This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ play by William Shakespeare in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Responding to Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2024 Mainstream English Curriculum

Human Emotion and Psychology

Usually classified as a romantic comedy, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is both a love story and a ‘much darker and stranger play’ (Dobson 2011/The Guardian).  The play is a study in human behaviour, of psychological power and abuse; it is a critique of social structures; it hides some of the ugliness of human behaviour behind a veil of light comedy, ambiguity and fast-paced wit.

In the process of all of this, the plot of Much Ado About Nothing also just happens to include two budding romances built on the tenuous grounds of perception and deception.  In exploring human emotion and psychology, Shakespeare draws ambiguous connections between love and loathing, desire and distrust, union and destruction, honesty and deception, trust and doubt, malice and forgiveness.  Shakespeare’s pairing of antithetical themes in Much Ado About Nothing highlights how people can be inconsistent in their approach to relationships and romantic unions, deceiving themselves as well as others.  

The Fatal Flaw

Much Ado About Nothing also explores desire, and people’s need for reciprocal love; how we respond when we believe we have attained love, and how we rail at our (sometimes perceived) rejection.  Shakespeare’s contrast of the relationship between Hero and Claudio with that of Beatrice and Benedick suggests that genuine affection only comes from seeing your partner as a whole person: flawed, the product of their environment or context, and with strengths and charms.  Many of Shakespeare’s characters have this ‘fatal flaw’, a defect in their personality, that taken to extreme, can lead to their downfall.  Each character has their own ‘fatal flaw’ that shines light on some of the darker characteristics of humanity.

Marriage According to Beatrice & Benedick

Beatrice and Benedick do not simply revile marriage for the sake of being contrarians; such a justification would be disappointing in otherwise complex and interesting characters.  They are older and they lack the social status of other characters such as Hero and Claudio; they see the absence of meaning in life and therefore in marriage, yet they enjoy the cut and thrust of their intelligent witticisms.  They understand that marriage does not augment their enjoyment of life or contribute to some greater existential meaning. 

That Shakespeare’s characters, at times unknowingly, make much ado about nothing perhaps reflects the playwright’s view that life is ultimately pointless.  Benedick’s conclusive justification for requiting Beatrice’s alleged love is that ‘the world must be peopled’ (II.iii.p.61), and the song of Balthasar ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more’ exhorts the ladies merely to: … be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe, Into hey nonny nonny (II.iii.p.53).  The song addresses the main manipulators of trickery and deceit, the men.

Perspective of the Text – Romantic or Cynic?

Beatrice & Benedick

There are two broad ways of experiencing Much Ado About Nothing: as the romantic and as the cynic [sceptic].  One need not wholly subscribe to only one or the other.  Looking at the 2 relationships, it is easy to view Hero and Claudio in a cynical manner and for Beatrice and Benedick, a more romantic view.  Beatrice and Benedick’s love is so pure because it comes without the baggage of inheritance and class, and the false notions of romance which conceal obligation.  Their cutting remarks have stripped each other and they have nothing left to hide.  Beatrice gives as good as she gets when it comes to the sort of male banter Benedick engages in.  Here is a couple who will argue, they will not grind their lives away under the deceptively heavy shade of pleasantries and a false concern for the other’s feelings which in truth is used simply to avoid conflict; Benedick and Beatrice need not fear conflict, they thrive off it.

Claudio & Hero

Interpretations of the values and attitudes surrounding the relationship between Claudio and Hero are much more ambiguous.  Given that ‘Shakespeare takes shape through our interpretations’, how do we interpret the easy susceptibility of the Count, the Prince and the Governor to the malignant trickery of the Prince’s ‘bastard brother’ Don John?  One interpretation is that Claudio’s behaviour is unforgivably unacceptable.  (For a contemporary #MeToo audience, so he gets off far too lightly).  Another is that it is patriarchal social values that are at fault, and another that the fault lies with codes of masculinity in which male bonding is cemented with misogynist jokes and banter.

Or perhaps the shocking metaphorical ‘death’ of Hero is generated by the ‘comedy’ of mistaken perception, and we forgive the gentlemen their bad behaviour because the near-tragedy is a plot device, a structural necessity of the romantic comedy genre.  However, no reading of the play can excuse the brutality of [Claudio’s] treatment of Hero, but the conventional comic action does demand that he be forgiven.

Title of the Play

The title of the play is open to various interpretations.  The most straightforward explanation; that much ado is made over allegations that hold nothing of the truth, suggests the play is a comment on people’s rash judgment and disproportionate responses, particularly to gossip.  This relates to the interpretation which replaces ‘Nothing’ in the title with ‘Noting’, a near homophone and colloquialism for ‘noticing’ or ‘gossip’, which connects the title to both pairs of lovers: Beatrice and Benedick base their conscious acceptance of their feelings on overheard misinformation, and Claudio is twice deceived by the snake-like whisperings of Don John, comments that the play is ‘most appositely titled’ because of its reference to the ‘nothingness’ of life.

Style of the Play – Comedy or Tragedy?

While all stories, even comedic ones, need some kind of complication and climax, Shakespeare certainly puts the drama in dramatic structure.  He heightens the climax of Much Ado About Nothing to the point where it could have toppled into tragedy.  This sets the play apart in the world of comedy, as the stakes are so high and dire circumstance so nearly realised; though it begins and ends with merry wit, there are dark issues explored as the life-threatening action of the play takes place.

Analytical Text Prompts

1. What role do deceptions play in Much Ado About Nothing?
2. How does Shakespeare present love and marriage in the play?
3. In Act 2, Scene 1 (p.43) “Come, you shake the head”.  How does Shakespeare present Don Pedro in this extract and elsewhere in the play?
4. How does a modern context affect our interpretation of the Hero-Claudio relationship?
5. “I will assume thy part in some disguise/ And tell fair Hero I am Claudio” (i.i.p.17 Don Pedro).  We accept the deceptions in the play because mostly the characters’ intentions are benign.  To what extent do you agree?
6. How does Shakespeare use comedy in Much Ado About Nothing to explore serious themes and values?
7. “… yet sinned I not/ But in mistaking.”  Forgiveness is too freely given in Much Ado About Nothing.  Discuss.
8. Much Ado About Nothing is a joyful play which celebrates human relationships.  Do you agree?
9. The women in Much Ado About Nothing are the true holders of power.  Discuss.
10. Shakespeare’s characters hide their insecurities behind innuendo and metaphor.  Discuss with reference to at least three characters in Much Ado About Nothing.
11. Don John is the only example of authenticity in Much Ado About Nothing; all the other characters wear masks of some sort, at some time in the play.  Do you agree?
12. “I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool/ As under privilege of age to brag” (v.i.p.133 Leonato).  It is their privilege that makes the behaviour of characters in Much Ado About Nothing all the more reprehensible.  Discuss.
13. Much Ado About Nothing is supposedly a comedy but the play contains many darker, more tragic elements than a typical comedy.  In what ways is this play tragic?
14. A central theme in the play is trickery or deceit, whether for good or evil purposes.  How does deceit function in the world of the play, and how does it help the play comment on theatre in general?
15. Language in Much Ado About Nothing often takes the form of brutality and violence. “She speaks poniards, and every word stabs,” complains Benedick of Beatrice (II.i.p.37).  What does the proliferation of all this violent language signify in the play and the world outside it?
16. In some ways, Don Pedro is the most elusive character in the play.  Why would Shakespeare create a character like Don Pedro for his comedy about romantic misunderstandings?
17. In this play, accusations of unchaste and untrustworthy behaviour can be just as damaging to a woman’s honour as such behaviour itself.  What could Shakespeare be saying about the difference between male and female honour?’

