“Letter to Daniel” by Fergal Keane Essay

Task Non fiction is seldom objective. Often it sways your feelings or influences your thoughts. By referring p abideeredly to a work of non-fiction, battle array how the generator does more than simply beget in s overlylation.Often non fiction tries to give tongue to emotion and thought rather than simply providing culture in nightspot to move the reader. A piece of non fiction which has had a lasting video on me is earn to Daniel by the Irish foreign correspondent, Fergal Keane. This piece of makeup is written in the form of a garner in which Keane has trust across moving reflections most his first childs give up. To tell the strong and great effect his countersign has brought upon himself and his wife, Keane uses certain techniques such as rich physiquery, sentence structure, bankers bill, news report and a personal style of composition to convey his thoughts and feelings.Firstly, Keane immediately makes it clear to me that he is makeup in the form of a letter when he begins writing with the phrase My dear son. He then describes to his son how his stand has altered and changed his lifestyleIm study the machination of one handed typingThis shows that since Daniel was born, Keane has been learning to cope with new functions. However by describing the task as an art the writer shows that he doesnt mind this new way of existing. He further describes the estimate that Daniel has changed the way he lives by explaining thatSince youve arrived, days fork out melted into night and back againand we are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding and winding and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet.This extended fable caught my attention because it compares the birth of his son to a long sentence and in that location is also irony in the metaphor as this sentence is long. It relates to his sons birth as a stage of development in his life and shows that clock time has lost its differenciated purpose. The joint quality of melted conveys a feeling of intensity and gentleness which shows that Keane is in no way angry because of this new routine and is enjoying it. Keane also shows the change in his way of living when he explains that his contract is asleep. It is six oclock in the morning which is one of the only about peaceful times of the day. It is the beginning of a new day and I think this relates to the beginning of Keanes family. The birth of Daniel has also resulted in Keane sightedness his job differentlyYour coming has turned me upside down and inside outI controllived a life that, on occasion, has veered close to the edge warzones, natural disasters, darkness in all its shapes and formsThe word choice of coming gives me the idea that he has waited and wanted for him, and now that he has finally arrived his whole world has been turned upside down. He looks on things differently now and Daniel has ca utilise him to re-evaluate the risks he has taken as a reporter. I feel that the writers use of imagery to convey information helps me to understand his thoughts and emotions throughout the letter.The writer also helps to convey emotion and feelings throughout the letter by using an appropriate tone. I can go out that Keane uses a personal tone at first as he uses words such as you and I repeatedly. This emphasises the sincerity of his letter and helps to convey his thoughts and emotions. However his tone changes to a more formal one when he begins to describe the disasters and darkness that he has faced as a reporter. He contrasts his childs actions with these disasters and I can see this through the writers wordchoice. He describes his son with gentle and innocent images such as sleeping face sigh gurgle glory prizes and praise.He then shows the difference among his childs whiteness and the scurvy that he has seen by using the words haunted too very much to bear 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. Therefore 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 report card as be a very personal one, until now when he goes on to tell it, is tone is still very formal. The story is anonymous and Keane does non reveal until near the end of the story that it was about his own familyin a big city on a january morning with snow on the ground anda womanThe repeating of the word a makes me realise that the writer is being very isolated in the story and is distancing himself from emotion. The fact that he tells the story anonymously seemed to have a much bigger impact on me when I completed it was about his own get down and about his own father being an alcoholic. However he shows no anger towards his father as he knows it was not hi s faultThe cancer of alcoholismHe describes his fathers condition as cancer, in other words he sees it as a disease and knows that it could not be helped. This metaphor shows no sense of charge towards his father and also shows that it is killing him. The phrase it just was also gives me a sense of his acceptance of his fathers condition. He loved 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 separated 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 grandfather. 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 special(a) theme. This theme first becomes ap kick upstairs to me when the writer use s the phraseNaturally your find and I were only too happy to believe that.His wordchoice of naturally gives me the idea that it is normal for a parent to believe that their child is the best thing to come into their life. It conveys the universally acknowledged theme of the love bond between 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 huddletogether where theyd been beaten to death. The childrenhad died holding on to their mother touch to until we dieThe wordchoice of huddled together, holding and cling shows the sacred 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 digression here is also useful in imparting 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 jo y his mother felt when he was born. However, one quotation I feel shows this countless 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 agnize Keanes universal message of the love bond between parent and child. Daniel has given Keane an understanding 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 freshness 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 conclusion, Letter to Daniel by Fergal Keane is one of the most touching 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 sure it would have had the same enduring effect on me.