This Resource is for Mainstream English Year 12 Students writing Analytical Essays for Reading and Responding to Texts AOS1 Units 3 & 4 in the SAC and VCE English Exam Section A.

It is a good idea to vary the type of words you use to write an analytical essay for Section A in the VCE English Exam. Below are helpful ways to introduce your essays, body paragraphs, conclusions and other alternative words so that your essay flows with a higher level metalanguage.

To introduce This essay discusses … … is explored … … is defined … The definition of … will be given … is briefly outlined … … is explored … The issue focused on …. … is demonstrated … … is included … In this essay ….. … is explained … … are identified … The key aspect discussed … … are presented … … is justified … Views on …. range from …. … is evaluated … … is examined … The central theme … … is described … … is analysed … Emphasised are … … is explained and illustrated with examples …   Introduction Starters Lines In (title), (author) explores the idea of (theme/idea) through (technique/character/setting) (title) by (author) contends/argues/suggests that Set in … (title) examines/explores/questions The central idea of (concept/idea) is the tension/conflict between At the centre of (title) is the tension/conflict between The viewpoint/perspective of (character) reveals to the reader/audience that Throughout (title), (author) utilises/exploits/employs (technique) in order to (character) embodies the qualities of … through their (character) demonstrates this idea/these values by Similar/opposing qualities are displayed by (character) who The relationship between (character) and (character) can be seen as representing the tension between While the actions of most of the characters suggest that … the behaviour of (character) demonstrates The journey/transformation from … to … highlights the values of Ultimately (title) highlights/reveals/exposes   Body Paragraphs As shown by (textual evidence), (what the textual evidence suggests or implies) This is significant/revealing because … Furthermore/Moreover, (textual evidence) also supports the idea that … In contrast/However, (textual evidence) implies/reveals that … Although, (counterargument), (argument) The sense of … pervades the opening of the text, suggesting that … The image/motif of … symbolises the idea of … It is at this point that the tension between … and … becomes explicit, showing the need for … This is seen most clearly when …, highlighting …       Body Paragraphs to explain effects of language affects / illustrates / reinforces / characterises / impacts on / reveals / demonstrates / implies / subverts / exemplifies / portrays / underscores   To conclude In summary, … To review, … In conclusion, … In brief, … To summarise, … To sum up, … To conclude, … Thus, it is evident that … Hence, … It has been shown that, … In short, … Therefore, … As a result, … In light of … Consequently, … Clearly, … On the whole,… This demonstrates … Finally, … Overall … Given these points … Ultimately, … The evidence supports … Taken together … In conclusion, it is clear that (restate contention) Overall, the evidence supports the idea that (contention) Given these points, it is evident that … Taken together, the arguments presented demonstrate that … Thus, it is evident that …  Alternatives to presents conveys / explores / implies / demonstrates / illustrates / indicates / signals / suggests         Alternatives to presents positively advocates / endorses / promotes / recommends / supports Alternatives to presents negatively challenges / condemns / critiques / exposes / questions To compare and contrast Similarly, … In the same way … Likewise, … In comparison … Complementary to this … Then again, … However, … This is in contrast to … In contrast, … And yet … Nevertheless, … Conversely, … On the contrary, … On the other hand, … Notwithstanding … Whereas … In contrast to … That aside, … While this is the case … … disputes … Despite this, …         To add ideas Also, … Equally important … Subsequently, … Furthermore, … Moreover, … As well as …. Next… Another essential point… Additionally, … More importantly, … In the same way … Another … Then, … In addition, … Besides, … Then again, … Firstly, … secondly, … thirdly, … finally, … To elaborate, …   To present uncommon or rare ideas Seldom … Few … Not many … A few … … is uncommon … is scarce … Rarely … … is rare … … is unusual …   To present common or widespread ideas Numerous … Many … More than … Several … Almost all … The majority … Most … Commonly … Significant … … Is prevalent … is usual … Usually …   To present inconclusive ideas Perhaps … may be … … might be … There is limited evidence for … … is debated … … is possibly … Could … may include …     To give examples For example, … … as can be seen in … … supports … An illustration of … … as demonstrated by … … is observed … Specifically, … is shown … exemplifies … Such as … As an example … To illustrate, … For instance, …       To show relationships or outcome Therefore … As a result … For that reason … Hence, … Otherwise, … Consequently, … The evidence suggests/shows … It can be seen that … With regard to … After examining …. These factors contribute to … It is apparent that … Considering … it can be concluded … Subsequently, …. The effect is … The outcome is … The result … The correlation … The relationship … The link … The convergence … The connection … interacts with … Both …. affects … Thus it is … … causes … influences … predicts … … leads to … informs … presupposes … emphasises … demonstrates … impacts on … supports …   To present prior or background ideas In the past, … Historically, … Traditionally, … Customarily, … Beforehand, … Originally, … Prior to this, … Earlier, … Formerly, … Previously, … Over time, … At the time of … Conventionally, … Foundational to this is … In earlier … Initially, … At first, … Recently … Until now, … The traditional interpretation …     To present others’ ideas According to … Based on the findings of … it can be argued… … proposed that … As explained by … … states that … … claims that … However, … stated that … … suggested … … concluded that … Similarly, … stated that …. … for example, … … agreed that … Based on the ideas of … … defined …. as …. … relates … As identified by … … disputed that … … contrasts … With regard to … argued that … … concluded that … … confirmed that … argues …. highlights … demonstrates … found that … identifies … wrote that … demonstrated … also … reported …. pointed out that … maintained that … hypothesised that … … expressed the opinion that … also mentioned …. asserts that …. identified … goes on to state/suggest/say … emphasises … challenges the idea …. showed that … explored the idea …

