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.

Giving up isn't actually harmful.

Wonder why I make a post about this? Simple. Through greed, people would always tend to grab the most valuable things they have and hold them as tight as possible and not let other people touch them. One strong evidence to support my statement: There are rich people who have got loads of money and don't know how to spend them, yet they doesn't donate to the poor and help them. Now in this case, its not all rich people that are like that, but maybe a portion of them. If they could be considerate and gone on to think: "It wouldn't cause me to live in poor condition even if I donated the excess money", then it would very well let a lot more people be saved from hunger and starvation due to lack of money to support their family. Since its excess, it would of course give no harm to the rich person. Its not an insist that rich people have to donate to the poor, instead it shows how we can actually help out one another when we actually needed help. It would of course be generous to donate money and be recognized as a donor and a hero to the poor people.

Another example that I discovered, is in a checker's game, whereby you try to conquer the opponent's chess piece. Sometimes you just simply cannot defend your pieces, but you have to sacrifice some of your pieces to save yourself. What does this tells us? It simply tells us that through the struggle for survival, good things may have to be forfeited and have to learn to adapt to the poorer kind of environment in life. There would be difficulties and various obstacles trying to get in your way, thus we should help ourselves by overcoming it; sacrificing some of the good things we have. In a situation whereby the house is on fire, we can't be grabbing all the valuables and run away for safety. This would very well prove that its actually a necessity at times whereby difficulties are met, some good ideas or plans have to be abandoned so that we could improve by adapting to it.

In conclusion, being decisive of your own choice of your own life will shape your own future.

Aren't those three animals disliked by one another?

Hey everyone,

Look at this picture... If you can't see clearly then take a closer look. If you still can't see then go to an optician. Well... Its only a rat, resting on a cat, which is standing on a dog! When I first came across this photo upon the net, the first thing which occurred on my mind is: "I thought they would start scratching and beat each other up." But this picture would certainly prove me wrong. Look at the cat who is standing on the dog, it looks pretty fine and the rat is simply relaxing on the cat! The dog was strolling along his master and didn't really bother about the animals up his back. What does this picture brings the message to me? And of course as readers you all would be amazed at how these three different types of animals which were known to be: Dog: "Hey cat I don't like you, I'm gonna chase you now and you better run; Cat: "Rat you are so puny and tiny yet you want to steal my owner's cheese, you deserve to be my meal!" Yes. That was what we were taught when we were young, as stories filled our innocent minds with the mindset that dogs would never get along with cats and cats never with rats.

Well, as readers you may be thinking, why am I posting such a post? Am I random and just feel bored? No, not really. I felt that I learnt from this picture, as long as you don't pick up a fight with someone, the fight would not occur even if he tries to start it. Let's state another example. If someone is persistent on something, like ideas he/she initiated or some point of views, we could actually not argue back about what you think his idea is wrong. The main point of my posting is to inform that accepting is part of a life skill. The dog did accept the cat as a friend, the cat accepted the rat as a friend. And now, why do many arguments and fights or disputes occur? The answer is simple. People do not accept what others may think. That's how today's society is like, with people disagreeing with one another and occasionally no one gives in to say they are at fault or confess whatever wrong which was done. Thus, being able to accept things from a different point of view and also accept other people's mistakes are of importance to avoid disputes and arguments. If animals could do it, why not the intelligent humans? Are we simply too intelligent that we live our own ways? No, its the matter whether you want to accept or not.

Feel free to comment, thanks! (:

Home-Learning

Poem analysis: Rainbow Death

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Hubert Wilson

In this poem, it speaks of a modern day ingredient of warfare that has caused appalling death and suffering – not only to its intended victims which are the Vietnamese people, but also to the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange” by absolute accidence. It shows that war is just too horrible a thing to be proud of and it should never even happen as countless innocent life’s that have nothing to do with the war were taken away each time a war wages. Children are born with defects due to the use of Agent Orange which is a chemical used in modern warfare.

Agent Orange is the code name for an herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD which was used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War.

According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. These were innocent citizens that had nothing to do with the war. However, the cruelty of war leads to their misery.

Although this poem looks short, it succeeded in conveying the main important message, that the war is horrible and full of un-glory

Because We Are Humans...

Hello everyone!

Its been awhile since I posted on this blog. What am I going to post now? Well, just happen to have it run through my mind, I'm gonna post about emotions! Yes, emotions. We are humans, thus we have emotions! Sounds a random idea to post? No, not really correct, it is a vital key to success.

