Porphyrias Lover

11X1
Check out this SlideShare Presentation: It will help you revise the poem

Porphyrias Lover

View more presentations from Letra Essencia.

My Last Duchess Robert Browning

11X1
Check out this SlideShare Presentation: It will help you revise My Last Duchess

My Last Duchess Robert Browning

View more presentations from Andre Oosthuysen.

BBC programme to watch as Teenagers Coursework research

Follow the link to watch "The History of Now". The programme looks at the obsession Bristish society had with young people during the last decade. You may find it useful in helping with ideas for your coursework.

Watch it fast as it will not be on for long!!!!!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00psp5r/History_of_Now_The_Story_of_the_Noughties_Growing_Young/

Ms McCarthy's wikispace

This is a new resource for you. I will be posting your homework here. You will be working collaboratively here. There are opportunities for you to create discussion forums on different topics as well as resources for you to do some independent work.

https://msmccarthyswikispace.wikispaces.com/

“An Inspector Calls” Social and Historical Context

The Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period 1901 to 1910, the reign of King Edward VII. It succeeded the Victorian period and is sometimes extended to include the period up to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the start of World War I in 1914, or even the end of the war in 1918.

Consider Priestley’s ideas and views:
1. He thought of his time as ‘an age of deepening inner despair’ and of appalling catastrophes; an age when society says one thing and then does something entirely different. Western man is a schizophrenic’. (He hated this social hypocrisy).
2. ‘We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’
3. ‘You cannot be happy when you are surrounded by people who are unhappy’.
4. Priestley was concerned with the atrocities mankind had commited on each other during the two world wars. They had devastated Europe and he hoped that by setting the play BEFORE the wars, in 1912, people would realise how their daily actions and words might change and influence the world – for better or worse.

POLITICS: 1912 and 1946
The play opens with a scene of great luxury: a wealthy family is celebrating an engagement in a very lavish fashion. This will be obvious to an audience that has spent the years of the Second World War without the luxuries that the Birlings are so abundantly enjoying (rationing of many luxury - and basic - goods continued into the 1950s). Although Churchill (a Conservative) is seen as a war hero for leading the fight against Nazism (he led a coalition government of Labour, Conservative and Liberal elements) a Socialist government has won a landslide victory in the 1945 General Election. Priestley was a supporter of the Labour party, and made many broadcasts on radio in which he tried to persuade people of the merits of socialism. In order to do this, Priestley sets the play in a time before there was a welfare state in the United Kingdom, and when employers had great power over their workers.

CLASS ISSUES AND SOCIETY

In 1912 there was no welfare state in Britain. Poor people often depended on charity. But wealthy people, such as Mrs. Birling, in the play, usually controlled the charity.

Young men and “wild oats”: There was a double standard between the genders. This play depicts a common situation from the early years of the 20th century - young women from the middle classes were not expected to be sexually active before marriage. This has nothing to do with virtue - but much to do with securing a good match. (After marrying, or even becoming widowed or divorced, middle-class and wealthy women could be more active if they chose.) However, poorer women could sometimes be seduced in return for material rewards (that would not be so attractive to those with wealth of their own).

The French called the era from 1895 to 1914 La Belle Époque. It was an epoch of beautiful clothes and the peak of luxury living for a select few - the very rich and the very privileged through birth. Contrast this with the lives of girls like Eva.

In retrospect we can see it is an era very separate from the 20th century despite belonging at its start. The attitudes and lifestyles of two decades were swept away by war and because the war was so atrocious a new socialism and sense of personal identity was born. The masses started to reject the concept of privilege as the reason for a better life.

