Preview

Pink Bow Tie

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
956 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pink Bow Tie
Pink Bow Tie by Paul Jennings –Critical Essay

“We are young only once, after that we need an excuse to be…”

Paul Jennings understood this statement very well and based on age and youth, created this brilliant prose, Pink Bow Tie, set in Australia. The title doesn’t seem to link to what this story is based on at all but it has a big part in the plot. We haven’t even began reading the actual prose, yet Paul Jennings has already used a technique in the title. He has made use of juxtaposition. You see a Bow Tie is a very masculine piece of clothing whilst Pink is a very feminine colour so putting these two together, as you would imagine, would sound very strange indeed. Talking of strange, Jennings wrote this prose in the Sci-Fi genre. The happenings of this story are quite odd if you imagined them being carried out at the present time. This prose is written in a back and forth manner, switching and mixing the past and the present tenses, linking to what the story is actually based on; Age and Youth.
My objective, in writing this essay, is to show you how Jennings used different techniques and methods to convey his message successfully in this piece of prose.

This prose is about a 14-year-old boy who finds himself in trouble with the school principal, again, who wears a pink bow tie. This time however, he has an extraordinary excuse but he isn’t likely to be believed unless he makes the principal see for himself…

This prose is written in first person; the first person being the boy. Paul Jennings has used the ‘Everyman’ technique so the boy is unnamed. Jennings wrote in first-person because the thoughts of the character are expressed more openly and it gives us a detailed insight of the characters opinions. When the character expresses what he feels, we start to share his feelings sympathetically…

“… I got punished for nothing. Nothing at all.”

That is what most of us would think. you think that you were being blamed on for nothing If this prose was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    kak lang

    • 2371 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The following passage comes from the 1845 autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Read the passage carefully, noting such elements as syntax, figurative language, and selection of detail. Then write an essay in which you identify the stylistic elements in the third paragraph that distinguish it from the rest of the passage and show how this difference reinforces Douglass’ rhetorical purpose in the passage as a whole.…

    • 2371 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Out, Out

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages

    2. What do you make of the people who surround the boy—the “they” of the poem. Who might they be? Do they seem to you concerned and compassionate, cruel, indifferent, or what?…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Cadden, M. (2000). The Irony of Narration in the Young Adult Novel. Children 's Literature Association Quarterly , 147-154. [Online]. Retrieved at: www.longwood.edu [August 23rd 2011].…

    • 15087 Words
    • 61 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    3. List and explain two examples of CARES techniques that the author uses to support the essay’s main point. (4 marks)…

    • 4006 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The author conveys the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs through a variety of techniques. The audience is aware of Tom’s growing guilt through the technique of first person writing. ‘Like I said, that was a low point.’ (p124) The convincing, idiomatic, subjective voice of the teenage narrator creates a confidential relationship with the readers, as well as keeping them engaged. It also gives us insight into Tom’s inner most thoughts.…

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap English Prompt Writing

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Without any transition, Seamus Deane juxtaposed his other example of an essay written by a farm boy. Deane thought it to be too mediocre and incomparable to his own, with its lack of large word choice and extended story line. With the essay being so simple, he could recall every detail that occurred, and following the novel, the essay seemed rather mundane and nothing out of the ordinary. Being able to remember the story of the boy and mother waiting for the father to arrive home after a long day’s work, it was thought uncomplicated. Deane does not need to come right out and say how he feels, because the details and tone give a good picture of his thoughts. Which would be better than if he tried to list each emotion and explain, for it would lose some meaning if he did so.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He tells the story of a young girl and boy in trying situations and persuades his audience to feel sorry for them. The boy lives in a bad area. His father is “jobless” and his mother is a “sleep-in domestic.” The girl must take on the “role of [a] mother” because her “mother died.” What reader can help but feeling sorry for a young child who has no hope? They still live in fear and desolation and have no hope, for their race is sinking. Once, their people worked with “George Washington” and “shed blood in the revolution.” But, they fell from higher hopes and were put on “slave ships... in chains.” The reader can’t help but feel sorry for a race that has been so abused and taken advantage of.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author did not use too many stylistic devices to prove his point. The few that were used only made the facts easier to grasp. The essay was based on opinion and the writer, used very relevant topics to get his point across and make the reader sympathetic to his…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    5. How effectively do the techniques used communicate Twain’s position? It effectively allows Twain to create a different persona makes his statement more agreeable…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The plot begins with two men, one of which is Mr. Utterson, the narrator. They begin to discuss an appalling story of an unsightly man who had trampled over a young child, leaving the child mangled and frightened. The man “wasn’t like a man; it was…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In a sort of short story style, Marie Howe illustrates a depleting family relationship between a father and his children in the poem, “The Boy,” through its many symbols. With no discernible rhyme scheme, the plot develops, climaxes, and concludes alluding to a short story but in poetic form. The speaker, discovered through clues within the poem, is the younger sister of the boy and she is listening and learning from the examples set by her brothers. There is no mention of a mother so the focus is kept on the relationship between the father and children.…

    • 956 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    "A Story" -Li-Young-Lee

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A child has many interactions with different people throughout his/her life. A child learns to protect his siblings, to respect his mother, and to look up to his father. However, depending on what has happened between the child and the other person. In the poem “A Story” by poet Li-Young-Lee, he uses the third person point of view and structure of the poem to define the complex relationship of a son and his father.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    'School' By Peter Cowan

    • 942 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The text information in Peter Cowan's short story School, has been constructed in a way that we as the reader can interpret it in countless more ways than what it may mean on a surface level. Cowan limits the information of the text to allow the reader to form their own meaning. The text does not provide complete information about the boy in the story; it merely implies that he is feeling alienated and depressed. There is no text information that unambiguously explains that the boy is feeling alienated and excluded. In the last paragraph, the boy's difficulty is described by, 'He looked at the symbols on the paper and they blurred and made no pattern.' In this sentence, we assume that he does not understand the work, but this is only inferred. This text can be analysed as being limited in text information; to interpret it, the reader has to make assumptions of the omitted information.…

    • 942 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On Cloning a Human Being

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The style Lewis Thomas uses is very unique. He writes in a very conversational tone, making it easier for readers to read and relate. He also adds in rhetorical questions as well as short simple sentences in his writing structure, and the entire passage seems to flow eloquently. Lewis Thomas has a distinct voice that is unique only to himself.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gordie Lachance Analysis

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages

    At the beginning of the novella, the reader discovers that the speaker is a grown man who is reflecting on his audacious childhood. He/she can infer that the narrator…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays