Legends and Stories

Read all:

• The Forsaken – Duncan Campbell Scott (Theme & Image Book 1. Page 24)
• The Ice-Floes - E. J. Pratt (Theme & Image Book 1. Page 27)
• David – Earle Birney (Theme & Image Book 1. Page 32)

 1. Write a paragraph that discusses the themes of survival and sacrifice in The Forsaken. (6 marks)

        Survival and sacrifice were really prevalent in The Forsaken, being the big themes and all. The mother had cut, from her own being, flesh which she used to catch some fish to feed herself, and ultimately, her son. That in itself was the biggest moment of sacrifice and survival in this poem for me. Though it wasn't the only instance of the themes poking through. When the son and his children chose to abandon the mother, there was sacrafice and in order to have a better chance at surviving themselves, they got rid of the 'dead weight'. When it comes to sacrifice and survival, there are tough decisions to be made. 

2. Write a paragraph that explains the harsh irony of The Ice-Floes. (6 marks)

         There was a really harsh irony in The Ice-Floes. In the beginning, the seal hunters of The Eagle were compared to that of "..hounds on a caribou's track.", but as the story progressed and they finally registered the coming storm, the hunters became the hunted. The situation flipped for the seal hunters and now it was their lives that were in peril. To add to the irony, the storm itself was also compared to a hound "Not one of us thought of the speed of the storm/ That hounded our tracks in the day's last chase...". Though they may have bagged twenty thousand seals, sixty of their own men were lost to this ironic twist of events.

3. Write a paragraph that describes Birney’s technique of foreshadowing in the poem David. (6 marks)

         Birney really had a very interesting way of foreshadowing in David. The way Birney used this poetic technique it kind of kept one guessing as to what would happen yet, deep down the reader sort of just...knew. He gave the sense that David would fall down the cliff on a few occasions by describing the cliffs themselves and David and the story teller's experience with seeing the goat's skeleton. It started to become a little eerie and suspenseful later on. One knew it was bound to happen, but when?

4.  Embed a video that features information about one of these poets or poems.  (2 marks)