Dear diary,
I can still remember "Boss, Boss I didn't do nothing... don't burn me Boss..." from the frightening and horrific night. I can still imagine the way they dragged him, I wish I could do something to stop it!
They said he touched a women, how old was she I asked eagerly. They said 40-50 and she would scare you if you look at her. Hyacinth is only 16, why would he do that?
But these men didn't care about that, all they cared about was themselves.
She says she got raped when they asked her, but that is unbelievable and I do not believe her.
I saw when he was surrounded by men, he had his hands tied and there was a rope around his waist. They were dragging him... but, his legs curled under him, as if it was stopping him from going.
I could see in his eyes he was an innocent and trustworthy boy, unfortunatly these people who were doing this to him were heartless and had no empathy.
He begged them to stop, but that was no good. They did not listen to him.
I prayed and prayed they would not kill him, however he snapped from the back of the car. Hung suspensed, on the rope. They killed him...
They didn't stop at that point as I saw a man going towards Hyacinth's dead body with a torch and then I knew he was soacked in kerosene (the drinks the two men offered us in the car). So the flames licked at his feet and shooted up as soon as the man put it near him.
I am still thinking about the way he was killed, the way his neck loosened when he was hung up and the smell of the burning human.
I wish I could've helped...
Commentary:
At the beginning of this diary entry, I used the text (when the boy was begging), this is to say that Joe still remembers what Hyacinth said and what his last words were.
I used a simile to describe how he was trying to stop them from hagging him, "as if he was..." This is to say that his legs were controlling him, his feet were dragged, but it tired to reject it.
I used first person pronoun 'I', this is to make it personal (from Joe's point of view), these included his regrets and thoughts he was feeling at the time.
I used the text (as asked), to get relevant things from it, then I applied them to the diray entry, this is to show that Joe remembered every detail about the hangging and burning of Hyacinth.
www engaging and mostly well conceived diary entry. You have approached the text with some maturity and attempted to explore Joe's emotions after a nights sleep - or lack of sleep. The opening quotations is a good start. The commentary reveal some awareness of the techniques used and a method in your approach.
ReplyDeleteebi the piece is solid but lack real flair or emotional response, it seems to emulate Gelhorne's dispassionate response whereas, I think we feel from her writing that Joe's response was more violent. In the commentary, you could look to improve the effectiveness of what you write through less reference to yourself. "I did this because..." try to write in the third person for the commentary.