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Qualified English Teacher, BA/BT UNE, Registered with VIT, located in Berwick Victoria 3806. Contact 0418 440 277, email contact@englishtutorlessons.com.au

‘The Penelopiad’ by Margaret Atwood: A Brief Synopsis Only

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Margaret

This Resource is ‘A Brief Synopsis’ only for Mainstream English Year 11 Students studying ‘The Penelopiad’ by Margaret Atwood: AOS1 Reading & Exploring Texts and AOS2 Crafting Texts Year 11 in the 2023 VCE Curriculum

The Penelopiad : The Myth of Penelope & Odysseus: Text Myth Series - Margaret Atwood

Historical Context

While ‘The Penelopiad’ is a postmodern, feminist short novel (novella) it is a work of narrative fiction with a story and plot, characters and settings and offers insight into human relationships as well as exploring moral, social and political issues. The most significant element in Atwood’s narrative is that she retells Homer’s myth of the Odyssey enabling various interpretations and questions to what led to the hanging of the Maids and what was Penelope really up to? By leaving Homer’s myth of Greece in 700 BCE open to reinterpretation, Atwood suggests that there is not one single undisputed truth in the interpretation. Atwood addresses social and cultural issues of Ancient Greece within the framework of Homer’s myth but she assigns new emphasis to female protagonists like Penelope who have to fight for self and survival in a society ruled by men.

Style

‘The Penelopiad’ is told by Penelope adopting 1^st person narrative, from the Underworld, called Hades in Ancient Greek mythology, where she has been for several thousand years. Shown through Penelope’s eyes, Atwood creates a form of conversational dramatic monologue during which Penelope tells her side of the story as she waits the 20 years for Odysseus to return from the Trojan Wars. She presents a kind of tell-all tale of her recount of events that she will “spin a thread of my own” (p.4) addressing 21^st century readers in a more modern narrative style that is often colloquial. Penelope uses blunt and straightforward language reclaiming her humanity and rejecting Homer’s account of her. The tone is often ironic and humorous and is at odds with the patriarchal epic poems of Ancient Greek mythology. She urges women “Don’t follow my example, I want to scream in your ears” (p.2). At times Penelope uses quite extreme slang when describing Helen of Troy calling her a “septic bitch” (p.131) in order to reinforce the view of Helen as the main cause of all Penelope’s problems. Through the use of everyday vernacular, Atwood mocks the lofty language of the Odyssey and claims the right for alternative voices to be heard.

Feminist Literature

‘The Penelopiad’ can be considered feminist literature of the 21^st century as Atwood takes women from the Odyssey and puts them into a new framework where the narrator Penelope and other female voices, once suppressed by Homer, become the voices heard. Penelope is a capable modern woman, simultaneously trying to cover all roles while Odysseus is away. She clearly does more than weeping and weaving. She raises Telemachus as a single mother, manages Odysseus’ estates and negotiates the politics of the household and the onslaught from the Suitors. Atwood shows Penelope resisting patriarchal dominance and oppression starting from when her father tries to drown her, until we meet her looking back on her life from the Underworld. We see the focus on the way Penelope creates and extends her role of patient wife and mother to the other roles she defines. The text addresses the feminist ideology which asks that “women be free to define themselves, instead of having their identity defined for them”.

Message of Author – Why did Margaret Atwood write The Penelopiad?

As Atwood admits, Penelope has been “in general somewhat neglected for the very simple reason that in the Odyssey she does weaving, waiting, sleeping and crying to show how much she cares that Odysseus isn’t there, how beleaguered she feels, and how lost and alone and unhappy she is.” Certainly, Atwood could have written about murderous Clytemnestra or scandalous Helen, but she decided to take Penelope, a mythical, dutiful doormat and make her fly. But Atwood conceded that there was much more to Penelope and she wanted to question Homer’s version of her. For Atwood, such ancient myths can still tell us living truths.

Atwood said that Penelope “Had a whole lifetime of keeping her mouth shut. Now that she’s dead, she doesn’t have to do that anymore, because nothing is at stake. It’s like those tell-all’s that people do at the end of their lives.” Atwood also makes her put-upon heroine a shrewd estate manager and stand-in ruler, running the dirt-poor “goat-strewn rock” of Ithaca while the big boys play away from home. “If you come to think of it, she must have been doing a lot more than she’s shown as doing in the Odyssey, because there’s nobody else in charge of the outfit. She must have been a much more active, practical person than she’s shown as being.” Nobody’s fool, Atwood’s Penelope sees through the returning Odysseus’s disguises and shares a flair for fibs and ruses with her errant husband. “There are two ways of fending things off if you don’t want them to happen,” Atwood explains. “One is by force – which is not available to her. The other is by guile. So, she has to use guile. And that is also Odysseus’s big stock-in-trade. When in doubt, lie – but lie well.”

Interview of Margaret Atwood by Boyd Tonkin “Margaret Atwood: A personal odyssey and how she rewrote Homer”. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/margaret-atwood-a-personal-odyssey-and-how-she-rewrote-homer-322675.html

The 12 Maids Perspective & Importance

Atwood intersperses Penelope’s narrative with performances from the 12 hanged maids, in 11 of the 24 chapters, who together form ‘The Chorus Line’ to comment on the action and give background from their perspective. The maids perform in a variety of genres such as songs, recitations, dance, an idyll, a sea shanty, ballad, love story, mock heroic drama, an envoi, an anthropological lecture and a farce of a trial of Odysseus. The narratives of the maids are also accompanied by stage directions to increase the sense of dramatic performance. The maids lament the double standards throughout their chorus breaks, constantly reminding the reader or audience of the tragedy that happened.

The importance of the maid’s narrative is to address the treatment of marginalised women in a patriarchal society and Atwood’s need to give powerless women a voice not heard in the history of society or Greek mythology. The maids continue to demand answers ‘Why did you murder us?’ (p. 193) and Atwood gives them the final word in the novella with a short poem, ‘Envoi’, where they again state ‘it was not fair’ (p. 195). Atwood emphasises the injustice of silencing and marginalising women and suggests that women will keep on calling out about it.

Themes & Key Concepts – Consider these Ideas for Connections with your Personal Response or Crafting Texts Response

Truth and Lies

Penelope’s story uncovers lies and innuendos as she takes the unchallenged position of narrator to tell the “plain truth” (p.139) so that deception is attributed by her only from Odysseus. She says she knew Odysseus was “tricky” (p.2) but it seems that both Penelope and Odysseus use lies and deception to cleverly achieve their aims. Penelope’s revelation of herself as an equal liar to Odysseus casts into doubt her insistence that she has nothing to do with the hanging of the Maids and does not know about it until it is too late. It brings into question other matters like her true relationship with the Suitors and her activities when Odysseus is away. Also, as the Maids call out insults to Odysseus concerning their treatment and their pledge to follow him wherever he goes, they taunt him about their murder, clearly referring to him as a careful, clever liar. They make reference to Odysseus being a “grandson of thieves and liars” (p.191) because of the story involving the boar hunting with his grandfather, Autolycus. The questions posed by this probable deceit are suggested by Penelope in the chapter of “The Scar” (p.47). It appears that the clever lies told by both Penelope and Odysseus are used to manipulate others, to get what they want or just simply to survive.

Personal Challenge

Penelope starts her tale by retelling a story from her childhood. She is thrown into the sea by her father, but is saved by a flock of purple-striped ducks. Clearly this episode and its retelling has a profound impact on Penelope and leaves her with the personal challenge of dealing with her reserved personality and learning to manage her innate mistrust of others. So, unlike her cousin Helen of Troy, who is confident and superficial, Penelope’s personality is more inward-focused. This could also account for why she has to much trouble fitting in to palace life in Ithaca and resorts to her own abilities to “learn from scratch” (p.87). Even though Penelope is only 15 when she is married to Odysseus, she is willing to start a new life with Odysseus so she can put her past life as princess of Sparta and her dysfunctional family life behind her. Yet her personal challenges are broad and wide-reaching in Ithaca when Odysseus is away for so many years, she must rely on her own determination to succeed against the odds. Despite much weeping and weaving she finds the strength to handle court politics and running the estates belonging to Odysseus. In her personal challenges she applies her mother’s advice “If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it” (p.43).

Power

Penelope struggles with a lack of power, firstly as a child in Sparta, then when she is won in a marriage contest by Odysseus and later in Ithaca with Eurycleia and Anticlea. There are fatal consequences when the powerful exert their power and we see two sides to Penelope, the powerful and the powerless. The Maid’s lack of power is evident in the novella and they express this in “Kiddie Mourn, A Lament by the Maids” (pp.13-15). Later they seek justice for the injustices they have faced, including their early and unnatural death by putting their case before a modern court. However, even in that setting they lack the power for a resolution that will see Odysseus face his crimes.

In ‘The Penelopiad’, physical power is embodied in Odysseus who is the self-proclaimed superhuman who had defeated the Trojans and established his political power in battle. More importantly is that power is explicitly in the hands of men in Greece who consolidate and legitimise power physically, politically and economically over women. Odysseus is free to kill Penelope for infidelity and to slaughter the Suitors and the Maids. Likewise, Icarius is at liberty to drown his infant daughter or act in a drunken and insulting manner at Penelope’s wedding because “He was king” (p.41).

‘The Penelopiad’ explores ways in which male power affects different groups of women as a result of class discrimination. For instance, although Penelope is traded “like a package of meat” (p.39) between her father and her husband, as a noblewoman she still has far more power than her Maids. The Maids are Odysseus’ property to the point that he is considered to have acted “within his rights” in hanging them. In fact, their rape is judged as a crime against them as they had sex without his permission (p.151).

Penelope’s “tale-telling” (p.4) is an attempt to seize some power by contradicting the traditional myth that depicts her as the stereotypical faithful wife. Similarly, the Maids demand the right to tell their own version of events and thus achieve a measure of the power that was denied to their sex and class.

Responsibility

A key theme is responsibility; especially how Odysseus sees his responsibility in the tale, as Penelope does not give him the right of reply to accusations made against him. Although Atwood indirectly refers to the puzzle concerning what leads to the hanging of the Maids in The Odyssey, in her retelling of the tale she states clearly that the story “doesn’t hold water” (p.xv). She suggests that whoever is directly responsible might be important in her story with its new emphases. Atwood indicates that Penelope is “haunted” (p.xv) by the death of the hanged Maids and we are told of her great affection for them. On the surface it appears that the responsibility lies with Odysseus however, it is clearly much more complicated. Atwood leaves doubt in the mind of the reader despite the fact that the Maids hold fast in their accusation against Odysseus for their murder. Perhaps Penelope’s responsibility is to put a stop to being “A stick used to beat other women with” (p.2) as she wanted to set the record straight. Yet Penelope pleads ignorance about the killing of the Maids. Nevertheless, responsibility weighs on Penelope in outward statements and inner thoughts, which allows readers to raise questions of who is really responsible for the Maids killings.

Identity

‘The Penelopiad’ explores notions of identity and the ways in which it is tied to physical appearance, self-perception and the expectations of others. Physical appearance with Helen’s beauty sets the standard of physical perfection by which other women (such as Penelope) judge themselves (p.35). The text suggests that beauty can grant women power; in Helen’s case, agelessness as well, invests her with enormous power over men. Beauty is also linked with youth and the capacity to bear children (especially sons) to ensure the continuation of patriarchal power.

A sense of self can also be shaped by other’s perceptions and expectations leading people to question who they are. This is clear as Penelope fails to meet her mother in law’s expectations of a suitable wife for Odysseus (p.62) and the idea he might be “thinking about Helen” (p.64) increases her insecurity. Odysseus cheats if the odds are against him in order to substantiate his heroic status (p.31), he exaggerates stories of his heroism, yet his public identity as a hero is consolidated by his plausible stories that inevitably become “true” (p.2).

Gender Roles

The text explores ideas about being a woman with socially constructed notions of femininity and gender and also highlights the complexities of womanhood in a 21^st century post-feminist context. The good mother characteristics of a nurturing, gentle and protective quality with feminine sensibility is shown in Penelope when she gives birth to Telemachus as she is “glad” to have produced a son, gratified that Odysseus is “pleased” with her (p.64) and feels fulfilled by her maternal role. Penelope’s observation that “a mother’s life is sacred” (p.111) reveals the high value society places on nurturing motherhood and the high expectations placed upon mothers.

Yet toxic mothers in law with their reputed hostility to daughters in law is shown by Anticleia who Penelope described as a “prune-mouthed” woman (p.60) who wrinkles up “like drying mud” (p.85). Atwood exploits these stereotypes for the comic or dramatic purpose in the text but Penelope challenges her role by showing the importance of spinning a threat of one’s own (p.4).

Being a wife in Ancient Greece in a patriarchal society meant being a possession like Penelope being handed over like “a package of meat” (p.39) in a bargain struck between powerful men. Penelope is the essence of submissiveness and obedience and only after her death she warns other women that following her example will subjugate and silence them.

Storytelling & the Power of Narrative

‘The Penelopiad’ demonstrates the power of storytelling and the liberating power of taking ownership of one’s own story. Penelope’s spinning of her own “thread” (p.4) disputes Homer’s idealised version of her in the Odyssey so that she is able to complicate the accepted one-dimensional image of her as a dutiful wife and emphasise to the reader her considerable intelligence and resilience. Rewriting of the Odyssey is empowering for Penelope as she can finally negate the many stories about her that she would “prefer not to hear” (p.3). Her authorial control frees her from the burden of being a legend (pp.143-5) and allows her to warn other women not to follow the example she set of keeping her “mouth shut” (p.3).

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

Photograph 51 and My Brilliant Career The Basics

Posted on January 12, 2023 by Margaret

This Resource is for Year 12 English students studying Unit 4 AOS:1 Reading & Comparing Texts in the Victorian VCE Curriculum for 2023. While Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler was compared in 2022 to The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, the play has a new comparative text in 2023, the novel My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.

Introduction

Anna Ziegler’s play ‘Photograph 51’ and Miles Franklin’s novel ‘My Brilliant Career’ explore concepts with very different women protagonists. Both protagonists have their own individual personalities, dispositions, ages and external contexts. As such it is important to understand the cultural and social surroundings of each character as well as how they are affected by other people and their settings. In ‘My Brilliant Career’ the characters are all seen in relation to Sybylla Melvyn because it is her ‘yarn’ and so the story unfolds based on her whims and experiences. Within ‘Photograph 51’, Rosalind Franklin is stripped of participation in the narrative and seems completely unaware of her significance or importance to her society or its later historical record of her achievements.

The Historical and Cultural Context of Both Texts is Important in Comparing Them

‘Photograph 51’ is based on the modern viewpoint of Anna Ziegler and her interest in feminist and historical ideas that reconceptualise key events in history. The play’s historical context is based around the results of post WWII and movements in the 1950’s scientific world. ‘Photograph 51’ is a single act play with its action occurring between 1951 and 1953 at a time in Britain when there was a pervasive attitude that a woman’s place was better served in the home than having a career, along with an entrenched gender bias which had tragic consequences for Rosalind Franklin.

‘My Brilliant Career’ was written by Stella Maria Miles Franklin an Australian writer who wrote her novel in 1899 and it was not published until 1901 the year of the Australian Federation. The novel’s historical context of Australia’s Federation plays a huge role in the narrative that describes a masculine society with aspects of Australian rural life that that held women in a constricting place. While Ziegler’s play is feminist in its nature, Franklin’s novel is proto-feminist because it comes before the first feminist movements began. Franklin’s novel was written 7 years before women had the right to vote and they still lacked social and economic prospects. Franklin has Sybylla reflect that “… it was only men who could take the world by its ears and conquer their fate …” (p.61).

Both Texts Explore Ideas About

Power in its various forms, including patriarchal power within society of financial, political and legal power; physical and intellectual power.
Identity and its connections with physical appearance, self-perception and the expectations of others.
Women’s roles/gender are shown in differing representations of the feminine in various types of characters but because both Sybylla and Rosalind were independent and intelligent, neither one conformed to social expectations about gender and destiny.
Storytelling and the power of narrative is demonstrated in the power of taking control of one’s own story. In My Brilliant Career it is Sybylla’s own voice that exposes gender inequality in 19^th century Australia and her simple ‘yarn’ becomes other Australian women’s stories of restrictive conformation to society’s standards. However, Rosalind in Photograph 51 who is isolated and vilified, is unable to take control of her narrative.
Truth and Lies is shown in Zeigler’s play suggests that it does matter who found the answer to DNA with Wilkin’s tacit approval of Crick and Watson’s use of Rosalind’s research data is shown in his comment that it doesn’t matter who found the answer. Sybylla narrates her own story that seeks her own personal truth as to how she wants to live her life, knowing that because she is a girl, and ugly at that, her ambitions are continually thwarted.
Ambition for Sybylla is boundless and no matter how hard she tries to fit in to her socially acceptable female role she always longs for the “mystical better things” (p.65) in her wish to achieve something. Rosalind’s ambition is equally intense and her determination and desire to do her scientific work with her personal challenge to be “always right” (p.46), drove her to become a scientist who paid meticulous attention to detail.
Respect for Rosalind is being treated with a level of importance by her male colleagues for the significant work she did for discovery of DNA and being worthy of respect. Unfortunately only Gosling and Caspar truly respect Rosalind but she is disrespected throughout the narrative by the other hypocritical male scientists. With Sybylla’s story a coming of age narrative, respect for and of others is part of her development as she is coming to terms with her true values. Aunt Helen is the only person Sybylla respects; in contrast she loses respect for her father when he drinks and destroys the family’s financial security.
Expectations fall into 3 categories for Sybylla – first, societal expectations of Australia in the 1890’s, second her personal desires balanced against what is expected of her in terms of propriety and correct moral and social behaviour and third a feminist concern of hope for women in a world made for men. While Rosalind looks back reflects on her desires to live with decisions she has made otherwise she dies in “regret” (p.83) but Sybylla looks forward with expectation, tempered with uncertainty, still seeking independence in an unknown future.

Photograph 51 by Anna Ziegler

Structure & Style

As a single act play, it includes six characters each of whom presents their perspective on events unfolding between 1951 and 1953 at King’s College, London. There is a juxtaposition of the past and present which interrupts the linear structure of the narrative. The action of Ziegler’s play mainly focuses upon Dr Rosalind Franklin, a real-life scientist who is arguably the person who discovered the molecular structure of DNA. Her research was crucial to the three men who would ultimately be awarded the coveted Nobel Prize in 1962. Ziegler’s characters are therefore all real people; however, she freely admits to altering the time structure of events, re-arranging facts and creating interactions between characters that allow her to creatively explore the main themes of the play.

‘Photograph 51’ is structured as a circular narrative, not quite from the start but as Franklin and Wilkins return to Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale at the play’s conclusion, our minds are taken back to their discussion of the play that first occurs. This doubling effect, or repetition, brings to mind one of the key symbols of the play, the double helix. Ziegler, as she wants her audience to view events from different perspectives, also ‘relies on characters stepping forward occasionally as a sort of Greek chorus to fill in the background details’. This is often found in the voice of Caspar who questions the behaviour of Wilkins, Watson and Crick about what really happened. There are no traditional scene changes but the play looks to alterations in lighting and character groupings to suggest structural shifts. The action of the play is fluid moving with characters all having equal speaking parts like an ensemble piece.

Ziegler’s stage directions also indicate to the audience when she is instructing one of her characters to break the fourth wall (talk directly to the audience). An example is Rosalind’s line: ‘(To the audience.) I have two tumours.’ With the spotlight on her as she says these words, only the audience is meant to hear.

Feminist Literature & Challenging the Historical Invisibility of Women

The idea of challenging the historical invisibility of women is implicit in the play where the work of an extraordinary woman Rosalind Franklin is made visible. Ziegler’s play highlights the ways in which stories told by men have worked to minimise or downplay the roles played by women. According to Watson Rosalind “misunderstood the terms of her contract” (p.13) when in fact crucial details are “changed” after her arrival. As readers we hope that had Rosalind Franklin lived long enough the Nobel Prize Committee would have surely awarded her a Nobel prize for her conceptual understanding of the structure of the DNA molecule. However, Ziegler’s play recognises Franklin’s contribution even if the sexist attitudes ingrained in science at the time did not.

When asked about Rosalind Franklin as a feminist, Ziegler argued that was not her intention but audiences may interpret the character differently: ‘But more importantly, I agree that Rosalind wouldn’t want to be considered a feminist icon and I didn’t set out to make her into one. All I can say is that, if the play has contributed to that sense of her, I hope it’s not because it paints her as a victim, but because it shows that she persevered in the name of the work and the work alone at a time when she had to ignore that it was difficult for her to do so.’

My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin

My Brilliant Career: Text Classics by Miles Franklin at Abbey's Bookshop,

Structure & Style

The novel ‘My Brilliant Career’ has a conventional linear structure with Sybylla’s voice telling her own personal growth story during 19^th century rural Australia. Using a male pseudonym Franklin wrote her story of a young woman who was held back socially by a strict patriarchal society. The novel includes an Introduction by Jennifer Byrne (vii-xiv) followed by a Preface by Henry Lawson and a further Introduction by Sybylla (pp.1-3) then the novel extends across 38 chapters. Each voice is of Sybylla’s own perspective of the contrasts between the settings from Bruggabrong, Possum Gully, Caddagat, Five Bob Downs and Barney’s Gap.

The diametrically opposed physical spaces of Caddagat and Barney’s Gap echo the oppositional forces in Sybylla herself (the feminine and the tomboy), and parallel opposing genres of romanticism and realism in the novel. What is important to note is the Federation Drought of the 1890’s that caused enormous stock losses and many landowners became bankrupt. The economic depression was a tumultuous time for the young states of Australia with banks failing and unemployment soaring. Sybylla’s novel provides a palpable insight into the terrible conditions of the time along with her descriptions of the harsh weather of “scorching furnace-breath winds [that] shrivelled every blade of grass, dust and the moan of starving stock filled the air” (p.33).

Proto-feminist Novel Challenges Gender Expectations in 19^th Century Australia

At a time when it was considered that the only suitable ambition for young women was to marry and raise a family, Franklin has Sybylla set out of the norm and desire to have a career and wish to live an independent life. In effect, Franklin gives her main protagonist a voice equal to her own abilities. In Sybylla’s own Introduction (p.1-3) she describes her manuscript as a “real yarn” (p.1) addressing her readers as ‘My Dear Fellow Australians’ (p.1) grouping women and men together under one banner and wanting to be heard.

From a young age Sybylla has a desire to write and throughout her narrative she expresses her opinion of marriage, redefines class boundaries and her completely different views of what was expected of ladies of her time. Describing herself as “unorthodox” (p.215) Sybylla is seen as different from the norm and at times does perform many “self-analysis” sessions on herself with one of her biggest regrets is that she is ugly. Forced to acknowledge she is not like the beautiful girls who choose the acceptable pathway of marriage, Sybylla knows she is in a different “sphere” (p.61) intellectually, because her desire is to have a career. Yet she is also egalitarian seeing herself as an “Australian peasant, cheerful, honest and brave” (p.391).

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

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman A Brief Synopsis

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Margaret

The Complete MAUS by Art Spiegelman, Paperback, 9780141014081 | Buy ...

**What Genre is Maus?**

It is a graphic novel or actually a graphic memoir since it is a true story. It is a complex story told in pictures and handwritten captions, as opposed to only typeset print. Therefore, it is a piece of visual as well as literary art. By using imagery and limited words, Art Spiegelman has used the art form of cartoons to portray the horrors faced by the Jews as prisoners of the Nazi Regime during World War II.
It is an oral history and a memoir. An oral history is an extended interview where a witness to historical events is asked to recall what he experienced. Someone else writes it down. A memoir is the story of a life written by the participant or another person. Art Spiegelman interviews his father Vladek between 1972 and 1982 to relate stories of Vladek’s horrific experiences in Nazi Germany during which he survived 10 months in Auschwitz death camp. The stories of the past and present clash and collide so readers also become aware of the difficult relationship between Art and his father.
It is the story of one concentration camp survivor; a Jewish Polish refugee and his family: Vladek and Anja, and their son Art Spiegelman. Another son Richieu died in the war; so did the other members of Anja’s and Vladek’s families. After Anja’s death Vladek married Mala also a survivor. It addresses the guilt and fear of survivors from the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the subsequent impact on their children.
It is the story of a historical genocide known as the Holocaust. The Holocaust is the name for the systematic persecution and murder of 6 million Jews from 1933 to 1944 by the Nazi regime in Germany. In particular the story focus is on Polish Jews.

