The Graduation as Metaphor - Assignment Example

Italics-graduation Bold-inscribed attitude Underline-graduation as metaphor Blue-appreciation Green-judgement Red-affect Purple- engagement Ten [-quantity; amount] violent [-security] seconds [-quantity: amount]of terror [-composition: position] Joe Bennet witnessed the damage [-composition:position] to Lyttelton, epicentre[+valuer: specificity] of the earthquake [engagement:projection]. I’m sitting in an armchair and eating a cheese-and-tomato sandwich for lunch. As I eat I idly [-affect; unhappiness] watch the goats in the sanctuary on the other side of [metaphor] the valley. Suddenly my house is thrown about, [-composition: balance] flung side-to-side [-composition: balance] like a rabbit in a dog’s jaws. [Metaphor- -composition: position] The chair is bouncing [-composition: balance]. I grip the arms. A painting flies [-composition: balance] from the wall and cartwheels along the sofa. Twenty-four [+quantity: amount] fat [intensity: quality] volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica crash [-composition: balance] from a top shelf. A mob [+ quantity: amount} of goats streams down the fence line in panic. [-security} I am aware of their bleating above the noise of the quake [metaphor –intensity]. Ten [quantity: amount] violent [-security] seconds, perhaps 15, and it’s over. When it stops I sit on for a few more [+quantity: amount], adjusting to a changed world [engagement]. In the kitchen every cupboard has flung itself open [- composition; balance]. Bottles are smashed [-composition: position]. Gin. Jars of jam. Bags of flour. Soy sauce. Plates. Glasses. The microwave has crossed [-composition: balance] the room. I call Blue, my dog. Nothing. [-reaction] I find him in the garden, trembling. [-security] He doesn’t come [-security] to me. Then the first aftershock hits, sharp as a rifle shot [-intensity: process]. Up on the hills there’s a great [intensity: quality] crashing [-composition: balance] of vegetation. Rocks are cascading. [-composition: balance] Boulders like small cars [metaphor; -composition: balance] canon down a farm track. A neighbour emerges. “You OK?” [Engagement] we shout at the same time. “My kids.” She says, “my kids are in town.” “Can I help?” I shout, knowing that I can’t. She shakes [-reaction; -satisfaction] her head, goes back inside. Blue has disappeared. [+composition: position] I run down the drive. A fat [quantity: amount] boulder has come to rest [- composition: balance] on the road. I can’t see why. There’s nothing to stop it carrying on down the hill to the port below. Everything is still [-valuer: specificity]. I notice that no birds are singing. [-reaction] I knock on the door of a couple aged 80 something [+quantity: amount]. “Come in, love” says Mona. She’s laughing. [+affect: satisfaction] Ivor’s inside with the digital camera photographing a life-time’s worth of trinkets, [intensity: quality] smashed. [-composition: balance] “Do you need a hand?” I say. “No, love, no” says Mona. “Alan will be around in five minutes. [+quantity: amount] We’ll put him to work.” Alan is the son-in-law, former chief of the Lyttelton volunteer fire brigade [concession]. My cell phone beeps. [+reaction] “Blue’s here,” says the text. “Here” means Gill’s house a mile across town. Blue has only ever been there by car. I go home, survey the mess, pick a few things up, don’t know where to put them, sit down and light a cigarette. Aftershocks rock the place intermittently. [-composition: balance] A while later I drive down to the port, slowly. [-intensity: speed/movement] A woman is standing on the street, a shawl round her shoulders. She is doing nothing. [+reaction]I stop. “You OK?” She isn’t. She’s pale. [-security] “I’ve just had my operation,” [concession] she says. She gestures at her house [concession]. Like many [+quantity: amount] houses here it stands on poles. “I haven’t been in. I don’t want to go in. Have you got a cigarette?” [Engagement] She is shaking so badly [-security] it takes 10 seconds [-intensity: process] to light it. A neighbour appears, puts an arm round the woman, leads her away. A stone retaining wall has spread out across the road like a delta. [Metaphor: -valuation] Water is gushing [+intensity: process] from beneath it. An old wooden cottage seems intact [+composition: balance] but there is now a deep [-intensity: scope/space] black [intensity: quality] gap [composition: balance] between it and the road. A woman stops me [concession] to ask if I know where the water main is. I don’t. “No worries, love, no