Isu log Two Barometer Rising



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ISU Log Two



Barometer Rising

by

Hugh MacLennan



Student Exemplar

Mrs. Caputo

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

ENG2DR



Passage One: Characterization

(Page 205)


The dinner dishes were washed and the dish cloths hung against the copper boiler to dry. Alec was seated on a wooden chair beside the kitchen table with his shirt open at the neck, his shoes off, and his feet in heavy army socks that made them look like enormous khaki sponges. A glass containing a mixture of rum and water was half-hidden in one of his hands, but he seemed to have forgotten it was there, for he had been sitting all of ten minutes without moving. The stove in the corner was burning high and all the windows were shut. The hot air of the room had an odour of dish-water and cabbage and the fumes from Alec’s pipe. Like most poor folk in northern countries, the MacKenzies hoarded what warmth they had. The plastered walls of the kitchen were bare except for large calendar donated by a grocery store. They were stained and yellow as naphtha in the glare of the unshaded lamp which stood in the center of the table, giving Alec light to read his paper and enabling Annie his wife to see the socks she was knitting.

Here we are introduced to a very important character in the novel Barometer Rising, Alec MacKenzie. In this passage he seems like a very relaxed person and we are given enough detail to possibly picture what he looks like.


This makes us wonder why he is so lost in thought, thinking about that he hasn’t moved for ten minutes. We know that Neil is looking for him, but he does not know this. We don’t yet know why Neil is looking for Alec however.
MacLennan uses sensory imagery here to give us an idea of what Alec’s house was like. We can picture in our minds what it looks like, what it feels like and what it smells like from the way the author describes it. The combination of cabbage and dish-water and pipe smoke sets the mood .
We learn that Alec and his family are very poor, like many of the people in the north end of Halifax. The bare plastered walls are “stained and yellow” and Annie is knitting socks. It says they “hoarded what warmth they had”.
His wife, Annie, is introduced; we also find out that he has children if we read a few pages more.




Context:


In this passage we are introduced to a very important person in the novel, Barometer Rising. Alec MecKenzie lives in the north side of Halifax, with all of the poor people and he also works for Colonel Wain, Penny’s father. In this passage Alec is sitting at home with his wife, Annie and their kids.


Before this all we know about Alec MacKenzie is that Neil is looking for him, but we don’t know why. We don’t know very much about Alec until this point. After this passage Neil comes to Alec’s house and asks him if he will “testify for [him]” (216) against Colonel Wain in court and Alec agrees to, even though he knows he will get fired if he does. We also find out that Alec knew Neil’s father and that they were very close friends, so Alec like Neil as well.

Significance:

This is significant to the novel because it introduces a very important character. Alec MacKenzie is the only person who can testify against Colonel Wain so that Neil doesn’t get in a lot of trouble, and possibly killed. Alec knows that “it may mean [he’ll] lose his job” (216) working at the Shipyards for Wain if he does, but he also knows that it is the right thing to do to help Neil out, so he decides that he will help him. He also knows that he will most likely not get another job, and defiantly not one that pays as good as the one he has now. He still is willing to help Neil, however, even though he is already very poor. This shows what kind of person Alec is and how he knows what is right and he will do what he knows is right even if it means putting himself in a difficult situation.



Passage Two- Climax:
Page 247-248

The Mont Blanc had become the center of a static tableau. Her plates began to glow red and the swollen air inside her hold heated the cargo rapidly towards the detonation point. Launches from the harbour fire department surrounded her like midges and the water from their hoses arched up with infinite delicacy as they curved into the rolling smoke. The Imo, futile and forgotten, was still trying to claw her way off the farther shore.

Twenty minutes after the collision there was no one along the entire waterfront who was unaware that a ship was on fire in the harbour. The jetties and docks near the Narrows were crowded with people watching the show, and yet no warning of danger was given. At that particular moment there was no adequate centralized authority in Halifax to give a warning, and the few people who knew the nature of the Mont Blanc’s cargo had no means of notifying the town or spreading the alarm and no comfort beyond the thought that trinitrotoluol can stand an almost unlimited heat provided there is no fulminate or explosive gas to detonate it.