What is Maus About?

In Maus, Vladek Spiegelman’s story of surviving the Holocaust is told in tandem with the story of his post-war relationship with the author of the book, his son Artie. Although Artie Spiegelman emphasises the resourcefulness of Vladek to survive and his capacity to overcome the dreadful feeling that he was abandoned by God during the Holocaust “But here God didn’t come. We were all on our own” (p.189). Maus is just as much about surviving life after the Holocaust as it is about experiencing the Holocaust itself. Artie says to his wife Francoise towards the end of the book, “But in some ways he didn’t survive” (p.250). Certainly for Vladek the Holocaust was an emotionally crippling experience, reducing him to what Artie says is a “caricature of the miserly old Jew” (p.133) who is concerned more with “things than people” as Mala said. The need to constantly be resourceful and pragmatic had for Vladek overwhelmed other less material approaches to life.

The cartoon graphically relates the Holocaust story and Vladek’s experiences of horror but it is also Artie’s story as a child of a survivor which is at times humorously and poignantly interwoven in with Vladek and Anja’s story. As these stories of the past and present clash and collide, so readers become aware of the pain of broken, disrupted relationships. The second part of the story ‘And Here my Troubles Began’ from pages 169-296 continues the story of Artie’s parents’ incarceration in Auschwitz but also includes more of Artie’s own personal story as he seeks to understand the delayed trauma of an Auschwitz-related son. One of his most pressing points is that the scars are generational ie. the psychological scars of the parents continue to haunt subsequent generations.

An important part of Artie’s story is relaying a snapshot of his father’s post-traumatic stress that suffocates him as he tries to deal with the enormity of his loss. A touch of black humour conveys this depiction, which is both poignant and mocking. Artie ridicules his father’s neurotic obsession with pills and death and his traumatic relationship with his second wife Mala who Vladek imagines her constantly stealing his money.

What is safe to say about Maus is that the graphic images belie the complexity of the psychological pathology that was a result of the Holocaust both for the survivors and the generation that the survivors gave birth to. What is also true in Maus is that the characters, mostly Vladek and Artie, are burdened with feelings that they don’t always understand are often in conflict with each other. If there is a message in Maus it is this: people are complex and nothing is simple.

The Distinctiveness / Techniques /Symbols of Graphic Novels like The Complete Maus

Pages in graphic novels and graphic narratives are made up of words, images and panels. To read them effectively, and to understand their complex and subtle meanings, requires attention to the ways in which both images and words work independently and together. Each has its own logic and way of organising meaning.

One of the things that is important in writing about Maus, is to write about it as a graphic novel. In other words, how does Art use the elements of the graphic novel to tell the story of Maus in a way that is distinctive from the medium of the novel or film?

The Basic Techniques and Symbols Art uses to tell the story are:

The Panel = Just as the paragraph and sentences within the paragraph are the basic way of dividing up parts of the narrative in a novel, so too is the panel and the speech bubbles the basic way of organising the story in a graphic novel. In Maus Art uses the panels in different ways – with boxed black borders designed to be read from left to right, top to bottom which is a standard way to develop a narrative. The panel boxed within a border conveys the sense that these words, or actions or feelings are happening at this exact point and no other. When there is no border a sense of space or freedom is created – that the words, actions or feelings might link to more than just this point in time. Art also changes the size of panels in order to emphasise the significance or impact of the feelings, words or events within the panel. He does this often at crisis points in the novel such as the arrival of Vladek at Auschwitz. Panels also overlap with other panels to show how words, feelings or events in that panel overlap, impact on or link to the surrounding panels.
Gutters = The space in between panels – known as the gutter is important – we almost need to ‘read between the lines’ or infer what has happened. In many cases, this doesn’t require much effort, because what is depicted in one panel can come almost directly after what was in the previous panel. Sometimes there is a space between panels in terms of place or time which makes us as readers wonder what happened in between In the scene (p.111) the Gestapo have orders to evacuate Zawiercie where Tosha and the children Bibi, Lonia and Richieu are living but Tosha says “I won’t go to their gas chambers. And my children won’t go to their gas chambers” (p.111). In the scene we do not see Tosha administering the poison to the children but we are left to fill that blank in ourselves based on the image of the small, innocent children looking up.
Animal Characterisation = Perhaps the most basic and effective technique Spiegelman uses to tell the story of Maus, is the characterisation of Jews as mice, Nazis (and Germans as a whole) as cats, Poles as pigs and Americans as dogs. In this comic story Art utilises this anthropomorphic imagery of the cat and mouse to depict his parent’s experiences in Nazi Germany which also relates the story of the Holocaust. There are a number of layers to this imagery. The first layer is the idea we immediately associate with mice as innocent and small and cats as big, predators of mice. In terms of characters, the Jews were innocent victims; the Nazis were the sinister predatory killers. The second layer involves a subversion of ideas.
The Language = The story recounted in Vladek’s voice is related in broken English, awkward grammar but giving the impression of spontaneity and authenticity. At times it is extremely sincere but other times it is dramatic but uncaring. Through the language Spiegelman gives his reader a number of cues that can assist in understanding the plot, voice and levels of narrative. It is through the language we are able to comprehend aspects of the characters’ motivations, their relationships with one another and their place in the narrative.
Eyes = Are a fundamental point of characterisation to humanise or dehumanise characters in graphic texts. The eyes of the Jewish mice are nearly always visible throughout the text and convey the feelings of anger, sadness, frustration or determination. However, the eyes of the Nazis are often not visible; they are shaded by their helmets or caps, signifying how their humanity has been shaded by the role they fulfil. When their eyes are seen they are as sinister looking slits of light.
Holocaust dominated by Nazi Swastika = Spiegelman represents how over-whelming the Holocaust was in the lives of the Jews who lived through it and survived by his visual representations of Nazi symbols dominating the landscape within panels or being the dominant background behind panels. The panels of pages 34-35 show the swastika prominent in towns even in 1938 in conjunction with texts “This town is Jew Free” (p.35). The panel on page 127 shows Vladek and Anja walking in the direction of Sosnowiec with the path imagery as a swastika. The imagery indicates Vladek and Anja’s predicament of having nowhere to go because in Poland at that time (1944) all paths for Jews led to the Nazis and ultimately to Auschwitz and death.
Masks = Characters wear masks at two different points in the story. Before Vladek and Anja were captured and sent to Auschwitz, they were able to avoid being caught in Srodula by disguising themselves as Poles (pig masks). Masks at this point are a functional way to avoid detection by pretending to be someone else. In Book II Spiegelman draws himself as a human character wearing a mouse mask which represents his confusion about the suicide of his mother in 1968. He asks questions about why his mother committed suicide. Was it his fault? Why did he feel guilty? How can he move on? Who in fact was he?
Dying faces, dead faces, hanging and dead bodies = The horror of the Holocaust is reinforced throughout Maus by the graphic representations of the dead and dying. Hanging bodies are used at a number of points with a particular haunting effect. They evoke feelings about the dehumanisation of Jews who were left to hang like carcasses and their powerlessness. Often the dead or dying are portrayed with their mouths wide open, screaming in agony, fear and desperation. The images evoke within the reader a picture of true horror of what the Jews suffered during the Holocaust.

Guilt as a Major Theme in Maus

Guilt swirls in the comic strip. The relationship between Vladek and his son is important in the narrative because it deals extensively with feelings of guilt. Of particular relevance is guilt with members of the Spiegelman family. Artie mocks the fact that Maus should have a message and that everyone should feel ‘forever’ guilty. “My father’s ghost still hangs over me” (p.203). The primary types of familial guilt can be divided into three categories:

Artie’s feelings of guilt over not being a good son
Artie’s feelings of guilt over the death of his mother
Artie’s feelings of guilt regarding the publication of Maus

The second major form of guilt found in Maus is thematically complex. This guilt is ‘survivor’s guilt’ which is found in both Vladek and Artie’s relationships with the Holocaust. Much of Maus revolves around this relationship between past and present and the effects of past events on the lives of those who did not experience them which manifests itself as guilt. While Artie was born in Sweden after the end of World War II both of his parents were survivors of the Holocaust and the event has affected him deeply. Artie reveals his guilt to his wife Francoise “Somehow, I wish I had been in Auschwitz with my parents so I could really know what they lived through! I guess it’s some form of guilt about having an easier life than they did” (p.176).

Vladek too appears to feel a deep sense of guilt about having survived the Holocaust while his family and friends did not. Pavel (Artie’s psychiatrist) thinks that Vladek took his guilt out on Artie the “real survivor”. So Vladek’s guilt was passed down to his son establishing the foundation for the guilt that Artie now feels towards his family and its history.

Online Tutoring of English using Zoom

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: The Basics

Posted on December 31, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is ‘A Brief Synopsis’ only for Mainstream English Year 12 Students studying Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel in AOS1, Unit 3: Analytical Study in the VCE Victorian Curriculum.

Introduction

Instead of Covid-19, Station Eleven’s world is devastated by the ‘Georgia Flu’. The fictional plague is more deadly and contagious than Covid-19; this flu virus kills 99% of the earth’s population in a matter of weeks. We, as readers, can see certain parallels with the pandemic that engulfs the world today, such as hoarding of groceries in the early days of Covid-19, overrun hospital emergency departments, face masks and the idea of some similarity to Station Eleven. Life imitating art.

Yet Station Eleven’s world is a story of complete collapse of civilisation and a rebirth in a world of survivors who are devoid of doctors, countries, communities, no technology and where luck or fate picks who lives or dies. Children learn to kill or be killed within an ever-thrumming baseline of danger.

However, Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Station Eleven is ‘speculative fiction’ that if there were a doomsday event, there may initially be a period of chaotic social collapse, but gradually the surviving people would organise themselves into communities akin to our contemporary civil society. Mandel worries that the civilisation we take for granted is fragile and vulnerable, and ‘could fail quite easily’, but she harbours ‘a possibly naïve but stubborn notion that the overwhelming majority of people on earth really just want to live peacefully and raise their kids and go about their business with a minimum of fear and insecurity.’

Civilisation in a Post-pandemic World

While Mandel’s central thematic ideas are of truth, hope, love and moral courage, she leaves readers with something positive rather than negative. The characters are more often inspired by art, knowledge and concern for others than by fear, superficial ideas, authoritarianism or self-interest. The novel values: trusting rather than controlling others; connecting with and paying attention to each other rather than pursuing the illusory thrills of self-promotion and fame; and above all, creating rather than destroying. We see how interconnectivity both creates and dismantles civilisation.

Pivotal in the novel’s network of characters is the celebrity actor Arthur Leander, while the ‘Georgia Flu’ provides the pivotal moment of world-wide ‘collapse’ in a narrative timeline which, although presented non-chronologically, spans five decades. Arthur is performing as King Lear in Toronto’s Elgin Theatre when he, and within days the whole society, collapses. After this apocalypse, we follow Kirsten and her companions in the Travelling Symphony, Clark who becomes a museum curator in the airport lounge, and Jeevan the paramedic who eventually lives with his family in a community in Virginia. Readers gradually build a picture of the three decades preceding the apocalypse, as well as the two decades after it, piecing together as the narrative takes us back and forward in time the network of relationships among Arthur, his first wife Miranda, his other wives, his friend Clark, his putative rescuer and erstwhile paparazzo Jeevan, and his son Tyler’s future nemesis, Kirsten.

Perspective on the Text

Emily St. John Mandel’s novel invites readers, not so much to fear doomsday and its dystopian aftermath, as to think about what we truly value in the society we currently inhabit. Each of Mandel’s main characters represents the good in humanity; each of them is engaged in work that either cares for others and builds community or creates art that shows ‘the best of the world’. Kirsten, Clark, Miranda, Jeevan, even Arthur, each is honest, creative, and selfless yet strong, even though they are also being human but flawed in some way.