A key to success is what everyone wants to achieve, but not achievable by everyone. One key factor is the human emotions. You might be wondering, "what are you posting.." well I guess its nothing too nonsensical though. Emotions is what everyone experiences everyday, every minute, and every second. When people are feeling good, they simply do things better with more efficiency. When people are down, stressed, pressurized, they tend to be 'inactive' in whatever they might be doing, meaning that they could not concentrate. At times like this, its where the 'successors' and 'non-successors' emerge. Those who would success would have a good grasp of situation, have a good lock on what they want and thus spring into action so as to overcome their troubles. A successor never gives up. How so? Because he has the strong will and determination, so much so that ill emotions does not affect what he wants to accomplish. Failing isn't the result of a failure, instead it is a result of a success in progress. Thus, people should not be dragged down by the fear of failing, it should be the other way round. Readers, remember two things. "Let no burdens burden you, make it work for you." and "Life is either a repetition of history or a new creation." These two quotes are from me, figure it out about how you could apply them in life.

Thank you for reading, I have come to the end of my post, hope you all had joy reading it (:
Note: Address any doubts by commenting.

Blog Post

Spatial / Visual

d. Design a civil rights movement poster for Maycomb.

This is the Civil Rights Movement poster I have come up with.

Interpersonal (Interview):

a. Conduct an interview with a friend (not from HCI) or family member. Find out from their point of view on prejudice and discrimination. Either record the interview or write out the interview transcript.

We shouldn't do it because it'll hurt the harmony between people and if it is on a large scale it might affect the country's harmony.

We wouldn't like being excluded just beccause we're not similar to the others, so we shouldn't do it to others. Hence, w

e should be fair to others just like how we want to be treated fairly, and we should try to maintain harmony in all aspects.

Personality Test

According to the survey results, I agree with the descriptions and the results.

Thus, I can be seen as an observant person and at the same time interpersonal.
Being observant is very important towards discovering new and creative ideas through observing the environment. Being interpersonal also means being able to understand how others feel, and thus could choose correct vocabulary while speaking to other people, and also not to offend other people because of the wrong choice of words.

While dinning...

Hello everyone!

Thank you for tagging and following my blog. (:

Back to the topic. Today's dinner was no more than a usual and everyday thing, except that something new and interesting happened. The situation is as follows:

A person went beside my father and asked if he could have the seat. (He was carrying his food)

My father agreed.

He was grateful and sat down eating his dinner.

Just as he was eating halfway, a man carrying a tray of food just walk to the opposite side of the table and sat opposite of the man eating his dinner. (The just-arrived man did not ask if he could take a seat)

The man eating was a bit surprised of course, having a total stranger to sit opposite of him without asking if he could.

The just arrived man ate a little, and started calling out to his other family members and wanted them to come over, but there aren't any seats, so he went over to them instead.

After a few minutes, another man came, and he was the same as the one previously who also sat opposite of him without asking if he could.

I took a look and i noticed the surprised look of the man who came first to eat.

So that was what actually happened. In my opinion, its courtesy if you would ask another person if he himself could take a seat to have his meal. Otherwise you would just surprise someone, even to the extend of having made that person have a bad impression about you or some other opinions that wouldn't be of anything nice. If he is a nice person he would just keep quiet and continue his meal. Honestly I don't like people sitting beside or opposite me if he or she didn't ask, as I would be interrupted abruptly while having my meal.

Some of you may share your point of view, is it a necessity to ask if you could have a seat or you can just take a seat without asking? Do comment, thank you. (:

New Blog, New Posts, New Look

Hi everyone,

This is my new blog for Language Arts. I shall be posting interesting pictures and videos, and of course more and frequent posts to be made. Don't worry, posts wouldn't be plain and short, instead the opposite. One more feature to the posting, there would be efforts to make the post look better and much more content with good vocabulary! (I shall try my best, even if I failed to do so, I still tried my best (: ) I would like to say a thank you beforehand to those who would comment and those comments which are constructive (No short forms or vulgarities please. As this is a LA blog, standard English are to be maintained. There shouldn't be vulgarities of course..) Hope to see constant comments on posts and a tag board which is alive! I can't guarantee this but i can promise all of you that you can at least learn something useful and knowledgeable from my posts!

Note: If I have typo error do notify me, thank you (: