ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE English Studies => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE English & EAL => Topic started by: Chocoholic on August 20, 2008, 08:23:57 pm
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As you guys would know as part of the new study design we now have to write a Context essay. So considering our English exam is in a little over 2 months I thought I'd start a topic where VN members can access resources for this particular context. I'll try and contribute as much as I can, but it will all be a slow and gradual process since I have not received any. resources from schoool.
It took me 5-10 minutes to find the following quotes, so imagine what you guys can do with your own personal context file in the next few months. The assessors don't only want to hear what happened in Catcher in the Rye, Witness, Bombshells and Sometimes Gladness, but they want to hear your opinion about identity and belonging. So try and bring in your own ideas as well. Your have a chance not be be restricted with a text response essay so 'think outside the box' and absoulutely gun this section of the exam.
I know some school recommend that their students only talk about their texts , but ultimately how you approach the exam is up to you. However, I'm not implying that you can't only talk about texts. In the end a well written essay will be graded accordingly.
Identity and Belonging Quotes
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde
"The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself."
Thales
"Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage."
Claude M. Bristol
"He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions – such a man is a mere article of the world's furniture – a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being – an echo, not a voice."
Amiel
"Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no other is, and to do what no other can do."
Channing
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I agree to an extent about what you say but don't underestimate the power of your set texts.
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I agree to an extent about what you say but don't underestimate the power of your set texts.
Thats true! Personally, I've been dicussing the characters from my set texts in most paragraphs of my essay. Each of my body paragraphs will have a point, and whichever character I think fits under that category I will talk about. For eg. If one of my points is about people who chose not to conform I will talk about Holden Caulfied but also about society in general. It's actually worked out to my benefit because I scored well on this SAC.
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In the SAC I am currently doing, I am a Professor of Psychology who is examining the psychology behind conformism and individual identity and he is coming to the conclusion that do not have to be mutually exclusive. I started the history of conformism and why it has been done throughout histroy (safety in the majority) and then I explored the social aspects of these ideas and then moved into 'personal' experiences of these ideas. Then I moved into how these ideas are illustrated in modern society through texts such as High School Musical, "Stick to the status quo" but the characters choose to go against their cliques and their expectations and show their individual identity. Finally I moved into the text and the professor used the text to illustrate how texts can teach us about conformism and individual identity.
As you can see, I wasn't stuck to talking about the text for my whole essay but I certainly did leave a good chunk too talk about it. The rest is just engaging and exploring the ideas and I have a feeling I'll score well.
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wow, that sounds really good. More creative than anything I can come up with lol. I hope you score well in that SAC, from what you described your prospects are preety good!! I hope you get your 42!
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je pense, donc je suis
translation please??? :-\
I think therefore I am????
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je pense, donc je suis
translation please??? :-\
French -> English
I think, therefore I am
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lol...i edited right when you posted. great minds think alike ey??? Only yours is greater.
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wow, that sounds really good. More creative than anything I can come up with lol. I hope you score well in that SAC, from what you described your prospects are preety good!! I hope you get your 42!
Thanks. It is actually a persuasive piece though lol. It is just the way I am choosing to deliver my persuasion as opposed to just writing a boring old letter to the editor type persuasive. But yeh in that sense it is creative. English I really don't know how I'll go. It's hard to estimate because its so subjective and so much hinges on interpreting the exam questions correctly.
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Witness
From the education section of the Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24126173-5011680,00.html
The site was written by a HSC student or teacher....not sure. It only has question to think about/discuss, but they seem quite helpful.
http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/english/standard/close_study/witness/EngStandard1236witness.htm
Go to the 'two worlds' part. It's preety much the only relevant section.
http://www.filmeducation.org/filmlib/Witness.pdf
http://www.theage.com.au/education/on-the-outside-looking-in-20080622-2uw4.html
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Wow that first link to HS was mad as! THANKS
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no problemo....i'll add more resources as I find them.
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Here's another link for Witness from a different article that was in the Herald Sun. The link I posted before no longer works, they must of removed the article.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24126173-5011680,00.html
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For those who are studying Bombshells you might like to check this out:
http://artscentre.frankston.vic.gov.au/Whats_On/index.aspx?itemDetails=7814&objectType=kms
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These are from the Herald Sun. I'll post the actual articles, this way after they remove the articles you guys can still view it.
