Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Texts chosen
Literary: A passage from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and The Sea (Pages 96-97), published in 1952.
Non- Literary: An article published in the Telegraph “Why is Britain obsessed with heroic failure?” written
by Mike Pattenden, in 2016.
Article
1. Heroic failure: a person or group failing to accomplish their goal, but gaining the moral upper hand
or becoming ennobled in the attempt
2. Rhetorical questions, start to end, emphasises failure and the memorability of it.
3. British society and the romance of heroic failure
4. Use of juxtaposing adjectives enhancing the glorification of failure: “powerful, violent” “doomed
glorious”
5. “turning defeat into a fine art*”: romanticising, alluding to the legendary, myth
1. Fishermen society failure: 84 days without catching a fish, not only failed with Marlin
2. Use of repetition: “Luck” “Beat” signifying how it shapes individuals
3. Becomes legendary “what a fish it was”, the boy wanting to keep the spear
4. Preconception of failure: “They beat me”, throughout idea of going out too far
5. Success by how others perceive you: Manolin, fisherman