worries,” she says, we’ll be sweet [+reaction].” She smiles [+satisfaction] with dirty [-intensity: quality] teeth and pats my arm. London Street is cordoned [–security] off already. The egg-yolk coloured [metaphor: -composition; position] wall of the Volcano restaurant – how many [+quantity: amount] meals have I eaten in there over the past 20 years? [+quantity: amount] How many [+quantity: amount] beers drunk? How loudly [+reaction; +satisfaction] have I laughed in there? – has collapsed. [-composition; balance]The front window is blown out. [-composition: balance] You can see into the roof space. [-composition: balance] Next door the concrete facade of the fish and chip shop has toppled as a single slab [-quantity: amount] and landed smack [-composition: balance] across the footpath. Underneath it there’ll be a couple of tables and chairs. The place is always lunchtime busy. [+reaction] Gulls flock here to fight for chips. There are none [-judgement: valuation] here now. The awning [-satisfaction] of the Lyttelton Coffee Company has heaved down [-intensity; process] and in through the glass frontage. Plate glass has exploded [-intensity; process] from the newly opened supermarket. Somewhere down the street an alarm is sounding. [-reaction] Otherwise it is quiet [-valuer; specificity]. [- Few [-quantity: amount] people are about and they are just gawping [-judgement] like me. Those who were here at the time shopping, working, drinking coffee, must have gone to find families, to check their own houses. A mongrel scampers under [-security] the cordon tape, I call him. He stops, turns to look at me. I click my fingers, kneel, make soft [-extent: judgement] sounds but he turns and dashes [-security] on, just going away. He runs over shattered [-composition: balance] glass. There is a heap [-quantity: amount] of loose [-composition: balance] bricks beside the north wall of The Looms, our theatre-cum-club. The plaster is crazed.[-composition: balance] Where the wall meets the roof there’s a hole [-composition: position]a couple of metres wide [-extent: scope/space]. The company gets back from Rotorua tomorrow [+composition; scope] and we open a new [+intensity; quality] show here next week. There’s a poster on the wall advertising it. On Norwich Quay the Royal and Lyttelton Hotels appear done for and rubble has flattened [-intensity: normality] a parked car. The building the rubble fell from is now frontless, like an opened doll’s house. [Metaphor; - intensity: scope] They’d just started to repair the Black Cat Cruises office after [concession] the September quake. [-composition: balance]The scaffolding now lies on the road in a buckled [-composition: balance] heap. [-quantity: amount] On Oxford Street the Norton Building has simply [-intensity] gone, a couple of businesses with it. There are soldiers on the street corners with radios, soldiers who happened to be on a ship in port. They look about the age of kids I used to teach. They are cheerful. [+satisfaction] “Hey, Joe,” says a man I’ve drunk beer with in the Volcano. We shake hands. “Mate, “ I say because I don’t know his name. “How you doing?” “Box of fluffies, “ he says and laughs. “You?” [Engagement] “Never been better. How’s your house?” “F---ed,” he says. I fetch my car and think for the first time to turn on the radio. There is news of mayhem over the hill in Christchurch. I turn it off. I drive slowly be two [-Quantity: amount] ruined [-judgement: normality] churches, past people just standing in doorways smoking. A little girl is running up Oxford Street alone. [-judgement; normality] I am about to stop when her mother comes out of a gate and the girl clamps herself into her embrace. Reserve Terrace is cut across [-valuation] a steep hillside. The houses on the downhill side have garages on the roof. There are fat [-quantity: amount] cracks in the road. Blue greet me with frantic [+valuation] delight. [+satisfaction] Gill hasn’t yet been downstairs to her living room. We pick our way down over fallen [-composition: position] stuff – paintings, boxes, books and more books. Her kitchen is a mess. [-judgement: normality] We stand and we look at it. The heavy [-extent: scope] old [-intensity: quality] cast iron stove has been flipped [-composition: position] on its head. “Later,” [engagement] she says, “I’ll do it later.” [Concession] I drive Blue home. On the living room carpet he finds half a cheese-and-tomato sandwich and eats it. Through the window I can see goats grazing. [Engagement] [Source: Sydney Morning Herald Feb26-7: Review page 5] Read More