Compare The Ways The Central Characters Are Presen

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Compare the ways the central characters are presented in “checking out me history” by John Agard and “Case History: Alison (head injury) by U. A. Fanthorpe. The poems “Checking out Me History” and “Case History: Alison”both use many different techniques and linguistic features in evenly effective and successful ways to present their central characters throughout their piece. “Case History: Alison” relies mostly on the tone set in the poem to convey its characters’ attitude and message, whereas the poem “Checking out me history”, relies more on structural techniques and the language featured to put across its own characters’ different views and ideas. The ambiguous tone that “Case History: Alison” is flooded with is shown through the confused emotion in the poem. Alison is happy about her past life and who she used to be; “a bright girl she was”, but she regrets what has happened and who she has become; “shall never get over what I do not remember.”, These two diverse feelings of reminiscence and regret suggest why there may be two main characters in the poem instead of one and why they contrast so much. It also helps show the confused and uncertain voice and the helplessness of character after the “injury”. However, the clever use of dialect in “Checking out Me History”, shows us that the central character in this poem is very proud of his culture and his roots which along with his dialect have fitted together to become a huge part of his identity and distinguishes him as an individual. It also implies that he is not willing to change in order to conform to society. The lack of punctuation grabs our attention as not just a way in which the character/writer has chosen to “rebel” but instead as a representation of the fact that a poem without punctuation is just like written history without black people; incomplete. This implies that the character feels

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