Eksamensstil A

Jeg er ikke lærer, men jeg synes dit essay er meget kort og meget redegørende. Den er skrevet med meget simpelt sprog (det er aldrig godt at lave sammentrækninger i skriftlige afleveringer!) og så er der enkelte stavefejl.

Egentlige ok analyser, men der mangler en struktur, men hvis du har været god i opgave 1, så tror jeg godt på en 7'er :P

ej, jeg synes, at det er et rigtig flot essay - du kan klart godt få 7 for det i mine øjne :)

Tak :) Plejer at få 10, men synes sgu ikke at første delprøve gik særligt godt.

Hvordan synes du der mangler struktur? :) der er da rimeligt tydelig indledning, kerne og afslutning

Meget pæn besvarelse, tror helt bestemt du har sikret dig et 7-tal, og det skulle ikke undre mig hvis du scorede et 10-tal. Også flot besvarelse af opgave B.

Mange tak LindDeluxe :)

Håber på at delen uden hjælpemidler ikke trækker alt for meget ned..

Truly - kan du lægge den ind i et andet format? kan ikke åbne det

Hmm heller ikke :s kan du kopiere det herind?

 A Journey
The short story “A Journey” by Colm Tóibín from the collection of novels “Mothers and Sons”, published in London in 2006, is a story about family-life, children growing up and handling with depression.
The short story is told by a third person narrator from the point of view of the mother. Likewise the narrator is a partly omniscient narrator, since the mother’s feel-ings and thoughts are described as the only character. Furthermore, the short story begins in-medias-res with a flashback, in which the mother, Mary, reminisces about the time when her son was a child. Throughout the story there are several flashbacks in which the mother is reminiscing.

The main characters in the short story are the mother, Mary, and her son, David. The protagonist of the short story is Mary. The mother is a very loving and caring person. In the time of the setting she is dealing with an ill husband and a son who is suffering from a depression. She therefore has to mentally establish herself to be able to cope with these things. She does this by reminiscing back to the times when things were easier, and she is remembering all the good memories. Although at times she is also in denial, as it can be interpreted from the following quotation, “She pre-tended to herself, as she spoke, that she and David had been having a casual con-versation for all of the journey.” (l.130-131). Because it is written that she pretends to herself, inclines that she is using a mechanism of defence to protect herself from the truth; that her son is ill.
The son on the other hand used to be a well-functioning child. In the time of the setting David is a determined young man of twenty. Even-though he seems deter-mined in the beginning of the short story, by not willing to speak to his mother, he goes through a development throughout the ride home. As the story goes by David’s mood changes from completely silence to speaking short sentences to his mother. This signifies his will to release himself from his depression. Though he has a nega-tive attitude at first by saying things such as “It was lousy. (...) All of it. It was lousy.” (l.98), he becomes more polite in the end of the story by answering “No. I’m all right” (l.138). Although this is only small progress, the narrator insinuates that more pro-gress will come. David’s progress could also be read in relation to the title, A Jour-ney, in which one can conclude that it is not only a physically journey from A to B. But it is likewise a mentally journey from ill to becoming healthy.

The setting of the short story takes place in a car on an empty street during the night. The fact that the story takes place during the night hints that something dark and unseen is taking place. There is no-one else on the road or in the car, so there is no-one to help either the mother or David. It is up to themselves to sort out their prob-lems.
The road has been described a wide road, whereas it used to be small and nar-row. It used to be a “hidden, almost guilty thing” (l.26). This empty road could symbol-ise David, as when he was smaller it was easier for his parents to know what to do, which is symbolised by the small, narrow road which used to be. Today the road is much wider, which hints at many more opportunities though also the possibilities of doing somethings wrong. David also used to be a ‘guilty’ child, because he – as well as all other children – pledge their guilt in wanting to experience the world. On the other hand, the “hidden, almost guilty things” could symbolise David’s depression, since it first appeared as he grew older. It is also narrated that, “there were fewer ac-cidents now, she [the mother] supposed.” (l.27). This quotation signifies that there are still things man would not look in the eye, accidents, but they are now harder to no-tice. This quotation is aimed at the depression.
Another important symbol in this short story is the name of the mother. The mother is called Mary, and it is told that she and her husband could not have a child, and when she finally became pregnant, she could not find any explanation to how it had happened. This refers to the Virgin Mary, who neither understood how she be-came pregnant with the baby Jesus. Virgin Mary was the mother of an important child and likewise is the Mary from “A Journey”.
To put the story into perspective one can look at Paul Mathey’s picture “Interior with Woman and Child” from circa 1890. In the picture you see a child looking sad, as he stands against a wall while his mother is in the room behind him working with some materials. Though the two characters are standing relatively close to each other there are no action between them. The boy is wearing black clothes and the wall behind him is plastered with dark-coloured flowers. On the other side, the mother is wearing a bright pink dress and behind her one can see the sun shining with bright yellow colours. This shows the opposites between the two people. As the child looks sad – and relatively bored – the mother does not seem to notice. In relation to “A Journey”, Mary neither notices her son’s depression until it has already appeared. They seem to have separate lives even-though they live under the same roof, like-wise did Mary not have much contact with her child in his late-childhood since he was staying at Mrs. Redmond’s house most of the time.
Andrew Sean Greer writes in “The Story of a Marriage” (2008) about his views upon marriage. One important thing in this extract is the repetition of the words “we think”. He writes: “We think we know the ones we love [...] We think we know them. We think we love them.” (Underlines added). By this he means that one can never truly know a person. As Mary never truly knew her son or his feelings. Though she thought he was healthy she could never imagine his inner thoughts or feelings. Greer continues by writing “But what we love turns out to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made...” In that same way, Mary assumes that her son has become well, and this is also why she is in denial in the car.

