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

1. “Survival is insufficient.” How does Mandel show that there is more to life than mere survival?
2. “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.
3. To what extent does Station Eleven suggest that a crisis brings out the best in people?
4. ‘Arthur may be the central character in Mandel’s novel, but he is not the main character.’ Discuss.
5. ‘Station Eleven suggests that it is better to be inspired by truth and beauty than by success.’ Discuss.
6. Discuss the roles played by Dr. Eleven and the Museum of Civilisation in Mandel’s novel.
7. ‘The characters in Station Eleven are sustained by their memories.’ Do you agree?
8. ‘Station Eleven is more about creativity in the arts and sciences than about a post-pandemic dystopia.’ Do you agree?
9. ‘Despite the extreme difficulty of their situation, none of the characters succumbs to fear or pessimism.’ Discuss.
10. ‘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

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

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

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

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