An essay based on the Hungarian song

The Morning After

The prisoners finished their daily chores and went back to their cells. They had to work every day from the morning till the sun went down. Every day they made weapons, grenades and other tools of destruction. They worked for the German people because they were captured from Hungary, during the First World War. The weapons which they made every day were used against their own country, the only thing they could do was watch because if they protested they were beaten to death.

The prison was very bad, it was rotten and the rules were very harsh. The prison seemed like living hell. Inside the prison there was a place called the “Gas Chamber”, where the prisoners who were sick were kept so that they died there after several days. The prisoners who disobeyed the prison or did any mistake were beaten very badly and then kept in the “Gas Chamber”. The prison was on the outskirts of the city. No one could go to that place without the permission of the government. The prison was highly protected by the guards and if someone tried to escape they were killed.

The moment the sunlight reached to the cells of the prisoners, they had to wake up and start working. They were in the prison for many days and they did not know where their families were. They even did not know if their family members were still alive. All the timed they hoped that they are going to be free again and would be able to see their family again. A prisoner called Benedict was missing his family very much. One day he asked one of the guards that when will he be able to see his family again. The guard said that he won’t be able to see his family again because Hungary could never defeat Germany in the war. This made Benedict very angry so he punched the guard on the face. All the guards surrounded him and he was beaten to death.

One evening four of the prisoners planned to sing a song in the prison. All the other prisoners gathered in a room to listen to their song. It was a sad Hungarian song and they sang it to express their feelings. When they started to sing, all the other prisoners were happy for a moment but as the song went near the ending the prisoners were sad again. They knew that the morning after they had to start working again. After several months the war ended. They all were free again and as soon as they got out they took a breath of freedom. They all went back to Hungary and met their family after many years. But they could never forget the pain they had to go through in the prison.

From Tazwar

Comment: The general language level is OK. But the essay relies too much on description and chronology of events. There is not a single dialogue and no human character is established. However, I am sure that the writer will develop these ideas very fast because he is working with a determination.

Mamun

All Literature Syllabus - 2011 and 2012

A Level Literature - Cambridge

1. Unit 3: Songs of Ourselves, Dragon Book of Verse, Seamus Heany Selected Poems, Passage to India.
2. Unit 4: Equus, Winter's Tale, A Streetcar Names Desire, An Ideal Husband.
3. Unit 5: Coriolanus, The Changeling, Mansfield Park, Hard Times.
4. Unit 6: The God of Small Things, To the Lighthouse, Translations.

This week Sayka shall concentrate on Unit 5 and we will have a lecture class next week.

O Level Literature -

EDEXCEL

Paper 1
Full Marks: 60 / Time 1 h 30 min

Novel: Pride and Prejudice + The English Teacher
Drama: An Inspector Call + Our Town + Importance of being Earnest [Mise-en-Scene]
Poems: Anthology + Dragon Book of Verse

CAMBRIDGE

Full Marks: 100 / Time 2 h 40 min

Novel:          Wuthering Heights / Great Gatsby / Ethan Fromme
Drama:         Much Ado About Nothing / Death of a Salesman
Poem:          Songs of Ourselves + Dragon Book of Verse

The Grand Question

"I lose concentration at the end of first one and a half hours. What do I do?

Let's play some solutions:

1. Take a break after the hour. During break listen to Music - anything goes. Really? Depends on the student's cultural upbringing (which invariably always depends on the family's cultural status.)
2. evabe uthle - ja concentration chilo ta O chole jabe.
3. Try doing a different subject.
4. The day you don't feel like - don't study at all.
5. Make a Prison-house around yourself - and this will force you to concentrate and study.
6. When all in the house are asleep - study - these are the best hours to concentrate. [Problem: The existence of family members are a big problem in my life.]
7. Do nothing - sit and stare at the wall - [so strange!]
8. Play - [With whom, what?] [Not video games - TT, Chess]
9. Sleep [escape from the troubles of life - when you wake up - the troubles are back again!]
10. Read story books - [sounds very depressing and Counterproductive indeed!]
11. Go out for five minutes - and come back after a while. [Very suspicious solution]
12. Plan for further rough N tough time ahead.
13. Play musical instruments - those who can not shall listen to instrumental music!
14. TV - Master-Chef Australia, Sports Channel,
15. Facebook [suggested by Shafat Jamil] - the matter shall be taken care of later.
16. Family gossip - for some time.
17. Visit this BLOG.
18. Painting is one of the best solution.
19. Gossip over phone - for 20 min.
20. Demand for special food - demand met - you eat - and sit before the TV feeling satisfied.
21. Prepare experimental foods. Waste materials and time.
22. Bully others - younger and older brothers and sisters.
23. Cycling - where? [Park, road]
24. Reading newspapers - listening to news.
25. Reading a magazine.
26. Origami [Sounds lame]
27. Cartoon sketch [Most un-creative]
28. Crafts making
29. Visit grandmother [who lives next door]
30. Go for shopping [with whatever money you have or don't have]