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger-Herald Sun
IN NEW York City, on his way to buy a record for his sister Phoebe, Holden notices a child walking on the kerb.
The boy isn't fully on the footpath nor are his feet touching the road. He is walking a straight line on the threshold of two paths.
Holden is struck at how carefree this boy is as he walks a straight line singing, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye''.
The parents of the boy, "were just walking alone, talking, not paying any attention to their kid'', Holden observes.
This seemingly innocuous image is a reflection of Holden's state. He is on the periphery himself, caught between childhood and adulthood.
For Holden, adulthood is something to be feared because socialisation entails perilous responsibilities, expectations and the loss of innocence.
Further to this, like the little boy obliviously singing away, Holden is momentarily isolated, lonely and vulnerable to the possible dangers of the city.
The Catcher in the Rye operates as an anti-Bildungsroman (a coming-of-age novel), which explains the wry and dismissive opening reference to Charles Dickens' David Copperfield by Holden.
In David Copperfield, the hero has various encounters and experiences that build self-understanding and ultimately evolve into a passage towards adulthood.
These rites of passage entail a kind of "game'' playing that Holden's history teacher (Mr Spencer) tries to explain: "Life's a game that one plays according to the rules.''
Holden views these games dismissively, but his contempt (``game, my ass'') is founded
on a disdain for having to pretend to adhere to various regulations and expectations to
achieve success.
Holden's journey comes with the usual stops - school, parental expectations, adulthood and career. In the novel, though, we see these markers resisted.
The whole idea of the Bildungsroman is that individual identity is shaped with interaction with others through various experiences.
In Dickens' Great Expectations, for example, the young hero is guided through his journey by a wise and decent adult figure. It's no surprise that Holden is on the lookout for this type of adult mentor throughout the novel.
Mr Spencer takes a paternal interest in him but seems to shame and humiliate him. D.B., the older brother, is emotionally remote and Holden feels he is "selling out'' to Hollywood.
His parents are remote and shadowy. Finally, Mr Antolini symbolises the ultimate betrayal of adult nurturing and trust.
What the novel explores is a disoriented and emotionally alienated young man seeking comfort and solace from adult figures around him, but being disappointed at each turn.
For Holden, his contemptuous condescension towards society and its "phoneys'' is twofold.
First, society fails to measure up to his expectations. Mr Spencer's exhortation to play the "game'' and Mr Antolini's belief that education is purely functional in that it will provide Holden with ideas that he can use to "dress'' up his "mind accordingly'', disturb the narrator.
The concept of ideas as garments that someone slips off and on further reinforces Holden's view that society is indeed obsessed with images and appearances.
Second, Holden's disorientation comes from an inexpressible sense of grief and loss. There are references to Holden feeling like "sort of disappearing'', or commenting on how "lonesome'' he feels or how he "almost wished (he) was dead'' and that he "felt like jumping out the window''.
The last comment haunts the whole novel in images of falling and references to suicide, culminating in the Manhattan episode when Holden feels he is in danger of losing himself.
Holden detests change as he clings to the static idealised innocence of childhood. He loves the museum because "everything always stayed right where it was''.
The security and reassurance of such "sameness'' provide a comforting stability against change.
But the museum is unnatural. Life cannot be "frozen'' like the museum exhibits and corruption cannot be erased from human existence like four-letter expletives from walls.
Holden is not only grieving for a lost childhood and railing against a superficial and untrustworthy world. Throughout the novel, he has also been grieving over the death of his brother, Allie. In fact, at times Holden cannot make sense of himself without referring to Allie.
His movie fantasy of being shot in the stomach - "I was concealing the fact that I was a wounded sonuvabitch'' - is more than escapism. It reveals a genuine emotional wound that is the core of Holden's dislocation.
Perpetual innocence is unrealistic and people must be open to the variety of experiences that shape their identity.
Corruption, decay and the inevitability of death are sadly part of the human condition.
Fearful of change and adult responsibility, faced with emotionally mute parents who have not faced the loss of their other son and a world that seems indifferent, artificial and corrupt, we leave Holden on a threshold like the little boy on the kerb who he heard singing as he journeyed on.
Perhaps Holden, too, through his narrative, has sung a melancholy song and this will help him to move on and heal as he recounts "this madman stuff that happened''.
