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Jonathan D’Alton
A2 Commentary
My context Archy and Mehitabel presents the world from the perspective of a cockroach, creating a
captivating account of normally small and mundane events. I took this topic of non-standard and nonhuman world perspective and applied it to my pieces. In the novel excerpt (which starts off about half
way into the story) “Eliza Wanders”, a homage to Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
targeted at a teenage audience 150 years on from `the original publication, Eliza encounters the fox, a
character whose world view is very strange to the visiting child, and indeed the reader, to recreate
some of the magic and nonsense logic of Carroll, as well as the curious and occasionally insightful
world view of Archy and Mehitabel. My non-fiction piece investigates the effect of a natural disaster
on ant populations, to fill a niche left by modern reporting which almost always dwells on the human
cost or the effect on a protected species, which often goes unreported. I attempt to persuade the reader
to learn more about the lives of ants. Here the non-standard theme is applied to an article for National
Geographic, with a mostly adult readership.
I chose ants for the subject of my article due to their hardy attitudes and tendency to work as a group,
and in the conclusion I allude to these truths whilst concurrently vilifying human nature. Whereas the
ants were “humble” and “prolific”, the positive modifiers complimenting the species, humanity is said
to have “its own problems to deal with, often irrespective of natural disasters”; the adjectives “own”
and “irrespective” attempt to convince the reader that humanity is selfish. Anna Sewell’s story Black
Beauty touches on similar themes, juxtaposing the nature of animals and humans to imply that
animals (in Sewell’s case, the ever-serving horse, and in my article the Attini ants) can prove
themselves to be more respectable than humanity at times, an angle often missed by major
publications. Filling this niche, I attempt to attract an uncontested readership.
The sentence and paragraph structure of my article is obtained from assorted National Geographic
articles, including informal sentence structure (such as the phrases “Now, it’s all too easy, and indeed
all too human-“) and prosodic layouts (here in a triplet; “it’s hot, acrid, and there’s a lot of it”),
anthropomorphising (the death of an ant is referred to as “regrettable”), and simple analogies, such as
“Fantasia-esque mountaintop”. As the demographic of National Geographic includes light readers
who should not be expected to have any background knowledge before reading an article, exoteric
facts such as “the oxygen is less dense, so it floats above the [CO2]” are included; why they’re not
relevant to the theme of ants, the information is prerequisite and not necessarily common knowledge.
Including it stops my article from alienating readers.
Opinionated humour from Archy and Mehitabel can be found throughout my non-fiction piece, often
by putting a humorous angle on the lives of the ants to try humanise them and create empathy with the
reader. I refer to the lives of hunting undergone by the ancestors of my subject matters with the phrase
“getting a bit thin”, presenting them as plucky and to be admired. Archy believes that “insects are
superior to men”, as “a man thinks he amounts to a lot but to a mosquito a man is merely something to
eat”, and this concept plays a pivotal role in the non-fiction piece, where human superiority is
questioned to provide insight in an otherwise humanity saturated reporting field, again amusing and
challenging the reader.
A pivotal theme in my novel excerpt is humour; the fox is so highly opinionated, making the absurd
imperative declaration that kiwi fruit “must stop growing on vines immediately”. This does not go
without retort from Eliza, and their argument which should never have even begun due to the
ludicrousness of the subject matter forms most of the light-hearted humour in the piece. This is an
attempt to entertain the reader, and recreate the absurd humour of Carrols original, which is necessary
to make the homage successful.
Like the core text and Carroll’s piece, surreal conversation and themes are a cornerstone of my
fiction, important to remain true to the book it was derived from and in turn maintain the readership of
the original. The fox’s claim that typing with paper is foolish because you would “run out in a day” is
not challenged by Eliza because in a strange way, it made sense to her. Alice in the Carroll is similarly
Jonathan D’Alton
open-minded, even after witnessing how strange Wonderland is. However, she remains confused at
times, such as at the “Caucus race” and the alliterative “curious croquet-court” with its “ridges and
furrows”. Similarly, Eliza finds the audacious fox hard to comprehend (and indeed the fox finds hers
odd too, insinuating that neither is correct when arguing about opinions), juggling suitable adjectives
such as “puzzled” and “perplexed”, but never questions the nature of a talking fox.
Tangents play vital roles in both pieces too, inspired to a great degree by the first episode of David
Firth’s Drillbithead, the entire plot detracting from the opening question “do your buildings still
argue?” My Eliza and fox characters are both guilty of aberration; the fox ignores Eliza’s plea for
directions to leave and instead describes his “meetings”, his agenda-setting rhetorical “Can I help
you?” apparently being used to express his contempt at being disturbed. Eliza is presented from the
start with the ironic issue of “forgetting about forgetting a thing”, and as having a very ditsy mind; she
often drifts into mini-tangents, enthralled by “the joys of watching ones shoes” and the rhythmic tap
of the “B” key on the typewriter. This deviation from predictable linear writing is an attempt to not
allow the reader to get complacent with the storyline, which could otherwise lead to boredom.
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Separate fiction and non-fiction /
Write about crafting the pieces
Influences for the non-fiction (ie National Geographic)
Analyse texts more, terminology etc
Add features from old non-fiction commentary
Reduce unnecessary words
Make formal
Regulate sentence structure