Bells in the town struck the hour of nine, and by this time nearly all normal activity along the waterfront had been suspended. A tug had managed to grapple the Mont Blanc and was towing her with imperceptible movement away from the Shipyards back into the channel of the Narrows. Bluejackets from the cruiser had found the bos’n’s ladder left by the fleeing crew, and with flesh shrinking from the heat, were going over the side. Fire-launches surrounded her. There was a static concentration, an intense expectancy in the faces of the firemen

The Mont Blanc was the ammunition ship that blew up when the Imo rammed into it in December of 1917.

This paragraph is very descriptive and lets us know what is going on with the Mont Blanc before she blows up. It uses many different literary devices to describe what is happening. It uses a simile to describe the fire harbour as ‘like midges’ as they are trying to put out the burning ship. It also has alliteration, putting emphasis on how the ship, Imo, is ‘futile and forgotten.’ There is also a metaphor included when it describes the Imo as ‘claw[ing]’ her way off the shore. This allows us to visualize what the scene of the burning ship would look like.

This gives an accurate time span between the point when the Mont Blanc catches on fire and when it actually blows up.

This creates suspense. We wonder why people are not running from the harbour and away from the danger. MacLennan uses dramatic irony to catch our attention and make us want to keep reading because we know that the boat is full of explosives and is going to blow up but the people in the novel do not.

This makes us wonder why no one has warned the people about the ship being filled with explosives and ammunition and why the ship crew has ran away without trying to help any of the other people and try to get them away from the danger. This again catches the reader’s attention and draws us in to keep reading. This, again, gives the reader an actuate time of when the events of the day actually happened.
playing the hoses, a rhythmic reverberation in the beat of the flames, a gush from the hose nozzles and a steady hiss of scalding water. Everything else for miles around seemed motionless and silent.

Then a needle of flaming gas, thin as the mast and of a brilliance unbelievably intense, shot through the deck of the Mont Blanc near the funnel and flashed more than two hundred feet toward the sky. The firemen were thrown back and their hoses jumped suddenly out of control and slashed the air with S-shaped designs. There were a few helpless shots. Then all movement and life about the ship were encompasses in a sound beyond hearing as the Mont Blanc opened up.

At this point the people the people at the harbour think that they are safe and that everything is under control, but we know that they are not safe and that the boat is about to explode. The “”rhythmic reverberation” and the “steady hiss of scalding water” is in contrast to the “motionless and silent” surroundings. The “static concentration” and “intense expectancy in the faces of the firemen” builds suspense. MacLennan uses dramatic irony again to capture the reader’s interest and attention.

This passage is filled with literary devices, such as simile, alliteration and sensory imagery. We can picture the “flaming gas” the “funnel” as it “flashed more than two hundred feet toward the sky”, ending in a “sound beyond hearing” as the explosion happened. The end of this passage ends in suspense. It talks about how the Mont Blanc exploded and then just stops. This makes us want to continue reading to find out what happens next, especially to the people at the harbour. The author uses suspense to catch the reader’s attention and draw them in, so they continue to read the novel.





Context:

During this passage the ammunition boat, Mont Blanc, is still on fire in the water and the crew has abandoned ship and ran to take cover. None of the people standing at the harbour watching the burning ship or the people in town know that the ship is filled with explosives and is going to explode. The fire fighters are trying to put out the burning ship, but no one is really concerned because they don’t realize the danger that they are all in. The whole crew had abandoned ship and were “in [a] life-boat” (246) heading towards shore and away from the boat, but didn’t bother to tell anyone about the explosives on it.

