Category: Communication

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

I recently read your article about teenagers of this current age and their inability to create meaningful relationships with adults due to the digital advances these days. I would firstly like to congratulate you on a very in depth article. In your article you stated that because of the advances of online socialising, teenagers are less able to communicate face to face. Another thing is you stated in your article is that according to John Henley, teenagers are growing up with social media sites such as Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. He also said that these sites are making them grow up with texting and sexting. The claims made by the novelist Jonathan Franzen asked a teenage girl how many times do you tweet a day, and I quote ‘About 250 times a day or something’ are ridiculous. I totally agree with you Samantha and I believe these allegations are completely false as the people who have made these accusations are completely misrepresenting teenagers and saying that every teenager who acts in this way and manner, or puts themselves in danger when visiting these social media sites, is completely false.

Before I address what I need to in the title Clive Thompson branded teenagers ‘uniquely shallow’. I feel as though this is a very derogatory term to be using towards teenagers because, especially with teenagers because it enhances the sense of injustice being placed onto teenagers already in this day and age.

You said that that teenagers are unable to create meaningful relationships due to digital advances but these advances are caused by the adults of this generation and their advances in the 20th Century an example being the first mobile phone and computers. During the course of your article it seemed as though people were pointing the finger at teenagers for not being able to create relationships and I agree to a certain extent. If you take a look around these days especially in the UK it seems as though everything is being controlled digitally London is an internet hub, so for kids who have grown up in London all they would have known is technology and nowadays with Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook the world is evolving the way teenagers communicate is through social media that is how they create their relationships the most common way is through texting. Logically people portray teenagers as not being able to tell the difference between meaningful relationships and and casual relationships but I believe that teenagers are victims of our developing world and that it is in their nature and this habit has been cultivated because of their surroundings.

This leads me onto my next point of privacy on social media websites. Websites such as instagram and Facebook use privacy settings but I agree that teenagers are too relaxed with putting personal details onto websites. I feel as though teenagers are being deceived by these websites because the websites say your details will never be known they automatically believe them but as we know it is not all true. Recently hackers hacked  celebrities and leaked photos, this shows that even though they thought their photos were safe it was possible for people to access them, this shows that for all the information and photos teenagers post it is possible all their personal information can be leaked. I feel that instead of criticising teenagers we should put much more stricter measures in place to stop these kind of acts happening.

Everyone that has subjected teenagers in derogatory way needs to realize that teenagers are victims of a world that is constantly evolving. Everything that these writers have said about teenagers I strongly disagree with we need to stop putting so much pressure on teenagers and focus on changing what is happening around teenagers, as these are the thing that effect them.

Thank you for taking time out to read this letter and hopefully we can make the world a easier place for teenagers to live. It is important for us to address these misconceptions.

Yours Sincerely,

Isaac Bernard

Should tuition fees be reduced so that all British Citizens can access further education?

Isaac Bernard

Everyone has a dream and most people has a plan on how to reach their dream for most people this is going to university to get a qualification in whatever path they choose to venture in this could be medicine or business and the list goes on. The government claim to want more people to go to university and get a job but this won’t happen because of the rise in tuition fees they have risen from £3,000 to £9,000 and I feel this is a staggering figure for people to be paying to go to university, the reason I feel that it is such a high figure is because they are the ones missing out on university.If they do go university they will live their whole lives struggling topaying off their debts.In 2013 an independent study was carried was carried out and it is estimated that because of the rise in fees 30,000 people have been put off from going to univeersity also in the study it is said that tuition fees are averaging at £8,000 per year.University should be accessable to all British Citizens, regardles of their economic circumstances.

Studies show that in England alone the rate of not going to university has dropped 6.8% and if the government doesn’t do anything this figure will keep on dropping.Staying on topic of how tuition fees affect students, there is only one type of people that will lose out and this is the underprivileged that work hard every day and try to get the best possible education and make decent income when they are older.If these type of people are losing out on university then I believe that this will have a devastating effect on the UK economy, and as a country we will all be affected by this.On the other hand if these people take out a student loan the would spend the rest of their lives trying to pay it of. This could mean that they would struggle to make ends meat and also provide for their families as they would like to. There have been many campaigns by students who claim putting them into debt isn’t the way to fund a higher education system, and I rightly and strongly agree with them.