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian VCE Curriculum

This Resource is for Year 12 students studying ‘False Claims of Colonial Thieves’ poetry collection by poets John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk Green in AOS1 Unit 3 Reading & Responding to Texts in the Victorian VCE Curriculum for 2024.

The Title ‘False Claims of Colonial Thieves’

Refers to the legacy and residue of past wrongs carried out by colonialism that the poets consider were literally ‘colonial thieves’ robbing the Indigenous people of their land under the guise of Terra Nullius [land legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited].  The ‘false claims’ of the title are revealed as colonial misinformation which white-washes the crimes of the past.

The Poets

John Kinsella                  Born in 1963 in WA is non-Indigenous man who has Anglo-Celtic origins and has written over 30 books based on the WA landscape, colonisation, mining, family and conservation.  He supports Indigenous rights, land rights and says he is a ‘vegan anarchist pacifist’.  His dedication is to Kim Scott a prize-winning WA Indigenous author of ‘That Deadman Dance’.

Charmaine Papertalk Green        Born in 1962 in WA is an Indigenous Yamaji woman who speaks Badimaya and Wajarri.  ‘Papertalk’ is her mother’s maiden name.  Her message is to restore her ancestors’ histories and stories as ‘paper talks everywhere now’.  She exposes the concept of colonisation through her lived experiences and family stories.  Her dedication is to her brothers who died to cast relief on Aboriginal mortality rates that are 11.5 years lower than white males.

Both Poets want to know “Who are the real rulers of Australia?”

The collection of poetry identifies itself as political and a serious postcolonial discussion of two poets collaborating to warn of environmental impacts of mining and to track the relationship of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in regards to ‘country’.  They both actively interrogate injustices, cultural cruelty, cultural genocide and the pain left behind by colonisation.  They seek to challenge the myth of Terra Nullius and rewrite the colonial history of Australia by identifying the colonists not as heroic adventurers into an uninhabited new land, but as plunderers.  Through their poems they question the dominant narrative and its instruments of power that fog and irradiate [expose] a land of ‘invisible victims’.

The Ambition of the Collection

The ambition of the collection is the ‘beautiful conversation’ (‘Simply Yarning’ p.97) which is proudly postcolonial; from its title to its references, it invites readers to move beyond the constricting myths of the colonial past and into a more equitable future.

The Structure of the Text

The structure of both the collection and the individual poems is an important part of ‘False Claims’. The collection begins and ends with poems written by the two authors together, ‘Prologue’ by Kinsella and ‘Prologue Response’ by Green which appear on the same page and ‘Epilogue’ which is attributed to the poets jointly.  There is thus established a sense of the combined purpose and project of the collection which frames the text, so that even in those sections when there are several poems by one poet, before Kinsella’s voice is again heard, the collaborative nature of the text cannot be forgotten.

‘Prologue’ and ‘Prologue Response’

The repeated language in ‘Prologue’ and ‘Prologue Response’ reinforces the shared project of the poets.  This is most clearly apparent in the repeated bitter accusations of negligent ‘environmental scientists’, but it is also evident in the echoed notion of unthinking and unsustainable consumption, appearing in the metaphoric [symbolic] ‘on a platter’ in the first poem, and the more literal ‘plastic bottle’ of the second.

The first poem by Kinsella is longer, the lines are extended, and the text is broken into two verses.  The second poem by Green focuses on the obliviousness of the general population raised by Kinsella with the line ‘Stygofauna speak up through the land; some listen, more don’t’ (p.xi).  Green repeats the idea of ‘blindness’ through her shorter, more abrupt and accusatory poem, condemning those who refuse to see beyond their ‘privilege’.  The structure of these poems, both as they complement each other and as they differ, is a useful reference point for ‘False Claims’.  Kinsella and Green share some views, and each poet operates within the context of contemporary poetry, but they are not the same.  Green’s poetry is more direct, and her tone is more often angry.  Kinsella is more regretful and more likely to consider institutional causes of social and environmental malaise [sickness], rather than referring to personal responsibility.

Language and Style

• Call and response—the whole collection exists as a dialogue between the poets as they negotiate the ‘third space’ of shared understanding.  Some of the poems speak directly to each other, and some poems are written in parts, which the poets write in sequence.
• Colloquial (Australian) language (including expletives)—both poets sometimes use recognisably Australian language features in their poems, which creates authenticity in dialogue, and functions to locate the poetry in its Australian regional context.
• Dedications—the collection and some of the poems are committed to the honour of particular people or peoples.  Like titles, these dedications can provide insight into the focus and ‘agenda’ of poems and poets.
• Ekphrastic [work of art]—both JK and CPG respond to artworks in poems, a clear knowledge of the artworks (where possible) will assist in understanding these poems.
• Enjambement—when sentences in poems run over lines, a sense of inevitability can be created, either positively or negatively.  Both poets use this style feature in some of their poems, and significance of run-on lines should be considered.
• Intertextuality—both poets refer to other texts in some poems, notably in ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’ (pp.135-137 / ‘A White Colonial Boy’ pair (pp.138-140).  As well as placing their works into the wider community of poetry and literature, these references indicate the power of texts to shape attitudes.
• Line breaks, stanzas and stanza breaks—indicated with a ‘/’ in quotation, are strategically used by both the poets to create either continuity and flow in poems, or disjointedness and discontinuity.
• Non-Standard English—CPG particularly uses some non-Standard English phrases of spoken Indigenous English, recognising the validity of this patois.
• Pun—the poets, particularly JK, play with words, linking distinct ideas together, challenging assumptions, and creating irony.
• Punctuation / lack of punctuation—JK is strategic in the way he deploys punctuation in some of his poems; reading aloud and following punctuation cues will help recognise the strategic ways in which the poet shapes his longer sentences. CPG often writes without punctuation, depending on rhythm and line breaks to shape the reading experience; this can often create a sense of uncontrolled urgency in her poetry.
• Repetition—both poets use repetition throughout their poetry to create emphasis and sometimes to enhance rhythm; significantly both poets sometimes repeat a line or series of lines from the other poet, indicating their co-operation in the construction of the collection, but also suggesting alternative perspectives to an idea.
• Rhyme—although the poets write largely in free verse, both internal (within a line) and external rhyme (rhyming words at the end of lines) appear in the collection, enhancing or breaking rhythm, associating ideas, creating inevitability.
• Rhythm—poetry is an oral form, so reading poems aloud in class can help students understand the poems, especially when meaning might appear obscure, upon a first (silent) reading. The rhythm of a poem can often become more apparent when poems are read aloud.  As with rhyme, rhythm can hold disparate ideas together in a poem, showing the connectedness of different notions.  A rhythm can also create urgency, or a mournful tone or a feeling of inevitability, or inescapability, if the rhythm is compelling or almost compulsive.
• Simile, metaphor, personification, symbol, synaesthetic description [figurative language that includes a mixing of senses], alliteration [occurrence of same letter or sound at the beginning of words], sibilance [hissing sound with repetition of ‘s’ sounds]—the poets use various figurative devices which enhance the reach of their poetry, making it more vivid, linking apparently disparate ideas, and evoking landscape.
• Titles—titles of poems, express the way in which a poet directs a reader, from the start of a text.  The title of this collection is important as it places all the poems in a postcolonial, revisionist context.
• Use of language—both JK and CPG move into Indigenous languages (Noongar and Wajarri respectively) throughout the collection.  This subverts the hegemony [domination] of English and indicates the limitations of English in terms of understanding the subjects the poets write about.

