Brainstorm on AMFAS question

[costargh]

This was from the TSFX lecture yesterday.

The martyrdom of Sir Thomas More achieved nothing and was pointless.
(there is no word at the end so either take it as. "Do you agree" or "Discuss")

All I can think of is that:

To some extent it was pointless because King Henry VIII still got the divorce that he sought and married Anne Boleyn.

but

Thomas More shows the audience that a life of integrity is more admirable than a life of 'administrative convenience' and that upholding a moral conscience is priceless, even if it as the sake of death.

I'm really out of ideas.

[Survivor]

I was SO planning to make the exact same board so we could discuss

Hard topic. I'd say the same thing as you, that he stands in stark contrast to the pragmatists such as Cromwell and Rich. They are conniving, manipulative and will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions. It is impressive that More resists even the ruthless harrassing and emotional blackmail of Cromwell and maintains his beliefs.

I'd also talk about his humanity - though he was a man who obviously loved life illustrated by his relationship with his family, he had to rule that "little, little area" in order to remain morally upright amidst the corrupt landscape. He left the world with his integrity intact and not having "a price", which is of a greater value than the material acquisition of the self-serving opportunists.

I'm having a really hard time linking back to the topic actually :/ Got ideas everywhere but not sure how to go about it.

Edited for typo

[costargh]

Yeh same problem with me. Don't know how to link it properly cause if this was an exam question I wouldn't want to be sounding as if I wasn't even addressing the question and was just talking about as much as i knew about AMFAS regardles of whether it was relevant to the question or not.

hmm

[Survivor]

Yeah I think that is what really separates the 8's from the 9-10's... though textual knowledge and discussion is great, it needs to be highly relavent to the topic. ARGHH, it's really killing me, I did a practice AMfaS essay which I thought was pretty good but I only scored 8 again because of not linking it properly. Sucks, i'm depending on Eng since my other subs are pretty much FAIL.

[costargh]

I think of it like this.
It's easy to interpret it in the sense of materialistic/objection gains/achievemtns, in that More didn't gain money, power, housing, servants etc.... You'd just say yeh its true he didnt gain anything. But even if you did choose to argue this side, you'd have to acknowledge that at least to some extent More achieved something. And that's where I would say he achieved upholding his moral conscience. That was an achievement in itself becuase his martyrdom, while at the expense of his death, allowed him to have a clear conscience.

But that is as far as I can go.... at the moment anyway

[shinny]

I have no idea what AMFAS is about, but it seems a good way to approach this is yeh, take the easy route first and just agree, but for your third or forth paragraph, link it back to the author's (playwright's?) contention and say why ultimately that character is in there, because ANY character should have a clear purpose as to why they're included in the narrative - especially someone with a role such as martyrdom =T Like you said, it'll be something along the lines of raising awareness of certain qualities or such for the audience.

[costargh]

Thanks shinjitsuzx. Mad reply

Do you know to what extent we should incorporate the context, setting, plot, structure and stage directions in our text responses? At TSFX Coyne (the lecturer) said it was essential to have these things in your essay, woven through the paragraphs. I just don't know how to do so. I can talk about the context of the play fine, but about the differnt stages of the plot would be hard for me to use in a text response and stage directions i need to study more into.

[xox.happy1.xox]

I think it is something along the lines of the common man being  used as a 'brechtian, alienation device', and referring to the fact that the play is set in the '16th century'. But when he had things pertaining to 'climax', 'traditional linear', 'retrospective point of view', 'flashbacks' etc., I was completely lost! And then he expects us to weave these into our paragraphs, under time constraints, not to mention frequent nerves and exacerbation... I would be happy with a 7 if I don't employ a significant number of these techniques.

[costargh]

yeh thats what i mean. I dont know how to weave them into the paragraphs. I know what they all are (thanks to the TSFX lecture lol)... i just didnt know we had to have them in our responses.

[xox.happy1.xox]

I don't think I will learn this, or hence, attain the 'top marks'. I'm not aiming particularly high in English (30 max probably), and therefore, I probably won't learn to accommodate to to any of this knowledge. It would be interesting to adapt this knowledge, though...

[Amnesiac]

I find that including examples of stage directions, literary devices and the actual layout of the novel to be far more interesting/effective than using quotations. For example, in my AMFAS SAC i used the juxtaposition of More with Roper in many scenes to illustrate the near transparent line between those who are honourable and remain true to themselves, and those who are changeable (i.e Roper)... Bolt also uses land and water to symbolise a lot of themes in the book, so with the question above you could perhaps use More as an example of those men who DO actually achieve something, but then comment on Bolt's use of the 'land' to represent the steadfast qualities that he possesses.. it just shows the examiner that you can delve into the complexities of the novel and not just use the traits of the characters to illustrate your stance on the topic.

that's just my view anyway.