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

This Resource is for Mainstream English Year 12 Students writing Analytical Essays for Reading and Responding to Texts AOS1 Units 3 & 4 in the SAC and VCE English Exam Section A.

Identifying the key elements of the topic that includes content words specify what the essay should cover. Identifying direction words (task words such as discuss, do you agree, how) tell you how to approach the essay and indicate the type of answer you should provide.

Look for limiting words – adjectives or adverbs such as ‘limited’, ‘always’, ‘essential’ and ‘inevitably’ that will have a significant impact on your response. Take these words into account when forming your opinion. Rephrase the topic in your own words and if in doubt, use a dictionary to look up words that you are unsure of, then try to answer the question.

Is there a quotation from the text in the prompt? Identify where the quotation is from in the text and who said it. What is the quotation telling you? Address the quotation in one of your body paragraphs.

Your approach to each essay will depend on what type of prompt is being asked. Regardless of whether the prompt is character/ theme/ quote/ how/ metalanguage or film technique based, you must always consider Message of Author OR Director in every body paragraph.  Does your response and contention to the prompt consider how the Author or Director feels about these issues, views and values and how they want their audience to react?

1. Discuss-based prompts:

These prompts typically require an in-depth answer that takes into account all aspects of the debate concerning a topic or argument.  It is important to have a clear Main Contention that explores your side of the answer to the topic and have a proper resolution or conclusion.  Don’t leave the discussion open-ended but make sure you conclude with a purpose.  

If you are going to challenge the prompt in your discussion, use body paragraph 2 to do this and back your challenge up with evidence from the texts.  You must demonstrate reasoning skills with this type of question, by using evidence to make a case for or against the topic/argument. It is important to note that while challenging the prompt is acceptable, do not go off topic and keep addressing the content in the topic.

2.            Character-based prompts:

These prompts focus on one or more characters if the character’s name is mentioned in the prompt.  In this case, you would most likely structure your body paragraphs based on particular characters or something in common with a set of characters.  Your examples need to be relevant to the specific character named in the prompt but also consider themes or relationships of that character with other characters.  As characters in texts are always interrelated to other, the actions of others are also connected to the themes and ideas the author is trying to convey.  Don’t forget minor characters.

3.            Theme-based prompts:

Usually your paragraphs will be based around particular themes.  For example, in this case, paragraphs may be based on ‘love’, ‘escape’, ‘horrors of war’ etc.  These paragraphs can have character discussions embedded within them in order to demonstrate how the characters represent each theme.  Discussion of the author’s choice of language such as symbols or imagery can be essential to the analysis of a theme.

4.            Quote prompts:

These prompts can be character or theme-based.  However, it differs from other essay topics because it includes a direct quote from the text.  Remember that the quote is part of the prompt, so ensure that you address it.  One of the best ways of doing so is to contextualise the quote into one of the body paragraphs and analyse it in your discussion.