Issues and Themes

The issues and themes are interconnected not only to land, its peoples, cultures, history, stories and art, but the voices of the poets reinforce the connectedness of peoples, stories and histories and the free flowing discussion of the two poets in all the poems in the collection. A commonality between the two poets is the injustice of people and the environment, particularly the destruction of mining, which is not separated in the poems, rather the suffering of both is explored as one country suffering together.

Central Ideas/Issues & Themes Covered in the Collection are:

• Colonisation and Reconciliation
• History and Crimes of the Past
• Redressing Historical Injustices by Reconstructing our Notion of the Past
• The Myth of Terra Nullius (the Colonial Thieves)
• Secrets and Silences of Australian Culture
• History and Memories and their Importance to Individuals
• The Environment and Social Effects of Mining on Country and Individuals
• Exploitation of Mining on Country and Individuals
• Country, Destruction of Country and Landscape
• Family, Friendship, Nature of Loss in Family and Country
• Recognising Important Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Family Members
• Language and Culture of Indigenous People
• Dangers of Cultural Appropriation and Erasure
• The Stolen Generation
• Black Deaths in Custody
• Close the Gap Campaign
• Aboriginal Mortality
• Poetry, Art and the Power of Both
• Racism , Social Justice and Race Relations Between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous People
• Our Responsibility to each other as Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Peoples in Australia
• Social Issues Pertaining to Contemporary Indigenous People
• Stories and Storytelling (Yarning)

Analytical Text Response Topics

1. ‘False Claims of Colonial Thieves is more positive about the future than it is negative about the past.’ Discuss.
2. ‘Memory is shown to be the most important aspect of culture in this collection.’ To what extent do you agree?
3. How do the authors of False Claims of Colonial Thieves show that the natural environment is vulnerable and needs protection in this collection?
4. “I won’t pretend it’s easy / Living in an intercultural space” (‘I won’t pretend’, CPG, p.62) ‘Despite the idealism of the collection, False Claims of Colonial Thieves suggests that cultural harmony is impossible.’ Discuss.
5. “And the dead are loud in their graves.” (‘Edges of Aridity’, JK, pp.82-4) “Arrived as colonial thieves / Remain as colonial thieves” (‘Always thieves’, CPG, pp.127-8) ‘There is no recovery from colonisation.’ Discuss with reference to the poetry in False Claims of Colonial Thieves.
6. How do the poets of False Claims of Colonial Thieves create hope in their collection?
7. “How can I but take up the call, / Charmaine, and yarn right back at you – / it’s what we do when we connect” (‘Yarn Response Poem’, JK, p.98) ‘The poems in the False Claims of Colonial Thieves reveal that we are shaped by our relationships with others.’ Discuss.
8. ‘The strength of this collection rests in its political agenda.’ To what extent do you agree?
9. How do John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk Green convince their readers of the healing power of poetry in False Claims of Colonial Thieves?

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum

This Resource is for Year 12 students studying William Wordsworth’s Poetry from ‘Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney’ in AOS1, Unit 3: Reading & Responding to Texts in the Mainstream English Curriculum for 2024.

Seamus Heaney’s selection consists largely of the poetry considered to be Wordsworth’s best, written in the decade 1797 to 1807.

Introduction & Themes

Many of Wordsworth’s ideas and values, in the poems in Seamus Heaney’s selection, are concerned with Themes such as:

• our relationship with Nature / life’s circularity / Nature nurtures & wellbeing
• religion / loss and death
• the significance of childhood experiences / wisdom & splendour of childhood / nurturing parents
• family & community / connectivity / wanderers & wandering / humanity & empathy for people less well off in society
• the connection between clear thinking & nourishment of one’s soul in solitude & silence / transcendence
• memory & personal growth / the self & individuality / the power of the human mind
• irrational fear and death / vision / sight / light
• the effects of materialism & industrial change / destructiveness of industrialisation / urbanism
• the pros & cons of political protest / revolutionary activism / rebellion / need for reform
• the problem of social inequality / need for change

Most radically, he viewed natural landscapes as emblematic of the mind of God, and as central to the wellbeing of humans.  Wordsworth believed that God was in every aspect of the natural world and so much of his poetry explores nature in a sacred and religious sense presenting goodness and naturalness as synonymous, so nature is a living, divine entity, that if ignored, was at humankind’s peril.

Born in 1770 at Cockermouth on the River Derwent, which is in the Lake District of England, the natural elements of this landscape would come to be immortalised in his poetry.  He was a prominent member of the group of poets called ‘Romantics’ that broke the traditional way poetry should be written, believing the poet’s role was to guide others through the transforming power of the poetic imagination.

The Romantic Movement 1798-1832

The Romanticism movement was founded during the Industrial Revolution in 1750 where poets like William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake were concerned that people had grown away from nature towards industrial cities and modern mechanisation of mass manufacturing. The Romantic poets had specific ideas that were radical at the time, moving away from traditional poetry, towards breathing imaginative life into all human experiences.  Romanticism was an emotional and passionate reaction against the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, urbanisation and its corrosive effects on the individual, community and the landscape.

The Romantics saw landscape and peasant people, ‘folk’ songs and traditions, as representing a simpler time.  They regarded the legends, myths and folk traditions of a people as the wellspring of poetry and art, the spiritual source of cultural vitality, creativity and identity.  The Romantics agreed with French philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea that feelings are the human essence, that ‘our sensibility is … prior to our reason’.  Abstract reason and scientific knowledge, they said, are insufficient guides to knowledge.  Reason and science provide only general principles about nature and people, failing to penetrate to ‘what really matters’, the uniqueness of each person, tree, cloud or lake.

Wordsworth said “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”.  He viewed poetry as being “the image of man and nature”.

Reading Wordsworth poems reveals a poet with a social conscience

One who believes that Nature provides the inspiration for the interior life.  He repeatedly returns to the idea of the cycle of life, and expresses both fear and acceptance of death.  He looks to Nature for a sense of immortality, although he doesn’t move far from the idea, as in all three ‘religions of the book’, that the earth is infused with, or created by, something beyond the material.  Wordsworth was on the side of the ordinary person, and against the authoritarian regimes in power.  The theological and social ideas in the poems imply values such as concern for the poor and support for equality and social justice sit alongside the centrality of the individual self.  Another interesting element of Wordsworth’s poetry is his presentation of children and how he saw the child as possessing a kind of essential wisdom, allowing them access to truths that were barred to adults.  As well as being free from sin, the child was privileged with great insight into the human condition, a gift that was lost in adulthood.  Wordsworth suggests that the innocence of children shows us a fresh truth, a new way of seeing.

Nature is central to Wordsworth’s romantic view on life

Writing in an era dominated by the corruptive elements of industrialisation, Wordsworth sought to reinstate Nature as a central focus of human concerns that was increasingly vulnerable.  The poet in Seamus Heaney’s collection is Wordsworth himself delighting in the aesthetics found through the environmental grandeur of Nature, presenting it as a source of joy and wonderment.  He embraces the language of the ‘common man’ that provokes readers to lament the impact of modernity has had on humanity’s capacity to appreciate natural sensations.  For Wordsworth the antidote to the threat posed by the industrial societies that surrounded him lay in the natural world he exalted in both his youth and adulthood.  By positioning Nature and by extension, human nature centrally in his poetry, Wordsworth directs individuals to discover deeper truths about themselves and thus humanity as a whole with a focus on the ‘self as subject’.  Overall, by concentrating on the sublime [inspirational] elements of the natural landscape, the poet’s collection of childhood epiphanies and philosophical reasonings reveal that immersion in rustic settings is able to guide humanity into a purer state of mind and spirit.

