Scenery description

White clouds filled the blue sky, fluffy like candy floss. Below lay the clear blue sea, glittering invitingly as waves lapped up at the shore, washing seashells and the dead leaves that occasionally floated down onto the water. Intricately designed seashells lay in the soft pale sand. Beyond the ivory white sand was lush greenery, large coconut trees casting shadows across the beach.

First person narratives VS Third person narratives

The first person narrative is often used as a way to directly convey the deeply internal, otherwise unspoken thoughts of the narrator. Frequesntly, the narrator's story revolves around him/herself as the protagonist and allows the narrator/protagonist to reveal inner thoughts to be conveyed openly to the audience, even if not to any other characters. Also, first person narratives may also have an unreliable voice (it is also applicable for third person, but mostly first person narratives), where the narrator is non-credible, due to the narrator being naive or inexperienced.

Third person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author and thus is the most commonly used narrative mode. In third person narrative, it is necessary that the narrator be merely an unspecified entity or univolved person that conveys the story, but not a chracter of any kind within the story being told. The narrator is usually omniscient.

First person narratives are more used for showing the point of view of ONE character, revealing emotions on that character only (more focused on one character) Third person narratives are more used to tell a story of an event, where everyone's feelings can be described, and everything can be seen.

LA Home Learning (Comic Strip)

The theme of this story is peace between neighbours.
Plot:
Mdm Lim (the one in a green skirt) is flustered because her neighbour (Mrs Ahmad, the one with the darker skin tone) keeps dumping rubbish on the corridor outside her flat. The setting is mostly on the corridor, part of it shows Mrs Ahmad eating and throwing rubbish through her window out of her flat. Mdm Lim shouts fiercely to Mrs Ahmad to clear her rubbish. Mrs Ahmad refuses, stating that when she paid for her HDB flat she paid for part of the corridor outside too. Mdm Lim then barges into Mrs Ahmad's home, telling Mrs Ahmad to get out. The initial argument between Mdm Lim and Mrs Ahmad eventually leads to a fight. The other residents call the police to step in to stop the fight. Eventually, the two make peace and Mrs Ahmad agrees to dispose of her rubbish properly, while Mdm Lim learns to be more tolerant.
Message:
Although Mrs Ahmad was wrong to throw her rubbish on the corridor like that, Mdm Lim should have been more tolerant, and perhaps spoken nicely in the first place to Mrs Ahmad, then perhaps Mrs Ahmad would agree to throw her rubbish. Even if she disagreed, Mdm Lim could have just called the police instead of fighting with Mrs Ahmad.

I chose the corridor as the background as I thought a fight in a home would have been too destructive (breaking windows, vases, things strewn all over), which was why I made Mdm Lim tell Mrs Ahmad to get out of her house. That also adds to the effect of Mdm Lim being fierce to balance out both (Mdm Lim and Mrs Ahmad's) faults. The fact that I chose most of the story to be taken place at the HDB flat is because most people live in flats in Singapore. The close proximity is also one of the reasons why there are conflicts between neighbours (invasion of personal space, like Mrs Ahmad tossing rubbish outside Mdm Lim's flat).

Historical and Cultural Context of a Novel

Why is it necessary to understand the historical and cultural context of the novel?
It allows us to understand the novel better and we can also put ourselves in the shoes of the characters in the story.

How does it help to understand the author's background? Is it necessary to learn more about the author's background?
By understanding the author's background, we can draw links from the novel to his personal life, and thus we can understand the novel better. We can also put ourselves in the shoes of the author. We can understand his emotions when he was writing the novel.

Is it possible to appreciate the text without pre-reading about the historical and cultural context of the novel/background of the novel?
It depends on how much we want to learn from the novel and what novel it is. It is still possible to understand and appreciate the text if we simply want to read the book for leisure. However, reading the historical and cultural context of the novel would help us understand the deep meaning of the novel and make it easier to analyse the novel.

Prejudice: Knows and Wants

Prejudice:
What I KNOW about the subject:
Prejudice is an unfair and unreasonable opinion, especially when formed without thought or knowledge. A similar word would be discrimination. However, prejudice is a simply a thought, while discrimination treating a person or a particular group differently, especially in a worse way from how you treat other people. Prejudice usually leads to discrimination.

What I WANT to know about the subject:
I want to know more about different forms of prejudice in real life. Also, I want to learn how do prejudiced people feel like so that I can understand them.