“Letter to Daniel” by Fergal Keane Essay

Task Non leg abate is seldom objective. Often it s musical modes your go throughings or influences your thoughts. By referring closely to a work of non-fiction, leaven how the generator does more than simply arrive data.Often non fiction tries to convey sense and thought rather than simply providing tuition in order to move the reader. A piece of non fiction which has had a last impression on me is letter to Daniel by the Irish foreign correspondent, Fergal Keane. This piece of penning is written in the form of a letter in which Keane has put crossways go reflections approximately his first boors deport. To show the strong and wide instal his son has brought upon himself and his wife, Keane manipulations certain techniques such as rich imagery, judgment of conviction structure, facial expression, typography and a individualized style of typography to convey his thoughts and receiveings.Firstly, Keane immediately makes it clear to me that he is authorship in the form of a letter when he begins writing with the verbiage My dear son. He accordingly describes to his son how his beat got has altered and changed his lifestyleIm acquisition the device of unmatchable handed typingThis shows that since Daniel was born, Keane has been developing to cope with impertinent things. However by describing the task as an art the source shows that he doesnt mind this sensitive way of surviving. He further describes the judgment that Daniel has changed the way he lives by explaining thatSince youve arrived, days reserve melted into night and rump againand we atomic number 18 learning a wise grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feed and winding and nappy changing and these effortless moments of quiet.This extended metaphor caught my attention because it compares the birth of his son to a long sentence and there is besides irony in the metaphor as this sentence is long. It relates to his sons birth as a stage of ou tgrowth in his life and shows that time has missed its differenciated routine. The word choice of melted conveys a feeling of warmth and gentleness which shows that Keane is in no way angry because of this new routine and is enjoying it. Keane likewise shows the change in his way of living when he explains that his return is asleep. It is six oclock in the break of day which is unrivalled of the most serene times of the day. It is the fountain of a new day and I think this relates to the lineage of Keanes family. The birth of Daniel has too resulted in Keane discloseing his job differentlyYour glide path has turned me upside dget and indoors outI motherlived a life that, on occasion, has veered close to the perimeter warzones, natural disasters, iniquity in all its shapes and formsThe word choice of climax gives me the idea that he has waited and wanted for him, and right off that he has finally arrived his whole orbit has been turned upside down. He looks on things differently now and Daniel has cause him to re-evaluate the risks he has taken as a reporter. I feel that the sources use of imagery to convey information helps me to understand his thoughts and sensations end-to-end the letter.The writer also helps to convey emotion and feelings throughout the letter by use an appropriate tone. I offer see that Keane uses a personal tone at first as he uses quarrel such as you and I repeatedly. This emphasises the earnestness of his letter and helps to convey his thoughts and emotions. However his tone changes to a more pro forma one when he begins to describe the disasters and darkness that he has demonstrated as a reporter. He contrasts his baby birds actions with these disasters and I can see this through the writers wordchoice. He describes his son with gentle and artless images such as sleeping face sigh gurgle glory prizes and assess.He then shows the difference amidst his childs innocence and the paltry that he has seen by usin g the language haunted too much to throw and flooding. This suggests that his change from a personal tone to a more formal tone is because the memories of suffering and the disastrous images are too much for the writer to bear. thereof he resorts to listing his experiences and becomes less intimate. He changes his tone because he wants to report it in order to detatch himself from the memories. He describes the last study as being a really personal one, however when he goes on to tell it, is tone is still precise formal. The story is anonymous and Keane does not issue until near the end of the story that it was most his own familyin a largish city on a january morning with snow on the ground anda womanThe repetition of the word a makes me realise that the writer is being very vague in the story and is distancing himself from emotion. The event that he tells the story anonymously seemed to have a much bigger encounter on me when I realised it was about his own experience and about his own father being an alcoholic. However he shows no anger towards his father as he knows it was not his faultThe pubic louse of alcoholismHe describes his fathers condition as cancer, in other row he sees it as a sickness and knows that it could not be helped. This metaphor shows no sense of blame towards his father and also shows that it is killing him. The phrase it notwithstanding was also gives me a sense of his acceptance of his fathers condition. He admired his family, but he was living and dying for the bottle and the love he had did not save him. He understands what it would have been like for his father to be uninvolved from his family, as he now has one of his own. I think that this is why he decided to reveal that it was his father at the end of the letter. He personalised it because he now understood. He was not just a man anymore, he is your grandad. The clever way in which the writer has used this tone makes me realise what emotions he feels.Lastly , throughout the letter the writer relates to a particular etymon. This theme first becomes ostensible to me when the writer uses the phraseNaturally your beat and I were only too cheerful to believe that.His wordchoice of naturally gives me the idea that it is standard for a parent to believe that their child is the best thing to come into their life. It conveys the world-widely acknowledged theme of the love trammel net amidst parent and child. This idea is revisited throughout the letter, for example in one of the cases he describesI found a mother and her three young children huddle together unneurotic where theyd been beaten to death. The childrenhad died holding on to their mother cling to until we dieThe wordchoice of huddled together, holding and cling shows the consecrated image between mother and child. He also conveys this idea when he is writing about his mothershe gives birth to a baby boy and, just as you are to me,he is the best thing she has ever seenThe par enthesis here is also useful in conveying this universal theme of love. It also acts as a link in the story because I can see that he is beginning to realise the joy his mother snarl when he was born. However, one quotation I feel shows this boundless parental love that transcends all borders isThat instinct we all learn from birth and in one way oranother cling to until we die.This I feel is one of the most moving sentences in the story and helps me to recognise Keanes universal message of the love fond regard between parent and child. Daniel has given Keane an soul of his own father, and at the very end of the letter he describes his son as the sound of hope and uses wordchoice such has innoncence and insolence to show the stark contrast between his childs innocence and the darkness that he previously described. I feel that Keanes choice of theme throughout the letter is very important in conveying his emotions at this time as it shows how important his son is to him.In conclu sion, Letter to Daniel by Fergal Keane is one of the most contact and moving short stories I have ever read. The writers use of rich imagery, sentence structure, tone and theme all comes together and helps to convey the writers thoughts and emotions. He provides the necessary information and also paints vivid pictures of his emotions and if Keane had not used such strong ideas and techniques throughout the letter I am not certain it would have had the same enduring effect on me.