Creative – Memories Are Made of These

Creative Writing

Memories are made of these…

This is a creative writing piece from the novel Mister Pip written by Lloyd Jones, from the perspective of Matilda. The memory explores Matildas past on Bougainville. 

After living life 10 years after my Bougainville experience, I was using my spare time to help others to make sure that my knowledge wasn’t wasted after my traumatising experience. I am living on my own and am now a high school English teacher just like Mister Watts. He was a great man I once knew before his dreadful passing. He read my favourite book to me, well he read of most of it, Great Expectations. The book that changed my life and helped me survive the horrors I lived through. I hadn’t seen or read that book for years now and had moved past the horrible memories and grief of my past while living in Bougainville. I was very happy being able to read a large amount of different books, poems, novels, and other literature, studying with my classes and helping them learn the wonders of life. One peculiar day one of my students strode into class eager to share a book with me she had found. Fortunately for me her book was a rarely known classic entitled Hopscotch. She told me about how she read the book and thought it was amazing. She told all about her thoughts on the old novel and asked if I had known of it or read it. I knew of the book but I hadn’t read it before. I said to the girl what I knew of it and encouraged her to share it with the class to start today’s lesson.

The modern age and day was upon me, living the life of a stressed adult with a lack of money with intentions of trying to do others good. Bills having to be paid, food having to be brought, time being used up. I was trying my best to cope. All I wanted to do was to help others inside and outside of my classes. I volunteered for a job at the local library and had been working there for almost a year. Many of my students had visited the library and found me there. Their reactions were priceless.  

While I was scouring the library’s collection of books, putting the stacked mountain of returns back in the correct spot, I saw a cover that looked familiar to me. It had a very distinctive sense from the image of it. It was an old looking book with a leather brown cover that still looked as if it was in a pristine condition. I knew I had seen it in the past but couldn’t quite figure out why the back of my mind was remembering it. I approached the book at a slight pace, getting closer and closer to the intriguing odour forcing me towards it. The odour was of a scent that reminded me of my past, a mixture of plants exposed by the hot sun. I pulled the book from its selected spot and turned it over to the view the front cover. The book of course had the bold, shiny golden words engraved in the cover that read Great Expectations. I stopped for a second and remembered the story. It immediately triggered the memory of Mister Watts reading to me in class when I was a little girl and listening intently with my fellow students back on Bougainville. 

I looked away from the book to my side and standing next to me looking through the collection of books on the same isle as me was my old friend Pip. I watched him for several seconds, then sensed the presence of someone to my other side and saw Mister Watts doing the same thing, he wore his red clown nose. I then imagined Mister Watts towing Grace in a kart while the Bougainville people starred at them with me. The sudden harsh noise of a gun shot struck my mind causing me to have a slight jumping twitch. The gunshot that took Mister Watt’s life after claiming he was Mister Pip had me frozen and shivering in fear. The pace of my heart rapidly increasing in pace as my mind rushed through all the terrible memories of Bougainville, my heart pounding away faster and faster and faster. Stopped, my heart had stopped in a instant. I came back to reality and collapsed to the library’s filthy carpet floor as light filled my vision as I fell paralysed on the floor.  

Formal – Difference in Beliefs

Formal Writing

Difference in beliefs…

This piece of formal writing is based on an issue illustrated within the novel Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones and wider society. The issue is difference in beliefs and how it can affect people’s lives. 

 Beliefs are seen in many different ways all over the world that involve all sorts of cultures and religions. When different beliefs mix conflict can occur as a result. Not everyone is the same and believes the same things. Difference in beliefs is one of the key issues that can be identified in the novel Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones, (2006). It is also an issue that can be seen in real life in the past and present, in New Zealand and all over the world. In New Zealand it is easy to relate to the idea of differences in beliefs because as a nation we are multicultural. An example of this occurring in the novel is when Delores and Mister Watts are caught into a conflict about how they should teach their children in school on the Bougainville Island. Matilda believe differently to her mother who is buried into believing in the bible. Matilda believes in the book. This results in some tension being built between the two characters that ends up causing catastrophic consequences to all of the Bougainville Islanders, including the death of both Mister Watts and Delores. Delores’s beliefs and values cause issues between characters and create unfortunate outcomes. The redskins don’t believe that Pip is a fictional character and harm villagers and burn their belongings.

 Matilda is the main character of the book and is the most creative and imaginative character as she believes in the characters from the book Great Expectations coming to life and applying their characteristics to her own life beliefs and choice. She made the book a part of her beliefs as if someone would make a religion part of the rules they live by and base their choices and beliefs upon the religion they live by or have been born into and forced to live by. Matilda finds that by imaging the characters such as Pip she is able to escape the horrible horrors that the redskins bring upon herself and the islanders. Delores her mother decides that she should not be living by a book her white male teacher read to her in class instead of living by the bible as she does. “My daughter, my lovely Matilda, she began, tells me she does not believe in the devil. She believes in pip.” This quote from the novel shows how Delores doesn’t agree with her beliefs and wants to change her beliefs by teaching her about the bible and telling her to stop seeing Mr Watts and reading the book Great Expectations. Gloriavale is a real life scenario that is similar to this one seen in the novel. Gloriavale is a Christian commune within New Zeland that has different beliefs to the rest of New Zelanders and Christians living around the world. They still live by the Christian religion but live life more like the Amish but with technology and with a different religion. They separated themselves from the rest of New Zeland and lived unknown to the public of New Zealnd as they don’t be over in the ways of the outside world. When the public of New Zeland then found out about a stir in the media lead to conflict between the public and the people of Gloriavale as stories about corruption within the commune came out and conflicted articles in the media created controversial beliefs between the insiders and outside of the commune. The key issue of difference in beliefs is illustrated within this real life scenario within the country of New Zealand and shows the starting point of possible further conflict started from two or more parties having different beliefs. 

