The Man Who Died (Annotated)

Most of Great Britain supported this war, so his words about it mark him as one who was willing to go against the tide, think through what was happening, and form his own opinions about this war.

"The Man I Killed" by Bonnie Miller on Prezi

With this poem, Hardy makes war personal, and that is what allows his readers to relate with the poem, whether or not they have personally been to war. He is able to help readers to identify with his feelings by bringing the war down to a personal, one on one level. The way in which he does this helps the readers to understand the realities of war.

This poem follows a pretty simple scheme. The result is a lulling, nursery rhyme kind of feelilng. The subject of The Man He Killed however, is clearly not nursery rhyme material and the rhyme and rhythm paired with the ideas presented create a sense of irony. He is giving a hypothetical to help the readers to understand the humanity of each of them.

The Things They Carried

Immediately, the readers can picture two men meeting up by chance and sitting down for a drink together. This stanza makes it clear that the speaker wishes that he had met this man under different circumstances. The reader does not yet know what the circumstances were that led to the speaker shooting the man. It does not sound like the speaker had any hateful feelings toward the man, and it certainly does not seem like the speaker had any reason to kill the man. In real life, as a part of the infantry, the speaker stared a man in the face and shot him.

The man also shot at the speaker. This stanza also reveals to the reader that the speaker had a near death experience.

The speaker, being so focused on the man he shot, does not give any insight into what he felt at having been the man to walk away. The fact that the two men were face to face shows that either one could have died. It was only by chance that the speaker walked away and the other man fell. Perhaps this near death experience was what caused the speaker to think about the other man rather than himself.

But apparently Terry has said elsewhere i. It's all about the life cycle of bicycles and their larval stages: Whatever the original idea behind Morris dancing was, it long ago indeed became associated with Spring "As fit as [ The Morris used to be a peasants' dance, but these days Morris dancers often are, for some reason, scientists, mathematicians, or, yes, librarians. Rather, both Azraels are references to the Islamic Angel of Death, supposedly the very last creature to die, ever.

In the actual legend, Azrael is bound in chains thousands of miles long, and possesses millions of eyes: When a person dies, the eye in question closes forever, and when Azrael goes blind it will be the end of the human race. Refers to Poe's famous story The Pit and the Pendulum in which a victim of the inquisition is tied up beneath a giant descending, sweeping, razor-sharp pendulum.

The attributed last words of William Pitt the younger were: It was void, without form. The spirit of Windle Poons moved on the face of the darkness. An allusion to the Biblical creation of the universe as described in Genesis 1: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. A Gimlet Eye is a piercing stare or squint. See also the annotation for p.

Never trust a god who grins all the time and wears a top hat, that's my motto. This god is Baron Samedi or Saturday , the most important and best-known voodoo god or loa. He is the God of the Dead, and is traditionally associated with cross-roads. For more information about Baron Samedi you should, of course, read Witches Abroad see also the annotation for p.

I suppose most people will know that a wrangler is somebody who rounds up cattle or horses, but it may be less common knowledge that a 'Senior Wrangler' is in fact the title given to the top 12 maths graduates at Cambridge University. In maths, those who get firsts are called Wranglers, seconds are senior optimes, and thirds are junior optimes. A few correspondents thought that the Bursar's particular choice of vegetable might have been motivated by an old episode of the BBC Goon Show radio comedy programme, where a sketch goes in part:.

Tie him to a stake? Connects a reference to the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror movies with the tentative title for a Good Omens sequel: The circumstances may become less mysterious once you realise that charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre are the basic ingredients of gunpowder. Also, there actually exists a condiment called Wow-Wow Sauce, which was popular during the s. More information can be found in the Discworld Companion , and an actual recipe is given in Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. So good they named it Ankh-Morpork! Or, as Terry explains more poignantly in a Sourcery footnote on p.

A few people thought these might have been references to a scene in one of the Asterix comics, but this is another case of two authors both using the same, older source. Treacle is another word for molasses, and most people will be familiar with the concept of "a hole in the ground from which you get molasses" through Alice in Wonderland 's Mad Tea Party. There used to be treacle mines in Bisham near Marlow, on the Thames and in several northern towns, I believe. But the natural treacle was too sharp and coarse for modern tastes and the industry was finally killed off by the bulk import of cheap white sugar in the last century.

Shops used to smash the slabs up and sell the solid treacle as sweets. It's quite a different stuff to the crude 'golden syrup' treacle still occasionally sold. Messing around with golden apples or something? In Greek mythology it was a golden apple that indirectly led to the Trojan war and to the accompanying complete division of the divine pantheon into two opposing camps. Pun on the Vestal virgins priestesses of the goddess Vesta in ancient Rome. We're the wizards around here. I like sherry,' said the Bursar. I used to think and annotated this in previous versions of the APF that was Bursar misremembering the acronym 'VSOP', which indicates a type of brandy, not sherry.

RSVP, of course, stands for "Respondez s'il vous plait" -- please reply [to this invitation]. I have since learned that there actually existed a cheap British-made sherry from grapes grown elsewhere that was called R. Don't block up the hall. In the late 80s, 'Glad To Be Grey' badges were actually commercially available. Finally, there exists a mineral called ixiolite.

Note, by the way, that banshees are traditionally supposed to be female creatures. When someone on a. As with other 'real world' Discworld names, like Susan, Victor, Albert, etc, I picked the name because of Albert is an 'old' name. Reg is a good working class name and has a post-war feel to it. It's hard to explain it further, but all popular names carry a burden of associations. The best examples in the last decade have been Sharon and Tracy; whatever the truth , the perception is that these are working-class, Essex bimbo names, although twenty or thirty years ago they'd have been considered glamorous which is why, the myth runs, the kids got given them.

Reg is a good name for a dependable guy, the sort who runs the skittles league I know this, 'cos my Uncle Reg did The rest of the time I'm just a This interesting twist on the age-old werewolf idea has been thought of and used by others a few times before. I realise that merely by mentioning it here I may have spoilt it for you, but I think the story is still very enjoyable, regardless.

The fires of the forge were barely alive now, but the blade glowed with razor light. The continent referred to in this quote is Australia which means that we are talking here about the Wizards of Oz, right? The actual origin of the name 'XXXX' lies in the number of marks used by Castlemaine to indicate alcoholic strength. Most European beers today are of 4X strength, with some being 3X or even 5X. The corks around the pointy hats refer to the supposedly traditional headwear of Australian Swagmen: Akubra hats with pieces of cork dangling on strings around the wide rim in order to keep the flies off the wearer's face.

Needless to say, you can live a lifetime in Australia and never get to actually see somebody who looks like this. Monty Python's 'Philosophers' sketch is a good send-up of the stereotype.

Form and structure

Since then, the stereotype has been reinforced by a series of Australian Tourism Commission ads promoting Australia in the US and Britain on s television, which featured Paul 'Crocodile Dundee' Hogan saying something along the lines of: At the risk of boring you all to death with this, I must admit that I am curious as to the exact wording of that Hogan ad. I have received extraordinary amounts of mail about this annotation, and so far there have been seven different phrases mentioned, namely:.

So, can anybody tell me a whether the ad said 'shrimp' or 'prawn', b whether the "for you" was actually part of the sentence or not, and c whether these poor animals were in fact tossed, thrown, chucked, slapped, shoved, popped, or simply put on the barbie?

Finally, an Australian correspondent tells me that "Don't come the raw prawn with me, sport" is a local saying having a meaning somewhere in between "Pull the other one, it's got bells on" and "Don't give me that crap".