5.            How question prompts:

These prompts are usually structured, ‘how does the character/event/theme do this?’  OR ‘how does the author explore the idea?’  How prompts position you to focus on the author’s writing intentions through the literary construction of the text.  This can be achieved by discussing structure, language, symbols, motifs, themes, characters and the literary techniques explored in the text and then explain how they affect the narrative and the topic in the prompt.  Use the techniques as evidence to support arguments that attack the main themes/ideas/values mentioned in the prompt.

In ‘how’ type questions in films, rather than focusing on literary construction, it is important to focus on the director’s film intentions using CAMELS = camera techniques / acting / mise en scene / editing / lighting and sound.

6.            To what extent prompts:

By asking the question “to what extent’ the prompt is asking you to discuss how one element is greater in validity than the other element.  You need to answer whether the claim is to “a greater extent” or “to a lesser extent”that the assumption in the question is valid or verifiable [provable].  Therefore, there is more than one angle to answer the question.  You need to think about your opinion but also weigh up each side to the answer and discuss both sides.  To say the question definitely was “to a greater extent” you then must build your case, support it with evidence to make it valid.  Then give the other side of the case, how it was “to a lesser extent” and support it with evidence to make it valid.

7.            Do you agree prompts:

When answering these questions, the most important thing is to work out your argument – what you think about the ideas put forward in the prompt?  Are they right, or wrong?  You need a clear Main Contention as to which way you are handling the idea behind the question.  Once you decide if you agree with the question then do not answer ‘I agree’ you must use wording that shows you understand how the author/director views this topic.  Suggested answer would be ‘the author endorses the value of [the idea in the prompt]’ OR ‘the author supports the idea that [concept from the text]’.

8.            Metalanguage or film-technique prompts:

This type of prompt is very similar to How-based prompts, specifically in the fact that the discussion of film element techniques is essential.  For this type of prompt specifically, however, the actual techniques used can form more of a basis for your arguments, unlike in How-based prompts.  Look at film techniques the Director has used to get his idea across about the character, theme or event and with the elements of the film explain how these features combine to help create the film’s overall meaning.  Suggested elements of CAMELS = camera techniques / acting / mise en scene / editing / lighting and sound.

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

This Resource is for Mainstream English Year 12 Students studying the novel ‘We have always lived in the castle’ by Shirley Jackson in Units 3 & 4 AOS 1.

Mary Katherine Blackwood (Merricat) Narrator

The opening chapter establishes Merricat as the 1^st person narrator of the novel who narrates using a mordant [harsh], sarcastic and biting tone but also grim humour from her own perspective. In her narrating she is unreliable as she can deceive readers when it suits her. She tells us from the start her relationship with her sister Constance and her opinion of the world which is clearly affected by her eccentric state of mind. “My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf” (p.1). She tells us about what she likes and dislikes “I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet (King of England in 1483 assassinated his 2 young nephews who stood in his way to the throne), and Amanita phalloides (poisonous death-cup mushroom). Everyone else in my family is dead.” (p.1)

Why is everyone dead?

Six years ago, the Blackwood family – John Blackwood (father to Merricat & Constance), Ellen Blackwood (mother), Aunty Dorothy (married to Julian, John’s brother) and Thomas (young brother of the girls) mysteriously died of arsenic poisoning at a family dinner. Julian survived but was disabled and mentally affected by the arsenic. Constance was tried for the murder of her family and acquitted, although everyone in the town believes she is guilty. What we learn late in the novel, though, is that it was Merricat, twelve years old at the time, who poisoned her family. She put arsenic in the sugar because she knew that her beloved sister Constance did not use sugar. Why Merricat poisoned her family is the strange terrain that Jackson’s novel explores. The answer is never entirely clear, although what is clear is that Jackson never gives us anything like a motive that would, from a normative [standard] perspective, to either explain Merricat’s actions or justify her family’s slaughter.

Why did Merricat poison her family?

Jackson’s Merricat shows herself to be angry, unruly, wilful, and resistant to change. She is also violent, describing her hatred for the villagers she encounters in her twice-weekly trips to the village; she imagines them suffering and dead on the ground. She also seems obsessed with punishment. What does become clear is that her family punished her for her wild behaviour, for roaming the grounds, burying objects, wielding her magic spells of protection around the sister she loves. Early on, Constance tells the one person who still visits the girls, a friend of her mother’s, Helen Clarke, that Merricat “was always in disgrace” and that she was a “wicked, disobedient child” (p.34). Later, in a scene that is crucial in illuminating her character, Merricat hides outdoors and fantasizes her parents talking about how she must never be punished, must never be sent to her bed without dinner; they tell Merricat’s brother to give her his dinner and insist that Merricat must always be “guarded and cherished” (p.96). One can only presume this is pretty much the opposite of how Merricat’s parents actually treated her.

