Sub Rosa

I am thoroughly pleased that we are exploring the ideas of Utopia and Dystopia in class (I hope this isn't to the detriment of the Goth genre proposal).  Inevitably, we were shown the work of Tudor courtier Thomas More - Utopia
( Info on Thomas More's Utopia )

Invariably, we have looked at my favourite works - Under cut for photo size

( George Orwell's 1984 )

( Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, )

( Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale )
I have always been fascinated with Utopia/Dystopia ever since I watched Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner as a child.  Many, many sci fi/fantasies are built on Uto/Dysto societies and it does explore the dark side of what people do when they have power over others on a massive scale. Lord of the Flies/Rings are prime examples as well as Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series. If I have a chance to do this as part of a dissertation, I will be cock-a-hoop.

I have to finish this today as I have to move on the the Othello/newspaper article soon.  I have managed to shave off a meagre 200 words this morning and I am about only half done.  I will have to do the rest then mesh as I have never meshed before.  I need a crash course in Microsoft Publisher, which I will look at in our free break tomorrow morning. 2,717 down to 2,433. 284 in fact. It's times like this when you realised you have doubled up somewhere along the line, or have glaring omissions.  My main concern is that it doesn't matter how often I rearrange the paragraphs, the problems still remain.

16:41
I am down to 2,096 words and I am worried now that I have confused the issue somewhere along the line. I am scratching my head as I have to get across what it is exactly I am getting at.  Yes the poor living conditions are caused by the economic cutbacks of the party, but also I am trying to convey how the people are kept to this level by the environment AND the brainwashing.  No description fits in this essay and I feel that it has the same monster proportions as I found with Wuthering Heights this time last year.

LOL: I just looked at my entry for this time last year and it was all about having three versions of WH on the go and wishing it would snow so I didn't have to go in!! HA!! Somethings never change.

19:13
I'm down to 1,999. 350 left if I am going for 1,500 plus 10%. Let's get to it :-)

20:09
I am sticking to 1,650 - I have 95 words to shave off.

21:39
It is done - well, it wasn't JUST about shaving off words, it was also about rewriting to lose those words. 1,650 done and dusted for now :-)

I shouldn't complain, I know - but unsurprisingly, I am finding 1984 a drag.  I have been on this a week, but realistically  it has been split time in between finishing the creative writing homework and attending college (there was also an evening out that I couldn't get out of - enjoyable as it was, it took me straight off track).  Just as Wuthering Heights before it, this is in another nemesis - another beast to slay.  It is looking a LOT better than it was,but I have a lot of judicial editing, which will include sentence rearranging and a lot of paragraph meshing to do.

I have set myself the deadline of midnight tomorrow - in actual fact I really want to be done way before that.  I am also having a peek at Microsoft Publisher for my newspaper report.  I will have to get to grips with that pretty soon and I have a feeling a trip to see the tecky-minded boys from two floors up won't come amiss.

20:34
Things are slightly better.  I am down to understanding what I have to say about the lexis area of the essay - of which Oceania has its own - Newspeak.  Also, it won't be long before I will be commenting on word classification (verb/noun etc.) and seeing what effect it has on the essay.  I will then sum up the overall effect (frickn grim and bleak springs to mind) and my reader response (now thoroughly depressed).  This hydra head is going on and on (I actually do think of this degree as being one great big Lernaean Hydra and the golden sword at the end is the final scroll), but I think I am at least 3/4s done.  Yay to me :-)

22:41
I was mistaken in my assumptions that I am 3/4 through. I haven't even touched the phonological sides yet (alliterations, plosives, fricatives et al), nor the figurative language (similies and metaphors etc.), nor the cacophonic language (there is sure as hell no euphonic language, I can tell you!!).  I have made the notes on it for now i.e. the lines and where they are in the text for tomorrow. I am at least 700 words over, if not more and as I have said, I am not done yet.

*sigh* tomorrow is another day :-/

When I read 1984 in 1984, I was sixteen years old as part of my 'O' level English (now renamed GCSEs). For reasons known to myself, I was not able to finish the course and the book has been on my conscience ever since.  I have an interested in dystopian societies and even as a young adult, I was drawn back to this book.  When I was asked to find a book that would convey 'Sense of Place,' I went back to 1984 as it is the perfect book that conjures up a bleak impoverished police state. I am stuck and have spent hours trying to get unstuck on this.  Mostly it is about too much to say in too little time.

I have a framework to follow and I am only about halfway down the discourse - I have blown 1,100 words already on a 1,650 limit and I am not even half way through.  I have until Friday, but in reality I have only got til tonight to get most of it done.  Tomorrow is taken up by another assignment, that in theory shouldn't take long - but in practice may just swallow up two days.  I am at college the day after that and have an engagement in the evening that I can't get out of.  This leaves me Thursday to get it done.  Another assignment is on hold, simply because I haven't had the time, but the deadline was a little more flexible. Yet another is pending soon after.

One may argue as to why I am on here - good question.  I am on a break because I have drawn a blank. I have a very personal reason to see the back of this - it is 30 years ago exactly that I had to walk away from my education.  I need to slay this Hydra.  I remember having a similar problem this time last year re Wuthering Heights - somehow I managed to get through it, but the marks weren't as good as I had hoped.

*bangs head on desk* - OK - back to work.



(Music = relevent)

Just before Christmas I posted a photo of Newlyn harbour with the waves well over the wall.  This is the footage of the actual wave - you have to realise that these quays are huge, so the report of a massive sea swell and thirty foot waves is not just extreme hyperbole. Think the second shot is Penzance harbour - but you get the gist.

We have been through quite an intermittent, but lairy hail/thunderstorm that keeps knocking the electric out.  It certainly thumped on our cottage, which juddered slightly under the impact.  Not ideal when I am running behind on my coursework and the blackout are screwing with the pc.  Learnt by this mistake and I power the pc down when the clouds darken again.  I have heard that there has been extensive flooding in St Ives and Looe, more weather due tonight and tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I am going to spend my time working on my 1984 Sense of Place essay.

EDIT :::: Damned storm has killed out satellite dish.  No signal at all - strange as Hubby was clearing the gutter earlier between storms and the dish looked perfectly fine :-(