Commentary: Moon Tiger, 1987, by Penelope Lively

-Make notes on health -Make case study notes on hydrology and coasts -Do past questions on coasts & hydrology -Do poem canvass -Plan kinder transport essay Commentary Moon Tiger, 1987, by Penelope supple This monologue depicts the thoughts of an elderly woman who is dying in a hospital. She gives us a her views and description of phrase which shows us the importance it holds in her life. She dialog close the history of language saying we open our mouths and out work actors line whose ancestries we do not even know. This shows that she cares greatly about intelligence activitys and their origin and it is important to her that to a greater extent people care about it as well.The rhyming of flow and know, may as well have a humorous effect as it conjure ups that she is playing with the records. She also uses imagery to expound what haggle are like saying they blow with the wind, hibernate, reawaken, shelter bloodsucking on the most unlikely hosts, die hard and survive an d survive. She personifies language, analyse it to an animal or a plant that does not die still rejuvinates. This indicates how strongly she chances about language. She forces it as being immortal as it claim out never end. This might give an insight as to how she may feel about dying.She may want to survive her illness, hence the repetition of survive. The repetition of this word draws emphasis to it. She may hope to live on through her words. She continues to compare language, using metaphors, to other aspects of nature such as when she says it was like grains of sand on the shore, the leaves on the great ash foreign my bedroom window, immeasur fit and unconquerable. The use of the similies gives us an image of how immense and large language is as the decription depicts how timeless and endless words are.She also makes use of the strong adjectives, immeasurable and unconquerable and how much power language holds to her and maybe how she feels when she uses it. She depicts people as walking lexicons, objectifying them. This may indicate that she cares more about language than people and suggests that she believes that words have a operative effect on peoples lives and shows the importance of it to her. Through this we channel a good sense of her character. We see that she is quite a regal person. We get flashbacks of her life as a child when she is gloating oer Gordon who ould not spell ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM, the longest word in the dictionary. This shows how imperial she is of her knowledge of language as she holds it over others. She also puts emphasis on the word which tells us more about how confident she is on the subject. She smooth names of stars and plants such as Arcturus, Betelgeuse and toadflax. These words are not very common to come across and may also suggest how smug she is about how much she knows on language. Similarly, it may show how gilt-edged she feels knowing this information. It is her hobby to collect words which shows the importance of it in her life.Another flashback we get of her is when she is taking care of her daughter as a child. These flashbacks give us a sense of her backstory and her character. She admits to herself that she is not a good mother and uses the word repellent to describe her feelings towards children. This is quite a strong negative word to use towards children as most people love children and wouldnt describe them this way. It is also a great contrast to the way she talks about words and language. She talks about the excitement of language and how it is immeasurable and inconquerable.She clear doesnt feel the same way about children as she describes them as boring and distracting. She gets impatient with her young daughter, correcting the inanities, who is barely able to pronounce words correctly. She uses plosives, saying , There are no such things as bow-wows and gee-gees. This shows that she is gettig irked by a minor problem with language and shows her intoleran ce. It also shows that she is a fucking person. We are made to feel sympathetic for her at the beginning of the remove as she says, Today language abandonned me.This show how stranded she feels without being able to recall as much about language as she use to. She refers to it how she would refer to a friend that had left her. She continues on staring into a void, whih emphasises how empty and lonely she feels without it. She starts to list words, vase, cupoard, window, cutain, which also highlights the panic she feels when she is not able to remember simple words. Language has been her strong suit through life, her hobby and her friend and now it has abandonned her, she feels helpless.