Example Introduction for a Prompt about Grief and Loss

Prompt          “How soon my Lucy’s race was run”. While much of Wordsworth’s poetry celebrates the joys of nature and human life, he also focuses on human grief and loss.  Discuss.

Use quote in essay “How soon my Lucy’s race was run” = One of the ‘Lucy’ poems “Three years she grew in sun and shower”

Introduction / Main Contention /Message of Poet

Through images and descriptions of the natural world, poet William Wordsworth celebrates the joys of human life, but he is always mindful of the personal elements of grief and loss.  By using nature, and men and women within nature, as the inspiration for his imagination, Wordsworth is able to portray a range of human emotions.  The complexity of Wordsworth’s poetic vision is apparent when he uses recollections of experiences in the natural world to explore feelings of happiness in living things.  In the poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ the speaker’s joy of his experience seeing daffodils is transposed into an almost spiritual transcendence of his understanding of the joy that nature brings to human life.  However, in a natural extension of his poetic sensibility, Wordsworth is able to contrast this joy of life in the natural world with a sense of grief and loss in his series of ‘Lucy’ poems that are seen as a sober meditation on death, grief and loss.  Moreover, imagination and memory, Wordsworth suggests, are powerful tools that present the possibility of transcending loss and allow us to gain a more complete understanding and acceptance of human life through nature.

Analytical Text Response Prompts

1. How does the poetry in this collection explore the interdependence between humans and the natural environment?
2. “The child is father to the Man” How does Wordsworth explore the idea that childhood experiences are significant in shaping the adult life?
3. ‘Although the poems show concern for others, they seem more concerned with the self.’ Discuss.
4. To what extent does Wordsworth’s poetry suggest that natural rural landscapes must be preserved despite the needs of commerce?
5. “… and I grew up/ Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.” ‘Wordsworth’s poetry is animated more by fear than by awe.’ Do you agree?
6. “Not without hope we suffer and we mourn” How does Wordsworth’s poetry explore this idea?
7. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!” What ideas and values about youth are revealed in this collection of Wordsworth’s poems?
8. ‘The poems reveal an ambivalent attitude towards the social changes of the time.’ Discuss.
9. “… with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.” How does Wordsworth’s poetry ‘see into the life of things’?
10. “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” ‘The poems in this collection condemn materialism, suggesting that it destroys the life of mind and spirit.’ Discuss.
11. “Whither is fled the visionary gleam?” ‘Despite the sense of loss in the poems, the poet more often expresses hope and joy.’ To what extent do you agree?
12. ‘Wordsworth shows us that the contemplation of nature can be a way of lightening feelings of melancholy and despondence’.  Discuss.
13. Wordsworth refers to “a higher power than Fancy”.  How does he demonstrate the dynamic power of the imagination in his poems?
14. “Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie/Open unto the fields”.  ‘Wordsworth successfully marries the contrasting ideas of unfettered nature and the edifices we have constructed’.  Discuss.
15. “Behold her, single in the field/Yon solitary highland lass”.  ‘Wordsworth uses varied images of simple rustics to highlight the heroic and ordinary human life’.  Discuss.

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum

This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Film Directed by Billy Wilder in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Responding to Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2024 Mainstream English Curriculum

Director Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder fled Germany in 1933 after witnessing first-hand the Nazi seizure of power and the central importance of the Fuhrer cult in lending the nascent [emerging] movement a coherent and compelling identity for its followers.  Wilder brought with him from German Expressionist cinema technical expertise in the creation of a dark, ominous, atmospheric mise-en-scène, he also retained a clear understanding that the cinema had a unique power to capture the wider ‘dream life’ of a society, even as it helped to shape the dreams themselves.  ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1949) and the two films that directly followed, ‘Ace in the Hole’ (1951) and ‘Stalag 17’ (1953), all examine the moment of American supremacy but discover flaws and contradictions that reveal a society far less confident and assured than its surface appearance might suggest. Wilder’s films seek to expose the illusions that can come to be accepted as truth.

Genre

It can be classified as a 1950’s film noir, a melodrama and a dark comedy with a cynical criticism of the destructive impacts of the American film industry in Hollywood.  The film title is named after a major Street, Sunset Boulevard, that runs through Hollywood and the centre of the American film industry.  The musical score was by Franz Waxman with a series of snippets of jazz and popular song, along with more haunting themes that signify Norma’s insanity in the film.

Cinematic Elements of Film Noir

Film noir literally translates to ‘black cinema’ used to describe Hollywood films that were saturated with darkness and pessimisim not seen before. There are specific film noir cinematic elements students should look for when viewing the film:

• Anti-hero protagonist – Joe Gillis – talented but disillusioned scriptwriter – becomes Norma’s gigolo (toy boy lover) bought and sold by the aging actress
• Femme fatale – Norma Desmond – a grandiose aging dame who emasculates her male victims – juxtaposed with Salome the Biblical figure who has John the Baptist beheaded
• Tight concise dialogue – use of flashbacks and voice over narrative of a dead man (Joe) – his dialogue is unsympathetic, cynical and pessimistic
• High contrasting lighting – in particular the style of lighting called ‘chiaroscuro’ that uses special placement of spotlight – juxtaposition between light and dark – the film drenches dramatic moments in atmosphere – Wilder also uses a filtered light from candles and lamps as well as reflected light from mirrors – during some mise-en-scenes a flat light accentures Norma’s appearance, in others a chiaroscuro-style lighting reinforces her anxieties and dilemmas
• Post war disillusionment – a sense of bleakness – sombre narrative exposing the sinsister under belly of Hollywood that Wilder was critiquing

Voice-Over Narrator

The voiceover narrator informs the audience that the dead man is a young writer and this will be his story, ‘The whole truth’, told in flashback.  Joe’s narration is unsentimental, pitiless and cynical.

Story of the Film in a Nutshell

Narrated by the voice over of Joe Gillis (played by William Holden), a struggling screenwriter, he gives the audience a retelling of the events leading up to his death 6 months earlier.  As the Police and press gather around Joe’s dead body in the swimming pool of former silent film star Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson), Joe’s voice over tells us how he came to be in Norma’s old mansion on Sunset Boulevard. 

His story follows how the ageing Norma draws Joe into her demented fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen.  Joe agrees to help edit Norma’s terrible script she has written about Salome and her delusional intention of sending the script to Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount Studio.  Norma is completely unaware of her faded stardom and controls Joe’s life buying him expensive clothes and gifts to keep him living the life of a gigolo. 

Joe tries to extricate himself from the toxic situation living under Norma’s roof and tries to leave but she threatens to shoot herself.  In a moment of passion, she instead shoots Joe, leaving him floating dead in the pool.  Even as the Police and press arrive to arrest her, Norma believes the news cameras are actually a film crew waiting for her to be back in movies.  As Norma sweeps down the staircase, she makes a short speech about how happy she is to be back and delivers the film’s most famous line “All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”.

