Time Chapter Notes | Year 9 English IGCSE (Cambridge) - Class 9 PDF Download

Autumn

In the poem “Autumn” by Su Tung P’o, the fleeting beauty of the season is captured with a quiet, reflective tone. The water lilies that once graced the summer have vanished, leaving only their broad, umbrella-like leaves behind. The chrysanthemums, vibrant symbols of autumn, are fading, their leaves now dusted white with frost. The poet laments that the year’s beauty has become a solemn memory, a serious and sincere recollection of what once was. Yet, the poem shifts as it looks toward winter, when oranges will turn golden and citrons will glow green, suggesting a cycle of renewal amidst the decay. The present tense draws the reader into the moment, making the fading flowers and impending winter feel immediate and vivid.

The Turning Year

“The Turning Year” by Su Tung P’o evokes the stillness of nightfall, where clouds scatter and vanish, leaving a pure, cold sky. The poet stands at the cusp of a new year, gripped by an urgency to seize the moment. The present tense heightens the immediacy, as the clear, frigid night unfolds before the reader. The poem’s final lines introduce a conditional clause, pondering the future: if the narrator does not fully embrace life tonight, who knows where he will be next month or next year? This speculation injects a sense of uncertainty and carpe diem urgency, urging the reader to cherish the present amid the relentless passage of time, underscored by the stark imagery of a vanishing sky.

The End of the Year

In “The End of the Year,” Su Tung P’o confronts the irretrievable nature of time. The poet wonders where the year has gone, imagining it lost beyond the horizon, like a river flowing eastward to the sea, never to return. The imagery is vivid and final, emphasizing time’s unstoppable movement. The narrator reflects on leaving the past year without regret, yet questions whether future years will be discarded so carelessly. The poem’s tone grows somber as it acknowledges the inevitability of aging and weakening, with everything passing and never looking back. Written in a reflective voice, the poem uses the present tense to make the loss of the year feel immediate, while its speculative ending casts a poignant shadow over the years to come.

Language Focus

Writers often use the present tense to create immediacy, pulling readers into the moment as events unfold. For example, in the sentence “The clouds are gathering above me,” the verb “are” makes the reader feel the narrator’s experience in real time, heightening tension and drama. Additionally, conditional clauses and modal verbs hint at future possibilities, adding suspense. In the example, “The clouds are gathering above me. If the storm breaks, it will mean disaster,” the conditional “if” and modal “will” suggest a looming threat, keeping readers on edge. These techniques, seen in Su Tung P’o’s poetry, make the fleeting nature of time vivid and urgent, drawing readers into the narrator’s contemplation of the present and future.

To Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick’s “To Make Much of Time” is a carpe diem poem urging young people to seize the day. The opening stanzas use metaphors of rosebuds and the sun to illustrate time’s swift passage. The narrator advises gathering rosebuds while they bloom, as flowers that smile today will die tomorrow. Similarly, the sun, the “glorious lamp of heaven,” races toward its setting as it climbs higher. In the final stanzas, the poet declares youth the best age, when “youth and blood are warmer,” but warns that once spent, worse times follow. The narrator urges the young not to be coy but to use their time, perhaps to marry or connect with others, for losing their prime means lingering in regret forever. The personification of “Old Time” as a relentless force underscores the poem’s call to action.

Carpe Diem Poetry

Carpe diem poetry, meaning “seize the day,” echoes the motivational messages found on social media, urging readers to live fully in the present. Like posts proclaiming “Keep going!” or “Live life to the full!”, these poems encourage immediate action rather than delay. The response to such poetry varies with one’s outlook. Optimists, with a “glass half full” perspective, find inspiration in the call to embrace life. Pessimists, seeing the “glass half empty,” may find the poems bleak, especially in their imagery of death and decay, which serves as a stark reminder of life’s brevity. By blending vivid natural imagery with urgent imperatives, carpe diem poems like Herrick’s resonate with readers, prompting reflection on how to make the most of fleeting time.