Merricat’s parents punished her & sent her to bed without dinner

Jackson walks a fine line here. On the one hand, Merricat seems to have a primal intolerance for what seem to be quite acceptable forms of parental discipline. All we know for sure of Merricat’s past is that her parents punished her by sending her to bed without dinner. Merricat responds to these banal punishments with rage, and to the extent that she has a motive for killing her family, it seems to be precisely this intolerance for punishment. Merricat wanted revenge being sent to bed without dinner made her angry and she also did not have the loving family she wanted.

Merricat was singled out because she diverged from gender norms

There are also hints that Merricat was unfairly singled out by her parents because of her divergence from gender norms. There is no sense that her brother Thomas, who spent at least some time, for instance, climbing trees, was subject to the same discipline as Merricat. He got to eat his dinner. Merricat is clearly not a beautiful, charming young woman like Constance, and she is not a boy like Thomas. Herein, perhaps, lies some of Merricat’s rage and some of her justification.

Merricat is strange, weird, enigmatic, and possibly a psychopath or paranoid schizophrenic

Merricat is an isolated, estranged hypersensitive young female protagonist, socially maladroit [awkward], highly self-conscious and disdainful of others. At times she appears more childlike than her 18 years and behaves as if mildly retarded, but only outwardly, inwardly, she is razor sharp in her observations and hyperalert to threats to her wellbeing. Like any mentally damaged person she most fears change in unvarying rituals of her household. Merricat’s strangeness, her demonic energy, her predilection for magic and casting curses appears to be self-invented witchcraft but she does not align herself to the male power of Satan. For 100 pages she taunts readers with her sharp, teasing and at times funny voice, but tells us only what she wants us to know, and not why she has a complete absence of guilt for poisoning her family. It seems what Merricat wants is to be alone with her cat Jonas and with Constance. Is Merricat a typical product of small-town America? Much of Merricat’s time is spent outdoors. She appears like a tomboy who wanders in the woods, unwashed and her hair uncombed, distrustful of adults and of authority.

Could there be an unambiguous notion John Blackwood abused his two daughters?

One assumption for the reason Merricat poisoned her family was because their father was abusing Constance and herself. We do not know for sure that it was specifically sexual abuse, but it is only hinted at. But the absolute strangeness of Jackson’s novel, and Merricat Blackwood, is rendered glaringly familiar. At the root of it all is an abusive father: Merricat killed the abuser and the rest of the family who allowed the abuse to continue and then she saved her sister and herself. Charles’s similarities to Merricat’s father are made explicit several times in the book. He wears Mr. Blackwood’s clothes, he sleeps in his bed, he is greedy, much like Mr. Blackwood, (who kept a book full of names of people who owed him favours and cash.) Charles arrives around the same that Mr. Blackwood’s book falls of the tree, breaking Merricat’s “protective spell.” (p.53) All of this, along with a few of Merricat’s strange aspects leads us to believe that Merricat was sexually abused by her father. The rest of the family either did not know, or refused to do anything about it.

Hypothetical reasons why Merricat poisoned the family

It is never stated what Merricat did get sent to bed without supper, but if all of the previous evidence is considered, this is what might have taken place:

• Merricat is abused at least once by her father, probably fantasizing about her moon dreamhouse during the act. The mother witnesses, or is at the very least aware of the abuse, but does little to stop it.
• Merricat tells on her father to the rest of the family, who does not believe her, and she is sent upstairs without dinner. The only one who believes her is Constance, who was also possibly abused. She comforts Merricat.
• Merricat poisons the family for revenge. She chooses the sugar, knowing that Constance would not eat it.
• Constance washes the bowl immediately afterwards to hide any evidence that Merricat was the killer.
• Merricat does not just hate Charles because he reminds her of her father, she also hates him, at least subconsciously, because she fears he will abuse her the same way.

