Paper 2 cooked english

Jojo animal, empathy and supernatural quote

“It was impossible to not hear the animals… it was like looking at a sentence and udnerstanding the words.”

Analysis (simple):

• Shows Jojo has a special sensitivity: he “reads” animals like text, so he understands pain others ignore.

• Links to his later role with ghosts (Richie, the tree) – he is the one who can hear those who suffer but cannot speak.

• You can use it for coming of age (he carries heavy knowledge), supernatural / magical realism, and empathy vs cruelty.

Themes to link: empathy, the supernatural, childhood burden, alienation.

How to link to Antigone:

Jojo's ability to understand the pain of animals highlights his empathetic nature, mirroring Antigone's commitment to her moral beliefs despite societal cruelty. Both characters carry heavy burdens due to their deep understanding of suffering and the consequences of their choices, showcasing the conflict between personal conviction and societal expectations.

Parch man, power and racism quote

“The sergeant come from a long line of men bred to treaet you like a plowing horse, like a hunting dog”

Analysis:

• Animal imagery (“plowing horse”, “hunting dog”) shows dehumanisation of Black prisoners.

• “Long line” links slavery overseers to modern prison guards – power is historical and passed down.

• Great for power/control, freedom vs confinement, and historical racism.

Themes: control and power, freedom and confinement, racism as a system, the past in the present.

Link to antigone:
Both tests show people in power treating others as less than human. Ward spreads this across a racist prison system. Sophocles puts it in one king.

“Am I to rule this land for others—or myself?”

Devices:

• Rhetorical question shows belief that power is his.

• First person focus- highlights selfish leadership.

  • contrast between “others” and “myself” shows how he separates his interests from the cities, making his rule feel possessive and arrogant

• Blunt simple phrasing make his hubris very clear for audience, implying a potential disaster.

Symbolism and vivid imagery

Ward:

“The branches are full. They are full with ghosts…They perch like birds, but look as people.”

• Tree full of ghosts symbolises collective black trauma and “unburied” history:

• Parchman prison symbolizes slavery continued in another form.

• Simile: “perch like birds” mixes natural image with human suffering → magical realism. “look as human serves as reminder of birds actual humanity”

Sophocles:

Both writes use the unburied dead as a site of moral conflict. Sophocles focuses on one forbidden burial that openly pits antigone against creon, while ward turns erasure of dead into a collective haunting, so the moral failure to honor them contaminates an entire landscape rather than a single decree

“I will bury him myslef. And even if i dea in the act, that death will be a glory” Antigone to ismene.

• Antithesis between “die” and “glory” shows she values moral and religious honor above physical survival

• Confident, elevated word “glory” aligns with her heroic, almost sacred duty, so the audience sympathise with her over creon

• Burial rites symbolizes respect for divine law, Antigones act is not just about a body but what is owed to the dead

Multiple voices/chorus vs multiple narrators

Ward:

• Uses three person naarrators; jojo, leonie and richie

• This creates a fractured, shifiting view of events- like a modern “chorus” of different voices and generations

“All bad blood, fuk the skin.”

Devices:

• bad blood links racism to bioligcal roots, as if their ancestry is a stain in their veins not just prejudice in his mind

• dismisses their mixed appearance as its now how they look but who their black relatives are that matters,msocial categories override physical reality

Sophocles:

“You went too far… do you pay for your fathers terrible ordeal?” chorus to antigone

• Has the chorus of theban elders, who comment on events, add moral judgment and sometimes foreshadow.

Decices:

Rhetorical questions link her pumish,enet to her fathers

“too far” implies there is a limit antigone has crosses, blurring whether the blame lies with her choice, blood or both"

Both texts show people judged and punished because of the families they come from: Big Joseph frames Jojo and Kayla as “bad blood” because of their Black side, while in Antigone the Chorus suggests Antigone suffers partly because she belongs to Oedipus’s cursed house, turning lineage into a trap.

Links to themes of memory, community judgement.