Nick Konstantatos is a writer who also teaches English and literature at Scotch College
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Sometimes Gladness by Bruce Dawe,
Bombshells by Joanna Murray-Smith
PSYCHOLOGIST Erik H. Erikson (1902-1994) outlined eight stages of a person's life. According to his theory, each stage required a resolution of a crisis in order to develop a person's sense of self.
Two stages were in infancy and two in childhood. Two were in adolescence and young adulthood, and the final two were in mature and late adulthood.
To Erikson, the most critical stage regarding identity was in adolescence, when an individual must resolve their identity versus role-confusion crisis.
The study of Murray-Smith's play of six character monologues and the various voices in Bruce Dawe's poetry show many of these developmental crises in action.
Ultimately they say much about how people's sense of personal identity and belonging develop and change as life places pressure on individuals over time.
The poem Public Library, Melbourne connects to Erikson's middle-childhood developmental crisis. His theory involved the opposing forces of industry versus inferiority, and these children entering the library are intimidated by their surroundings, "crowding together defensively".
The poet ties the three boys to their own past as he tells them, "here sleep your history's parents". Yet to feel secure, they need to belong to their own group because they feel out of place in the library.
An adolescent crisis of identity is illustrated in Murray-Smith's Catholic schoolgirl Mary O'Donnell.
Peer pressure, individuality, sexualisation of teenagers and her personal insecurity, demonstrated by her references to her rival Angela McTerry, are all explored in this monologue. She hinges her concept of self-esteem on her expectation to win the talent show because "I am the talent".
Erikson's concept of young adulthood intimacy versus isolation is illustrated in Murray-Smith's Theresa McTerry, a bride keen to give up "singledom" who declares "I'm going to belong to someone".
But the crisis is revealed in her understanding this marriage may not be everything she wants in life. She later claims, "wife . . . it sounds like a kitchen implement".
The mature adulthood generativity versus stagnation stage of Erikson's theory may be illustrated by Murray-Smith's "wom(a)n on the edge" portrayal of frenzied housewife Meryl Louise Davenport -- also echoed in Dawe's poetry.
Davenport tries to fit everything in at a frantic pace. She sees herself as "a failure and a fake and everyone can see through my lipstick". Dawe's poem Up the Wall likewise portrays a scene of kitchen domesticity. Here, isolation is empahised, "If something should go wrong. I'm so alone!"
His poem Mrs Swipe Speaks Out is closer in style to Murray-Smith's monologue.
Written with no punctuation as one long sentence, we hear a woman who has "had just about /enough thank you very much".
She is not internalising her anxieties in the way Davenport does. Mrs Swipe is externalising her complaints, laden with cliches and a punchy ending, getting her own back by confronting her neighbour regarding prawn shells. This is a woman in control.
A sad perspective on the pressures of modern life on men is to be found in Dawe's The Family Man. This is about ultimately not coping. The family man who has said "kids make a home"
has committed suicide.
Unlike the women under pressure, who never cease talking, the man "kept his own counsel". No reason is stated as to why he took his life, though "rumours flower over his absence", suggesting he became a topic of discussion for others.
The final stage of life, according to Erikson, is late adulthood and this is where a crisis between ego, integrity and despair must be fought.
Murray-Smith's widow Winsome Webster is an interesting contrast to Dawe's male version in the poem Widower.
Webster claims: "In our society, being alone can make one feel rather silly."
Belonging to the group of widows who keep her busy in weekly rituals is important to her, yet at the same time she yearns for something more. There is hope and surprise in her life. Dawe's widower is voiceless and reflective. At the end of the poem when the widower returns into the house "the wind / Creaked like an ageing bachelor whose bed / Appears too narrow and too small for him", the reader is left with a sense of sadness and loss.
Dawe's feelings about ageing are further considered in the poems Happiness Is the Art of Being Broken and My Mother in Her Latter Years.
The play Bombshells is about women balancing their internal and external selves.
Each character does this with shrewdness and humour.
Dawe's poetry is, by nature, broader, encompassing half a century of his own wisdom, experience and observation of the human condition. It is remarkable to see the links between these texts of such disparate origins and purposes.
This must say something about the psychological truth of literature -- to reveal something universal about the nature of an individual's sense of identity and belonging over time.
Karen Lenk is an English teacher at Mowbray College and a VCE English assessor