Structure of the Text

Mandel’s non-chronological narrative pivots around the moment of Arthur’s (and the world’s) collapse. Whilst the narrative point of view is generally omniscient, or third person, readers frequently have access to the thoughts of a character, Miranda, Clark, Jeevan or Kirsten. The reader becomes aware, after a while, that the non-linear recursive structure reflects the nature of memory. The plot unfurls across not only timelines but characters and Miranda’s comic book ‘Dr Eleven’ is the portkey that reveals the tangled web we weave of life.

The Importance of the Arts and Sciences

With Miranda’s art (Dr Eleven Comics) as its central motif, the novel highlights the importance in society of both the humanities and the sciences. We see Mandel’s characters devoting themselves to visual and performing arts because these show the best of a society, and to writing, history and the media because by keeping records of the past, humans have a hope of understanding the present and doing better in the future. We see the characters remembering electricity and aeroplanes, and hoping for the resurgence of these lost wonders of the world since they represent high points in humankind’s scientific knowledge.

Issues and Themes
Survival is insufficient / survival is arbitrary / human instinct	Contagion & disasters / death/ violence & abuse in a tarnished new world / fear	Society & the individual / communitarianism versus individualism
Isolation and loneliness versus community connectedness	Memory / the self & society/ loss / nostalgia / history / regret / remembering the old world / transience of memory	Creativity / arts / sciences / enduring nature of arts and power to reflect reality
Belonging	Hope / optimism / luck in a crisis	Truth
Love	Moral courage	Creating order from chaos
Trust & community	Beauty of life in the old world	Religion

Symbols
Station Eleven	The paperweight	Shakespeare
The Letters to Victoria	Luli the dog’s name	Flight/aeroplanes
Water imagery	Death imagery	Virus as an avenging angel

Analytical Text Response Topics

“Survival is insufficient.” How does Mandel show that there is more to life than mere survival?
“I see you, I see you, I see you.” ‘Miranda, more than other characters in the novel, makes the best of life despite feeling lonely and disconnected.’ Discuss.
To what extent does Station Eleven suggest that a crisis brings out the best in people?
‘Arthur may be the central character in Mandel’s novel, but he is not the main character.’ Discuss.
‘Station Eleven suggests that it is better to be inspired by truth and beauty than by success.’ Discuss.
Discuss the roles played by Dr. Eleven and the Museum of Civilisation in Mandel’s novel.
‘The characters in Station Eleven are sustained by their memories.’ Do you agree?
‘Station Eleven is more about creativity in the arts and sciences than about a post-pandemic dystopia.’ Do you agree?
‘Despite the extreme difficulty of their situation, none of the characters succumbs to fear or pessimism.’ Discuss.
‘The characters in Station Eleven are motivated more by love than fear.’ Discuss.

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

Nine Days by Toni Jordan: The Basics

Posted on November 6, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Nine Days’ in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Creating Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2023 Mainstream English Curriculum

Introduction

Written by a contemporary Australian female writer, Toni Jordan’s 2012 novel Nine Days is a celebration of family life in inner city Richmond in Melbourne from 1938 to 2006. There are nine different narrators who give their insights into nine days over a time span of more than sixty years that includes stories about four generations of one major family (the Westaways).

Topics raised by the novel, include the impact in Australia of the Second World War; suburban life of the time; housing in Richmond during the mid-twentieth century; aspects of social class, religious sectarianism (Catholic–Protestant) antagonism; social customs, norms and attitudes, particularly as these affect women; views about unmarried mothers and babies born out of wedlock; and the industrial nature of Richmond.

At the heart of the narrative is the love story between Jack Husting and Connie Westaway, some details of which are kept secret until the last chapter. This non-chronological structure of the narrative drives readers to keep going, mimicking life in that it does not always make sense until we look back over it and get the full picture. Like life too, there is both joy and grief and the ways that characters learn to cope and adapt to changed circumstances.

Structure of the Text

The structure of the novel is not in chronological order, so readers must use the details to piece together the connections. The novel focuses on nine particular days, mainly around World War II, and has nine different narrators. The dates of the chapters and narrators are as follows:

Chapter One: Monday 7th August, 1939 = Kip Westaway

Chapter Two: Tuesday 25th September, 2001 = Stanzi Westaway

Chapter Three: Sunday 25th February, 1940 = Jack Husting

Chapter Four: Wednesday 1st August, 1990 = Charlotte Westaway

Chapter Five: Monday 2nd May, 1938 = Francis Westaway

Chapter Six: Saturday 9th November, 1946 = Annabel Crouch

Chapter Seven: Tuesday 14th January, 1941 = Jean Westaway

Chapter Eight: Thursday 27th April, 2006 = Alec Westaway

Chapter Nine: Wednesday 14th August, 1940 = Connie Westaway

Perspective of the Text from the Characters

The novel certainly values the strength of character shown in each generation as characters face the challenges of their time and place, and as they strive to improve their circumstances, and it does this with a light humour. Familial love is explicitly valued, as is romantic love, although both are represented in different ways by the very different characters involved. Jean, the mother of Connie, Francis and Kip, shows her love in ways that may be seen as bitter and harsh by the modern reader, but she is fiercely devoted to her aspirations for her family. Kip represents an ideal form of domestic masculinity, romantically devoted to his wife Annabel for over fifty years, and a loving father to their twin daughters, Charlotte and Stanzi. The two women of the third generation, idiosyncratic in their differences, ultimately form a very contemporary family, with two mothers (albeit non-gay) for Alec and Libby, who have two different fathers. Thus, Jordan implicitly values contemporary attitudes about family, sexuality and gender.

Romantic Love

Romantic love is perhaps most poignantly portrayed in the story of Connie and Jack, but with a shocking end. When Connie is left, after Jack’s departure, with an unplanned pregnancy, no opportunity to get married, and a mother who herself is already familiar with the (illegal) process of procuring an abortion, the novel’s values seem clear. Its portrayal of Connie bleeding to death on a pavement, and of her brother Kip’s opinions about the importance of contraception, leave us in little doubt that the author values reproductive choice for women, whereas the Catholic Church frowns on contraception, and the State criminalises abortion, both with serious consequences for women. On the other hand, Charlotte, in the next generation, is free to make the decision not to have an abortion.

Themes

Family and Belonging = Nine Days explores the connections within families, changes over time in what constitutes a family, and our ties to each other. Through the focus on four different generations of the Westaway family, readers are shown connections over time. Families are celebrated and valued.

Relationships = The novel highlights family loyalty and obligation, and also shows readers the impact of love, celebrating both young romantic love and the deep attachment of life-long love. This is particularly seen through the characters of Kip and Annabel, as well as Connie and Jack Husting.

Dealing with Adversity = The novel explores how different characters in different decades struggle with adversity, and how they cope with loss, grief, poverty or loneliness.

Life during WW11 = The novel gives readers insight into the impact of the Second World War on the Melbourne population.

Social Attitudes & Norms Affecting Women = The novel follows the lives of female characters in different eras, and in doing so explores social attitudes and norms affecting women. Women’s work in both the domestic and public spheres is shown. Perhaps the most confronting issues the novel explores are about birth control and abortion. Other challenges faced by the women in the novel include the weight and self-image issues that Stanzi has.

Social Class, Religious Sectarianism & Status = Ada Husting, Jack’s mother, views their family as further up the social ladder than their neighbours, the Westaways. The Hustings are Protestant business owners, whereas the Westaways are Roman Catholic wage-earners. The sectarian divisions of the time are also reflected in Jean’s narrative.

Living For the Day = The novel celebrates the notion of living for the day and fully engaging with the people around you. Because of Kip’s early losses, he develops a kind of life philosophy which he attempts to instil in his daughters. He immerses himself fully in everyone and everything around him.

Language and Style

Narrative Voice = Because each chapter is narrated by a different character, each has an individual narrative voice that both reflects the character and includes references to the time in which they live. This kind of interior monologue allows us to see the world through the eyes of the narrator, while the dialogue gives us insight into other characters as well.

Humour = A distinctive feature throughout the text, humour is conveyed in both the dialogue and the interior voice of some characters. The narrative voices of Kip, Alec, Charlotte and Stanzi are particularly light-hearted and humorous.

Symbols

The structure of the novel is held together by several symbols which run through the episodes. These act as integrating devices and help the reader to recognise family connections, as well as each having an underlying significance.

The Photograph of Connie & Jack = The existence of the photograph is not known till late in the novel that provides a climax to Kip’s narration. The photo shows the passion between Connie & Jack that never had a chance to flourish but also represents other sweethearts who were separated by war. It adds to Connie’s sad story that ends in her death through an illegal abortion.

The Shilling = The lucky shilling connects the novel’s different episodes. It is given initially to Kip by Mr Husting, who likes and feels sorry for the cheeky young boy who tends his horse. He swears Kip to secrecy, knowing his wife would not approve. From Stanzi in the next chapter, we learn that it is one of her father’s ‘most prized possessions’.

The Amethyst Necklace = Another integrating device is the necklace, which is introduced to readers as a positive symbol in Charlotte’s chapter. She describes it as ‘my mother’s pendant’ and recounts how she received it for her eighteenth birthday. In this chapter she uses it for the so-called pendant test, which, according to superstition, indicates a baby’s gender. But for Charlotte it has a wider significance: she views the pendant as a link to the life of her family and their love.

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

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: The Basics

Posted on November 6, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘All The Light We Cannot See’ in AOS1: Unit 3, Reading & Creating Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2023 Mainstream English Curriculum

Introduction

War is a dark event in history

World War II, arguably one of the darkest events of human history, has been the basis of so much writing across so many genres and authors. Anthony Doerr’s novel alludes to the merciless anonymity of death in war, juxtaposes individualism with collective national mindlessness, and seeks out innocence amidst the brutality of war.

Through the Eyes of 2 Children

Doerr ties the lives and fates of the two protagonists Marie-Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig during the time of World War 11 and readers see through the eyes of these two children even though they are on opposite sides of the war. He explores how both of them struggle with identity, morality and hope, each in their own way. Their storylines converge in the bombing of Saint-Malo, demonstrating that war can be indiscriminate in its victims. War does not care if its victims are children or adults, innocent or guilty, French or German. However, their interaction also speaks to the humanity that lies in all of us, no matter how deeply buried.

Aspects of War & Light in Darkest of Times

The novel explores many aspects of the war, including the destruction, the Occupation of France, the development and training of young boys to become Nazi soldiers, as well as the need to protect the vast items of cultural and national significance, which Hitler was determined to have for the German Nazis. Doerr encourages readers to consider the ‘light’ that can emerge even in the darkest of times, to remain always morally vigilant and to applaud the bravery of those individuals who resist tyrannical regimes despite the risk to their personal safety.

Hope and Humanity in the Title

The title hints at literal sight, the limitations of the physical sense of sight, the text then suggests the most perceptive characters are blind or have limited sight. The Frenchman’s repeated plea to ‘open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever’ is a reminder of morality. Humanity is at the heart of the novel, identity, morality and hope shape what it means to be human but characters struggle with all these qualities at the same time. The focus on war is not about glorifying battles but on praising individuals who have the courage and strength to bear witness to the destruction and not give up hope.

Structure of the Text

Epigraphs

The Novel includes 2 epigraphs at the beginning introducing key themes and situate the text as a work of historical fiction. The first quote by historian Philip Beck details the destruction of Saint-Malo. The second from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, introduces the idea of the influence of the radio the Nazi’s would not have been able to take power without it. These epigraphs introduce the idea that scientific knowledge can be deployed for useful purposes but also for senseless destruction.

14 Sections Marked by the Date

The novel contains 14 sections marked by the date to allow the reader to follow the non-chronological narrative. The first of these is titled ‘Zero’ and is set on 7 August 1944, the key date of the bombardment of Saint-Malo. Connotations of ‘ground zero’ are suggested by numbering in this manner, and every second section of the novel returns to the key dates of August 7, 8 and 9 when the lives of Marie-Laure, Werner and Von Rumpel intersect.