Merricat’s fantasies are alarmingly sadistic

Definitely Merricat’s fantasies are not only childish but alarmingly sadistic hating the villagers enough to see herself “…walking on their bodies” (p.10) and “I am going to put death in all their food and watch them die” (p.10). She has unmitigated hatred hoping the Elberts and their children were “lying there crying with pain and dying” (p.9). Certainly, the villagers taunt Merricat treating her like an outsider with the village children chanting a hectoring rhyme to intimidate her and embeds the notion that Constance poisoned her family “Merricat said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me” (p.16).

Moreover, Merricat’s hatred for cousin Charles, who has literally changed their lives when he invades the Blackwood household without having been invited, is shown clearly in Merricat’s description of him as a “ghost” (p.61) who has positioned himself at the head of the dining room table and looks like their late father. Merricat sees Charles for what he really is a scoundrel after their money and dehumanises him using her witchcraft ideas she “could turn him into a fly and drop him into a spider’s web” or she “could bury him in the hole where my box of silver dollars had been” (p.89). Merricat laughed when she found a round stone similar to the size of his head and she would bury it in the hole saying “Goodbye Charles” (p.89)

Merricat’s Confesion p. 130

Throughout the novel there is the prevailing threat of the murderous Merricat whose fantasy life is obsessed with rituals of power, dominance, and revenge “bow your heads to our beloved Mary Katherine … or you will be dead” (p.111). Certainly, it is the hideous arsenic deaths that constitute the secret heart of the novel and how could such a passive character like Constance be accused of murder when she acknowledges Merricat did poison the family on page 130. Merricat “I put it in the sugar”. Constance “I know, I knew then”. Merricat “You never used sugar”. Constance “No”. Merricat “So I put it in the sugar”. Constance sighed “Merricat we’ll never talk about it again. Never” (p.130). So, the sisters are linked forever by the deaths of their family, as in a quasi-spiritual-incestuous bond by which each holds the other in thrall.

The sisters are finally happy in their ‘castle’

It is also true that by isolating themselves after the fire from a world that hates them, treating them as others, the sisters are happy at last. Possibly Merricat who is psychologically damaged would not survive in a world of normal people and Constance helps to protect her sister from the cruel people and live in their house that had turned into a magical place transformed “Our house was a castle, turreted and open to the sky” (p.120). Against all expectations the Blackwood sisters are happy in their private paradise “on the moon” (p.133).

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

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

Director Billy Wilder

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

Genre

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

Cinematic Elements of Film Noir

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

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

Voice-Over Narrator

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

Story of the Film in a Nutshell

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

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

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

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

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

‘Sunset Boulevard’ Explores the American National Psyche

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

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

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

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

Joe Gillis Investigates the Events that led to his Own Murder

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

Main Characters
Joe Gillis	Played by William Holden a struggling young screen writer transforms into Norma’s gigolo making him dependent on her and impossible to escape the ‘femme fatal’ figure
Norma Desmond	Played by Gloria Swanson a faded, narcissistic, eccentric, former silent screen star demoralised by Hollywood but obsessed with her own needs to the detriment of Gillis as she manipulates him dragging Joe into her deluded world
Max Von Mayerling	Played by Erich von Stroheim Norma’s first husband and butler feeds Norma’s obsessions and shields her from the brutal fact her career is over and exacerbates her illusions
Betty Schaefer	Played by Nancy Olson a budding writer and Joe’s love interest is the antithesis of Norma

Themes
superficial celebrity image	control	love
deceit	Death & murder	self-delusion & insanity
discontent	Hollywood’s post war role	The role of art and the artist as an individual creator
The price of fame & the dream factory of Hollywood	Legacy of the film industry’s past	cruel star system in Hollywood

Symbols
Norma’s mansion	Joe’s car	the dead chimpanzee
swimming pool	importance of faces

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian VCE Curriculum 2024

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

Introduction

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

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

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

Who was the Author Shirley Jackson?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Constance Blackwood – Protagonist and Sister to Merricat

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

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

What Prompted the Girl’s Mental Problems?

