Funny Games - Analysis

Paul and Peter are two young drug-addicts with sadistic and violent tendencies who rob and torture rather wealthy families in their holiday residences.

Mr. Pitt (Paul), blue-eyed and baby-faced, appears to be the calm, ironical alpha predator, while Mr. Corbet (Peter), acting skittish and high-strung, looks like the weaker, crazier one. But that might just be part of the game they and Mr. Haneke are playing, since the whole point of Peter and Paul is that they function without identifiable motive or affect.
- Movie review - 'Funny Games' - Funny Games (2007), The New York Times, Site


The two young men's approach on the main robbery in the movie, is that they pretend to live with a family nearby. Some time later Peter knocks on the door asking for some eggs. He keeps talking his way out of leaving and at some point Paul shows up. When the father of the family, George slaps Paul, Peter knocks him down with a golf club, breaking his legs. The two then capture the whole family and starts playing sadistic games with them.

The film begins with a loving family - George Farber, his wife Ann, his son Georgie and their dog, arriving at their lake house. Their next-door neighbor, Fred is seen with two young men, Peter and Paul, who seem to be their friends or relatives. The two young men come over to borrow eggs. Ann is in the kitchen cooking while George and Georgie are outside by the lake, tending to their boat. They seem friendly, and they use Georges golf club. When the men depart with the eggs they soon return with them broken. After asking for more eggs which also end up broken, Ann becomes frustrated, but when George tries to force the men to leave, Peter breaks George's leg with the golf club and they take the family hostage

- Funny Games (2007), IMDb, Site

Overall throughout the movie Paul keeps talking about the entertainment value of the movie. He breaks the so called "fourth wall" of the movie multiple times by looking at the camera and talking to the audience. This raises focus on the fact that scary movie and horror movies entertain us by showing the pain and suffering of fictional characters.

"Michael Haneke’s Funny Games is a film that is seemingly at war with itself and its genre. Though ostensibly falling into the category of ‘thriller’, Funny Games both fulfills and resists the expectations raised by such a label, shattering not only convention, but the sense of security we feel in knowing that it is all ‘just a movie’."
- Film Epidemic, Joel, Joel's blog

Ending of "Rendezvous" by Daniel Ransom

KIM
At first she feels intimidated and scared, because the strange man looks like a bit of a criminal, but as he is introducing himself and kindly asking to where she is going, she decides to trust him in bringing her home. When she gets in the car the loud drums have faded in to a soft saxophone. She likes it and she feels safe in the embracement of the gentle sound. As they ride down the road Kim decides to talk to him, just to know that he isn't some kind of psychopath.

PAYTON
As Payton drives down along the interstate with the young girl in the car, he feels quite sure about his catch. Everything is going according to the plan he has executed so many times before. She is quite a catch he thinks, but at the same time, he thinks about the priests words. Deep down he knows, that the priest is right. He is enraged by his hesitation, but can't stop thinking about change. Change for good. It only gets worse when she tries to talk to him. "Where do you come from", she says. Payton has always hated making contact to his victims, but this time is different. They talk for a while, and as Payton get to know Kim as her name is, he starts to regret picking her up and thereby seal her fate. The music have stopped, and so has Payton's will to go through with the plan. For the whole trip he can't get himself to drive off the road and do what he had decided to. When he finally arrives at the girls house, her parents come running out. They must have been worried. Payton drives away fast without saying a word, partly ashamed, partly relieved. He decides to visit the priest again.

Articles about bullying - Compare the two writers intensions

In "PM's wife crusades against bullies", Kamal Ahmed starts the article by writing about Cherie Booth receiving a letter from the mother of a bully-victim. Kamal explains the situation and Cherie's reaction from a third-person perspective. Where in the article "Together, we can beat the bullies" we are told the story from Cherie Booth's point of view. She explains her own reaction and dismay to her newfound knowledge and she furthermore explains her decision to act against bullying.

In general Kamal's way of writing about the topic is very objective and cold. Not to think that Kamal is a cold person but the way his article is written is very observing and doesn't involve any personal feelings. That is one of the largest differences between the two articles, because Cherie Booth writes with her own thoughts and emotions in her pen and she relates very subjective to the topic itself.

The content of the articles also differ very much from one another. In Kamal Ahmed's article, the main subject is Emma's situation and it's actually only the first few lines that is about Cherie Booth. Also the only way that we know that Cherie Booth is doing something to prevent bullying is from the title of the article. Lastly in Kamal's article we are met with a few well-known people that have also been bullied as a child. In Cherie Booth's article the main subject is bullying in general and how to save the tormented children.

/Oliver

Analysis of "The History Teacher", by Billy Collins

18-09-2013

Using the tools "Fiction: How to read a poem", from my english book "Contexts"

1) The speaker in the story is not described or told about in any way and it is therefore very difficult to attach a name or character to him. However we can exclude some instances. It is not the teacher himself neither one of the children in the class due to him telling about them in third person. The speaker also knows what the teacher is thinking: (wondering if they would believe that soldiers in the Boer War told long, rambling stories, designed to make the enemy nod off).

2)   We don’t hear about the speaker’s background.

