Ian Bone's The Song Of An Innocent Bystander

The Senior English Curriculum currently uses texts that are easy to read and have very amusing contexts and allow students to pick different themes to read about. Like the theme of identity and acceptance which are evident in the novel Looking for Alibrandi, or the corrupting sensation of guilt which is seen throughout the novel of The Song of an Innocent Bystander. Poems are also analysed, and the poem The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, represents the concept of love and romanticism, and what better way to show the effect of love is through the supremacy of jealousy and manipulation in the Shakespearian play Othello. All these texts have their own ideas and representations of concepts, which are all deemed suitable for a senior English class.

Family Value, is a chain restaurant that went under siege by a person wishing to create a revolution and overall was just a pit of sadness and frustration with a touch of madness. Frieda made ‘friends’ with the leader and had lied to the media about what happened, one person set out to break her mind and let her secrets out. The book focuses on Frieda’s feelings of guilt, and not telling the truth, hiding things from everyone, teenagers can easily relate to Frieda’s sense of hiding things and keeping secrets. It’s a natural way of thinking for teenagers, to hide from their parents with their little secrets, but Frieda takes the cake as her secrets involve suicide and the mysterious napkin writings of a dead man. Ian Bone’s writing is personal and he brings his characters to life, and with this life he creates connections with his readers, making everything flow and dragging his readers through different emotions. Ian’s use of language develops the story, and uses flashbacks to switch between past and present, almost like Frieda has PSTD. The book is remarkable, concept and story wise and is a suitable and enjoyable read for a Senior English Curriculum, teaching those not to keep everything to themselves and letting guilt take over your own mind, own up to your

The main villain, Iago, narrates most of the time since he is the only one to perform soliloquies, and he is the reason mostly everyone dies, because he grew jealous of Othello, and Othello became jealous of his love Desdemona and Cassio. It’s like a school drama except with more death and blood and it is set in another time period, but this can be related to the events that can happen in a student’s life. Shakespeare’s plays always have a moral of some kind, this play’s message is that you shouldn’t get jealous, or make people jealous, and especially don’t go stabbing people. A teenager can read this play and learn how not to go about seeing if they are being cheated on, you have to talk to the person and listen to them, not go on assumptions that you were told by someone else. Shakespeare’s use of language is better seen in a performance as actions are applied and meaning is easier to understand, in written form it is hard to read and analyse, but readers can create ‘voices’ for each of the characters and can imagine how the conversations go. The play is suitable for a senior English course because of its teachings of not making people jealous and it is enjoyable to