Before this Neil visited Alec Macrae’s house and found out that Alec “knew his father” (226) when barley anyone else did. Neil wanted to ask Alec if he would “testify for [him]” (216) at court against Colonel Wain, who was Alec’s boss. Alec however agrees to even if it means that he will lose his job at the Shipyards. Alec also asks Neil to stay the night and when Neil says no, Alec tells him that his (Neil’s) father used to all the time and that he was one of his own people, so Neil agrees to.

After this passage, the Mont Blanc blows up and created three forces, “an earthquake, an air concussion and a tidal wave.” (248) That night there is also one of the worst snowstorms Halifax had ever seen. The blow from the ship was so strong that most houses were knocked off of their foundations and almost every house had the glass broken from the windows. Neil and Murray us the Wain’s house as a make shift hospital so they can help the injured people because the hospitals were almost filled to the limit and Murray was a surgeon.




Significance:

This passage is significant because it is the climax of the novel. It is right before the Mont Blanc blows up and the suspension is very high. It also ends in a very suspenseful way and makes the reader want to continue reading to find out what happens next. It also sets up for one of the main themes in the novel, which is that people change. After the explosion Aunt Maria is much nicer and a lot more willing to help and even sets up the house to be a makeshift hospital for Murray and Neil. They believe that Aunt Maria changed because the explosion had been one ting that she was not able to “bully out of the way.” (284)







Idea One:

“But people do. I’ve seen the war changing them all the time.” (356)


The idea of people changing is a very important theme in the novel Barometer Rising. The idea of people changing is present in Murray, Penny and Aunt Maria. Around the middle of the book we find Angus Murray drunk in a bar, telling the bartender that he “can still operate” (224) and that the “war hasn’t finished [him] yet.” (224) He is feeling useless at this point and wants to be able to work and help people. After the explosion happened he had to set up a fake hospital in the Wain’s house because all of the hospitals were full. This made him feel like he was needed because “he had performed eleven operations without assistance” (336), which gave him confidence. Penny has also changed throughout the novel, Barometer Rising. At the beginning of the novel Penny did not stand up for herself very much and often let her family push her around and tell her that she was wrong to be working at the Shipyards. By the middle of the novel, however, she got more confident in herself and ended up confronting her father about her seeing Neil and demanded to know if he was really dead or not. We also hear from Neil numerous times throughout the novel mentioning how different Penny is now than from the last time he saw her. Perhaps Aunt Maria was the most changed throughout the novel. At the beginning of Barometer Rising, Aunt Maria was very loud and had a big opinion that she liked to share. She would tell Penny that she should not be working at the Shipyards and even after the explosion, when Neil and Murray went to the Wain’s house to use it as a hospital, she told Neil to “stay away from [her]” (272), even though he was just trying to help. After Murray told her that he needed her help to turn the house into a hospital she completely changed. She got the whole house organized and even found Murray a qualified nurse to help him. She even told Murray that she “[had] confidence in [him]” (284) when he did an operation on Penny. As you can see many people changed throughout the novel Barometer Rising, including Murray, Penny and Aunt Maria.

Reference One- Allusion:
“Roddie soon discovered that members of his aunt’s chapter of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire had commandeered the entire house.” (300)

Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire:
The Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (or IODE) is national women’s charitable organization that is dedicated to improve the quality of life for people. IODE Canada was founded in 1900 to make Canada a better place for all of its citizens.

This is important in the novel, Barometer Rising, because Penny’s Aunt Maria is also part of this organization and this probably explains why she thinks so highly of herself and why she thinks that she can boss everyone else around. It also confuses the reader though, because it make us wonder why she doesn’t want Penny to work at the Shipyards if she is part of an organization that is meant to make Canada a better place for everyone.

Sources:

http://www.iode.ca/AboutUs.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Order_of_the_Daughters_of_the_Empire
Reference Two: Allusion/Reference
“There was now only one vessel moving north towards the upper harbour, the French munition ship Mont Blanc.” (239)
Mont Blanc:
The Mont Blanc was a French ship that carried general cargo and munitions. She was 44.8 feet wide, 320 feet long and had a depth of 15.3 feet. The ship was powered by steam and had a gross tonnage of 3121 tonnes.

