New syllabus - The Crucible related texts?

[ggreentree]

First ever post on ATAR Notes! I'm two weeks into year 12 and picking a related text for The Crucible. Our first assessment is asking us to analyse how both "represent individual and/or collective human experience(s)". We've been advised to pick one concept/idea that is represented as a key theme in both texts and present the analysis as a short multimodal presentation-type thing.

For 'Collective Human Experiences', we've been given examples like religion, culture, rituals, hysteria, pack mentality, etc. that obviously apply well to The Crucible - likewise for 'Individual Human Experiences' (change, survival, love, loyalty, etc.)

I'm 30% sure I'll pick Rosemary's Baby and look specifically at Abigail (The Crucible) and Rosemary as representations of women affected by the collective human experience of religion OR how the individual human experience of sexuality, specifically female sexuality, is represented... 17 year old Abigail being painted as the fully-capable aggressor/initiator in her relationship with mid-thirties Proctor is ... Ew... And of course the relationship between Guy and Rosemary is sexually abusive/exploitative - I think it'd be interesting to explore the contexts of both authors, and the time periods the texts are set in, to take apart how women's sexual autonomy (and their subsequent experience of sexuality) is represented.

BUT I'm not sure if 'sexuality' would be classed as an individual human experience as intended in the syllabus, at least in the way I plan to look at the concept? Also, the absolute maximum time for the presentation is 5 minutes - maybe not long enough to go into full-on 'feminist reading mode' on both texts or anything. I'm not super attached to Rosemary's Baby anyways, so if anyone has other recommendations for related texts to The Crucible - I'm all ears!

[angewina_naguen]

Hey, ggreentree! 

Welcome to the forums and to Year 12! I studied 'The Crucible' this year and found it to be an incredibly enjoyable text. I actually did a feminist approach for the play when I was initially constructing my ideas about it so I definitely think it links well with your module. Exploring both individual and collective experiences of sexuality and how they are represented in literature can be a unique approach to take for your assessment.

You don't need to explain all about feminist theory and whatnot for your presentation; simply that you're taking a feminist perspective for your presentation and that sexuality is inherently an aspect of the human experience. You can briefly link it to biology and how extreme expressions of sexuality are frowned upon because they go beyond things that we consider righteous.

One of my favourite sexually charged female characters, if I may put it that way, is Curley's Wife in John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men.' She's not even named which says enough about representation for female characters and how Steinbeck illustrates her is overtly erotic. I would highly recommend reading it (it's a novella and only has ten chapters)  You can make the call if it's a good idea for a related text. I have also a suggested link below for further reading if you were interested in looking at female madness and its portrayal in literature. I found it a useful read when I was studying Plath

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4744&context=etd

Hope this helps! Let me know what you end up doing 

Angelina 

[ggreentree]

Thank you angewina-naguen!! I ended up attacking the assessment from a totally different angle, with the related text 'Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister' looking at religion from a broader perspective because I realised I was just ... not able to show a concise enough perspective on feminist-y issues? I know my limits, and condensing that lens and all the ideas that come with it would be :8 for me. BUT 'Of Mice and Men' is now on my summer hols reading list - thank you for the suggestion! Also congratulations on your awesome HSC results woohoo!!!!!!!

[angewina_naguen]

Hey, ggreentree!

I'm glad you found an awesome related text  I hope the assessment results reflect your performance  'Of Mice and Men' is definitely worth the read! You might be able to use it for something down the track  And thank you so much!  I hope I'll keep contributing to the English boards now that I'm officially done and moving forward 

[tamsyc]

I know I'm replying a little late to this thread, but seeing everyone talking about feminist readings of the crucible always gets me excited!

It's actually not a feminist poem but I chose A Legend of Truth by Rudyard Kipling as my related, which i really loved because it drew out quite a lot out of the role of storytelling, my collective experience was the manipulation of truth by authority, and the inconsistency was the desire for but dismissal of truth by humankind.

Another suggestion our school really liked was a poem called Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, but its super long...

I hope some future students can glean something from this

[angewina_naguen]

I know I'm replying a little late to this thread, but seeing everyone talking about feminist readings of the crucible always gets me excited!

It's actually not a feminist poem but I chose A Legend of Truth by Rudyard Kipling as my related, which i really loved because it drew out quite a lot out of the role of storytelling, my collective experience was the manipulation of truth by authority, and the inconsistency was the desire for but dismissal of truth by humankind.

Another suggestion our school really liked was a poem called Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, but its super long...

I hope some future students can glean something from this

Hey, tamsyc!

Thank you for the wonderful suggestions  I'm looking at doing a feminist theory resource down the track for AN so I'm glad to see some budding members also interested in it! If you don't mind, you could add those related texts Darcy's Texts and Human Experiences Related Texts thread for other students to access  Awesome contributions!