The Tribe That Time Forgot

In the hills of Indonesia, just 120 kilometers from Jakarta, the Baduy tribe lives in near-complete seclusion, untouched by modern conveniences. Numbering between 5,000 and 8,000, they adhere to strict customs, forbidding soap, vehicles, shoes, glass, nails, and four-legged animals. Education comes from working the fields, as formal schooling is also taboo. Nestled in the shadow of Mount Kendeng, their society splits into an outer zone and an inner heartland of three villages, home to 800 people who dress in white and follow traditions rigorously, unlike the black-clad outer zone residents. Rule-breakers are banished to the outer zone, where foreigners may visit briefly, sleeping on bamboo mats. Inner zone leaders conduct surprise inspections, confiscating modern items like radios. Yet, modernity creeps in—some children wear non-traditional clothing, like a blue Italian football shirt, and even inner zone members understand money. Boedhihartono, a researcher who has studied the Baduy for years, notes their limited awareness of the outside world, except through rare glimpses, like watching TV at his home.

Tanglewreck: The Time Tornado

At six forty-five one summer morning, a red London bus crossed Waterloo Bridge, carrying schoolchildren engrossed in copying homework. One boy glanced out and noticed Cleopatra’s Needle, an ancient Egyptian monument, glowing red at its tip, as it had millennia ago in the Temple of the Sun. Then, an astonishing sight: chariots and horsemen rode the Thames like a road, led by a Pharaoh with kneeling priests. The bus slowed, as if hovering over time, and the river appeared to flow backward in eerie silence. Suddenly, a crack split the sky, and a cone of wind struck the bus, shattering its windows and lifting it above the bridge. A tidal wave battered the bridge, tearing away concrete, before the river resumed its normal flow. As the bus spun into the chariots, everything vanished, leaving only traces of red-gold sun on the water. Days later, police found a boy’s exercise book floating on the Thames, its pages thickened and inscribed with ancient Egyptian symbols, not English. The bus and its passengers were never found, marking the first of the mysterious Time Tornadoes.

Tanglewreck: The Visitor

At precisely 4:30 p.m., Abel Darkwater drove through the gates of Tanglewreck, an ancient house built in 1588. A man of meticulous timing, his watch was never wrong—unless he willed it so. Unlike those perpetually short of time, Darkwater possessed nearly all of it, and the “nearly” drove his visit to Tanglewreck. His car’s dashboard featured a luminous clock confirming his punctuality and an Age-Gauge pointing to 1588, tuned to echoes of time. Darkwater believed all time exists simultaneously, layered beneath the present, with past moments muffled like whispers. He could hear and understand these whispers, and as he approached Tanglewreck, the house spoke of its youth, when it was newly built. Though curious, Darkwater was there on business. He stopped the car, checked his gold pocket watch—its fourth, red hand ominously pointing to eleven—and looked up to see a face at the window, signaling the start of his mysterious mission.

Ways of Speaking

The way people speak shifts with context, audience, and purpose, as seen in two conversations about the year 2060. In a casual chat with his friend Abeed, Ahmed muses that classrooms will likely rely more on computers, perhaps eliminating pens, which he prefers since he types faster. His tone is informal, peppered with hesitations like “er” and personal hopes for his future children. In contrast, speaking to his teacher, Mr. Ganem, in front of the class, Ahmed adopts a formal tone, summarizing his and Abeed’s thoughts with clarity. He predicts significant technological changes, noting that computers will dominate classrooms and traditional writing may fade, benefiting students who favor typing. The shift from casual speculation to structured explanation highlights how context shapes speech, with Ahmed tailoring his language to suit the formal classroom setting.

A Bright Future

In an online magazine article titled “The Future is Bright,” the writer invites young readers to imagine life in 2060 with bold predictions. First, holidays will vanish, replaced by travel agents implanting vivid memories of destinations like Mars, sparing the boredom of travel. Second, schools will disappear as phones deliver personalized lessons, allowing students to learn from bed at their own pace, eliminating early mornings. Third, medical advances will eradicate disease, with regular check-ups and repairs ensuring near-immortality, though at a cost. The article’s enthusiastic tone, addressing readers directly, paints a utopian future where technology and science transform daily life, urging young people to envision themselves in a world of limitless possibilities, free from traditional constraints.