Argumentative Essay Topic

1. Child obesity can only be stopped by putting a ban on fast-food chains.
2. There is no solution to the traffic problem in Dhaka.
3. Communism is a better way to governance than capitalism is.
4. Instead of increasing tax, government should negotiate with opposition to put an end to strikes and thus save public money.
5. Limited physical punishment at school should be allowed.
6. Social networking is detrimental to studies.
7. Bullying is fine within limits.
8. Cats are better than dogs. 
9. Drugs are NOT affecting today's youngsters.
10. Sale of gaming consoles should be stopped in Bangladesh.
11. Poverty is never going to be eradicated in Bangladesh.
12. Better governance can only be assured by a rule of many instead of rule by one.
13. Child labor should NOT be banned in Bangladesh.
14. Video games create psychological and behavioral disorder in children that stays through adult years.

The sad, pensive, and melancholic Hungarian Song in the movie "Fateless"

When the moon shines through the night
Wonder what she dreams about,
If there's any charming knight,
On a mighty steed snow-white.

Her dream is like a fairy tale,
It's now time for her to wake,
There are few knights left for today,
And our one will stay away.

And yet while I see those tiny clouds
That floating on the rim of the sky
Until I can see them high,
My hope will forever fly,
Just as the story of mine. 

The song is full of wistfulness and sadness – we hear the slow, pensive and subdued voice. There is no doubt left that they sing it from a kind of utter hopelessness – they do not have to pretend that they have to sing in a particular way – the whole thing comes so naturally to them. The solo accompaniment of the piano adds to the lonely and haunting atmosphere of the situation.

A sentence in sequel to "To the Lighthouse"

Everything lay in ruins – under the bright sun’s glare; I looked around for a second time to scrutinize and suddenly it occurred to me that all these years this place had been kept populated by all these small creatures; I felt grateful to them.

The above sentence is written as a sequel to the first paragraph of the 9th Chapter of To the Lighthouse. Expand the above sentence into 2 more paragraphs. Try to show some story-line.

Here is Virginia Woolf's original para.

The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a
sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it. The long night
seemed to have set in; the trifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths,
fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the
mat decayed. Toads had nosed their way in. Idly, aimlessly, the swaying
shawl swung to and fro. A thistle thrust itself between the tiles in the larder.
The swallows nested in the drawing- room; the floor was strewn
with straw; the plaster fell in shovelfuls; rafters were laid bare; rats carried
off this and that to gnaw behind the wainscots. Tortoise-shell butterflies
burst from the chrysalis and pattered their life out on the windowpane.
Poppies sowed themselves among the dahlias; the lawn waved
with long grass; giant artichokes towered among roses; a fringed carnation
flowered among the cabbages; while the gentle tapping of a weed at
the window had become, on winters' nights, a drumming from sturdy
trees and thorned briars which made the whole room green in summer.

An Essay on Matchbox by Afrida

Sleeping Fire

The roaring, blinding flames lie undisturbed in an enchanted sleep. The disguised flames lay enclosed and protected in a rectangular enclosure and they wait, like a dying plant desperate for a drop of water, for the moment when they will awaken from their sleep and sizzle to life.

A matchbox is an object we use and see in our everyday life. Therefore we may take its value and importance for granted. But fire is no ordinary discovery. It can perhaps be called ancient mans greatest discovery.

A matchstick is a thin, smooth slice of wood, delicately cut into a rectangular stick. The tip of this stick however, is covered with a charcoal like black substance. This is the resting place of the birth of the flames. These flames will only awaken from their deep slumber when they are scratched along the side of their rectangular enclosure.

The matchstick scratches itself along the side of the matchbox in a swift movement and then all at once, as if by magic, a mesmerizing flam of crimson yellow and blood red appears. The flame is not tame and will not stay obediently at the tip of the matchstick. It slowly and threateningly makes its way down the thin slice of wood until eventually it reaches the end of the stick where it meets its fate. All too soon, the flame disappears as quickly as it appeared, leaving no trace that it ever existed.

In a traditional fairy tale, the sleeping princess is locked away in an eerie and irksome tower of a castle in a land far away from civilization.  In a similar manner the matches are forever locked away in a dismal prison- a cardboard box. This prison can range in all shapes and sizes just like in a fairy tale.  However, no matter what the size, what the shape, its properties are still the same.

The smell of a match box remains a mystery to all for it has to particular smell. The mystery of the fell of the matchsticks has been uncovered. The wooden stick is smooth but the black tip is a sharp contrast for it is rough.

The matchbox has clearly found its place in our lives. Its importance is unimaginable and we are ignorant creatures if we fail to recognize this.