Short Chapters with Perspectives of Characters

Within each section are short chapters with deceptively simple titles that provide the reader with key information. The perspectives of Marie-Laure and Werner are prioritised throughout the novel with their points of view generally alternating to establish the similarities and differences in their experiences. Other characters narrate chapters to allow readers to understand how people other than the two teenagers were apprehensive about the war and to observe the callousness of those people in the Nazi regime as well as citizens who were willing to collaborate with the enemy for personal gain.

General Plot Overview

Chronologically, we start in 1934, five years before the war. Marie-Laure is a French girl who lives with her father Daniel Leblanc, working at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. As she starts to go blind, Daniel teaches her Braille, and makes her wooden models of their neighbourhood to help her navigate. Six years later, the Nazis invade France, and they flee the capital to find Daniel’s uncle Etienne, who lives in the seaside town of Saint-Malo; Daniel was also tasked with safeguarding a precious gem, the Sea of Flames, from the Nazis.

In Saint-Malo, Daniel also builds Marie-Laure a model of the town, hiding the gem inside. Meanwhile, she befriends Etienne, who suffers from agoraphobia as a result of the trauma from the First World War. He is charming and very knowledgeable about science, having made a series of scientific radio broadcasts with his brother Henri (who died in WWI). She also befriends his cook, Madame Manec, who participates in the resistance movement right up until she falls ill and dies.

Her father is also arrested (and would ultimately die in prison), and the loss of their loved ones prompts both Etienne and Marie-Laure to begin fighting back. Marie-Laure is also given a key to a grotto by the seaside which is full of molluscs, her favourite kind of animal.

On the other side of the war, Werner is, in 1934, an 8-year-old German boy growing up in an orphanage with his sister Jutta in the small mining town of Zollverein. They discover a radio, which allows them to listen to a broadcast from miles away (it was Henri and Etienne’s), and Werner learns French to try and understand it. One day, he repairs the radio of a Nazi official, who recruits him to the Hitler Youth on account of his ingenuity (and his very blonde hair and very blue eyes, considered to be desirable traits by the regime). Jutta grows increasingly distant from Werner during this time, as she questions the morality of the Nazis.

Werner is trained to be a soldier along with a cohort of other boys, and additionally learns to use radio to locate enemy soldiers. He befriends Frederick, an innocent boy who was only there because his parents were rich. Frederick would eventually fall victim to the brutality of the instructors, and Werner tries to quit out of solidarity. Unfortunately, he is sent into the army to apply his training to actual warfare. He fights with Frank Volkheimer, a slightly ambiguous character who a tough and cruel soldier, but also displays a capacity to be kind and gentle (including a fondness for classical music). The war eventually takes them to Saint-Malo.

Also, around 1943 or so, a Nazi sergeant, Reinhold von Rumpel, begins to track down the Sea of Flames. He would have been successful ultimately had it not been for Werner, who stops him in order to save Marie Laure. As America begins to turn the war around, Werner is arrested and dies after stepping on a German landmine; Marie-Laure and Etienne move back to Paris. Marie-Laure eventually becomes a scientist specialising in the study of molluscs and has an extensive family of her own by 2014.

Characters

Marie-Laure LeBlanc

One of the two protagonists, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is an inquisitive, intellectually adventurous girl. She became blind at the age of six, but learns to adapt to this and continues to explore and discover. For most of the novel, Marie-Laure is a teenager, but by the end of the novel she’s an old woman. Marie-Laure is a warm, loving girl: at the beginning of the book, she loves her father, Daniel LeBlanc, before anyone else. After 1941, when Daniel leads her to the seaside town of Saint-Malo, she becomes close with her great-uncle, Etienne LeBlanc and her cook, Madame Manec. Marie-Laure is capable of feats of great daring. With Daniel’s help, she trains herself to walk through large cities using only her cane, and when the conflict between France and Germany escalates, she volunteers to participate in the French resistance. In spite of the joy, she gets from reading and exploring, Marie-Laure’s life is full of tragedy: the people she loves most disappear from her life, beginning with her father. As she grows older and becomes a scientist of molluscs, Marie-Laure comes to appreciate the paradox of her life: while she sometimes wants to be as stoic and “closed up” as the clams and whelks she studies, she secretly desires to reconnect with her loved ones.

Werner Pfennig

Werner Pfennig is a young, intelligent German boy and one of the two protagonists. Werner has whitish-blond hair, blue eyes, and is strikingly intelligent, so he seems like a model of the Nazis’ “Aryan ideal”—except that he has a stronger moral compass and a lesser sense of racial superiority than most of his peers. During his adolescence, Werner is close with his sister, Jutta Pfennig, with whom he lives at an orphanage (their father died in a mining accident, and their mother’s fate is unknown). As a respite from their oppressive surroundings, Werner and Jutta develop a love for science and the broadcasts they hear via their radio (broadcasts being made, unbeknownst to either of them, by Marie’s own grandfather Henri). As Werner grows older, he develops an aptitude for engineering and science, but is morally challenged when he is accepted into Schulpforta (a prestigious Nazi school) and then during his stint in the German army. Werner uses his skills to help Volkheimer and other soldiers murder hundreds of people—some of them civilians—and wonders, again and again, if he’ll be able to live with his choices. Throughout his time in the army, Werner remains devoted to his sister, Jutta, and often thinks back to their carefree days together in the orphanage. His favourite memory of Jutta—listening to radio broadcasts in the orphanage—ultimately contributes to his decision to spare Marie-Laure’s life when he realizes that she is connected to these broadcasts.

Daniel LeBlanc

Marie Laure’s father, Daniel LeBlanc, is selflessly devoted to his daughter—indeed, he spends long hours teaching her Braille and crafting elaborate models of Paris (and later Saint-Malo) to teach her how to walk through the city without her eyesight. In general, Daniel is clever and good with his hands—a talent that makes him an accomplished locksmith at the Museum of Natural History before he’s forced to flee the Germans along with his daughter. Because his employers at the Museum have tasked him with the protection of a priceless diamond, the Sea of Flames, Daniel leaves his daughter in Saint-Malo, is later imprisoned, and eventually dies of influenza. Daniel’s absence in Marie-Laure’s life is one of the defining and most tragic themes of the novel—a sign of their sincere love for one another.

Frank Volkheimer

Frank Volkheimer is the huge, intimidating, and morally ambiguous staff sergeant who works as an assistant at Werner’s school, the National Institute, and later commands Werner through his time in the German army. He can be tough and cruel, especially with prisoners of the German army, but he’s always gentle with Werner, and saves Werner’s life on more than one occasion. It’s left unclear how loyal Volkheimer is to the German army—it’s suggested that he’s willing to ignore orders from his commanders because he values his friendship with Werner more highly. In spite of his sins during World War II, Volkheimer is arguably “good” at heart, and his loyalty to Werner motivates much of the action in the final 100 pages of the book. At the end of the war, he is left a shell of his former self and like Frederick represents a victim of the damage war does when he is haunted by his wartime experiences and lives a life subjected to PTSD.

Jutta Pfennig

Werner’s beloved sister Jutta is the moral constant against which Werner measures his own sins. Jutta is intelligent, loving and artistic and has a well-developed sense of moral decency that enables her, even from a young age, to see through the German war propaganda and question the rightness of the country’s actions in ways others do not. This means that even when Werner is recruited for the prestigious Nazi school Schulpforta. Jutta is disgusted and when he’s sent off to fight in the Nazi army, she fears he will develop a dangerous loyalty to Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, Jutta and Werner remain extremely close with one another, and throughout World War II, they think of each other and remember their carefree days as children through memories and letters. Years after Werner’s death, Jutta continues to love and remember her brother, and his lasting influence leads her to eventually make contact with Marie-Laure.

Frau Elena

Frau Elena is the head of the orphanage where Jutta and Werner grow up. She’s a gentle, kind woman, and treats all her children well like a mother figure, despite a severe lack of resources. When the Nazis rise to power in Germany, she’s bullied for being a Frenchwoman—but her decision to teach all her children to speak French leads (years later) to the thematic centre of the novel: the encounter between Werner and Marie-Laure in Saint-Malo. She bolsters Werner’s self esteem by believing in him thinking ‘you’ll do something great’ in the future.

Great Uncle Etienne LeBlanc

Etienne LeBlanc is an old, eccentric, and extremely reclusive (it’s implied he has post-traumatic stress disorder from World War I) man who lives in the seaside town of Saint-Malo, France. When his nephew, Daniel LeBlanc, and his grandniece, Marie-Laure, come to live with him following the Nazi invasion of Paris, he becomes close with Marie-Laure, often spending long chunks of time reading books to her. As time passes, Marie-Laure’s courage inspires Etienne to take his own actions against the German soldiers, and he bravely aids the French resistance by broadcasting important information about the German troops on his radio. Etienne’s love for Marie-Laure is confirmed when, frightened that she’s been arrested, he overcomes his terror of going outside and rushes out of his house to find her. He later tells his grandniece, “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Frederick

Frederick is a fellow cadet with Werner at Schulpforta and they become friends. He demonstrates a mix of character traits, is patriotic and loyal to the Fuhrer and the Nazi cause and believes it is right to be at the school but at the same time he does disobey an order that he considers morally wrong. When he refuses to throw water on a prisoner, he represents a person with a strong conscience than any of the other students and does not retaliate when he is selected as the weakest of the group and punished with floggings at the hands of the teachers and fellow students. He inspires Werner to consider standing up against the regime but in the end, he receives injuries at the hands of his peers that ensure he will never function again normally, brain damaged and in need of care from his mother. He represents a moral character and like many others is a victim of the damage of the Nazi regime during the war.

Madame Manec

Worked for the LeBlancs since Etienne was a child. She is kind, insightful, dedicated, generous and warm and develops a strong relationship with Marie-Laure. She is actively involved in the French Resistance encouraging Etienne to become involved. She is one of the characters that Doerr considers is a strong person who put themselves at risk to oppose the German occupation of France. The novel shows that all kinds of people could find ways of fighting against the Nazis and remain loyal to France.

Sergeant Major Reinhold von Rumpel

His motivation is to locate the real Sea of Flames in the hope that it will cure his cancer and give him immortality. He chases his target unrelentingly and later in the besieged city of Saint-Malo he waits in Marie’s house but Werner kills him and saves Marie. He represents the evil of the Nazi regime and the destructive nature of war where great art works and culture was looted by the Nazi’s for their own personal gain.

Themes & Symbols
War, destruction, victims & perpetrators	Nazi Regime & propaganda	Occupation of France & French Resistance
Fate	Free will	Pride, duty, loyalty & nationalism
Family loyalty & love	Science & logic	Sight, ways of seeing & perception
Blindness	Memories	Morality & integrity
Conformity & resistance	Weakness & strength	Purpose & belonging
Humanity	Hope	Light & dark
Hitler Youth & loyalty to Fuhrer	Sea of Flames	Models of Paris & Saint-Malo
Whelks, Molluscs & Shells	Radio	Power of art, artefacts & culture

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

Never Let Me Go and Things We Didn’t See Coming Comparative Texts

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Margaret

Things We Didn't See Coming - Steven Amsterdam

This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Never Let Me Go’ in comparison to ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’ in AOS1: Unit 4, Reading & Comparing Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE 2023 Mainstream English Curriculum

Introduction

Novels ‘Never Let Me Go’, by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005), and ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’, by Steven Amsterdam (2009), offer thought-provoking views into alternative realities so close to our world that the parallels are obvious. Advances in medical treatments through gene therapy, and experimentation with cloning, are current issues where technological capability is, at times, ahead of the ethical considerations and restraints. Similarly, the Covid-19 pandemic, the environmental impact of climate change, the rise of oppressive political regimes, and the divide between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ are also much-debated topics in our own society.

Why Compare these 2 Texts?

Whilst these are two quite different novels, they both have young first-person protagonists who are exploring the worlds in which they live, searching for meaning and exploring their identities within this context. They form close friendships, fall in love, and create a sense of family and belonging. They also face loss, betrayal, and existential crises of a very real kind.

