Please mark this badly written "The Lieutenant" text response

[robertooooo]

This is the first practice essay I've done - haven't really written much in a while so I'm aware it'll be really bad but hoping to get some feedback.

Spoiler

•   Rooke and Silk embody entirely different values about the purpose of communication. Discuss.'

Kate Grenville’s ‘The Lieutenant’ emphasizes the necessity of language in relation to communication – you can not have one without the other. Daniel Rooke and Talbot Silk each embody entirely different values regarding the purpose of communication, and it is evident in the way that each character presents their views and opinions. To Daniel Rooke, communication is the key to a community and requires cooperation from both sides in order to be successful whereas to Talbot Silk, communication is nothing more than a means to providing a message – or rather, a story.

Communication to Daniel Rooke is seen as something much more than just a means to an end – he thinks of communication as a bridge between language. Daniel Rooke is an intelligent protagonist who understands that one does not just “learn a language” without “entering into a relationship with the people who spoke it to you” – it is a way to understand and be understood. At his time in New South Wales, Daniel Rooke hated the idea of violence and while he “rationalized” the concept of it being a method of control, he knew that it was not the right way to establish the navy’s relationship with the natives. As Rooke discovers and develops a bond with the natives, he starts to understand more about what it is to be a person – he realises that although they all have different backgrounds, different cultures, different languages, they are all the same – this is where Rooke’s values about the purpose of communication come in. He understands that communication is much more than just that; it is a path across a bridge. As Daniel Rooke builds his relationship with the natives, he begins to learn that language is a necessity for a community to thrive. His relationship with the native girl, Tagaran, provides him with an insight into something that Talbot Silk does not have – he learns the word “Kamara”, which means friend, which allows him to feel as if he is one with the natives. Talbot Silk does not build this relationship with the natives, nor does he have a vast background in “language and communication” like Rooke (multilingual) so he thinks of communication as nothing more than a means to an end.

Silk is a man with a story to tell. He has a fond liking to flipping the truth in order to get his narrative out. Silk embodies entirely different values about the purpose of communication relative to Rooke – he thinks of it as nothing more than story telling. Silk has the ability to “cut and embellish until a pebble was transformed into a gym”; an ability to transform something into something else. While Rooke was able to elude himself in an unfamiliar place and become a part of it, Silk’s was to “make the strange familiar, to transform it into well-shaped smooth phrases”. He appreciates having control and power which leads to him flipping his experiences into what he wants people to know – he uses communication as a way to get control over his experiences and how other people perceive them. It is clear that with his skills he becomes a very charismatic person, as seen in the beginning of his relationship with Rooke where Rooke notices that “everyone likes Silk”, and “his charm has already helped him move up along the ranks” – communication is valued to him as a key to developing personal relationships and becoming a better person while not taking into account who else is affected. It is in this way that Rooke and Silk embody entirely different values regarding the purpose of communication – Rooke uses it to meet new people and understand what it is to belong to a culture, whereas Silk uses it to assert the illusion of power – he wants to control what people see.
While it is true that both Daniel Rooke and Talbot Silk embody entirely different values regarding the purpose of communication, there is a way in which they are similar – they both relate it to other people. They both value communication as something important as they both need it – Rooke needs it to understand other people and not be the isolated person that he was in childhood, and Silk needs it to get his narratives out to other people – to be understood and ‘liked’. They both understand that language is something that “joined one human to another” and that it was more than “a list of words” – it was something that had to be operated and understood in order to work. Rooke and Silk both manipulate language in a way that betters the way that others view them and it is in this sense that they each have their different values about the purpose of communication yet retrieve the same understanding – only in a different sense.

In Kate Grenville’s ‘The Lieutenant’, the concept of communication is explored as a major theme which is involved in many areas. It is evident that although Daniel Rooke and Talbot Silk share many experiences together, they have different opinions about the idea and values of communication and its purpose – Daniel Rooke views communication in a different way than Talbot Silk and although they share some similarities, they are different in their own ways.

Thank you.