Some Thoughts on the Common Toad written by George Orwell is an essay about a common toad coming out for spring time. The meaning that Orwell is trying to send out in this essay is how spring can be enjoyed by everyone at the cost of nothing and whether you are living in the country or in a city it can be seen from everywhere. The meaning is expressed through the tone, voice, purpose, mood and literary features.
The voice of this essay is first person narrative where the first person is Orwell himself discussing his opinions and thoughts on spring. Orwell's thoughts on the essay topic is how spring can be enjoyed by everyone for absolutely nothing but because of how people live some people are unable to do so because of how nothing can be “admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leadership worship”(Orwell). The purpose that Orwell is trying to send out in his essay is how spring keeps on going in peoples hectic lives and nothing, not even “the atom bombs [that] are piling up in the factories [or]the lies [that] are streaming from the loudspeakers” can stop it from happening. The mood that reflects from the essay is a sort of sadness for how people are unable to see the little wonders, but it also creates a sense of calmness that in all the busy lifestyles there is always something to break away from that.
Imagery is used throughout Orwell’s essay and is how he helps convey his message across to readers. In the beginning of the essay when Orwell is describing the toad coming out of hibernation and compares “the toad [having] a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of lent” (Orwell). Another use of imagery is how he describes the toads eyes as being strangely large and the colour being “like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone... called a chrysoberyl” (Orwell). This simile shows us how Orwell was trying to show how even in something not that pretty as a toad there is still beauty if you take the time to see it. Furthermore, when Orwell is talking about how “spring is commonly referred to as “a miracle””(Orwell) he discusses how London transforms when March comes around and “down in the square the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, the daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman's tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their first since last September”, this passage uses a lot of imagery and shows how people seem to be happier during the time of spring.
In summary Orwell’s essay Some thoughts on a common toad is about a toad coming out of hibernation in spring time but the deeper meaning of this essay is how spring can be enjoyed by everyone for the price of nothing also how spring seems to carry on unofficially. The deeper meaning is enhanced by the tone, voice, purpose, mood and literary features.
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ReplyDeleteI thought the essay focused spring and how it can be enjoyed anywhere but people often do not take the time to enjoy it. The frogs seemed to symbolize the little details of life that we do not pay attention to such as the beauty of the seasons that pass by in a few months every year. George Orwell effectively used imagery, description and similes to convey the central idea quite effectively.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of the points you made in the essay and the central idea which is that spring can be enjoyed by everyone. Your quotations were relevant and they linked directly to the text and made sense.
A segment of your commentary I thought was interesting was the point you made on how spring keeps on coming and going and people just don't take the time from their hectic lives to admire the spring but only admire the steel and concrete which seems kind of odd when you think of it but is true in many ways.
Your essay was well structured and easy to follow along and you made good arguments as to what the key literary features were used and how to further develop the central idea.
I thought this essay was an interesting read. Orwell did a good job making it appealing by adding natural humor (the part with the horny toads). I thought that the central idea of this poem was that while humans are living their own lives, the earth it living its own life and we should all stop and watch it doing so. Orwell does an interesting job in using simile and description in this essay. The similes were effective because they made the reader imagine what was really happening, and the descriptions were useful because they gave a good background plot.
ReplyDeleteYou made some good points in this commentary. The one main point that we both agreed on was that the essay seemed to not be about toads (even though it was), but it was more about spring. It is interesting because he is saying that it doesn't matter what it going on during the spring (with humans) the earth still does what it needs to do. You did a good job in analyzing this essay, and a good job in highlighting the important parts of the essay. You also did a good job in summarizing what the essay was about.
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