Speculative/Sci-fi or Dystopian Fiction?

Set in a parallel present or recent past, both novels can be categorised as speculative, sci-fi or dystopian fiction. The societies created in each text are recognisable to readers, even quite ordinary in the case of ‘Never Let Me Go’, but with a twist that jolts readers to question occurrences that might have once seemed acceptable by giving us a different viewpoint. In the case of ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’, we start somewhere familiar (Y2K panic) then are soon catapulted into an environmental catastrophe and a pandemic (Covid-19 or plague similarities) —although not beyond the bounds of belief—and the resulting social and political chaos. As with most speculative fiction, the texts ask ‘what if…?’ and try to answer it with their narratives.

Both Question Survival

Each text leads us to question what we are prepared to do to ensure our survival, collectively and individually. Both novelists position readers to see that human beings will ignore what they know is right, that they will bend their values and change their moral belief systems to get what they want, or need, to survive. Would you be prepared to steal, lie and cheat to meet you and your family’s needs? Would you be prepared to sacrifice the lives of other beings for your own?

What Makes us Human?

The novels, however, also come back to ideas about what makes us human. What is the essence of our ‘humanness’? They both suggest that what humans need above all is to belong, to find a tribe to protect them and to know who they are. Most times, these tribes are beneficial, but they can also be exclusive, divisive and threatening. The texts offer views of each of these. Mostly, however, each novel shows the importance of family or the need to belong to a family by whatever definition you give to this.

How much can we Control?

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have come to recognise that we can only control what we can control. Both of these novels celebrate this idea. Whilst the characters cannot control everything around them, what they do show is their resilience, their ability to adapt and change like the narrator of ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’, or their ability to find the positives in the people around them like Kathy in ‘Never Let Me Go’. This is all we can control.

Narrative Perspective & Style

Both have 1^st Person Perspective of the Protagonist

Both novels are written in the first person, from the perspective of the protagonist. Amsterdam’s unnamed narrator relates events in a fairly straightforward manner with not a great deal of internal monologue. The dialogue is narrated as it happens, and is often direct dialogue, related without any commentary from the narrator. It is written in the present tense and the readers are positioned to feel a close affinity with the narrator as he progresses through episodes of his life. Perhaps because of the nature of the discontinuous episodic structure, he is rarely shown to think back over his life to past events. Readers observe the way that the pragmatic narrator moves forward to deal with the next thing and then the next.

Contrastingly, readers meet Ishiguro’s narrator, thirty-one-year-old Kathy H. at a crucial moment in her life and in a state of emotional reflection, and all that is revealed is filtered through her memories. Written in the past tense, in a nonlinear time scale of memories Kathy uses a conversational and colloquial tone with use of analepsis (flashbacks) and prolepsis (flash forwards). However, the novel often positions readers to feel less sure of the accuracy of the naïve Kathy’s interpretation of the people and events of her past. In a sense, even though Kathy is recalling her own past, the author makes it clear that she is, at times, an unreliable narrator. Her interpretation of Ruth’s motives, for example, are somewhat naïve. Further, Ishiguro sometimes gives us Tommy’s dialogue as a differing perspective, but this perspective is also filtered through Kathy’s fond memories. The narration of ‘Never Let Me Go’ is complex and invites further consideration as do the writer’s intention.

Structure & Questions in ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’

In ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’, the episodic structure of 9 stories /discontinuous narrative/ gaps can make it a frustrating read for those readers who might want a continuous narrative with neat resolutions. The first story ‘What We Know Now’ takes place on December 31, 1999 and the other stories are progressively later. For the most part, each new chapter opens a new episode without any reference to the events or people who were in the previous one.

The novel asks a number of ‘what if’ questions which it attempts to answer:

What if climate change immediately impacted our country?
What if the country and city divide became political?
What if the planet was overcome by a plague of insects?
What if a virus wiped out the majority of the population?

CHARACTERS IN ‘THINGS WE DIDN’T SEE COMING’
Unnamed narrator/protagonist in all 9 stories	Otis narrator’s father in ‘What We Know Now’ & ‘Best Medicine’ stories	Cate narrator’s mother in ‘What We Know Now’ story
The grandparents of narrator in ‘What We Know Now’ & ‘The Theft That Got Me Here’ stories	Liz & Jenna are mother and daughter who protagonist meets in ‘Dry Land’ story	Margo is narrator’s love interest in ‘Cakewalk’, ‘Uses for Vinegar’& ‘The Forest for the Trees’ stories
Juliet is corrupt politician in ‘The Forest for the Trees’ story	Jeph 14-year-old orphan who has the narrator as a guardian in ‘Predisposed’ story	Karuna interviews narrator in ‘The Profit Motive’ story

Structure & Questions in ‘Never Let Me Go’

In ‘Never Let Me Go’ the novel is divided into 3 parts, with further chapter divisions. Part 1, chapters 1-9 is set in Hailsham. Part 2, chapters 10-17 is Life after Hailsham. Part 3, chapters 18-23 is Kathy’s life as a carer. The novel starts in ‘England, late 1990’s’ following narrator Kathy H. as a thirty-one-year-old carer who is about to become a donor and explores her memories of the past.

The novel asks a number of ‘what if’ questions which it asks the readers to consider their answers:

What makes us human?
What rights must all humans have?
What does an individual ‘owe’ society?
How we live our lives in order for it to be meaningful?
Why we should fight to ensure equality amongst all humans?
Why is organ trafficking unethical?
Is human cloning the future or is it unethical, just playing God?

CHARACTERS IN ‘NEVER LET ME GO’
Kathy H. narrator/protagonist	Ruth best friend of Kathy at Hailsham	Tommy student at Hailsham/has relationship with Ruth & later Kathy
Chrissie & Rodney veterans of the Cottages	Miss Lucy guardian at Hailsham	Miss Emily head guardian at Hailsham
Madame Marie-Claude founder of Hailsham and collects creative work of students for her gallery	Miss Geraldine guardian at Hailsham	Keffers looks after maintenance at The Cottages

COMPARISON THEMES IN BOTH TEXTS
dystopian society	humanity & compassion	human nature
forms of power & control	conformity & acceptance	survival
identity & freedom	dangers of technology	Information & knowledge
love & friendship	family	fear, hope & despair
empathy & compassion	impact of politics on people	bildungsroman
love & relationships	personal agency	memory, the past & time
fate, free will & choice	science without ethics	individual versus society
science fiction versus realism	manipulation of truth	exploitation & inequality
constant surveillance	dehumanisation	corporate domination

KEY CONCEPT	IDEAS FROM NEVER LET ME GO	IDEAS FROM THINGS WE DIDN’T SEE COMING	ENRICHED UNDERSTANDING OF THE KEY CONCEPT
The Importance of Connection	The students support each other through childhoodThey drift apart in adulthoodThey revisit their close bonds when the donations begin	Relationships can sometimes be destructiveWe need connection to others to surviveAt the end of our lives, connection matters	While we may drift apart from those we love over the course of our lives, both authors emphasise the importance of connections during hard times
Memories & The Present	The past can be a refugeThe details of the past can be hazyWe can get trapped in our memories	The past can be irrelevant, or at worst, a burdenThe present is what matters	While memories of the past can offer us safety and comfort, they cannot protect us from the present or our futures
Power & Control	Power structures exist that keep people in their place in societyThere is little point in struggling for control	Power structures are ambiguous and temporaryWe have control over our own lives	In the face of ever-changing and increasingly authoritarian power structures, the only control we have is over how we live our lives
Ethics & Morality	In the future we will be forced to make increasingly difficult ethical choicesWhat is a life worth?What is human?	Difficult circumstances lead to tough moral decisionsThere is rarely any clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for every situation	Both authors reveal how difficult moral and ethical situations impact entire nations and individuals
Hope & Despair	The clones are capable of hope despite the knowledge of their fatesHumans are hopeful, even in the face of impending death	Some people fear the future and they may be proved rightSome people are willing to do whatever it takes to survive	In the face of our mortality, both authors demonstrate that life is filled with moments of both hope and despair

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

‘Minefields & Miniskirts’ Play by Terrence O’Connell: The Basics

Posted on June 29, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is for students in Year 11 studying’Minfields & Miniskirts’ & ‘Wilfred Owen War Poems’ in the Victorian VCE Curriculum

Structure of the Play/ Plot / Set / Music / Title Symbols / Motifs

Begins with the sounds in the distance of military drums on an Anzac Day march in 1980’s, where the women meet, and ends to the sound of the military band at an Anzac Day march at the end of the play. The marches celebration of returned soldiers is a time of mixed emotions of joy and sadness for the characters. Significantly, the play comes full circle at the end with the return to the march and the return of the women to Australia which has brought them a new level of understanding about their experiences in Vietnam. The link to the song at the end of the play is Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Circle Game’ as all the women sing together of their lives going ‘round and round’ after their ‘life altering experience’ in Vietnam.

The play is organised into 11 scenes. While each scene has a particular theme that joins the stories of the 5 women together, each of the women’s stories has a quality that makes it distinct from the other character’s stories. The plot is carried by the 5 characters, so that plot and character are very closely related. While there is no direct interaction between the characters on stage or any dialogues between them, we do see them join in singing 1960’s songs together, for example, Scene 2 ‘Off to War’ Sandy, Eve, Kathy & Ruth sing together ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.

O’Connell has drafted the script in such a way as to imply clear links and shifts in perspective between the characters, so that different points of view are cast on the same events. He has also set the monologues within a theatrical choreography of the stage space, to add a sense of realism to the scenes, which otherwise consist solely of the 5 spoken monologues. The play agglomerates the anecdotes of each of the women into a group narrative that typifies the particular scene in which it occurs. The effect of this grouping is to bring the women’s stories together, even as they have their key points of difference.

The set of the play is a mash up of ancient Vietnamese, colonial French style and modern American capitalism ‘Coca Cola’ street furniture and the physical environment of Vietnam. The opening set includes a silk stage curtain with a bleached-out handwritten message celebrating the Australian women who went to Vietnam. The audience also hear music from famous Vietnam War era films allowing them to be drawn into the world of Vietnam. Even though the women had different backgrounds, as much as their experiences, they have one thing in common, which is explored poignantly in the final sentence: ‘Vietnam transformed their lives and haunted their memories’.

The title of the play is an illusion to 2 deeper thematic concerns that rule life – sex and death. The ‘miniskirts’ are a symbol of liberated female sexuality and ‘minefields’ are a symbol of maiming, disfigurement and death. These 2 elements were in evidence during the Vietnam War. The young soldiers were in their 20’s and sexually virile but many came back with their bodies and minds broken and shattered or in body bags as 521 Australians died. All women return from Vietnam profoundly changed by their experiences. Helicopters form a dominant motif that are heard constantly hovering in the background of the play to remind the audience of the women’s memories of the war.

Characters

Margaret The Vet’s wife – the first to speak in the play and she is both the outsider of the group of 5, and the one who comes closest to experiencing the violence of the Vietnam War directly in her own home. Her husband James brings back the Vietnam War with him, in fact he is still fighting the war as he steps through the front door and continues fighting the war until the day he commits suicide by gassing himself to death in the car. Margaret represents many thousands of wives who had to nurse their veteran husbands who returned from seeing action in Vietnam with profound psychological disturbances.

Sandy The entertainer – Sandy’s motivation for going to Vietnam is to exploit the captive audience she will find there, as she entertains the troops as one of the Velveteens. She is attracted by the glitz and glamour of being a show-girl, strutting up on stage in her pink feathers, and performing in front of hordes of GI’s and so we recognise early on in the play that Sandy enjoys being the centre of attention. Her life in Vietnam is a step-up from performing on stage ‘in my miniskirt’ in some unheard of ‘suburban club’ and her socio-economic background propels her towards Vietnam as her options and possibilities for success in Australia are severely limited.

Kathy The nurse – Kathy comes out of a military family and volunteering for service in Vietnam is a natural thing for her to do, war service is in her DNA. Her father is a man of some influence and she is able to communicate back to him the kinds of conditions she is experiencing on the front-line hospital and field work, and the appalling lack of equipment. She is proud to be serving, but she also becomes disillusioned fairly quickly or has a reality check realising the supposed enemy soldiers are no better or no worse than her own side and resolves to treat everyone equally.

