Structure

The text “The man who fell to earth” is a newspaper article which presents the case of a man from Pakistan who tried to reach the UK by sneaking into the wheel carriage of a plane, and who died on the way.

The text respects the reversed pyramid structure of newspapers articles; it begins with the main event (the death of Ayaz) and it goes back to map the actions that led to the event.

The formal structure of news articles includes the following sections: heading (title), sub-heading, introduction, main body, and conclusion. In what follows, we will look at the way the authors of “The man who fell to earth” have structured these sections.

Heading and sub-heading

The heading of the article, “The man who fell to earth”, respects the journalistic rule of length. Normally, news article headings should not be longer than seven words. Furthermore, the title is intriguing because it is an allusion to the 1976 movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie.

The movie is about a human-looking alien who comes to Earth in search of water for his home planet. Similarly, the newspaper article is about a man from a different country who tries to reach England in search of a better life.

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Introduction

As with most news articles, the introduction begins with the main news event—the discovery of Mohammed Ayaz’s body in the UK:

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Main body

The main body of a news article typically answers the questions ‘how’ and ‘why’— the causes of the events and the details of their development. This is also what the authors of “The man who fell to earth” explore.

The main body maps Ayaz's steps until his tragic end. First, the authors present how Ayaz ended up on the plane to London and the attitude of the authorities: “At Bahrain airport the night before, at about 1am local time, the 21-year-old Ayaz somehow broke through a security cordon and sprinted through the dark towards a British Airways Boeing 777...” (p. 74, ll. 28-30); “...the captain had been told there might be a stowaway. But for some reason, perhaps because the sighting was unconfirmed,...

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Conclusion

Towards the end of the article, the authors present similar cases, which are meant to illustrate why Ayaz’s story is important: because it is representative of larger problems. There are many immigrants who similarly resort to desperate gestures, and air transport authorities often fail to prevent these situations:

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