The sample essay on Memories Of Christmas deals with a framework of research-based facts, approaches, and arguments concerning this theme. To see the essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion, read on.
Dylan Thomas writes in a poetic style. He was born in Wales and sets a lot of his stories there. He uses an impressionable technique and uses many Christian references in his stories but has never wholly renounced Christianity and does not remain in an organized religion. This story about Dylan Thomas’ family is clearly set in Wales.
This is shown by his references to Wales in the story, particularly when creating metaphors “Welsh speaking sea ” “All the cats in Wales standing on a wall This shows that he must have liked living in Wales when he was a child and was probably quite close to his family and friends because he wants to remember them. Something else that shows that they are a welsh family is the use of ‘old Britain ‘ expressions and welsh traditions throughout the story e.
g. “Nuts in May ” “Mother goose.
” This creates a close family atmosphere and shows how important family is, especially around Christmas time. The language he uses and the way he mentions the family constantly also show this “Aunt Bessie had been frightened twice by a clockwork mouse. ” This also gives you the feeling that they are living in the countryside because of the way he describes the hills and the little houses and a lot of things he talks about “We tobogganed down the seaward hill all afternoon.
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” wouldn’t happen in the middle of a town or city.
Details and Characters of the Story
The aim of this story is for Dylan Thomas to recall his childhood memories of Christmas and share them with the readers because this may help them to recall their own happy memories or, for those who don’t have happy memories it provides a kind of pre-packaged memories to make them feel good. He wants other people to be as happy he is about his childhood and feel the child like innocence in them like he has. Another good thing about the way he writes is that he gives an idea of children’s values and what they were like at the time of his childhood by telling the story as if he were a child again “Look, Jack said, I’m eating snow pie.
” The language Dylan Thomas uses often creates blurred, dreamlike impressions with its long, descriptive passages . He uses a lot of similes “Like a snowball, growing whiter and bigger and rounder” He often uses commas instead of full stops to build up an excited atmosphere. He has also included metaphors and alliteration” cats calling ” “Fish freezing. ” These are used to help people picture sights, smells and sounds that add excitement and feeling to the story.
This story has much more feeling in it than ‘The First Miracle ‘ this is possible because the story is personal to him so he can just write down his own feelings whereas Jeffery Archer had to try to imagine how a made up character would be feeling. The children in the story seem a lot like the boy in ‘the first miracle’. They are all mischievous and sometimes get into trouble. They also have the same way of thinking although at the time the first miracle is set, children were given a lot more responsibility (like going to market to shop)
`This story is personal to Dylan Thomas -it’s autobiographical. This is unlike ‘the first miracle’ which is a fictional story created for the money and so that the masses will like it. Memories of Christmas uses a childlike perspective of time -everything changes very slowly “Eternal snow -since Wednesday” His family stay almost exactly the same throughout the story even though different parts of it are from many different Christmases often years apart. It is written like this because that is how a child would see things , they wouldn’t notice the changes.
As in ‘the first miracle’ the family in memories of Christmas is a loving, protective unit where everyone can feel safe and warm “The front room was lovely and bright, Uncles and aunts sat by the fire, everything was good again “This is why family is an important part of every story. Although it seems that things are changing really slowly, it also seems that things are happening very quickly, so quickly that in some parts it is like a list, quickly jumping from one memory to the next. This is very different to the first miracle because everything in that moves quite slowly -it’s one whole story about one whole day.
I think that in a way this makes ‘memories of Christmas’ more exciting than the first miracle . It has been written in this way because Dylan Thomas is remembering things so quickly-and that makes more memories come flooding back and he has to quickly write them all down before he forgets them again, It seems that they pour out onto the page all at once so that things all seem blurred “I can’t remember if it snowed for six nights when I was twelve or twelve nights when I was six” this gives a good exciting effect.
The members of his family are not described in much detail but I still get a good idea of the characters and their role in the family . It seems that he has quite a big family but he only mentions a few uncles and aunts “Aunts and uncles sat by the fire. ” He never mentions a mum or a dad, This may be because he was looked after by other members of the family as his parents were dead . This would have made his family especially important to him.
There is uncle Arnold who comes over as quite a fat man “The mince pies finished uncle Arnold. ” But he seems a cheerful friendly old man who is quite close to the family. “Auntie Bessie playing ‘pop goes the weasel’ and ‘Nuts in May’ and ‘Oranges and lemons’ on the untuned piano. ” You get the impression that he only sees these aunts and uncles once a year at Christmas and yet they are still very important to him . It is hard to say their individual roles in the family as they are not very well defined .
Only a few characteristics of each member are mentioned ,I think this is because he can only remember the main points of each person from certain things that they did. Mrs Griffiths appears to be a grumpy old woman who is not a member of their family and is not well liked by him and his friends “We tobogganed down the seaward hill, all the afternoon, on the best tea tray, and Mrs Griffths complained, and we threw a snowball at her niece.
” Mrs Prothero I think is Dylan Thomas’ neighbour who he remembers vividly due to an incident with a fire that happened one Christmas Eve. Mrs Prothero was a very loud and fussy woman when the fire broke out “Fire, call the fire brigade, cried Mrs Prothero as she beat the gong. ” Mrs Prothero’ husband -Mr Prothero is less concerned about the fire and seems not to realize how serious it is “Clouds of smoke and Mr Prothero stood in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting.
” He is quite lazy and it seems that his wife does most of the work around the house -They must be living in a patriarchal society as in the first miracle. The final character mentioned in the story is Miss Prothero who is respected and considered very clever by Dylan Thomas and his friends but she is really quite weird and says very inappropriate things e. g. After the fire she says to the fireman “would you like something to read? ” They seem a very close-knit country community.
Memories Of Christmas by Dylan Thomas. (2019, Dec 06). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/memories-of-christmas-by-dylan-thomas/