Eve The volunteer – Eve heralds from a devoutly Christian family and feels it her mission to volunteer herself to those suffering in the war. She leaves with her parents’ blessing but throughout proves to be a perceptive observer of both other people and herself. She realises fairly soon that in her experience ‘It was hard to believe in my God in Vietnam’ and understands the moment she comes in to land, upon seeing an old man ploughing his paddy field as an aerial battle was raging around him, that the Vietnam War could never be won. This perception of the nature of things was lost on the politicians and military men conducting the war.

Ruth The journalist – Ruth comes to Vietnam as a dare by a fellow journalist but the urge behind her decision is motivated also by her desire for excitement and adventure beyond editing the women’s pages of the local tabloid. We realise that Ruth is in some ways equally exploitative of the new situation, as she tries to get ‘an in’ with the locals and uses her overt physical features to get herself invited to parties. While in Vietnam the injuries and deaths that surround her do not move her beyond wearing the Star of David that her Green Beret soldier husband-to-be wore before his death. While she admits the Vietnam War made her feel ‘alive’ she does not gain any deeper perception about herself as a result.

Themes

Social content of the Vietnam War

Freedom to kill at random / no conscience

Counter culture of 1960’s drugs

Freedom to exploit or harm others

Psychological effects of war

PTSD / psychotic effect of war

Women exploited / rape / no moral power

Language & power / feelings

Noble ideal vs corrupted ideal of war

South East Asia reality of Communist domino effect

Plot Outline

Scene 1: Prologue The opening scene is set at an Anzac Day march and the 5 women give us a snippet of the stories that are about to be told in the main body (scenes 3-10) of the play.

Scene 2: Off to War The women give the background to their decision to leave Australia for Vietnam and their personal motivations – Sandy for glamour, Kathy to carry on a family tradition of helping out in times of war, Ruth to embark on a new step in her career as a journalist, and Eve through a general sense of dissatisfaction with expectancies of her getting married and settling down. For Margaret, it is her husband who goes ‘off to war’.

Scene 3: Hello Vietnam The 4 women describe the unreal world that greets them upon their arrival in Vietnam – human body parts being eaten by dogs, grenade-lobbing acid-tripping GIs and jealous prostitutes in Saigon.

Scene 4: A Workaday War The bizarreness of everyday life during the Vietnam War is expressed in each of the women’s stories. Margaret describes the return of her husband as ‘a ghost’.

Scene 5: Children This scene contains stories that involve children and tell us a universal truth, that if truth is the first victim of war, then ordinary people including children run a close second. The stories emphasise Eve’s perception as she arrives in Vietnam in the Prologue – that the war could never be won.

Scene 6: Human Beings The title of the scene refers to the story Ruth tells of being unable to report on the Vietnamese as human beings, and the scene shows the enormous human cost of the war, as ordinary civilians are executed on mere suspicion of being involved with the Viet Cong. A story of hope ends the scene as Kathy tells of a baby’s birth in a field, a new life amongst so much senseless death.

Scene 7: RandR – Romance & Rape While many of the women did find genuine romance in Vietnam, these dalliances were often tinged with danger. Meanwhile, back in Australia, Margaret’s husband is even more dangerous and psychologically deranged, and rapes her. At the end of the scene the women are introduced and sing as “The Velveteens”.

Scene 8: War Does Become Normal The weirdness and strangeness of the Vietnam War begins to become normalised. Many of the women tell bizarre stories with surreal and sometimes disturbing juxtapositions. A dying GI hallucinates his wife onto Eve, Ruth witnesses a rudimentary electro-interrogation, and Sandy gets a thrill out of firing an M16 off the back of a jeep. The scene ends with the music of Bing Crosby, singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”.

Scene 9: Goodnight Saigon The women describe their hasty evacuation following the fall of Saigon, and the end of their experiences. Margaret’s husband commits suicide, Sandy’s entertainment dreams end in the story of 6 GI’s raping her girlfriend in a hut.

Scene 10: Aftermath Returning to Australia makes the women realise the extent to which their experiences in Vietnam have affected them. Their reactions are either of frustration and boredom, or a continuation of their responses in Vietnam. Ruth harangues a film theatre audience for laughing in MASH, Sandy dives into the gutter when she hears some Hare Krishnas, Kathy will only date Vietnam Vets, while Eve’s health has been affected by the chemicals.

Scene 11: Epilogue The play returns to the Anzac Day march, and the women reiterate the profound effect that their Vietnam experience has had on them. They end all singing together with the lyrics of a Joni Mitchell song “The Circle Game”, symbolising the return of the plot to its starting point and the experiences of the women in Vietnam that are life altering and will never be forgotten.

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

Wilfred Owen War Poems: The Basics

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is for students in Year 11 studying ‘Wilfred Owen War Poems’ in AOS1: Unit 1, Reading & Creating Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE Curriculum.

It can also be studied in AOS1:Unit 2, Reading & Comparing Texts along with ‘Minefields & Miniskirts’ play by Terrence O’Connell.

Poetry in Context of World War I 1914-1918

The literary responses evoked by the Great War were in many ways unique, particularly the writings that came from its immediate participants. The British war poets such as Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Graves and Rosenberg are familiar to many, but it needs to be remembered that their work was but a small sample of the literature produced by soldiers at the front. Australian soldiers fighting on the Western Front from 1914 to1918 also generated poetry and stories that have been published.

World War I in Context of Why Men Enlisted

Many of the thousands of British men (and Australian men) enlisted for quite different reasons: they were spurred by the public propaganda campaigns, the rousing speeches of politicians, clergymen and headmasters, the call of adventure, family and civic pressure and, for those without steady employment, the lure of regular pay. Some would have enlisted as they feared being labelled as cowards; it was an era where social pressure could be intense. To receive a white feather was seen as shameful. It is also crucial to remember that formal religion underpinned life in WWI Britain more than it does now. Much of the propaganda encouraging young men to enlist in WWI included notions of personal responsibility to God as well as patriotism to King and Country.

Why did Owen Enlist?

Despite a view that Owen’s motives in enlisting may have been more self-focused than patriotic, there is no doubt that he did take his role as an officer and soldier very seriously in France. Owen enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles on October 21, 1915, and spent nearly fourteen months training in various places around the English countryside before heading to France in winter, 1916. It is worth noting that Owen did not actually spend a great deal of time at the Front compared to many soldiers. The battle experience on which his most famous poems are based was contained to about four months of which Owen spent no more than five weeks at the Front Line.

Battle in France 1916

Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen arrived in France in late December 1916, right in the middle of the coldest winter of the war. He was sent to Beaumont Hamel on the Somme as one of 527 reinforcements sent out following heavy losses in the Ancre Offensive. His letters to his mother from this period reflect his shock at the conditions both in the trenches and behind the lines. He also speaks movingly of his pity for his fellow soldiers and their suffering, especially in the extreme cold of that particular winter, when men were known to freeze to death. His language, even in these simple letters, is evocative, making the reader truly understand the deprivation and hardship brought on by the war. ‘Futility’ and ‘Exposure’ are fine examples of poems based on these experiences.

In March 1917, Owen fell into a cellar suffering a concussion, which hospitalised him for two weeks. On his return to his battalion at the beginning of April, he found himself involved in heavy fighting near St Quentin. He was blown off his feet and spent several days in a shell-hole surrounded by the remains of a fellow officer. Owen was not physically hurt, but when his Battalion was relieved, it was noticed that his behaviour had become somewhat strange—his speech was confused and he seemed shaky. He was diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and was sent to a Casualty Clearing Station. Eventually he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where he would remain for four months.

Owen Meets Poet Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart

Whilst a patient at Craiglockhart, Owen met Siegfried Sassoon, a fellow patient, and the two became friends. Sassoon’s reputation as a poet and decorated war hero had preceded him. Sassoon perceived a natural talent hidden in some of Owen’s poems. Sassoon encouraged Owen, even offering advice on the manuscript of one of Owen’s most famous poems, ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’. His friendship with Sassoon gave Owen the impetus he needed and it was at this time that Owen wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, responding to the propagandist poems of Jessie Pope and others like her, who persuaded young men into joining up when they had little or no grasp of what was involved at the front.

Return to France in 1917

Owen left Craiglockhart in October 1917 to undertake more training and also used his leave opportunities to visit literary friends in London. By the end of August 1918, he was back in France, having been passed fit to return to the Front. Before leaving England, he had told his brother, Harold, of his desire to return to the front, despite sensing that he, like so many English soldiers, would be killed. He had also, encouraged by friends, started planning a volume of poetry for publication, for which the draft Preface is included in Stallworthy’s collection.

In October 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross. On the morning of 4^th November, while attempting to cross the Sambre-Oise Canal, Owen was shot and killed (only 7 days before War was officially ended on 11^th November, 1918. Owen is buried in the tiny Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery at Ors.

Owen and ‘The Pity of War’

The Preface written by Wilfred Owen in 1918 for the collection of poems he intended to have published after the war indicates his vision and aim as a poet. ‘Above all I am not concerned with Poetry/My subject is War, and the pity of War/The Poetry is in the pity’. He goes on to say that even though his poems will offer no consolation to those who suffered WWI, they may be of use to the next generation, particularly as a warning about the consequences of war: the real experience of it and what it does to people. Owen’s poems convey his genuine feelings for soldiers as they are caught up in the pity of war. Here are soldiers experiencing extreme destructiveness: destruction of civilization, destruction of the landscape, and very importantly, the destructive effect war can have on a soldier’s physical, spiritual and psychological life.

Most Famous of Owen’s Anti-War Poem is ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’

Owen wrote it as he was recovering in hospital after being shell-shocked and gassed. The title refers to a famous Latin patriotic saying ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ meaning that it is sweet and noble to die for one’s country. However, Owen disagrees with this as he has been at war and seen the reality. In order to prove that there is no heroism in war, Owen recreates the reality very vividly with soldiers “bent double, like old beggars under sacks” and later “all went lame: all blind.” The imagery is one of physical despair, illness and ageing before one’s time showing us that this is what one reaps from war. The vivid contrast with the reality of “gas! gas! quick, boys!” confronts us with the reality of attack and the nightmare vision is surreal “as under a green sea I saw him drowning”. Onomatopoeia is used throughout the poem creating very clear and disturbing imagery “guttering, choking, drowning, smothering, gargling.” Owen builds up the reality of the men suffering and we cannot turn away from it. It is anything but noble and heroic, furthermore the dead are simply “flung”. In particular the reality of dead men thrown one on top the other on a carriage disgust us, yet we cannot turn away from the horror, “if you could hear at every jolt, the blood, come gargling from the froth, corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer…” which leads to the conclusion that only silly children would believe the Old Lie: ‘How sweet it is to die for one’s country’.

