® ENGLISH GCSE – NON-FICTION TEXTS
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
Patience:
MacDonald must be patient throughout, but we find she is
emotionally on the edge throughout as this bird means a lot to her.
We can tell she isn’t patient and wants to see her bird right then as
the short sentences build suspense and tension as well as building a
sense of immediacy and a rush of adrenaline. ‘The air turned syrupy,
slow’ - the sibilance shows time in slow motion and depicts
importance and reinforces significance by the hyperbole.
Grief:
We first get the sense of how upset she is that her fathers died of a
heart attack and that the only way she can distract herself is to buy
a hawk – little sinister as she has to buy this powerful bird, could show
how sad she is that she needs such an aggressive, powerful bird but
also the danger of the bird could link to the danger of a heart
attack. We also see at the end that she can’t catch a break from
this grief because just as she gets her bird, she doesn’t want it
causing her grief again where she then has to use humour to
convince herself she’ll be ok. ‘Oh.’ the one-word paragraph is
anticlimactic after her long build up and shows her sock, surprise
and disappointment. The bluntness from the full stop shows it sinking
in – you can imagine her thinking about her father at this point. This
grief is predicted as it’s foreshadowed don’t want you going home
with the wrong bird’ we knew something would go wrong but the
excitement distracts us from the baseline of the story.
Natural Beauty:
She is excited and overwhelmed by the fact of having a hawk, but
she knows in the back of her mind how powerful and dangerous this
bird is. ‘A fallen angel’ has religious connotations showing
importance of the hawk to her, it’s as important as an angel – angel
appeared to Mary denotes importance. The hyperbole of angel
shows excitement. A more sinister part and MacDonald thinking that
this hawk is also dangerous like the devil because in religion the
fallen angel was Lucifer because he questioned God and got sent
out of Heaven. Shows how we should be in awe of such beaty but
also scared of it – overwhelmed because it’s so beautiful but also
dangerous & powerful. ‘Like a turkey in a butcher's shop’ has
connotations of death, very unsettling and unnerving and is quite
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
Patience:
MacDonald must be patient throughout, but we find she is
emotionally on the edge throughout as this bird means a lot to her.
We can tell she isn’t patient and wants to see her bird right then as
the short sentences build suspense and tension as well as building a
sense of immediacy and a rush of adrenaline. ‘The air turned syrupy,
slow’ - the sibilance shows time in slow motion and depicts
importance and reinforces significance by the hyperbole.
Grief:
We first get the sense of how upset she is that her fathers died of a
heart attack and that the only way she can distract herself is to buy
a hawk – little sinister as she has to buy this powerful bird, could show
how sad she is that she needs such an aggressive, powerful bird but
also the danger of the bird could link to the danger of a heart
attack. We also see at the end that she can’t catch a break from
this grief because just as she gets her bird, she doesn’t want it
causing her grief again where she then has to use humour to
convince herself she’ll be ok. ‘Oh.’ the one-word paragraph is
anticlimactic after her long build up and shows her sock, surprise
and disappointment. The bluntness from the full stop shows it sinking
in – you can imagine her thinking about her father at this point. This
grief is predicted as it’s foreshadowed don’t want you going home
with the wrong bird’ we knew something would go wrong but the
excitement distracts us from the baseline of the story.
Natural Beauty:
She is excited and overwhelmed by the fact of having a hawk, but
she knows in the back of her mind how powerful and dangerous this
bird is. ‘A fallen angel’ has religious connotations showing
importance of the hawk to her, it’s as important as an angel – angel
appeared to Mary denotes importance. The hyperbole of angel
shows excitement. A more sinister part and MacDonald thinking that
this hawk is also dangerous like the devil because in religion the
fallen angel was Lucifer because he questioned God and got sent
out of Heaven. Shows how we should be in awe of such beaty but
also scared of it – overwhelmed because it’s so beautiful but also
dangerous & powerful. ‘Like a turkey in a butcher's shop’ has
connotations of death, very unsettling and unnerving and is quite
®
Copyright © 2022 Revision Guru | All rights reserved