On December 6th, 1917 the Mont Blanc was carrying picric acid, gun cotton and TNT and the top deck carried benzol. The Imo, a Belgian relief vessel, was leaving Halifax Harbour at the same time that the Mont Blanc was on its way to wait for convoy. The two ships collided around 8:45 am and the Mont Blanc caught on fire. For twenty minutes people crowed around Halifax Harbour to watch the burning ship as it drifted towards Pier 6. The crew of the Mont Blanc abandoned ship in lifeboats to Dartmouth shore and tried to warn people to run.

The Mont Blanc hit Pier 6, setting its wood pilings on fire, and finally, after 20 minuets of burning, exploded. The explosion flattened everything within 800 meters and caused damage for 1.6 km and cause many fires, which spread quickly.

The explosion caused by the Mont Blanc caused more than 1900 deaths, 9000 injured, 1600 buildings destroyed, 12,000 houses damaged, 6000 people homeless and 25,000 people with inadequate housing.

This is the main event in the novel and everything else in the novel revolves around this one aspect. The main idea of the book is about the Halifax explosion, which was caused by the ship, Mont Blanc when it crashed into the Imo. In the novel, Barometer Rising, it said that the explosion of the ship created three forces simultaneously; “an earthquake, an air concussion, and a tidal wave.” (248)
Sources:

http://www.halifaxexplosion.org/collision.html

http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/canadaww1/p/halifaxexpl.htm
Reference Three-Reference/Allusion:
Explosives:
“A half-million pounds of trinitrotoluol and twenty-three hundred tons of picric acid lay there in the darkness under the plates, while the fire above and below the deck converted the hollow shell of the vessel into a bake-oven.” (245-246)
Trinitrotoluol:
Trinitroltoluol is a yellow coloured solid that is a useful explosive material and has convenient handling properties. It is the explosive yield of TNT and is considered the standard measure of strength of bombs and other explosives. TNT was first prepared by a German chemist named Julius Wilbrand in1863 and was originally used as a yellow dye. It is now used for blasting, and in artillery shells.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitrotoluene

http://www.yourdictionary.com/trinitrotoluol



Picric Acid:

Picric Acid is formally known as 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP). It is a yellow crystalline solid and is one of the most acidic phenols. Picric Acid is and explosive and it has a very bitter taste. It is mostly used in munitions and explosives, but also has some use in the preparation of crystalline salts of organic bases in organic chemistry.

Sources:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459542/picric-acid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid

These both connect to the novel, Barometer Rising, because both of these explosives were on the ship, Mont Blanc, and caused it to explode because of the impact when the ship Imo rammed into them. These two explosives are the cause of the Halifax Explosion, which is the main topic in the novel. This detail helps to create realism, which is important in historical fiction.



Connections:

I really enjoyed the novel, Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan. It was a very interesting novel and it was very descriptive about what happened during the Halifax Explosion. I think that it helped a lot that MacLennan had a personal experience with the explosion and it made the book even better because he could use so much detail and be very accurate about what time things happened.

At the beginning of the novel, I found it was quit boring because nothing was really happening and it was more just people talking. Around the middle of the novel, however, I found it got very interesting and there was a lot more action and more conflicts between the characters. When the explosion happened it got very interesting as well and I could hardly put the book down.

Would definitely recommend this as an ISU novel for students next semester because it is very interesting once you get into it and it gives you a lot of information on the Halifax Explosion. It is also is a fairly easy book to work with when doing an ISU because it as so many different references to use and you can connect to the novel in many different ways.



Overall, I really enjoyed reading this novel and I found it very interesting and I learned a lot of things that I never knew before about the Halifax Explosion while reading it.
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