Major Themes in Owen’s Poetry & Only Some Poems Related
Theme	Poems
The pity of war	‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ * crosses over into many themes ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ / ‘Futility’
The horrors of war	‘Mental Cases’ / ‘Disabled’ / ‘Insensibility’
Protest against war	‘1914’ / ‘The Letter’ / ‘Soldier’s Dream’
Injuries in war	‘The Sentry’ / ‘The Dead Beat’ / ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
Weapons of war	‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ / ‘The Last Laugh’ / ‘Soldier’s Dream’
Death and burial	‘Futility’ / ‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Wild with All Regrets ’
Survivors	‘The Send Off’ / ‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Disabled ’
Nature	‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Exposure’ / ‘1914’
Love	‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Strange Meeting’ / ‘Exposure’
Hatred	‘The Dead Beat’ / ‘S.I.W.’ / ‘Strange Meeting’
Anger	‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ / ‘Insensibility’ / ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
Frustration	‘Disabled’ / ‘Wild with All Regrets’
Grief	‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Sentry’ / ‘The Last Laugh’
Officers & Men	‘Inspection’ / ‘The Sentry’ / ‘The Dead Beat’
Brothers in Arms & Camaraderie	‘The Send Off’ / ‘Spring Offensive’ / ‘Exposure’
Parents & Children	‘The Parable of the Old Man and the Young’ / ‘S.I.W.’ / ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’
The Role of Women	‘The Letter’ / ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ / ‘The Dead Beat’
God, The Church, Religion	‘The Parable of the Old Man and the Young’ / ‘Soldier’s Dream’ / ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’
Making Sense of the Senseless	‘1914’ / ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ / ‘Strange Meeting’
Dreams	‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ / ‘Strange Meeting’ / ‘Miners’

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Medea the Play by Euripides: The Basics

Posted on April 19, 2022 by Margaret

This Resource is for students in Year 11 studying ‘Medea’ the play by Euripides in AOS1: Unit 1, Reading & Creating Texts, Analytical Text Response, in the Victorian VCE Curriculum

Medea and Other Plays : Penguin Classics - Euripides

Context of the Play in Ancient Greece

The Greek civilisation which produced tragedies such as Euripides’ Medea flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Politically, Greece consisted of city-states such as Athens (Attica), Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Megara and Argos. By 500 BC Athens was the artistic centre of Greece but Sparta was the major power and head of the alliance of city-states until Athens destroyed the attack fleet of the Persians in 480–479 BC. At the time when Euripides wrote Medea, Athens still represented the epitome of civilised, balanced culture and democracy. For that reason, it is pertinent that Medea is taken to Athens at the end of the play, in the Sun god’s own chariot.

Although the ancient Greeks are famous for establishing democracy, they restricted the role of women in society and enslaved other peoples. In the fifth century BC, the historian Thucydides wrote: ‘The greatest glory [for women] is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or blame’. The play’s questioning of women’s subordinate position was a highly unconventional attitude and a reflection of Euripides’s own views that he used to raise an interest for his audience about women’s rights, duties and relationships.

Additionally, the family was extremely important in Greek culture, as was adherence to religious rites such as proper burial. While women in Athens were positioned as home-makers, mothers, with no voting powers or citizen rights, the men could take multiple sexual partners even though they were married. These are important points used by Euripides in the working-out of his plot. Not only is Medea isolated in Corinth, away from her family, she has exiled herself from both family and homeland through what she has done for love of Jason. She represents not only a wronged woman but the position of women in general in Greek society. Her ‘otherness’ is stressed from the start, as is her status as a stranger in Corinth.

Greek Theatre as a Public Educator

Greek dramatic spectacles were more than entertainment they were acts of religion, involving the population as an ongoing public duty. Tragic theatre both confirmed and questioned Athenian democracy because it was political theatre, staged for and by the ‘polis’ [city state] of Athens. One of the aims of Greek tragedy was to educate citizens in the practice of good citizenship. Plays like Medea articulated difficulties experienced by human beings trying to understand fundamental questions of duty and justice in situations of conflict, where the gods could be appealed to, but rarely gave direct guidance. All performances of the plays were male actors only, never females.

Who was Euripides?

Image result for Euripides. Size: 100 x 106. Source: classicalwisdom.com — Euripides

Euripides was born in 480 BC and died in 406 BC, he is one of the greatest dramatists who wrote tragic plays that were the most controversial against other great writers Aeschylus and Sophocles. All three competed in the Great Dionysia festival in fifth century BC that was performed in Athens each year at which the whole community participated.

Euripides was not popular with his contemporaries because he questioned traditional values. His ideas were considered dangerous and his dramatic technique was thought inferior. His plays were considered radical and departed from many of the established ideas of tragedy while treating the accepted mythological stories with less respect. His play Medea was produced in 431 BC challenged the audience by giving a voice to a woman in a deeply patriarchal society. He considered Medea’s concerns in a ‘battle of the soul’ between good and evil that tears a person apart psychologically.

His characters often questioned the gods’ sense of justice because they seemed sources of misery more than happiness. At times in his plays, Euripides suggested that chance ruled the world. His audiences found his plays confusing because he used gods to resolve conflicts and foretell the future and because characters’ speeches sometimes sounded like lists of evidence. However, Euripides’ interest in the psychology of his characters, his exploration of human motivation, and the topical and universal nature of his themes make Medea an interesting and relevant play to study in the twenty-first century. Most of Euripides’ plays insist that we must be aware of our own nature, and of our place in the universe, which entails an acceptance of the limits of human autonomy [independence].

Background Story to Medea the Play

Jason and the Argonauts, sailors of the Argo, sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. To pass into the Black Sea, Jason had to have the ship rowed quickly through the Clashing Rocks (Symplegades). In Colchis, Aeetes the king made Jason plough a field with a pair of fire-snorting bulls. Then he had to overcome the serpent that guarded the fleece within its coils. Medea, a sorceress [witch type person who used magic herbs and potions], helped him—he would have been unable to do it without her. She had fallen in love with Jason and her father pursued the pair. Medea killed her brother and scattered his limbs at sea to delay the king, who by custom had to bury his son before continuing his pursuit. They returned to Iolcus, where Jason’s uncle, Pelias, had usurped the throne. After restoring Jason’s father Aeson to youth by boiling him in a cauldron of herbs, Medea convinced Pelias’s daughters to cut their father into pieces and boil him, then refused to restore his youth. Pelias’s son drove Jason and Medea into exile: they fled with their two sons to Corinth. Jason deserted Medea to marry Glauce, daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. The play begins here.

Brief Summary of the Plot

In a nutshell, the play is about a wronged woman who dupes [fools] her husband and a king, kills her children and escapes with the help of her grandfather, the god Helios.

When the play opens, the Nurse reports that Medea has been deserted by her husband Jason. This comes as a double blow, because Medea has betrayed her own family in Colchis in order to help Jason steal the Golden Fleece, and had come with him to Corinth. Now that Jason has left her, Medea has no family to turn to in her plight. Jason plans to marry the Princess of Corinth to improve his position. Medea, in her passionate anger, plans to revenge herself on Jason, the Princes Glauce and her father, King Creon. Creon comes to tell Medea she is banished from Corinth because he fears her. She becomes the suppliant, assuring him of her innocence and begging to be allowed to stay a little longer. In reality, she needs time to carry out her revenge. She sends her two sons with poisoned wedding attire for Glauce, who is then burnt by the poison along with her father Creon when he comes to her aid.

Medea’s plan for revenge has since changed, she now intends to kill her two sons to that Jason’s suffering will be complete. She then plans to escape to Athens, where King Aegeus has offered her shelter. After much debate with herself, Medea kills her children. Jason discovers their bodies and curses his wife. Medea is unmoved, and leaves in a chariot drawn by winged dragons which her ancestor, the sun god Helios, has supplied for her escape.

Main Characters

Medea = Is the tragic protagonist of the play. She is passionate and arrives on stage with the history of having murdered to help her husband Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. She is a sorceress with magical powers, grand-daughter of Helios the Sun god. Medea loves Jason but appreciates her love has brought her exile and infamy [dishonour]. Jason is the father of her two sons, whom she does love, so killing them affects her own psyche. Speaking as a woman, Medea articulates her feelings on jealousy, frustration, childbirth, domestic isolation, submission to a controlling man, security, broken promises given by Jason, all subjects that would confront the Athenians at the time. Euripides seems to be on Medea’s side in this tragic play and lets her fly away safely at the end with the help of a chariot pulled by dragons.
Jason = Born a prince of Iolcus, the hero of the Golden Fleece legend, leader of the Argonauts expedition, Medea’s husband, father of two sons, Jason is presented as arrogant, selfish and narrow-focussed on material success through a marriage to princess Glauce, the King’s daughter. He dismisses Medea’s arguments against him and betrays her by breaking the sacred binding oath that had bound them together in a type of marriage contract (not legitimate). He has no conscience failing to comprehend that marrying Glauce will hurt Medea and is dismissive of the role of women in society, describing them as evil necessities only useful for reproduction. His arrogance allows him to be fooled by Medea’s greater intelligence and is reduced, emotionally destroyed and doomed to die as Medea predicts when his great ship, the Argo, collapses on him.
The Nurse = An old woman, loyal to Medea but conservative and cautious, expresses the views that the Athenian audience would recognise as correct and sensible that women ought to be obedient in marriage. She is supposed to stir the audience’s initial feelings of sympathy and pity for Medea and activate fears for the vulnerable children announcing that Medea actually ‘hates her children’ and is definitely ‘no ordinary woman’.
The Tutor = The old man expresses homely practical advice about making the best of life. He accompanies the children with Jason to Creon’s palace and acts as a preliminary messenger, innocently bringing what he thinks is good news to Medea about Glauce’s reception of gifts.
Creon = King of Corinth he is wise and family minded, but suspicious of Medea’s powers, especially over his daughter Glauce after her marriage to Jason. For this reason, he exiles Medea and her children immediately. However, Medea tricks him by appealing to the welfare of her children, he relents and lets her stay one more night to help them prepare to leave. This is his downfall, as Medea kills him shortly afterwards, along with Glauce.
The Chorus = Corinthian women represent the voice of the city, the moral heart of society and strongly condemn Jason’s oath-breaking. They make value judgements about action just passed, wonders to come and provide poetic asides that often foreshadow tragedy. They appear to be supporting Medea against Jason but do caution her not to go too far as they fear for the children. At the end they comment that the gods are responsible for all and are unpredictable.

Other characters = Glauce princess of Corinth / The Messenger announces eyewitness accounts of events happening offstage / the children Medea and Jason’s sons are heard only behind the skene door offstage but they do not speak onstage / Aegeus is the wealthy diplomat from Athens who offers Medea shelter and protection

The Gods

The Greeks believed in gods and goddesses, who they thought, had control over every part of people’s lives. They had to pray to the gods for help and protection, and if the gods were unhappy with someone, then they would punish them. The gods were included in many Greek tragic plays which were concerned with spiritual issues and how they interfered in human lives. There was a debate about how far mortals were free to pursue or avoid disasters of their own making within a cosmos [universe] that also had room for concepts of fate, right, revenge, justice, punishment in Greek society. Euripides was criticised for bringing the gods onto the stage then causing them to behave in outrageous ways. Athenians at the time thought Euripides was mocking the gods as if he either despised or disbelieved in them.

Is Medea a Heroine or a Tyrant?

An important task is to work out if Medea is a heroine or tyrant.

Some Ideas to consider:

Medea is a Victim & a Heroine – Euripides suggests that Medea also has a legitimate grievance presenting her arguments on behalf of “we women” and so is not solely responsible for the tragedy – So she is a passionate heroine fighting for the rights of women – She is also a victim having made significant sacrifices in helping Jason secure the Golden Fleece.
Euripides also suggests that she has been wilfully treated by Jason.
Euripides presents Jason as a cold-hearted husband who prides himself on being able to negotiate the tempestuous whims of others. Euripides suggests that one of his biggest errors of judgement is to misunderstand or downplay the depth of Medea’s passion and grievances.
Medea is Subjected to Extreme Passion Without Reason – Medea is motivated by her excessive passion for her husband, Jason that turns to excessive hatred upon his betrayal. Euripides shows the damage that can occur owing to extremes of emotion – both love and hatred. In particular, the playwright suggests that hatred festers and leads to shameful excuses on behalf of Medea who condones the suffering she inflicts on others.
Euripides also suggests that Jason’s phlegmatic and insensitive streak fails to anticipate the danger that lurks within. Only a very extreme action, it seems, can penetrate his barriers.
Medea can be just as Ruthless and Manipulative as Jason – She deceives both Creon and Jason.
Medea is Aware of her Actions – She is not insane like the Greek myth of Ino but a cold-blooded murderess – She admits that understands the “full horror” of what she is about to do , but “anger masters my resolve”.
Medea is a Tyrant & Child Killer – The Chorus suggests that Medea crosses the line by killing her children and turns herself into a despicable “child-killer”. By killing the children, Medea’s righteous cause tips into cold-blooded revenge; Euripides criticises her motives as she becomes obsessed with sparing herself the scorn of her enemies.

Themes

conflict	betrayal	exile & the individual
reason vs passion	notion of justice	revenge
parents & children	gender politics	women in society
order vs chaos	heroism & honour	family obligation & nurture
filicide [parents killing their children]	good vs evil	psychology of human motivation

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