B.
One important flashback is in the very beginning of the story, where Mary reminisces to the time when her son was merely a young child. As mentioned earlier in the text, the flashbacks are used to describe how the mother is think-ing back to the times when the situation was better. But it is also a method used by the author to give the reader an insight to what had happened prior the time of the setting. It is also used to incline that there has been a change of development and flashbacks therefore try to explain which influences have in-terfered, or changed the development. In the case of the first flashback, it is a help to the reader to understand David’s situation. Furthermore, flashbacks are used in this story to emphasise the mother’s state of mind. It is written that she often dazes into dreaming of the past, in the form of flashbacks, because it is easier than concentrating about the present. An example of this can be seen in lines 51-58, in which she has just seen the moon and the narrator writes “She tried not to think (...) but random images of places in the past kept coming to her, and there was nothing she could do about them.” (l.51-53). This is fol-lowed by random settings of Mary’s past, which were better than the present she is living in. One final important flashback is lines 112-117 where Mary reminisces the time when she and Seamus were young. All flashbacks show happy episodes from Mary’s life. As Mary is becoming an elder woman, it is normal to reminisce and remember the good times and the long life one has had.

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Har du ikke angivet sidetallene på dansk? :) Skal det ikke være page(p) i stedet for s?

Når du bruger therefor, on the other hand, in addition to etc. skal de stå i starten af sætningen. Hvorfor skal - være der? pro-gress, symbol-ise, think-ing osv?

Synes der er en del sproglige fejl uden at de er alvorlige, men dine pointer og argumenter er gode så tror godt at du kan få syv for den. Fint observeret med Jomfru Maria, det havde jeg sgu ikke gennemskuet ;)

Youngmann- står der ikke bare tal? Hvis ikke så tror jeg altså ikke det har den store betydning :)

Jeg bruger da også therefore etc. i begyndelsen af sætningen? Men jeg synes godt jeg kan bruge det i midten, hvis jeg skal understrege en pointe...

Det med bindestregerne er fordi jeg har kopieret det, og der er linieskift i den originale tekst ;)

Hvilke sproglige fejl tænker du på? jeg nåede ikke helt at få rettet den igennem, inden den skulle afleveres, så det er nok derfor jeg har overset lidt :)

 Var jeg den eneste, der lagde mærke til en grammafejl i novellen ;) ?

Der, jeg mener du måske mangler struktur, er kun fordi jeg har opbygget stil, via en "model":

Indledning, plot description, character, setting, evt. noget relevant for teksten, temaer, perspektivering, konklusion

Synes bare din character/setting mangler, men det er måske bare mig :) .. Men det er bare min mening, og der er jo ikke en "model" der er facitliste :)

Katrine, bare rolig delprøve 1 tæller kun 1/5 del altså 20% eller deromkring, så du har skrevet en fin opgave tror også på sikkert 7 tal til dig :)

Kan godt følge dig i dine kritikpunkter Shamino..

Libnan- det er jeg glad for at høre! Troede faktisk at den talte noget mere..

 Libnan- hvordan synes du min er? :)

Fik det af vide igår inden vi skulle op, jeg tør nærmest ikke ligge min ud da jeg er nervøs for min grammatik,men fik 7 i års karakter og det plejer jeg at få i de her essays, men problemet er bare delprøve 1 selvom den ikke tæller tør jeg ikke gætte på hvad begge censorer tænker :P