Kashmir & At Qazigund
Andrew Meyers
Kashmir & At Qazigund. So Geologically Close, Yet So Opposite.
The author, Bill Colegrave, describes Kashmir as “coolness and colour” and having a “milky blue sky”. These descriptive words make the reader’s mood calm, relaxed, and soothed. Not only does the writer’s words make you feel at peace, the words also make the reader feel like they are there. Colegrave later describes the scenery of “yellow mustard fields” and snow-capped “mountains”. The color yellow represents happiness and hope and the color white represents purity which adds to the current calm mood with a drop of joy for the audience imagining that they’re there. Also, the yellow fields provide the soul of the sun even though it is hiding in “the drama of clouds”. He goes on to talk about the shepherd “men wrapped in brown blankets against the morning mist”. The color of their blankets is important because brown usually represents stability and homeliness. The mist is made of water, water embodies the qualities of purity which aligns with the mood the reader extracts from the literature.
In the first sentence of the paragraph, Colegrave depicts At Qazigund having “dust in the sunlight”. This is completely opposite of the peaceful, pure, and almost perfect description of Kashmir, At Qazigund is described as contaminated, desecrated, and impure. Later in the same sentence, we are introduced to the smell of this location. Colegrave portrays it as “a smell in the cold air of charcoal, tobacco, cooking oil, months-old dirt, and human excrement.” All of these items further add to the impure status of At Qazigund and create a very different mood and atmosphere than the mood of Kashmir. It gives the reader an uneasy, repulsive feeling and makes the reader think of Al Qazigund as an undesirable place. An interesting thing that he mentions are the “Buses packed with men with red-dyed beards were going in the direction from which we had come.” This quote speaks the most within this whole paragraph because not only does the reader not want to be there, but the citizens don’t want to either. They were headed to Kashmir because of the peace and tranquility it has to offer and to escape their repulsive living quarters.
Even though Kashmir and At Qazigund are so geologically close, they are so unbelievably different.
A01 Score: 5
ReplyDeleteThe first bullet point says “sophisticated understanding of text” and I reached this level. I referred to the text multiple times to prove my point. I also understood the deeper meanings, the context the piece of literature was written in, and I referred to how the audience would feel through this text multiple times throughout my blog.
The second bullet point says “Insightful reference to characteristic features”. Throughout the text I refer to the characteristics of each environment and compare/contrast these characteristics. These observations that I made are necessary and add depth to my blog.
These reasons are why I think I deserve a 5 in this category.
A03 Score: 19/20
The first bullet point says “Analysis is sophisticated, coherent and very effectively structured”. I feel like I reached this because of the style of structure that I used to write my blog, a sophisticated structure that had good explanations.
The second bullet point says “Insightful selection of elements of form, structure and language for analysis”. This bullet point is the one that I think I could have done a lot better at looking back. The next blog I write will have a better understanding of the rubric allowing me to reach a full 20/20 points, but for now I will have 19/20.
The third bullet points says “Sophisticated awareness of writer’s stylistic including how style relates to audience and shapes meaning”. I had awareness of the stylistic choices that the author made throughout my blog. I spoke plentifully about how the stylistic choices of the author affected the audience’s mood and how the meaning was shaped through these choices.
The fourth bullet point says “Uses precise fully appropriate language to link evidence with explanatory comments”. I linked a lot of evidence (quotes) that the author used in his text. I went into depth and explained what this evidence means and how it connects to the deeper meaning of the text.