Factors leading to the change of the way Emily deals with her children.

The main factors that prompted this change would be the deaths of Richard and her husband, Kheong.

Richard’s death was “the worst shock of [Emily’s] whole life”. In fact, she never quite recovered from it as seen from her delirious recollections of Richard’s childhood days in her old age. She never openly admits it but she is fully aware of the part that she played in his death, implicitly acknowledging that her good intentions were not conveyed in the appropriate manner.

When Kheong died, he made it very clear that he did not want to see Emily at his deathbed. It is apparent that he has had enough of her cold, matriarchal presence. When she sough comfort in “that whore”, Diana Lee, rather than fight for her man, she is more concerned with keeping up appearances and establishing her competence as his wife and mistress of Emerald Hill.

However, this compounds the case against Emily as a monstrous figure who drives people to their graves while bearing hatred against her misplaced love. These two events made her assess her and the way she deals with those closest to her. Through them, she realizes that only a change could bring warmth and her family back into her life.

In addition, the fact that Doris broke down and cried over the phone was the catalyst that made Emily pause and think before she launched into her usual manipulative diatribe against her distraught daughter, curbing herself and turns nurturing instead.

Theme of Change brought out in the play

There are many instances where the theme of change is brought out in the play, encompassing factors that involved the characters, setting and plot devices – change in Emily’s character, change in the social status of Emily and the change in the physical surroundings of Emerald Hill.

The most obvious, which is highlighted in this passage is Emily’s change of character. We see Emily transform from the sweet and innocent “little lady” when she first married into the household knowing nothing of the ways in the world of Emerald Hill, to the manipulative despotic matriarch that drive her son to his grave and estranged her husband. After that, here the metamorphosis goes through another cycle and she becomes a caring, nurturing old lady who is weary from her daily battles and resolved to treat people around her with respect.

Urbanization is another way in which the theme of change is brought out. The once glorious sprawling estate that was Emerald Hill is slowly whittled away by urban renewal and by the end; Emily finds her house cornered on all sides by “block of flats” and “traffic rattling and rapping”. The encroachment of flats and roads symbolizes the wearing down of tradition, both of Emerald Hill and Perenakan culture and is starkly juxtaposed with the grand old matriarch sitting all alone in her mansion with her memories.

The process of modernization is often mentioned in the text as well. At her first Chinese New Year at the Emerald Hill, Emily played the game of tradition and modernity in order to get her sisters-in-law and her husband’s siblings to kneel down to her. Though she claimed to be “so old-fashioned”, she was ahead of her time as a young woman who has ambition and wants to have influence over more than just the kitchen. She also has plans for her Richard to be ahead of his time, taking up horse-riding and polo, enrolling him in the most prestigious local school and sending him for an overseas education in London. In addition, she dabbles in more than her hair share of the household chores, planning for her husband, and indirectly her own sphere of influence. But ironically, in spite of her progressive ways, she is undone by her own machinations and ends up being left behind by the times, caught up in days that are long gone and forced to spend her twilight years alone.

These are some of the ways that the theme of change is emphasized in the text, making it one of the crucial foci of this fluid and multi-faceted play.

Emily’s relationship with Doris and her relationship with Richard

Richard has always held the prized position in Emily’s heart, first as the first-born son, and secondly, as her claim to power, privilege and status in Emerald Hill. She doted on him when he was a child and made sure that he had everything planned for him: from his schooling at the exclusive Anglo-Chinese School, to his university education in “a famous college in London”, to the job he will be getting at Mr. Chan’s law firm when he returns from his studies. However, it is ironic that it is exactly this smothering and domineering kind of ”love” that drives Richard away from her. He attempts to escape her influence when he is in London by running away from university to pursue his dreams in Salisbury but is stopped by Emily. The destructive relationship met a tragic end when Richard takes his own life.

Doris held a more humble position in the beginning as girls probably would in those times. Ironically, Emily treated Doris with the same kind of disdain as she herself was accorded as a child. Not much mention was made of her at all, other than her idle chatter about her dance classes, implying her lack of importance to Emily, especially when juxtaposed with her incessant mention of Richard and his antics.

However, that changes after Richard’s death. Emily changes her tone and learns to respect her children’s wishes, offering support instead of commands and threats. Strangely, letting go pulls Doris closer to her and Emily eventually receives a card from a much more stable Doris who confesses that “Especially, most of all” she misses her mother – Emily.

Unseen poetry

Unseen poetry requires one to have vast knowledge, imagination and a logical set of thinking to be able to uncover the underlying metaphoric meanings of literal words. What is difficult is, when the literal words are complicated to a point that you really don't know what it is referring to, then I guess it is of no choice but to use pure imagination. Many a times poems have 'random' phrases which totally doesn't make sense in the poem, so how does one goes about dealing with it?

War Poetry

More than any other conflict, the Great War inspired writers of all generations and classes, most notably among combatants. Most of the war poetry was composed before World War 2, mainly during World War 1 and the Spanish-Civil War. The war's poets are chiefly celebrated today, although much outstanding prose work was also produced by poets such as Sassoon, mainly the form of personal memoir.

Many poets of World War I were soldiers whom wrote about their experiences of war. Some of them took pride in their war and proclaimed it as "glorifying", while others had utter disapproval and hatred for it. Many of them had perished in the horrifying and dreadful war, most famously Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg, Wilfred Owen, and Charles Sorley. There were some survivals of war including Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon, but many had the black mark and 'curse of war' in them, together with regrets of war all reflected in their poems. Such was the attitude of many war poets.

There were lots of poems written by many war poets, be it popular ones or unknown poems, most of them were published in newspapers and then collected into anthologies. The popularity of the anthologies was on the high end when it was sold out to the public. One of the wartime anthologies was The Muse in Arms, published in 1917. There were also obvious distinction drawn between poets who were anti-war in attitude and those who wrote more traditional war poetry.

Is progress necessarily beneficial to the society?

Of course progress is necessary for the beneficial of the society, as you can see, if a country does not have much significant progress, the people will have low education, low sanitation, crimes will crop up, and hence the government will encounter great difficulties in solving all these social problems. Even if the people were poor and they do not create crimes, the places where they live will also be rural and all of which surrounds their living environment will be natural. That means the government will want to improve the economy of the countries by using these lands and the people living there will protest. So I think that the people should be first educated by people from the cities before the government will want to upgrade the area they live. A progress can be beneficial to the society if it was progressed in a systematic and flawless way. Otherwise, that so called "progress" may just end up being a progress to create more trouble for the society.