Sunset Boulevard is a Cautionary Warning about the Artifice [pretence] of Hollywood

Sunset Boulevard is a cautionary warning about the artifice of Hollywood.  Norma’s massive stardom was entirely constructed around her youthful beauty and once that freshness faded as she aged, the movie industry had no use for her.  The celebrity image is ephemeral [short lived], a vicious cycle of championing youthful sex appeal and marginalising older women.

‘Sunset Boulevard’ Explores the American National Psyche

‘Sunset Boulevard’ is the first of Wilder’s remarkable sequence of films that explore the national psyche. It begins as an ostensible crime drama, albeit with an unusual narrative perspective, but quickly moves into an investigation of the wider crimes of the film industry. Wilder moves from the individual crime of Joe’s murder to consider all of Hollywood as a crime scene, the betrayal of its early promise, its abandonment of the creative talents that founded its studios, and the criminal neglect of the potential of the medium itself – these are all under investigation in Wilder’s vision of the film industry at mid-century.

The American psyche is concept of America itself – out of this small, relatively homogenous community, a vast nation gradually emerged.  So, deeply embedded in the American psyche is the sense of having leapt into the dark, of having rebelled and started something new, something whose end is unknown.  The USA is, in a sense, an experiment, a work in progress.

Stylistically, Sunset Boulevard Develops a Portrait of the Toxic Culture of the Film Industry

The film is an extended allusion to the great German Expressionist films of the silent era, as it develops a psychological portrait of the film industry, the ‘toxic’ culture of stardom and celebrity used to attract audiences, and the willingness to exploit creativity and then to abandon these talents in the relentless search for innovation and profit. Throughout the film, Wilder alludes to the darker impulses behind the worship of stars: a fascination with gossip and scandal, the transformation of actors into God-like figures, and the readiness to dispose of these ‘gods’ – all symptoms of a society that has become mesmerised by the manufactured fantasies that Hollywood has perfected across its short history.

Joe Gillis Investigates the Events that led to his Own Murder

Failed screenwriter Joe Gillis investigates the events that led to his own murder and uncovers a far larger ‘plot’. In ‘Sunset Boulevard’, Hollywood is exposed as an industry that pitilessly manufactures and then abandons its ‘stars’, that ruthlessly exploits youth and beauty, that values profit over artistic worth and that has become locked into a system of competing studios that act as business rivals, mirroring the larger economic system of capitalist competition, a true ‘culture industry’. In the contemporary Hollywood of ‘Sunset Boulevard’, Wilder makes it indisputably clear that a star of Norma’s impossible grandeur and other-worldly gestures and mannerisms has no place amidst the now reduced, quotidian world of Hollywood’s post-war austerity. ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is a film that explores madness, derangement, delusion and loss, but these are symptoms of a much wider cultural disturbance than merely the case of one former star.

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This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Responding to Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2024 Mainstream English Curriculum

Introduction

‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ is Shirley Jackson’s last completed novel and, much like the majority of her other works, it features gothic type female characters suffering from mental disorders and the house which represents a place of both security and imprisonment.  The genre is mystery, thriller and gothic set in 1962 in a small town in New England 6 years after the Blackwood family were murdered.  The tone and mood are sinister, frightening and at times darkly humorous.

It is a story about two sisters, Constance and Mary Katherine (Merricat) Blackwood, who continue to live away from the society after the murder of the rest of their family – a crime which is later revealed to have been committed by 12-year-old Merricat herself.  Jackson also describes the two sisters as two halves of the same person, two completely opposite sides of one personality.  Another important thing about this novel is that the home of Blackwood sisters is one of the central themes.  As well as in other Jackson’s works, “the house is a deeply ambiguous symbol—a place of warmth and security and also one of imprisonment and catastrophe” (Zoë Heller, “The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson”).  It is the place where the sisters find a sanctuary from the abusive villagers, as well as the place where they are being punished and, in the end, confined.

Through this novel, Jackson challenges the idea of happiness, as well as the morality of both society and individual. These two in particular are in conflict, as is the case in many other Jackson’s stories. Merricat, the narrator of the story, is desperately trying to escape the society and its norms, while those same people are trying to punish her for it. The novel parodies the role of the housewife, but also twists it by making the submissive Constance into a participant in the murder.  The idea of persecution of people who exhibit ‘otherness’ or become treated as outsiders by small town villagers is at the forefront of Jackson’s novel.

Who was the Author Shirley Jackson?

Shirley Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and gothic mystery.  She wrote 6 novels, two memoirs and 200 short stories. 

Born in 1916 Jackson herself led a haunted and peculiar life.  In order to escape from her abusive mother “who was disappointed by her daughter and who made it clear that she would have preferred a prettier, more pliable one” (Heller), Jackson married Stanley Edgar Hyman who ended up cheating on her and being jealous of her success. Trapped in another almost hostile household, she appears to have found her way of rebelling through her writing.  As Zoë Heller points out “[t]he motif of a lonely woman setting out to escape a miserable family or a grimly claustrophobic community and ending up “lost” recurs throughout Jackson’s stories”.  Her main characters are mostly female, often women with psychological problems who are being punished by society.  Her novel ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ is no different.  After writing this final novel, “Jackson suffered a nervous breakdown and a prolonged bout of acute agoraphobia that prevented her going outside for half a year” (Heller) not unlike Constance, one of the protagonists.  Jackson died at age 49 in 1965.

1^st Person Narrator – Mary Katherine (Merricat) Blackwood

Mary Katherine (Merricat) Blackwood is the main protagonist and the first-person narrator of Shirley Jackson’s novel. She is an interesting character through whose eyes the reader follows the events in what has remained of the Blackwood family. That being said, Mary Katherine is also the most disturbed individual in the novel and is increasingly losing touch with reality, which makes her point of view not only highly biased, but utterly unreliable.  She could be described as a hypersensitive paranoid schizophrenic, sometimes behaving mildly retarded, but only outwardly, inwardly she is razor-sharp in her observations and hyperalert to threats to her wellbeing.

In addition, her characteristics contribute to the creation of the uneasy, strange and gothic elements in the atmosphere of the novel. The book opens with Mary Katherine introducing herself, but her first sentences are disturbing and ominous, also the first clue to the reader that she is not exactly an ordinary character: “I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf” (p.1). In addition, she says: “I like my sister Constance . . . and Amanita phalloides, the death mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead” (p.1).

Merricat, like other mentally damaged people, fears change in the unvarying rituals of her household and is ‘domesticated’ by only one person, her older sister Constance.  The way for her to deflect change or threat to the ordinary is to use witchcraft involving a simple magic of ‘safeguards’ that were supposed to ward off bad omens. 

Constance Blackwood – Protagonist and Sister to Merricat

Mary Katherine and her older sister Constance are pure opposites of one another.  While Merricat is lively and energetic, loves to spend time outside, and can be quite aggressive, Constance seems to be more timid, submissive, and reluctant to leave her kitchen.  Constance is perhaps the one who comes closest to the idea of an innocent heroine. Throughout the whole novel, she is trying to justify Merricat’s behaviour and it is possible to ascribe this kind of reaction to extreme fear or love, but both of these emotions are then stretched to the point of being unhealthy. 

Of course, Constance is not mentally healthy to begin with – the most obvious proof being her fear of outer space (agoraphobia). It is certain that the readers will never really know how Constance came to be how she is now; whether she has always been that way or the death of her family and the events that followed are what made her that way. But if it is taken into consideration that it is extreme love what Constance feels for her mentally ill sister, one has to wonder how far that love is ready to go, and what kinds of terror it is ready to justify. But through the characters of Merricat and Constance, Jackson also shows just how cruel and disturbed women can be.