It was just the other day that I was speaking to a young man who had missed the opportunity to go to university because of tuition fees and is now actively looking for a job. Due to me meeting him I felt that I should probe more and ask him a question and get a first hand view on this situation.I asked him,“How has your life changed because you couldn’t afford university”?. And his reply was “He was not angry at anyone for not letting him go to university, but he was just frustrated at the lack of support for people like him who don’t come from a privileged background’’. People who can’t afford university are put to the side in the sort of case their is no equality between the rich and the poor and I think the government need to act quickly and put something in place. The government should put more emphasis on using mean tests which is, a way of checking whether a family is able to support themselves financially or whether they need government support. By doing this I feel that it bridges the equality gap and brings the two wealth groups closer together.

So today the outline of my message is that I want everyone from all walks of life old and young, rich or poor  to come together and tell the government how you feel because I believe just because you’re not wealthy enough to go to university that should not affect the rest of your life and how you provide for your children and I think that the government are not sticking to their word and don’t care about these citizens that are losing out. So what I want to do is hold a peaceful protest tell the government how you feel so that they can help these people. By doing this in a civilised manner we can get our message across.

I know together we can all strive to change the way the education system is run and put something in place so that we get  these people in university so they can provide for their kids so that they can get the UK economy moving again and the most important of all give them the hope and belief that they can achieve their goals. Thank you for listening and I know together we can make the dreams of people come true.

In Frankenstein and the Tempest the theme of power and control is present throughout the duration of both the novels. Frankenstein is about a man called Victor and his passion for science and how it led him to wanting to mimic God and bring dead bodies back to life. The author of Frankenstein was Mary Shelley who was born in 1797, Shelley had a very turbulent childhood as her mother died days after giving birth to Shelley. Shelley meet the poet Percy Bysshe Shelly who was already married. In 1816 Shelley and Percy spent the summer in Geneva in this time Shelley began writing Frankenstein. Later that year Percy’s wife died, and he married Shelley. In the years 1818 and 1819 both of Shelley’s two young children die Shelley was devastated. But then in 1822 Percy Shelly’s husband drowned Shelley was heartbroken. Shelley died in the year 1851. It is said that Shelley used some of her tragedies to inspire her to write Frankenstein. During the time Shelley was writing Frankenstein it was the era of the Romantic Movement even though Frankenstein can be recognized as a Gothic text there are significant connections between Shelley’s work and the Romantic Movement. To define correctly it was a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilization; “Romanticism valued imagination and emotion over rationality”

The author of the tempest was William Shakespeare. The most common theory of what inspired Shakespeare to create the tempest, was that of a true life of a shipwreck in the Bahamas 1609. The sea venture the main ship of the Virginia Company which was carrying settlers to Jamestown located in Virginia. Two months into the trip the ship was caught in a hurricane similar to that of the storm (in the play), the captain and 150 people were the only survivors of the hurricane. 

In Frankenstein the main character is Victor Frankenstein and the novel revolves around him and his love of science, in particular bringing dead bodies back to life. Bringing dead bodies back to life links to the Aldini experiment which involved getting a dead body and sending electrical volts through the dead body and the intended results would be to activate the nerves and muscles and in turn the body should twitch.   

In this essay I will be exploring power and control is presented in these novels, I will also be exploring how the characters present power and control. Power is the ability to direct or influence the behaviour of other people around you or to be able to change the course of certain events. When people have power they will also most likely have control too because these two themes are very similar in the sense that they both evoke that feeling of superiority. In the tempest the themes of power and control are ever present in the character Prospero, these are present because he already possesses power and this is amplified by when he attempts to seek revenge on his brother and kill him in the storm. 

 In act 1 scene 2 the theme of power is the most prominent theme and this is shown through the relationship of Ariel and Prospero after Prospero had sent Ariel to cause a storm and kill Prospero’s brother king Antonio in act 1 scene 1 as Prospero was seeking revenge.

 In Ariel and Prospero’s relationship it is obvious that Prospero is the leader in the relationship he seems to crave the position as leader. Ariel is humble to Prospero and follows prospers every command. This is shown after Ariel returns back to Prospero after causing the storm in act 1 scene 1. ‘All hail, great master, grave sir, hail!’ also Ariel says ‘to answer thy best pleasure, be it to fly to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds; to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his qualities.

As soon as Ariel returns to Prospero he is already worshiping Prospero. I feel that Shakespeare has done this on purpose as in order to make sure that the reader automatically sees Prospero in a bad light as this is the first time the reader would actually be introduced to Prospero. In this sentence Shakespeare has already portrayed Prospero as a bully, the most distinctive words in this sentence are all hail by saying all hail Shakespeare has already cemented Prospero as the superior to Ariel. The type of power that Shakespeare has used is that of a hierarchy and the idea of superiority. After Ariel has welcomed Prospero he immediately offers to do jobs for Prospero despite Prospero not asking Ariel to do anything for him. Shakespeare has sort of shown Ariel in the light that he might be a bit scared of Prospero and wishes to please his master in anyway so he immediately offers to do jobs for Prospero. This shows apart from the power that Prospero has, the immense control he has because Ariel is offering to do a wide range of things such as diving into fire and has no consideration of what his actions might do to others, due to Prospero’s control over him. In certain ways it seems as if he puts Prospero before himself and will never question Prospero but the reason for this might be because of the way Shakespeare has created the character Ariel. He’s created Ariel as a character that has ability but that sees Prospero as a character that is a parent figure.