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

The Importance of the Setting of ‘The Castle’

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

Conclusion about the Novel

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

Main Characters
Mary Katherine (Merricat) Blackwood – narrator & protagonist	Constance Blackwood – older sister of Merricat & progatonist	Uncle Julian Blackwood – brother of John Blackwood & uncle to the 2 girls
Charles Blackwood – cousin to the girls & main antagonist	Jonas – Merricat’s cat	Helen Clarke – old friend of the Blackwood family
Stella – runs a café in the village	Jim Donell – one of the villagers who hates the Blackwoods	Jim Clarke – husband of Helen

Themes
Female power & female powerlessness	Home as a sanctuary or confinement	Patriarchal society & male power
Sexual repression	Vengeance & dislike of change	Sadistic fantasies & hate
Family & gender & human nature	Innocence & guilt & punishment	Isolation & sacrifice
Relativity of truth	Witchcraft	Mental & personality disorders
Murder & evil & horror	Abusive society & otherness	Fear & being haunted

Symbols
Food & ritual meals	The poisoned sugar	The moon
The Blackwood’s house & its property	The cellar in the house	Jonas Merricat’s cat
Amanita phalloides – death cap mushroom – poisonous	Merricat’s rituals & magic	Constance & Merricat’s household rituals
The safe & money

Irony
Merricat is the actual murderer (situational irony)	The villager’s views of justice (dramatic irony)	Julian’s view of Merricat (dramatic irony)
Constance as undutiful daughter (verbal irony)

Imagery
The Blackwood house	The Blackwood’s land	Jonas’s restlessness
The moon	Constance & Merricat’s appearance	The village setting

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This Resource is for students in Year 12 studying ‘Go, Went, Gone’ in the Victorian VCE Mainstream English Curriculum

Genre

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

Structure

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

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

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

Libyan Civil War in 2011

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

Seeking Asylum in Europe

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

Laws and Regulations on Asylum Seekers

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

The Text from Richard’s Perspective

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

Characters
Richard – protagonist, retired professor of philology becomes interested in the refugee men’s issues. His life journey changes perspective to become their friend & the shared human experience of empathy for their plight.	Detlef & Sylvia – close friends of Richard, share history of Richard’s wife’s death & offer him a sounding board for his feelings towards the refugees.	Jorg & Monika – friends of Richard’s whose attitudes towards the refugees show a lack of empathy and make jokes about Richard’s relationship with them.
Rashid – Richard calls the Olympian/the thunderbolt-hurler.  Lost his children on the voyage from Africa.  Was a metalworker and is frustrated at his inability to work.	Apollo – Richard names him after the Greek God.  He is a Tuareg man from the desert.	Osarobo – Richard teaches him piano at his home and he is convinced Europeans think black men are criminals.
Karon – first seen by Richard sweeping and his actions seem futile without hope.  Richard buys Karon’s family land in Ghana.	Awad – Richard calls Tristan.  His father was killed by Gaddafi’s men & Awad fled on a boat for Europe.	Rufu – a silent and brooding figure that later Richard finds out was prescribed tranquilisers but after his tooth was filled, he came back to full health.

Themes
Immigration & the refugee crisis	Changing perspectives	The meaning of life
Freedom & confinement	Importance of the past	Barriers & borders
Accommodation	Empathy	Storytelling
Privilege & identity	Movement of displaced people	Legacy of European humanism
Lost futures and German past	GDR & The Berlin Wall	Laws & regulations on refugees Dublin II

Symbols
The dead man in the lake	Language barriers & learning German language ‘go, went, gone’	Music & piano
Bodies of water	Borders	The ‘iron law’

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

Author

Gabriel García Márquez

Year Published

1981

Type

Novella

Genre

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

Perspective and Narrator

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

Tense

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

About the Title

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

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Character Analysis

Narrator

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

Santiago Nasar

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

Angela Vicario

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

Pablo Vicario

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

Pedro Vicario

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

Plácida Linero

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

Bayardo San Román

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

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Plot Summary

Epigraph from Portuguese Playwright Gil Vincente about Falconry & Finding Love

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

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

Chapter 1

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

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

Chapter 2

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

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

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

Chapter 3

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

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

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

Chapter 4

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

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

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

Chapter 5

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

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

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

THEMES
honour & gender machismo & marianismo	revenge	expectations on women and men & purity of women
dishonour	fairness	sanctity & Christ
deception	supernatural	fate & chance
sacrifice	choice	memory & confusion
death & murder	truth & false truth	complicity & guilt
authority	loyalty	moral compass
SYMBOLS
falconry & birds	the bishop	natural world
the river	flowers real & artificial	dreams
magic surrealism	animals	the cult of death linked to Christ’s crucifixion
smells	the weather	flying
Biblical references	knives

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