What Prompted the Girl’s Mental Problems?

At this point, the reader also has to wonder what prompted the girls’ mental problems and the murder of their parents, as the murder may be seen as a sort of liberation from potential abuse. Jackson never reveals the family’s history, which leaves enough room for speculation, and indeed, even escalation of the hidden horrors in the family.

The Importance of the Setting of ‘The Castle’

The setting in gothic fiction often plays the key role in the story, so it is no surprise that the setting of this novel is mentioned already in its title. “The castle” is in fact the Blackwood mansion, now almost completely deserted, save for Mary Katherine, her sister Constance and Uncle Julian. The interesting thing about it is that it acts both as the place of security for the sisters, as well as the place of their confinement.

Conclusion about the Novel

At the end of the novel after the fire, the Blackwood sisters willingly barricade themselves in their home in order to escape the abusive society which hates them for breaking their rules. However, by doing so on their own will, Constance and Merricat reverse the trap, making their prosecutors into the submissive ones, the ones who continue to serve and fear the sisters, turning their isolation into a somewhat ‘happy ending’.  The gothic fairy tale is of the more wicked variety, with the ending ironic and literal, the consequence of unrepentant witchcraft and a terrible sacrifice of others.

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This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Go, Went, Gone’ in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Responding to Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2024 Mainstream English Curriculum

Genre

‘Go, Went, Gone’ is a novel told in the 3^rd person limited point of view and centred on the protagonist Richard’s perspective.  However, at times the narrative does alter perspective shifting to 2 of the refugees’ stories, for example Chapter 13 is from Apollo’s perspective and Chapter 27 from Awad’s perspective.  Erpenbeck uses these brief moments of perspective shift to allow the reader access to thoughts they would not otherwise see.  The work is fiction but the issues in the novel are based in reality regarding the refugee crisis and the German and European response.  The novel draws also on real laws, regulations and events making is grounded in fact and the stories of the men Richard interviews even more powerful.

Structure

The novel has a fairly linear structure, beginning, middle and end with 55 chapters but includes different layers, conversations, Richard’s own thoughts and various events that are important to the refugee’s lives and moments on Richard’s own life journey.  The text also references laws and regulations surrounding the refugees along with other intertextual references, direct quotes and allusions.

The Importance of the Verb ‘To Go’ in the Title

The novel takes its title from the German irregular verb ‘to go’ and its various tense forms ‘gehen, ging, gegangen’ is literally translated to ‘go, went, gone’.  The words ‘to go’ are repeated in several places in the novel.  The phrase ‘Where can a person go when he doesn’t know where to go?’ is repeated on two pages 266 & 267 highlighting the complex issue of where do the refugees go when no country wants them to stay.  The German language is also symbolic of a new life and new possibilities for the refugees but the barrier of not understanding is also problematic when they cannot interpret the complex laws that govern their rights to live and work in Germany.

Libyan Civil War in 2011

‘Go, Went, Gone’ was published in Germany in 2015 at the height of the ‘immigration crisis’.  What was framed as a crisis for European states such as Germany, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, Denmark and France, among others, was in fact a humanitarian catastrophe affecting some of the world’s poorest nations and resulting in the mass migration of these populations from zones of political instability and violence.  As in the case of Libya, largely caused by direct NATO assault on the existing state.  In 2011 forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya clashed with foreign forces trying to remove him from power that escalated into a full-blown civil war where more than one million people fled the country.  Black Africans were being targeted by rebel forces as they tried to flee and were subjected to atrocious violations of their human rights.

Seeking Asylum in Europe

The distance between Tripoli, in Libya, and the Italian island of Lampedusa is only 300 kilometres, but the journey over rough seas, in poorly provisioned, barely seaworthy boats, is a harsh one.  Refugees fleeing Libya often paid smugglers for the journey but many died in transit or are drowned when the ships are wrecked by storms and rough seas before ever reaching land.  Of the few that survive the journey, the process of seeking refuge and asylum is far from easy.  Erpenbeck’s readers will immediately recognise the charged political setting of the novel.  Refugees seeking asylum are kept in a state of permanent uncertainty as to their rights to even apply for asylum, a situation that Erpenbeck examines as a cruel contemporary denial of human rights.

Laws and Regulations on Asylum Seekers

The novel refers to laws and regulations that govern the movement and settlement of migrants across Europe.  The one Richard studies in ‘Go, Went, Gone’ is ‘Dublin II’ that is based on the assumption all EU member states provide refugees with similar levels of protection.  However, the reality is more complex with each country interpreting the regulations in ways that suit their needs and is unfair to the asylum seekers.  Detained in countries like Germany in the novel the refugees are not permitted to work while their papers on asylum are being processed.

The Text from Richard’s Perspective

As Richard, a recently retired classics professor, contemplates what appears to be his own diminishing and solitary future, he encounters a group of men whose collective futures are exceedingly more precarious.  In ‘Go, Went, Gone’, Jenny Erpenbeck dramatises this fateful encounter between an otherwise unremarkable character and the poignantly rendered African refugees.  Richard is an individual who also happens to personify, through his career and academic specialisation, the deeply inscribed values of European civilisation, its classical humanist culture of thought, literature and philosophy – quite a contrast to this very different group of men who have arrived in Germany from outside Europe’s borders, from outside Europe’s cultural identity.

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This Resource is for Year 12 students studying Gabriel Garcia Marquez ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ in the VCE Victorian Curriculum for 2024 Unit 3 AOS1 Reading and Responding to Texts.

Author

Gabriel García Márquez

Year Published

1981

Type

Novella

Genre

Surrealistic Fiction – magic realist style – as the overwhelming number of accidents, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, contradictions, and confused memories seem to completely undermine reason and human understanding regarding how events unfold in the real world.

Perspective and Narrator

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, allegedly the author, who pieces together a journalistic narrative of a past event. The story as related by the characters is told in the third person by the narrator, who also uses the first person to describe his own involvement in the story.

Tense

Chronicle of a Death Foretold is told in the past tense.

About the Title

The title Chronicle of a Death Foretold states that the novella is a chronicle, which narrates events in chronological order. However, the author uses the label chronicle with verbal irony (when what is meant is different from what is said), because the events in the story are not revealed in chronological order. Further, the title reveals that the story’s deathis foretold or known in advance—and this death occurs at the very beginning of the novella. So, this too, undermines the real-life, journalistic pretence of the author. In short, the title contrasts with the nonlinear and somewhat mysterious and inexplicable nature of the events in the narrative.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Character Analysis

Narrator

The narrator lived in the town as a boy, and his mother, sisters, and brother still reside there. He returns to the town decades after Santiago’s murder to find out exactly what happened. He is now working as a journalist, and he uses his skills as an interviewer and investigator to try to tease out the facts about what happened at that fateful time and why.

Santiago Nasar

Santiago is an open-hearted, good-natured, and innately innocent young man. Angela Vicario names him—falsely—as the man who violated her prior to her marriage. The macho code of honour makes him the target of the vengeful Vicario brothers, who seek him out to murder him. For inexplicable reasons Santiago does not learn of the murderous twins’ plan until it is too late, and they hack him to pieces at his front door.

