Death, Obituaries and Satire

Exploring Obituaries

An obituary is a text found in newspapers and, increasingly, online which outlines the life and achievements of someone who has recently died.

As with all texts, there are some key linguistic and stylistic features which are common to this form of writing:

Purpose: to inform the reader about someone's life and achievements; to show respect for a person's life and to give a truthful account of their life.

Audience: reader interested in the life of that person - often well known; can be interesting to find out about people you didn't know about; part of the newspaper - towards the back - adult audience - broadsheet reader.

Structure & Discourse: written mode; introductory paragraph with the name, age, date / reason of death, overview of what they were well known for (this can be over a couple of paragraphs before starting the chronological account of a life); predominantly past tense. Present tense used to describe the family left behind e.g he is survived by...../ he leaves a wife and two children....; paragraphs reflect different aspects of the person's life; clear discourse markers to denote a chronological structure e.g then. after that, in 2006; starts with birth and parentage > education> marriage / relationships> key jobs > key interests>reference to the funeral; third person.

Lexis & Semantics: proper nouns with names and places important in the person's life; lexical field of family; lexical field of area person was involved with e.g business, art etc; positive use of lexis; adjectives to describe character and achievements; modified formal - accessible lexis. Not reliant on imagery.

Grammar: declarative in mood - informative in tone; use of embedded clauses to add information about the person; starts sentences in a variety of ways e.g with subordinate clauses; sometimes use of quotation in direct speech; no contracted forms;

Phonology: an obituary in a newspaper might have a headline - alliterative, pun (if appropriate) but phonological features are not a specific feature.

Read through the example obituaries below and aim to identify as many features as you can:

Peaches Geldof

Sargy Mann

Major General Walsh Obituary


Exploring Swift's 'A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General' 


Jonathan Swift Work

A Satirical Elegy Cut Up

Extension reading: Guardian Article on the poem

She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

Hello

Today you will be exploring and analysing the poem 'She Walks in Beauty' by Lord Byron.

1. Spend 15 minutes researching Lord Byron. What makes him an interesting character? Which literary period is he associated with? What are the key features of that period? What is a 'byronic hero'?

2. Read the poem carefully and annotate thoroughly. How is the woman presented? What attitudes does the speaker have towards the woman? You can use the framework for guidance or you can use the more specific questions attached here. You can choose the level you work at. Perhaps start off with the challenge and then move on to the focussed questions.

3. By the end of the lesson you need to have a summative paragraph on the speaker's attitude to the woman.

EXT: Continue your work from last week finding points of comparisons between the poems with the theme of love.

Your first focus should be on creating a summary of each poem with a focus on the different attitudes and themes considered in each poem about love.