In act 1 scene 2 we see a contrast in the hierarchy system implemented in the tempest this happens when we are introduced to a slave that lives on the island called Caliban. Caliban is a slave faced with the concept of old world versus the new world. Because Caliban is from new world he is easier to manipulate because Prospero is from the Old world and because of this Prospero is able to take full advantage of Caliban.

“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself. Upon thy wicked damn, come forth!”. The language that Prospero uses towards Caliban is much more cynical than that of what she uses towards Ariel. This is because Prospero Knows that Caliban has hate toward her and that Caliban has no fear over the power that Prospero possesses. Prospero uses ‘come forth’ to Caliban. This is a very assertive term to be using and compared to the way Prospero was speaking to Ariel.

In Frankenstein the first major moment that made Victor discover his passion for science was in Chapter 2 when lightning struck the tree outside Victor’s house. He witnesses the destructive power of nature when, during a raging storm, lightning destroys a tree near his house.

‘As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak tree which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished the oak had disappeared, an nothing remained but a blasted stump. 

Shelley describes the tree as dazzling and beautiful but then in a second this beautiful tree was absolutely decimated by the lightning. Shelley describes the demise of the tree as a very violent one, as to let what seems to the reader as the minimal demise of the tree, to be a big one. It is this sudden change in the form of the tree and the ruthless power nature had over the tree that gave him the interest in discovering what lies between life and death. A philosopher that specializes is nature and the natural world happened to be with victor and his family at that time and he explained to victor the concept of electricity. This is the moment where a spark goes off in victors head and because Shelley used words that carry forms of imagery such as dazzling it strengthens the thought of the immeasurable power that Victor has conjured up in his mind and how this power can create or destroy life. 

In chapter 5 of Frankenstein victor has escalated rapidly from a boy that was innocently passionate about learning more about science but he is attempting to create life from dead bodies. At the beginning of chapter 5 we meet Victor and he has just finished creating the creature using the best human dead parts. It is 1 am in the morning and this shows that Victor dedicated to his work and that it has lead him to depriving him of sleep. Shelley has included Victor bringing bodies back to life using electricity because in the time she was writing Frankenstein there was a man named Giovanni Aldini and he publically tried to bring parts of bodies together stitch them up and create one body.

‘His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! — Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black

‘For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room’

By trying to create life artificially and to destroy death itself, Victor rises against natural laws, which have been ruling the world for millions of years. He thinks that these laws are not immutable and indeed he seems to be right, as he successfully creates the monster. But even if he does manage to reach a God-like level or to acquire God-like powers, he doesn’t have any God-like knowledge or experience or responsibility. When he sees his monster or should I say, ‘his creation, he is afraid, tries to run away and to forget him. He will never try to care for him not to love him, nor will he feel a strong responsibility towards what we can call his son. Shelley describes the creature’s features as to be the best dead body parts yet as Victor finds out for the first time is that you cannot always control nature and play god and this is evident when he sees his creation for the first time. The creatures features are described to be beautiful and the creature is said to have ‘lustrous black hair’ Shelley has used imagery to make the reader think that the creature was beautiful but then she twists the plot then portrays the creature as grotesque this amplifies that it is not possible for humans to try and overcome nature.

In act 2 scene 2 we meet the characters Stephano and Trinculo and Stephano is drunk and is swinging a bottle of wine in his hand. Stephano meets Caliban and Caliban is scared because Ariel has been tormenting him. Stephano offers Caliban a drink of the liquor he is drinking and Caliban accepts the drink and he worships Stephano because he enjoys the liquor as he has never had anything like it before.

‘These be fine things, and if they be not sprites. That’s a brave God, and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him.

Caliban calls the liquor celestial liquor, the word celestial means something that does not exist on the earth but only in heaven this is how highly Caliban thinks of the liquor. The reason Shakespeare has added Celestial liquor is because it is because it was only available in the old world and Caliban is from the old world so it links together. Because of this Caliban is trying to offer himself as an offering to Stephano. The Celestial liquor is presented as power because even though it is an inanimate object it has control over Caliban.