Angela Vicario

Angela is a young, pretty girl of marriageable age whose family keeps a close eye on her to protect her honour. However, inside she is a free spirit who chafes at her family’s overprotection. After she lies about Santiago and the tragedy plays itself out, she lives on her own, guided only by her free will and her love for Bayardo. Angela never divulges with whom she had sex with before her marriage.

Pablo Vicario

Pablo Vicario is the twin brother of Pedro and older brother to Angela. He is a hog-butcher and a hot-headed macho Latino male who is hell-bent on finding Santiago and avenging the honour of his sister, Angela, who supposedly was violated by Santiago before her marriage. It is Pablo who forces his twin, Pedro, to pursue the murder of Santiago even after Pedro feels events have satisfied his lust for revenge.

Pedro Vicario

Pedro Vicario is Pablo’s twin brother and works with him as a hog butcher. Pedro eventually becomes less intent than his brother on finding and murdering Santiago. However, he lets Pablo force him to help with the killing. He is far more affected by the murder and afterward goes off to join the military, where he disappears and is never heard from again.

Plácida Linero

Plácida is an upper-class woman who lives with her son Santiago and servants in a large house on the town plaza. Despite the intention of several townspeople to warn her of the threat to her son, she never learns of the murder plot before it is carried out. It is by chance that Plácida aids in the murder when she bolts the front door as Santiago rushes toward it to escape the Vicario brothers.

Bayardo San Román

Bayardo comes from a rich and high-status military family. He is supremely self-confident and lavish in planning his wedding celebration and in buying Angela the house of her dreams. His confidence is crushed by the scandal surrounding Angela and the termination of their marriage. He nearly dies from his alcoholism. Decades later he is still bitter and closemouthed about the terrible events that occurred during and after his wedding to Angela.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Plot Summary

Epigraph from Portuguese Playwright Gil Vincente about Falconry & Finding Love

The book opens with an epigraph about falconry: “The pursuit of love is like falconry.” Here, finding love is represented as a form of predation in which the raptor, or the seeker of love, snares a love object almost at random and then kills it. Finding love is likened to a blood sport in which the beloved is a victim of inevitable violence. The quote sets the stage for the fury and violence that love engenders in the novella. It is also likely a critique of the cultural norm of vengeance killing, a custom that must be taught to the men who carry it out, perhaps in the same way captive falcons are trained to hunt on the wing.

People who own falcons train the birds to hunt and then enjoy a rather grisly spectacle. When the falcon is released, its owner watches as it soars upward searching for a bird it can snare in its talons. (This horrific scene mimics the death of Santiago.) The relevance to the novella is clear: Angela seems to pick Santiago’s name out of thin air, the same way a falcon catches a bird in flight. It is his random, strange, and meaningless fate to be murdered just as it is the fate of the falcon’s prey to be the one bird the predator grabs. There are references to falconry, and its lethal arbitrariness, in several places in the novella.

Chapter 1

Santiago Nasar has been murdered. He had gotten up early to go and see the bishop who was arriving on a boat that morning. The day before there had been a large and lavish public wedding celebration in honour of the marriage of Angela Vicario to Bayardo San Roman. Unbeknownst to Santiago, Bayardo had dragged his wife back to her parents’ home the night before because he discovered she was not a virgin. When her twin brothers demanded to know who had deflowered her, Angela said it was Santiago. Her brothers Pedro Vicario and Pablo Vicario swear to murder Santiago as revenge for dishonouring their sister.

The narrator, who grew up in this town, has returned 27 years later as a professional investigative journalist to uncover the truth about why and how Santiago was murdered. Unfortunately, most townspeople have confused memories of what happened. Still, the narrator is determined to unearth the reason that although most of the people in the town knew of the Vicario brothers’ plot to murder Santiago, no one warned him or did anything to stop the killing.

Chapter 2

Bayardo is handsome and rich. He arrived in town in August to look for a bride. The moment he sees Angela Vicario walking with her mother, he falls in love with her. The couple gets married in February. Bayardo’s wedding feast is the most lavish and expensive the town has ever seen.

Angela does not want to marry Bayardo because she does not love him, but because she had a strict upbringing, she must do what her parents tell her to do—and they want her to marry Bayardo. When Bayardo brings her home after discovering her dishonour, Angela’s mother beats her. When the townspeople find out about her dishonour, they are amazed. Angela has always been closely controlled by her mother. How had she found a way to have sex with a man before her wedding?

The narrator, his brother, his friend, and Santiago spend the entire night of the celebration together. Santiago is delightful and carefree. The narrator is certain it could not have been Santiago who had sex with Angela. She must have lied when she named him.

Chapter 3

The Vicario brothers, who are twins, must avenge the lost honour of their sister. They go to the pig butchery where they work and get two long slaughtering knives. They go to the meat market to sharpen their knives, and they boast to all the butchers there that they are going to kill Santiago Nasar. Then they go hunting for him. They roam the town looking for Santiago, and along the way, they tell everyone they meet about the murder they are about to commit. No one in town takes them seriously, so no one bothers to warn Santiago, his mother, or anyone else who might prevent the crime. People think the twins are either too drunk to be taken seriously or that they are just bluffing.

While the Vicario twins hunt Santiago, he, the narrator, his brother, and his friend go up to the newlyweds’ house to serenade the couple. They are unaware that Bayardo is alone in the house, having already returned his bride to her family.

The Vicario twins finally wait for Santiago to return home. They sit in the milk shop, which is across the street from Santiago’s house, and plan to attack Santiago when he returns. They tell each person who comes into the milk shop of their murderous plan. Again, no one takes them seriously or does anything to prevent it. The owner of the shop tells a beggar woman to go to warn Santiago’s mother, but it is not known if she gets the message.

Chapter 4

The Vicario brothers have killed Santiago Nasar with their butcher knives, nearly hacking him to pieces. He dies in front of his home. The mayor orders the town priest to conduct an immediate autopsy, as the body reeks in the heat. The botched autopsy leaves Santiago’s body even more mutilated. The priest concludes that Santiago died of seven fatal stab wounds.

The Vicario brothers turn themselves in to the church. They show no remorse because they feel an honour killing is not a sin. The priest, like most other men in town, seems to agree. Because of an unwarranted fear of reprisal by the town’s Arab community, however, the Vicario brothers are moved to a jail some distance away. Angela Vicario, her mother, and the rest of her family also move out of town, fearful (needlessly) of Arab revenge.

Decades later when the journalist narrator comes to investigate the crime, he tries to interview Bayardo, who refuses to discuss the incident. The narrator locates Angela Vicario living on her own in a distant town, and she agrees to speak with him. She discusses many details of the event but will not say who had sex with her before her wedding day. She tells the narrator that, since the incident so many years earlier, she has fallen in love with Bayardo. She has written him frequent letters for many years, even though he never answers her.

Chapter 5

The people of the town are obsessed by the murder that took place so many years ago. They want to understand how and why it happened—why no one warned Santiago—but they can make no sense out of the senseless accidents and wrong choices that failed to save him.

A few weeks after the murder, a magistrate shows up in town to investigate. He, too, is bewildered by what happened. He cannot understand how everyone in town knew the murder was about to take place but no one warned Santiago or did anything to stop the crime.

The narrator goes on to describe the mischances, misunderstandings, miscommunications, unlucky choices, coincidences, and accidents that seem to have made a whole host of townspeople unable or unwilling to warn Santiago to save him. Perhaps they could not believe he would really be murdered, but it is his fate to be murdered. His fate is foretold when Angela names him and in the inaction of those who know about the killing but do nothing. Santiago meets his fate at his front door where the Vicario brothers butcher him.

