea of the cost and hat as self-containment because of regret and sadness.



















« Last Edit: February 27, 2020, 01:32:50 pm by Frederick Pridham »

connorspence

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Re: English Standard Assessment task imaginative writing. Please give feedback
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2020, 01:33:07 pm »
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Well done fred. That is excellent work.