In chapter 9/10 of Frankenstein Victor has just had a Breakdown and he goes to the Swiss Alps to clear his mind. When he gets there he experiences the Sublime, the sublime is something of very great excellence or beauty. By experiencing the Sublime Victor clears his mind of the creature and he get lost in the nature.

In both of these plays there are contrasting effects of power, in the end of Frankenstein Victor dies after seeking power and control but then Prospero gives up his power and control and frees Ariel because he notices that him seeking power will get him nowhere.

Everyone has a dream and most people have a plan. For most people this is going to university to get a qualification in whatever path they choose to venture in, this could be medicine or business and the list goes on. The British government claim to want more people to go to university and get a job but this won’t happen because of the rise in tuition fees which have risen from a staggering £3,000 to £9,000. I feel this is a distressing figure  people will be forced to pay to have a successful career.In 2013 an independent study was carried out and it is estimated that because of the rise in fees. 30,000 people have been put off from going to university also in the study it is said that tuition fees are averaging at £8,000 per year.

Studies show that in england alone the rate of not going to university has dropped 6.8% and if the government doesn’t do anything this figure will keep on dropping.Just staying on the figure of tuition fees rising there is only one type of people that will lose out and this is the underprivileged that work hard every day and try to get the best possible education and make decent income when they are older.If these type of people are losing out on university then I believe that this will have a devastating effect on the uk economy because these people are the people of the future . on the other hand if these people take out a student loan the would spend the  rest of their lives trying to pay it of. this could mean that they would struggle to make ends meat and also provide for their families  as they would like to.

It was just the other day that I was speaking to a young man who had not gone to university because of tuition fees and he is now looking for a job and i asked him only one question and that was “how has your life changed because you couldn’t afford university”. And his reply was “I am not angry at anyone for not letting me go to university but i am just frustrated at the lack of support for people like me who don’t come from a privileged background instantly people who can’t afford university are put to the side in the sort of case their is no equality between the rich and the poor and i think the government need to act quickly and put something in place”.

So today the outline of my message is that I want everyone from all walks of life old and young, rich or poor  to come together and tell the government how you feel because I believe just because you’re not wealthy enough to go to university that should not affect the rest of your life and how you provide for your children and i think that the government are not sticking to their word and don’t care about these citizens that are losing out. So what I want to do is hold a peaceful protest tell the government how you feel so that they can help these people.

I know together we can all strive to change the way the education system is run  and put something in place so that we get  these people in university so they can provide for their kids so that they can get the uk economy moving again and the most important of all give them the hope and belief that  they can achieve their goals. Thank you for listening and I know together we can make peoples dreams come true.

Creative writing

It was a dark and dreary evening, the faint sound of rain hitting the window pane was all that could be heard. It was very murky. This place was a small and relatively unknown village. During the day this village seemed to be alive with a flurry of people coming to the market stalls to get any goods, you would also see the odd one or two children running around the stalls and causing commotion. Despite this in the evening this village seemed like a death valley, there was always a dead silence as if a heavy burden had been placed on the village not even the animals made a noise the dogs didn’t bark nor did the birds tweet. This village was home to the small population of 1,000 people. In this village everyone knew each other  so the slightest glimpse and chatter of a stranger would spread like wildfire.

In the middle of this village situated next to the biggest market stall there was a small house. Surrounding this house was a flurry of small little market stalls. Right beside this house there was a small alleyway and sitting in the alleyway was a young man with blond hair and a tanned complexion right beside him was a young women with long brown hair and with frosty eyes that could make anyone freeze in their tracks. The rain was beating down on them but it seemed they didn’t have a care in the world as they gazed into each others eyes.

“Why do you have to leave?”she said passionately.

“Is it because my father threatened to behead you”. Her father was the leader of the village he was  a very proud and pompous man. She didn’t have any vicious feelings towards her father but she had never been close to her father there was no particular reason why but they showd no emotion towards each other.

“No its because I am not a citizen of this village i’m just a farmer that happened to be walking through this village and I fell in love with the kings daughter its not possible for me to live the life that you live i’m not accepted by your father our relationship would be frowned upon by the people of this village”.

The mood had darkened their smiles had now turned to frown.

“Then I will come with you to your farm, anywhere you go I will go to”. The man stared intently at the girl he didn’t say a word he simply nodded.

No one noticed them as they made the way towards the gate, the girl looked back at the tower where her father would be deep in sleep she couldn’t help but shed a tear, this was her home but tomorrow she would have a new home. As they opened the gates a new life was in store for the girl and the man as the waked of, the sun started to rise their silhouettes becoming less potent as they rode off into the distance.