3) The speaker is describing the history teacher’s method of teaching as misinformative. The speaker thinks that the children should of course be spared for horrible details but that they should learn the real stories over fake ones that make the world seem like a bed of flowers. Because that is a part of growing up. Learning that the world also has problems to deal with. While the teacher is only acting in good will, the speaker thinks that he is a little delusional.

4) The speaker is speaking in a bit of an accusing tone.

5) The poem is about a history teacher that teaches the children mild versions of horrible  historical events.

6) He doesn’t think, as I mentioned before, that the teacher’s way of introducing the children to these historical events is as precise, good or informative as they should be.

7) As of having mentioned a lot about the situation and tone previously I will talk a bit about the subject matter in my theory of the poem’s negative way of describing the history teacher. There is one bit from the poem that I think is good to have included as subject matter: (The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses). This suggest that the children aren’t learning enough about reality, and instead of learning how to act and work together in the modern day society, they just leave his class not knowing about consequences in life and how to deal with them.

8) The language in the poem is pretty simple. It’s the kind of language you use on a daily basis. There are no complex words and it’s all in all just a laid-back writing style.

9) The stanzas in the poem are built up in a pretty simple pattern that consists of stanzas with two, four and six lines. The pattern is like this:
4-2-4-2-4-6
Other than that there is no particular shape.

10) There are six stanzas in this poem.

11) This poem doesn’t really rhyme.

12) As said before there isn’t a particular rhythm in this poem

13) The poem tells the story of a teacher who want to protect his students’ innocence from some of the horrible events in history. So he tells less intimidating versions of the stories and thereby he accidentally damages them by not teaching them about consequences and punishment for actions.

14) The theme in the poem is growing up. The teacher wants to protect the children innocence by leaving the horrible stories out of their reach, and the speaker indirectly thinks that they should learn more about the horrors in the world to help them mature.

15) The theme in the poem is developed in three steps.
1. We are presented to the way the teacher tells the stories and that he is doing it to protect the children’s innocence.

2. We find out that after the teacher's class the children go out and pick on the other kids, and there we find out that by protecting their innocence he failed to teach them that consequences follows action and that you cant just do whatever you would like to.

3. Lastly, we learn that the teacher is blind to the fact that he isn’t helping the children more than he is damaging them, when he walks casually home thinking of new things to tell them.

16) The only poem I have read that is a bit similar to “The History Teacher” is a poem called “If freckles were lovely”, by E.E. Cummings.
If freckles were lovely
The poem is about how the whole world could be better if everything was good, but then again it wouldn’t be right because we wouldn’t be we. The picture that E.E. Cummings builds up and then tears down is the same picture the history teacher builds up for the children. The speaker in the story means that if the children grow up with this imaginary picture in their head, some day it will all come raining down on them and that it wont be beneficial for them.


/Oliver

Indian Camp - Questions

Indian Camp – Questions

1.    Analyze the theme “growing up” in “Indian Camp”.
The theme growing up is of huge importance in the story. Nick is basically on the trip with his father to experience the, at times gruesome reality. I interpret the trip as a ritual of some kind, like a confirmation in Christianity. It's not like it’s the only ritual in Nick’s family, but I think it’s one of them. Nick’s father also asks: “How do like being an intern?”, so it could also just be an internship. There is also a huge difference between the way Nick has grown up, and the way the children in the Indian camp are growing up. Nick’s father, being a doctor, probably has a fair amount of money if not more, so that also makes Nick’s childhood a bit more of modern day style. The children in the camp living in shanties and having to wait a long time for an experienced doctor, probably have a bit more of a primitive upbringing.

2.    Do some research on Hemingway’s style of writing. Then analyze the language in “Indian Camp”
Enerst Hemingway has a very distinct way of writing which comes to show especially in this story. Hemingway’s writing style is very simple and plain, but he has a skill to hide a lot of emotion in between his words. Almost every single one of his stories are known for being extremely open for interpretation. The dialogue in his stories is consisting of short, vivid and precise sentences, and he uses few adjectives. He also doesn’t describe the surroundings and geographical positions in his stories very detailed. At first Hemingway received a lot of criticism for having a too simple writing style, but later, when the world began to understand the hidden stories within his stories, he became one of the most famous and beloved writers, in the history of mankind.

English lesson (8-28-2013)

Today we learned a lot about congruence and how to include it into our english language.
We also talked a lot about the english text, "The Indian Camp" by the writer Hemingway.
There was a lot of interesting parts of the text to interpret on. I liked this english lesson a lot.
/Oliver

English in high school

My expectations for english in high school

I like english a lot. My favorite part about learning english is the ability to communicate with other people worldwide. I like to talk to people from other countries in english because i think its funny to hear different accents and ways to pronounce and talk english.

The hardest parts about learning english definitely the grammar. Using symbols such as apostrophes and semi-colons can sometimes be a real pain in my rear.

My expectations for english in high school is to learn to fully speak and understand almost every accent of english. I also want to learn about how to write english like a real shakespeare. I want to learn so many synonyms so that i can speak to the Queen of England herself, even though i don't want to speak that way all the time.

/Oliver