The "Glass menagerie" practice essay

We all have our own ways of forgetting reality, like the characters in this play. Laura is a main character who escapes through playing with her glass menagerie. At the beginning of scene 2, Laura is seen “washing and polishing her collection of glass” (11).  When her mother, Amanda appears on the fire escape, then “Laura catches her breath, thrusts the bowl of ornaments away” (11). Laura cleans/plays with/etc. glass figures instead of practicing her typing skills. She interacts with the collection to escape from her disability and her problems, such as quitting typewriting class because of her nervousness. Her mother is disappointed because Laura’s playing with her glass collection doesn’t help with Laura’s future. Additionally, Laura shows how the glass menagerie helps her. Prior to talking about her glass collection, she is shy and has a barrier when talking with Jim, but when she begins to talk about her collection, Laura seems more open and less awkward, “Little arcticles of it, they’re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest little animals in the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie! Here’s an example of one, if you’d like to see it! This one is one of the oldest. It’s nearly thriteen.”(82).

The Origins of Denmark

Let's start with the language. The first signs of anything that resembled a Scandinavian language was when Vikings were around. Norse was the language the Vikings used and Norse has influence more languages than the Scandinavian ones. It has influenced English, German, French and Dutch (to name some big languages in our culture), but Norse directly became a collection of Languages once the Vikings were disbanded. All the Scandinavian countries and, to a lesser extant, the Nordic countries. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and other smaller countries. All of their respected languages are: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic and Greenlandic. In Danish specifically it just adopting a Latin based alphabet instead of the runic one around the time of the middle ages, and (fun fact) the bible was only translated in Danish for the first time in 1550. The main part that sets Scandinavian Languages from some other Modern Languages is the addition of 3 letters.

Denmark has also had it's fair share of border changing and with the consequence of war that comes with it. An example is the First Schleswig war. This happened when Germany wanted the southern part of Jutland but Denmark wanted to keep it, and in 1848 they went to war. In 1851 it ended, Denmark had lost around 20km of its land. It does seem like a lot but Denmark does have all of Greenland as its country as well. So Santa Clause is technically a Danish citizen. The main reason why the borders in Scandinavia are the way they are is got to do with Vikings again (Mainly, as i just presented an example that the Vikings were not a part of). How Greenland is a part of Denmark is because that a country the Vikings found and fertilised. The virgin islands were also a part of Denmark but we sold them off to U.S.A (For $25 million in gold).

Danish culture is the one topic that has been greatly influenced through more recent events. Lego has shaped the Danish economy for the better and made Denmark more synonymous with kids. Danish pastries are know around the world and are quite a good treat if I say so myself(I am Danish).

And thats the basic of Denmark I could think off: Language, Borders, and Culture. 

English as a Friend

It's unclear in my head when exactly I met English, but i do remember (at the latest) in 1st grade when I was in Pakistan, and since then I have mainly spoken, read and written in public and school. This is because I have only been in international schools my entire 15 year old life. Now English is very much like Danish, in terms of (most) sounds and sentence structures. How there's an article before a noun and then a verb and sometimes adverbs. However, the main problem would be the difference in the alphabets. In Danish there are 3 extra letters in our alphabet: Æ, Ø, and Å. This does make switching between the languages on the spot a little difficult with speaking, reading and spelling. Spelling is my biggest issue I have with both of the languages.