Socially, the Edwardian era was the period during which the British class system was at its most rigid, although paradoxically, changes in social thought, particularly the rising interest in socialism, attention to the plight of the poor and the status of women, expressed in, for example, the issue of women's suffrage, together with increased economic opportunities as a result of rapid industrialisation, created an environment in which there could be more social mobility and people would become more liberal. This change would be hastened in the aftermath of the first World War. The playwright uses the self-absorbed, wealthy Birling family as a vehicle to expose much of what was wrong with Britain’s class system. This is done in the way their selfish and unkind actions drive a smart, young working classgirl to commit suicide. JBP hoped that the audience would realise that it is their selfish, unthinking actions and words to each other everyday which escalates into hatred and violence.

An Inspector Calls Timeline

1893 - The Labour Party founded by Keir Hardie supporting interests of organised labour nationalization and social welfare.

1894 - Priestley born in Bradford to middle class parents. (His grandparents both worked
in the mills.)
- George Bernard Shaw's plays first performed. (Anti-war and anti-marriage, Shaw
was a socialist whose plays attacked lies and hypocrisy. He believed society could
make progress through the evolution of human nature.)

1895 - H. G. Wells' short story The Time Machine first published.
(Wells was a socialist who wrote science fiction visions of apocalyptic futures. He
supported the Suffragettes and believed society's salvation could only come about
through education and from learning from history.)

1900 - General Election. Tories re-elected with huge majority.

1901 - Queen Victoria dies. Edward VII comes to the throne.

1903 - The Women's Social and Political Union founded by
- Emmeline Pankhurst to fight for the vote for women.
- First powered aeroplane flight.

1904 - Britain has more outdoor paupers than at any time since 1888. Dramatic increase
in number of people receiving poor relief in the form of charitable aid from their
parish.
- 1 in 41 people rely upon the parish for food.
- 3000 London cabbies go on strike.

1905 - TUC calls for universal suffrage, old-age pensions and an eight-hour day.
- 156 die in Welsh pit disasters.
- 500 striking workers shot by Csar's troops in St Petersburg, Russia.
- First suffragettes sent to prison for assaulting police.

1906 - General Election landslide victory for Liberals; Tory
- Representation reduced to 156 from 401;Labour wins 29 seats, an increase of 27.
- Jobless march from the Midlands to London to protest at Downing Street.
- Of a population of 33 million, 10 million workers are living in chronic destitution.

1907 - Strikes and rioting in Belfast.

1908 - 2000 cofton workers go on strike in the north of England.
- 73 miners killed in Lancashire pit explosion.
- 10 miners die in Somerset pit explosion.
- Old-age pensions introduced for everyone over 70.
- 200,000 people join Suffragette demonstration in London.

1909 - Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduces a radical 'People's
Budget' in which he raises taxes to pay for social reform. Tory opposition and
Lords outraged and set out to block the budget.
- Panic in Parliament as Britain falls behind Germany in the arms race.
- 2,500 sick children in workhouses.
- Wife desertion rises by one third. Higher prices blamed.
- Suffragettes on hunger strike force-fed in prison,
- 26 miners killed in South Wales pit explosion.

1910 - Miners' strike for eight-hour day spreads and develops into violent riots.
- 700 mills in Lancashire lock out workers who are demanding higher wages.
- 350 men and boys killed in pit explosion in Lancashire.
- Edward VII dies, succeeded by George V.

1911 - Nation-wide violent riots over low wages and rising prices.
- 200,000 on strike. Armed troops brought in to quell rioters. Several strikers shot
dead.
- 21 die in mill explosion.
- 2,500 children die in heat wave. London the second unhealthiest city in the world.
- 300,000 mill workers locked out by owners retaliating against wage claims.
- Shop workers win 60 hour working week in proposed Bill reducing their hours
from 80-90 hours worked over 7 days.

