Private_&_Peaceful

Tuesday 28th September How does the writer use language to show that the aeroplane incident is important, special & exciting to the three main characters and the story' Recently, we have been looking at the book Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. This autobiographical novel is set in pre-world war one, the early twentieth century. In this book, the writer uses language to show that a certain incident is important, special and exiting to the three main characters and the story. This incident was when three friends (Molly, Charlie and Tommo), who had grown apart, shared the first time they saw an aeroplane and met a pilot. Molly and Charlie had started drifting away, and growing apart from Tommo. They aren’t interested in him any more, “they made out they were intrested but I knew they weren’t.” Molly and Charlie tried to keep Tommo happy by listening to him and making out that they were intrested but it backfired. It made Tommo feel worse because he knew they weren’t interested and didn’t care. He can only see that they don’t care and are just feeling sorry for him and doesn’t like it. He can’t see that they were just trying to be nice and had his best interests at heart. Also, in this paragraph, the pronoun ‘I’ is used excessively to show Tommo’s loneliness. Throughout this paragraph, Tommo’s situation gradually gets worse. This may have some connection to the cover of the book. The cover starts off a bright blue colour and gradually gets darker, as does Tommo’s feelings. You can tell that Tommo just wants to become a threesome again with Molly and Charlie when he uses the phrase “…ache in my heart.” The noun ‘ache’ helps the reader to empathise and understand how Tommo is feeling . When Morpurgo uses the short sentence “I remember the day of the yellow aeroplane.” We know that a momentous event is about to take place that is unforgettable and for Tommo’s sake we hope it brings him closer to Charlie and Molly again. We begin to see that this does happen when the pronouns ‘us’ and ‘we’ start to appear again. We can also see the building of the excitement with the sudden short sentence. This is important because it helps us see that the yellow aeroplane event is special because it brings the three friends closer again. The statements “It was the first aeroplane that any of us had ever seen.” and “You had to see one to believe it.” lets on that the event was significant and exciting for everyone involved. Morpurgo uses similes to make the scene come alive such as “…like a thousand stuttering bees.” Everyone knows that the repeating sound of a bee and how annoying it is which helps the reader build up the scene better and imagine it vividly, as if they were there. As well as that, Morpurgo describes the look of the plane with the simile “…like some ungainly yellow bird…” I think the plane being yellow is associated with the yellow butterflies on the front of the book. The colour yellow can be associated with happiness , sunshine and excitement however, others may see a calm colour, signifying relaxation and quietness. Never the less, I think in this situation, my connections fit better. I think this because this incident made Tommo happy because he was in the threesome again, it was a summers evening, so probably sunny and it was obviously exciting which makes it important, special and exciting to the characters and the story. During this scene, Morpurgo goes over the top with the use of the pronoun ‘we’ to emphasise Tommo’s previous aloneness and how great it is that he is now part of the threesome again. This is another reason why this event was so special and exciting. You can see how happy Tommo was about this incident in the last paragraph. Tommo was showing off to all his classmates about what happened and telling embellished stories about it, which got him in trouble. His punishment was six strokes of the ruler. Tommo uses the noun ‘pain’ to say how it felt but I think it also describes his feelings. Firstly, Tommo felt alone and then the aeroplane incident happened and he was happy because he was back in his friendship group but now he has gone back to school and they have gone back to work, together, he feels left out again so he is hurting inside,again. In conclusion, Morpurgo showed how the aeroplane was interesting, special and exciting using language by bringing it to life with similes, punctuation, different sentence structures and the five senses. He also contrasts the build up and the incident to show how much happier it made Tommo and how it was special, interesting and exciting for the characters and the story it was.