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This Resource is for Year 12 students studying Sophocles ‘Oedipus the King’ in the VCE Victorian Curriculum for 2024 Unit 3 AOS1 Reading and Responding to Texts.

Author

Sophocles leading dramatist in Greek classical period 500-323 BC

Year Performed

430 BC at the festival of Dionysia

Type & Genre

Greek tragedy play – like an ancient murder mystery

Perspective

Greek audience came to watch the play to learn about life through what happens to Oedipus and his fate

Title

In the original Greek, Sophocles’ play was entitled ‘Oidipous Tyrannos’; once the play was translated to Latin, it became ‘Oedipus Rex’, and then in English, ‘Oedipus the King’. The original title aptly included the term ‘tyrannos’, meaning a king with no legitimate claim to the throne, a nod to Oedipus’ belief that he is not descended from Cadmus’ lineage.

Structure of a Greek Tragedy

Peripeteia = A tragedy must have some kind of reversal of fortune – the fall of the tragic hero – Oedipus experiences a peripeteia after the Messenger from Corinth sets off the chain of events that leads to his destruction.

Anagnorisis = The recognition scene when the tragic hero becomes aware of their reversal. Oedipus anagnorisis occurs when he realises that he is the lost son of Laius and Jocasta.

Hamartia = Known as the tragic flaw where heroes have a frailty or make some kind of error that leads to their downfall.

Catharsis = The goal is to create catharsis in the audience to evoke both horror and pity.

Brief Overview of ‘Oedipus the King’

‘Oedipus the King’ written by Sophocles for the Great Dionysia celebration, is a Greek tragedy that is read like a kind of ancient murder mystery. The play is regarded as a classic example of the ‘tragedy of fate’. The hero of the play is his own destroyer, he is the detective who tracks down and identifies the criminal, who turns out to be himself. It is the story of a great but flawed man, doomed to perform the most heinous crimes, despite doing everything he thinks he can to prevent the hideous web that fate has spun for him. The play tells the story of Oedipus, ruler of Thebes who discovers on a terrible day that he is the lost son of the previous king, his father Laius, and his wife Jocasta. This leads to a chain of tragic events that is unveiled as Oedipus unwittingly killed his father (parricide – murder of a parent by a child) and married his mother (incest – sexual relationship of son with mother). Written over 2000 years ago, suggests that fate is determined and the gods have active roles in people’s lives. These ideas were commonly accepted in Sophocles time but are not widely accepted now. Oedipus gradual realisation of his fate, and of the terrible crimes he has unknowingly committed, might be considered impossible or implausible to modern society. However, in the world of ancient Greece, it is possible to see Oedipus determined quest to uncover the truth for the sake of his city Thebes and his deep remorse for the errors of his past, as very recognisable and sympathetic qualities. The action of the play occurs many years after the horrible events, on the fateful day when the truth behind them comes to light.

Timeline of Events Oedipus the King

Brief Character Analysis

Oedipus

At the beginning of the play, the eponymous character believes himself to be the son of Polybus and Merope, the King and Queen of Corinth. Oedipus had been granted the throne of Thebes because of his ingenuity in defeating the Sphinx, who had cursed Thebes and was terrorising its citizens. An additional part of Oedipus’ reward was marriage to Jocasta, the widowed wife of the former king, Laius. Unbeknownst to Oedipus, he has married his biological mother, having previously murdered Laius on a road far outside Thebes, not realising that Laius was the King of Thebes, nor that Laius was his biological father.

Most aspects of his character revolve around the question: to what extent is Oedipus guilty of the fate that befalls him? He has a wide range of personality traits both positive – bravery & cunning. But he also has negative traits – hubris (pride), foolish, naïve, hot tempered, authoritarian, paranoid, lacks insight into his faults, denies the truth. By the end of the play his traits have changed to be more humble even though blinded he sees the truth more clearly.

Jocasta

Oedipus’ wife (and unknowingly his mother) does not enter the play until the conflict between Oedipus and Creon is well underway. She is immediately presented to the audience as a confident woman and one whom the people respect. As Queen of Thebes she was married to King Laius and is the mother of Oedipus whom she had abandoned on Mount Cithaeron when he was three days old. She becomes the unwitting wife of her own son not long after the death of her husband and bears Oedipus 4 children – 2 sons Eteocles and Polyneices and 2 daughters Antigone and Ismene.

Aspects of her character revolve around the question: how could a mother abandon her own newborn child? She appears a jaded person haunted by fate and her past. The audience and the Chorus share sympathy with her horror of realising the terrible outcome of her past and the consequences of marrying her own son. At the end of the play Jocasta suicides because she cannot live with herself, but also because, as a woman, she cannot live within society.

Creon

Creon is Jocasta’s brother and at the start of the play Oedipus brother-in-law but also his uncle. Creon is respected by the people of Thebes and is initially regarded by Oedipus as a loyal and trusted friend. Despite their relationship souring, and Oedipus even viewing Creon as the antagonist at times, he is in fact the hero of this tale. He shares Oedipus’ desire to save Thebes from destruction and is equally determined to search for the truth behind the oracle.

Positive aspects of his character are held up by Sophocles as the man we should aspire to be: steadfast without stubbornness, confident without arrogance. He even bears the quality most commonly regarded as being essential for a good king: he does not want to be one. Where Oedipus is aggressive and headstrong, Creon is reasoned, temperate, cautious and content with his position of not being king with all the worries.

Tiresias

The character of Tiresias, whose name literally means ‘portent’, was included in many Ancient Greek myths and tragedies. He is revered by the Thebans, who refer to him as ‘Lord Tiresias’ and claim he ‘sees with the eyes of Lord Apollo’ [323]. Despite the esteem in which he is held by the Chorus, Tiresias’ role in Oedipus the King is a tragic one. He unwillingly comes to Thebes at Oedipus’ behest, and endeavours to conceal his knowledge, because he knows ‘the truth is only pain to him who sees’ [360]. He is threatened and taunted by Oedipus, who not only is ignorant of the knowledge Tiresias holds, but also unaware of the kindness Tiresias attempts to show Oedipus in bearing the burden of being the one in whom ‘the truth lives … [in] him alone’ [339].

The Priest

The Priest of Thebes plays an important role within his community, as well as in this play, as it is his treatment of Oedipus that sets the tone for Sophocles’ interpretation of the mythological character of Oedipus. While Oedipus presents himself as a god among men when he questions why the Chorus is ‘pray[ing] to the gods’ when he will ‘grant [their] prayers’ [245], the Priest identifies Oedipus as the ‘first of men’ [41], and he has already clearly stated that Oedipus ‘cannot equal the gods’ [39]. The Priest’s distinction between the gods and men (even the ‘first of men’) challenges Oedipus to step back from his hubris, however, Oedipus responds to the Priest’s words with excessive references to himself and all he feels and all he has done.

While the Priest’s role seems to be that of a grounding agent, persistently reminding Oedipus of his status, and that even in Oedipus’ greatest triumph ‘a god was with [him]’ [48], there are inconsistencies that feed into Oedipus’ sense of grandeur and blur the line between respect for a king and worship of a god.

The Chorus

As a standard in Greek drama the Chorus have a double identity – one within the plot and one outside of it. The Chorus in the plot identity is as a group of Theban citizens to fulfill duties of answering questions about characters and events and as an intermediary between characters. The outside the plot role is to comment on social, religious and historical meaning of the unfolding action of the play.

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