1912 - The 'unsinkable'Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks. 1,500 die.
- 2% of Londoners dying weekly from the cold.
- 2,000 Derbyshire miners strike.
- Suffragettes smash windows in West End. 96 arrested.
- British Medical Association outraged by National Insurance plans
which would extend medical aid to the poor. The year in which
An Inspector Calls is set. Priestley is 18 years old.
1913 - First Sick and Maternity Benefits introduced through the National
Insurance Act.
- Emmeline Pankhurst blows up Lloyd George's house.
- 50 girls die in factory fire.
- Suffragette Emily Davison dies trying to stop the King's horse in
the Derby.
- 400 miners killed in Welsh pit fire.
- 500,000 British children ill-fed and diseased according to Chief
Medical Officer for Schools.
1914 - Start of The First World War triggered by assassination of Austro
Hungarian heir to throne in Sarajevo by a Serbian student.
- For the first time modern killing technology includes tanks, shells,
warships, submarines, machine guns, poison gas and bomber
aeroplanes.
- Priestley serves in the trenches of France.
- Ulster on brink of civil war.
- 20,000 builders on strike.
-140,000 miners on strike.
- Income tax doubled to pay for the war which is costing £l million
daily.
1915 - Women urged to quit home for the factory.
- TUC and public opposition at plans for compulsory conscription.
- 1,000 suffragettes go to France to do war work. 33,000 women
sign up for war service.
- Strikes continue.
- War costing E3 million daily.
1916 - Dublin uprising protesting at British rule in Ireland.
1917 - Russian Revolution.
- 200,000 women working the land in Britain.
- Women workers in nation-wide equal pay
1918 - End of First World War: 10 million dead (mainly soldiers),
- Shelling and machine guns used in trench warfare in
France bring killing on an unprecedented scale.
- Rationing introduced on petrol, coal, gas, electricity and meat.
- School leaving age raised to 14.
- The Russian Csar and his family shot by Bolsheviks.
- 2,225 Londoners die in one week in flu epidemic.
- Women vote for the first time in UK election.
- Government grants eight-hour day to British railway workers.
- Abolition of workhouses proposed.
1919 - Over 200,000 strikers in many industries.
- Tube strike in London in protest at long working hours.
- TUC votes in favour of nationalisation of mines.
- 50,000 iron foundry workers go on strike for higher wages.
- Nancy Astor, first woman MP elected.
1920 - IRA kills 14 soldiers in dawn raids. Escalating violence in
- Ulster over passing of Home Rule Bill. Troops sent to Londonderry.
- Nation-wide coal miners' strike lasts several weeks.
1921 - In January 927,000 unemployed; in June 2.2 million unemployed.
1926 - General Strike, in protest at mass unemployment and treatment of the miners,
hits British industry.
1928 - Equal Franchise Act gives vote to all women aged 21.
1933 - Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, elected Chancellor of Germany.
- During the 30s Fascists come to power in Spain, Italy and Germany. In Britain the
Fascist movement gains popularity.
- Rise in anti-Jewish violence throughout Europe.
1936 - The Great Depression. Mass unemployment.
- Jarrow Jobless March (68% unemployed in Jarrow).
1937 - Spanish Civil War attracts thousands of men and women from all over the world
who join the fight against Fascism.
1939 - Hitler starts the Second World War by invading Poland.
- Killing and atrocities take place during this war on a scale that exceeds even that
seen in the First World War.
- Civilian deaths are higher than in any previous war.
- Aerial bombing of cities occurs on a massive scale (between 24,000 and 40,000 civilians killed in Dresden during one night of bombing).
- 6 million Jewish men, women and children systematically killed in
German concentration camps.
1942 - Welfare State proposed - social security from the cradle
1945 - End of the Second World War: 55 million dead (soldiers and civilians).
- The world's first atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki by the US. Each bomb kills 70,000 civilians instantly,
many more die later of radiation poisoning.

- Priestley writes An Inspector Calls.
- Churchill's wartime government resigns. A reforming Labour
government elected to power in landslide victory.
- Priestley visits the Soviet Union.
- An Inspector Calls first produced in Moscow.

Alliteration and Assonance Dustbin

A dustbin game to help you revise the different types of alliteration and assonance.
http://classtools.net/widgets/dustbin_0/6xckB.htm