this is my essay comparing flight and growing up, can you plz tell me what i can do to make it better. its not finished.
Flight & Growing Up 3rd March
Flight by Doris Lessing and Growing Up by Joyce Cary are two short stories which have several points which are in contrast with one another and many which are distinctive to one another. Both of these stories portray the similar theme about growing up; both contain an extended metaphor; the relationship between the two parental characters and how difficult it is for the two men to let go of their daughters. In both stories, the author displays the lives of the parental protagonists and how the maturation of their daughters and granddaughter changes their lives.
Both of these stories use complex metaphors to describe the characteristics of the children. In Growing Up, the garden is described as 'a wilderness' and 'wild'. This metaphorically represents the children's personality and typically represents the children which can be seen when the girls got violent and attacked their father. Another example is 'neither of the Quicks cared about gardening'. This metaphorically means that Robert and his wife don't care about their daughters, which then can be related to the fact that the garden is not clean or pruned which therefore can relate to the girls' personality and poor upbringing which can be seen during barbaric attack on Quick. In Flight, the title is related to Alice and how her grandfather feels about letting her go. There are many areas in the text where the phrase 'letting go' can be associated in. For example, when Alice's grandfather releases the pigeon, he also realises that it is time for Alice to go. The pigeon in Alice's grandfather's hand can be compared to Alice as it shows how hard it is for him to let Alice go therefore, he catches the pigeon in midflight as he realises that Steven is going to take Alice away from him and he is not going to give up with out a fight. Other metaphoric examples in 'Flight includes 'grandpa's fingers clawing up' which can be related to the pigeons.
The setting is distinctive in both Growing Up and Flight. According to the text, it can be assumed that Growing Up is set in England due to the representation of English words like 'the club' and English events like tea parties. On the other hand, Flight is set somewhere in Africa. This is supported by the fact that there are 'frangipani trees' in the garden and are only found in Africa and because most breeds of pigeons originated from Africa. Both stories use the garden as there setting but Growing up seems to use the garden as an example of the characters. This is reflective because it relates Kate and Jenny to the garden, for example 'wild' which then enables the reader to feel the link between these two protagonists and 'the garden' which enables them to see how the garden is associated with the girls. On the contrary Flight does not use the garden as an example of it's characters because Alice does not have as much authorisation and control over the garden compared to Kate and Jenny which explains why Alice does not get wild but Kate and Jenny do.
Robert Quick in Growing Up and Alice's grandfather in Flight appear to be quite similar at first glance but towards the end of the story they differ from each other. At the beginning of the story, Alice's grandfather prefers Alice to act like a young child, be wild and not to feel love towards others just so he can sense a feel of belonging towards her. Quick prefers his daughters to be 'wild' and free for which he feels proud of because his children are a lot different compared to the neighbour's children because they are 'shaved' and 'combed' which metaphorically relates to well mannered and well brought up. Plus, both men preferred their daughters to go their way and not give them a passage to travel their own way because they didn't want their daughters to grow up. In a way, both men are growing up as Alice's grandad in Flight realises that it is time for her to pass on. Robert in Growing Up realises that he should not have given too much authority to his daughters to do what they like and learns his lesson for which the reader feels real empathy towards Robert. At the end of the story, both men shared different perspectives about their daughters. Robert prefers his daughters to be 'young matrons', well mannered, 'impulsive' and 'affectionate' children after they went 'homicidal' and 'wild' towards him. While on the contrary, Alice's grandfather still prefers her daughter to be a young child and not to feel love towards others in his heart.
"two short stories which have several points which are in contrast with one another " This seems out of place, given that you then go on to list similarities between the texts, rather than differences. Of course, your first body paragraph then introduces what seems to be a contrast, between girls who were neglected and a girl whose grandfather cares about her deeply, so I'm not sure what you are trying to do with this essay, exactly.
Your second body paragraph seems to cover much of the same material as your first paragraph did, with the discussion of the gardening metaphor.
Okay, reading over your last paragraph, you seem to be arguing that the two stories have many superficial similarities, but that a deeper reading reveals them to be quite different in many important respects. If that is your thesis, you should state it explicitly somewhere in your introduction.
Overall, try to restructure your essay to give it a clearer thesis and a greater emphasis on logical transitions between paragraphs.
Here are a few other fixes to go with the great advice from Sean;
This metaphorically means that Robert and his wife don't care about their daughters, which then can be related to the fact that the garden is not clean or pruned which therefore can relate to the girls' personality and poor upbringing which can be seen during the barbaric attack on Quick.
For example, when Alice's grandfather releases the pigeon, he also realizes that it is time for Alice to go.
The pigeon in Alice's grandfather's hand can be compared to Alice as it shows how hard it is for him to let Alice go therefore, he catches the pigeon in mid flight as he realizes that Steven is going to take Alice away from him and he is not going to give up with out a fight.
Both stories use the garden as their setting but Growing up seems to use the garden as an example of the characters.
On the contrary, Flight does not use the garden as an example of it's characters because Alice does not have as much authorization and control over the garden compared to Kate and Jenny which explains why Alice does not get wild but Kate and Jenny do.
Quick prefers his daughters to be 'wild' and free for which he feels proud of because his children are a lot different compared to the neighbor 's children because they are 'shaved' and 'combed' which metaphorically relates to well mannered and well brought up.
In a way, both men are growing up as Alice's granddad in Flight realizes that it is time for her to pass on.
While on the contrary, Alice's grandfather still prefers her daughter to be a young child and not to feel love towards others in his heart.This sentence needs revision.