 Throughout the novel the tension between the characters of Mister Watts and Delores rises. Mister Watts is trying to teach the kids of Bougainville in his way which all of the children very much enjoy. Matilda’s favourite part being the reading of the book Great Expectations. Matilda starts to connect with the character of Pip from Great Expectations. She starts to apply the things that Pip does to her own life and imagines Pip as one of her friends, an imaginary friend. Because of this Delores, Matilda’s mother, becomes concerned about her and disagrees that Matilda should be reading this book and would rather they learn about the island’s culture and past. Delores is also very religious and follows the teachings of the bible. She expects Matilda to do this too. Delores interrupts one of Mister Watt’s classes in order to do this for Matilda and the children of Bougainville. This helps add the tension between both Delores and Mister Watts due to their difference in beliefs. “I quickly unrolled the mat and there was Mr. Watts’ copy of Great Expectations.” Delores steals the Great Expectations book from Mr Watts so he cannot read it to the children. This affects the teachings of Mr Watts and the children’s thirst for the book. Due to the difference in what both Mr Watts and Delores believe for themselves it affects they way the children learn about the world the way they will think as they grow up. “My mum had packed away her guilt someplace and recovered her voice… Once upon a time I would have walked away from her attack on Mr Watts.” This quote is from a part later on the text as Matilda knew the horrific thing Delores did in the past to cause the death of both Mr Watts and Delores herself. The author intended this as way to create conflict between the two characters based upon their difference in beliefs, to show the consequences of beliefs clashing and being stuck in your own ways. Being taught by Mister Watts and being told differently by Delores causes a conflict between not just the two characters but the conflict of what the children should believe as they are being told differently by two different elders. This scenario in the novel can reflect the way present children of the world are being brought up and taught. The beliefs of their teachers change what they believe when they are older and can create conflict and separation. Hence why in the past war has been a result as to what different countries believe. For example in the past the United States of America believed in Capitalism while the Soviet Union believed in Communism due to the beliefs of their leaders at the time. The Cold War was the result. The two countries locked into the Cold War based upon threats and communication that they would bomb each other and the rest of their allies and vice versa causing the world to potentially become a nuclear wasteland. Due to the different beliefs of capitalism and communism when they clash this shows the most catastrophic outcome for the entire world. The novel Mister Pip takes this issue to a much smaller scale but shows a clear statement about the consequences when different beliefs cause conflict and issues. The difference in beliefs between Mr Watts and Delores caused them to both be killed and chopped up. Showing how conflict occurs as a result of the difference in beliefs clashing.

Another example of how difference in beliefs can cause conflict in the novel Mister Pip is when the redskins don’t believe the Bougainville islanders about the man Pip being a fictional character from the book Great Exoectations and then creates more conflict. The redskins arrive asking about a sign in the sand the kids had done that read Mister Pip. The Redskins saw this as a threat and asked for the man of the name Pip to step forward. Mr Watts tried to explain that Pip was a character in a book. “If I can explain, sir. The man you are looking for is a f iction, a made-up character. He is out of a novel . . .” They could not prove this because Delores had stolen the book and kept quiet during this intense situation. The Redskins were angered by this and threatened the islanders and got rough with them. “Why should I believe you? You asked me to believe this man is in a book. When I ask for the book there is no book.” They left and returned some time later to ask for Mister Pip again but Delores still had not given the book back. The Redskins burnt down the village, shot Mister Watts and chopped up Delores in front of Matilda. “They chopped Mr Watts up and threw him to the pigs…. They chopped her up and threw her to the pigs.” This is a horrific example of the one of the consequences shown due to difference in beliefs from the novel. Unfortunately examples of this can be seen outside of the novel in real life in both the past and present and are caused by difference in beliefs. The concentration camps from World War II used by Germanies Nazi Soldiers to kill Jews was created by Hitler due to the beliefs he had whether others didn’t agree or not. Due to Hitler believing in Jews taking over the world he made his plan to kill them off. He did this because of what he believed even though his differnet in beliefs to the rest of the world was wrong and lead to the worlds worst holocaust and mass murder of innocent Jewish people. Difference in beliefs is the key issue from the novel that is expressed in real life scenarios.

 In conclusion difference in beliefs is a key issue illustrated in the novel Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. It creates and causes many different conflicts throughout the plot of the novel and is related to real life situations caused by differences in beliefs. Examples from novel include the difference in beliefs between both Matilda and her mother Delores as Matilda believes in the book read to her by her white male teacher Mr Watts called Great Expectations. Delores however thinks she needs to stop imagining characters from the book to help her live her as she only beliefs in the bible which then makes her blame Mr Watts. Delores has increased conflicted feelings about Mr Watts’s teachings and decides to interrupt his class and tech the kids about her beliefs and stealing Mr Watts copy of the book Great Expectations. The redskins don’t believe that the signal Pip is a fictional character and cause Havana to the island and its people resulting in Delores and Mr Watts being killed by the redskins. Difference in beliefs is the key issue that cause these travesties. 
Bibliography 

http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history

https://englishwithmissgray.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/mister-pip_close-reading_y11-version.docx

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/002075900399448/abstract

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https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144