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Leaving Certificate English Essays
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20-09-2009 8:26pm#1
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Hey guys,
This is a sample short story that could be probably be adapted to most situations with a bit of creativity
Any time I write a variation on this essay I usually get an A1 so I hope it might help some of you out there who are struggling with the composition part of paper 1.
It was an icy winters evening as Arthur Kruger stared blankly out of his New York hotel room window. He had run away because he was sick of it all. Sick of school, parents, pressure and expectation. The room he was staying in was dilapidated and empty. The whole hotel felt broken. He liked it that way because it reflected how he felt. It was snowing outside. Silver specks attacking the people below. The red lights across the street reminded him that Christmas was just around the corner. His parents are probably having fun. They had already forgotten about him.
Arthur was small and thin for his age. He had pale skin that had only become greyer since he left home. He resembled a ghost most of the time. It suited him. His attire consisted of nothing more than a worn out pair of jeans, charcoal black shoes an old woolly jumper that he had gotten from his eager to please, soon to be step father last year. His eyes were rich and dark, glazed with a stony sadness. He always looked malnourished. It was his spirit that was malnourished.
It was starting to get busy outside. Cars jostled for supremacy, horns bleeped and parents cried out for lost children. He couldn’t hear his own parents voices among what seemed like a blur of noise. His mother used to call out his name when he would get lost in the supermarket. He would always remember the anxiousness in her silky soft voice. Any time she would speak others would just stop and listen. Arthur’s father said that her voice was a gift from God Himself. The problem was, Arthur was an atheist. Religion caused more problems than it solved. Churches were the breeding grounds for bigots and selfish criminals.
It was beginning to get dark. The gloomy grey was fighting a losing battle to the forces of night. The sun didn’t enter the battle. Every day, it was grey against black. And everyday black would win. Arthur decided to leave the hotel and go for a walk. The corridor felt warm. The blood red carpet was beautifully aesthetic, but an old wooden floor would have been just as effective. The dining hall was filled with people. Everybody’s pockets full with love. The same people would be indifferent when January came. Their disingenuous smiles and eager hearts made Arthur laugh.
Outside it was cold. The winter wind whispered in Arthur’s ear. New York was full of people but Arthur had never felt so lonely. He didn’t know which direction to take. Left or right? The world was full of options, none of them seemed appealing to Arthur. He still couldn’t decide. Eventually he shifted left for the simple reason that there was an attractive woman walking that direction.
She was about 25 years old, had dark skin and had tangled, dark hair hiding deep, dark, luxurious eyes. She wore a long fur coat and carried a branded bag. She was definitely aristocracy. Her father probably wore a pinstripe. Arthur had learned from an early age that money corrupts and kills. His father had learned that lesson too. When Arthur was about 5 years old he had watched his father beat another man to death because of money.
It was getting dark and the road was beginning to fill up with snow. The snow’s beauty was marred by all of the ugly footprints embedded in it. Such was people’s effect on beauty. They destroyed it. Always. He was beginning to feel more and more like a character he read about in a book once with the exception that he felt more isolated. At least that character lived on in the millions of readers minds. Arthur would never be remembered. He was only one, small time, soon to be forgotten kid.
The woman that he was shadowing entered an expensive clothes boutique. It would have only been called a shop if the clothes were less expensive. ‘Boutique’ was a means of differentiating the rich from the poor. Arthur walked on unaffected by the intolerance. Arthur had been so self absorbed that he had not realised that he had been receiving a mix of dirty and scared looks from passers-by who probably assumed him to be nothing more than a vagrant. People are always scared of what they don’t understand. It’s a simple fact of our nature. We don’t like change simply because we don’t understand it.
The sky was almost fully black by now as Arthur sank deeper into his depression. He was beginning to feel tired and the ground pulled on his legs. He sat down in the snow. That restored the equilibrium that he had been feeling all day. Now people could look down on him properly.
As the night grew darker so did his thoughts. There was one option that he could take. It resonated through the emotional vacuum that was his mind. Although he couldn’t bring himself to actually say it, he knew that it was probably for the best. He had considered it before but now seemed like the perfect time in a strange, Tyler Durden sort of way. Self destruction had always seemed like fun to Arthur Kruger.
After a half hour of dropping himself a place on the food chain Arthur finally stood up and began he long walk back to the hotel. Happiness seemed like a foreign language at this point to our sad sorry protagonist as he dragged himself through the cold winter air. Not much further he thought. Once he got into the hotel he could do something that he probably should have done years ago.
His ghostly figure blended with the snow as he entered the hotel for the last time. This time Arthur Kruger marched up the corridor with renewed vigour. New York would dance to his tune tonight. He knew exactly where to find the instrument.
As he entered the room Arthur began to feel sad again. This was his last few moments and all he could think about was his mother’s soft voice calling out. Arthur’s eyes began to sparkle and glisten as he fought to regain control of his emotions. He had felt numb all day. Why now? This story deserved a more dramatic ending than just tears he thought to himself as he collapsed in the corner of the room. He felt like he had let down his imaginary audience. Holden Caulfield wouldn’t be crying.
He began to feel like a lost boy in a supermarket again as he took the phone in his hand and began to dial.0 -
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NightOwl91 wrote: »U NEED : ENGLISH KEY NOTES 2010 : 13.50 IN easons!
My teacher secretly uses it lol n me n the girls robbed it 2day to photocopy.
Naturally, we will return it!
BUT!! It is the HL gold mine!
share n share alike :rolleyes:
You've photocopied a book, a good one. Therefore, you're going to get an A:rolleyes:
Why would she 'secretly' use it? Most teachers regularly photocopy stuff from revision books. Why didn't you just ask her for it?!0 -
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