This resource is for students studying the film ‘Rear Window’ in the Victorian Mainstream English Curriculum.

It is important to include Message of Hitchcock as Director in your Analytical Text Response Essays.

Below are Themes with Message of Director for Revision.

Themes: Voyeurism, Ethics, Morality, Looking, Seeing & The Male Gaze

Message of Director = Hitchcock does argue that voyeurism is in poor taste, but that it is also a natural aspect of the human condition to look and spy on other people.  Hitchcock sends Jeff and the audience a message to choose carefully at what you look at because you might get involved in something more serious than you bargained for. 

Themes: Community, Social Isolation, Loneliness, Alienation, Sights & Sounds

Message of Director = Hitchcock critiques the lack of neighbourly love for each other in the apartment block and the lack of trust which ultimately displays the apathy of the 1950’s society.  Hitchcock demonstrates flaws in communal living between having a sense of community and looking out for one’s neighbours, but straying into voyeuristic territory.

Theme: Gender

Message of Director = Jeff’s perspective and male gaze allows males a measure of control and denies a female perspective in the film.  Hitchcock portrays Lisa as embodying changes in the position of women in 1950’s, wanting the audience to consider women should not be underestimated.

Themes: Love & Marriage

Message of Director = Hitchcock suggests the need for love and for connectedness of others is essential in our existence.  Hitchcock portrays relationships characterised by dissatisfaction and at times violent impulses.  Cynically, Hitchcock suggests marital discontent is inevitable.

Themes: Confinement versus Expansion

Message of Director = Hitchcock demonstrates a society in which people are isolated in their own worlds without taking risks and living a narrow existence.  He is somewhat pessimistic, though not completely hopeless, he challenges audiences to examine habits of their own especially in a world where sensitive information is at our fingertips. 

Themes: Post-war Paranoia & Red Scare & Title Significance

Message of Director = Hitchcock critiques the notion of post-war paranoia by showing how the communist red scare pervaded 50’s society where neighbours spied on neighbours, the atmosphere of betrayal, lack of trust filtered down from HUAC to every part of American society.  Hitchcock’s title ‘Rear Window’ also functions as a metaphor exposing Jeff’s repressed desires and fears but also the idea of a covert agenda, which is Jeff’s ethically murky voyeurism that uncovers a murder.

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

This Resource is for Mainstream English Students studying ‘The Women of Troy’ by Euripides in the Victorian Curriculum.

What do we know about Helen?

The mythology of Helen places her as a siren, an adulteress; most legends have her leaving Menelaus of her own volition, though some say she was under the power of Aphrodite. Regardless, she is stigmatised in Ancient Greece as a loose woman, unfaithful to her husband, responsible for thousands of deaths during the 10 year Trojan War.

Modern western adaptations, however, treat Helen very differently: she was married young, treated as a prize, and finds true love with Prince Paris of Troy, with whom she escapes her loveless marriage and unhappy life. This latter characterisation certainly colours the lens through which the modern reader views Helen, and draws one of many clear distinctions between how elements of ‘The Women of Troy’ are experienced differently by the primary and secondary audiences.

In the play ‘The Women of Troy’ by Euripides, Helen is hated even by Poseidon; he does not see her as an innocent victim of Paris’s lust and Aphrodite’s interference, instead believing it is ‘quite right’ that she is ‘a prisoner, like the rest’.

Helen’s appearance also plays a role in how she is perceived by other characters

Helen’s appearance also plays a role in how she is perceived by other characters. She is the only female in the play not debased, she is dressed to kill and enters not pleading but complaining at the undignified treatment she received at the hands of Menelaus guards “your guards have dragged me out here in front of the building with such violence and contempt”. Hecuba disdainfully accuses Helen of ‘parad[ing] yourself’ before Menelaus, but if Helen pulls out her hair, scratches her face (as the other women in mourning have done), she has no leverage with Menelaus. Her beauty is her only weapon (and it connects her to Zeus); however, her beauty (and others value of it) also contributes to the stigma of ‘Helen the harlot’.

In mythology Helen is often referred to as belonging to a place or a man, for example, ‘Helen of Sparta’, ‘Helen of Troy’; she is an attraction, not a person. Euripides furthers this notion of Helen as property, e.g. ‘Menelaus’ Helen’, but interestingly, she is never referred to as ‘Paris’s Helen’ by Hecuba or any other Trojans, presumably in an effort to distance Paris from blame for the war. Helen is dehumanised, reduced to quarry by Cassandra: ‘These Greeks … sent a hunting party to track down Helen, to smoke her out’; yet Helen refers to herself as ‘Exported … a saleable asset’.

When women were generally written out of history, Helen of Troy was written in 

As her story passed down the generations it held up a mirror to the prejudices of society and to some of its truths.  Helen in Homer’s The Illiad declares ‘on us has been sent an evil destiny, that we should be a singer’s theme for generations to come’.  How prophetic, Helen might not be real, but she never loses her relevance. 

Is Helen a mere puppet of the men who wanted her?

Helen might be seen as a mere puppet, the victim of the gods and of the men who wanted her. But as Blondell insists, “her complicity is essential to her story.” Helen is abducted, but she is never simply passive. She agrees to go with Paris, although different versions of the story suggest different degrees of willingness. Both Paris and Helen are victims of lust, but are still committing an action and incurring moral responsibility for the deaths that result: “such acts are still acts.” The verbs most commonly used for Helen’s journey are all active: she left, she went, she sailed away.

Helen’s manipulation of Menelaus is helped by his weakness for her

When Menelaus arrives on the shores of Troy he does so unashamedly to claim back the woman that jilted him and seeks selfish revenge, not for the myriad of deaths she has caused by her actions, but to serve his own vain purpose. Menelaus values himself and everyone else is worthless, his revenge is clear “This most glorious of days when I shall finally get my hands on that wife of mine, Helen. Yes, I am the man Menelaus, who for ten years have endured this terrible war”. He has sacked Troy, killed Paris and “made him pay” and is happy that Helen is a prisoner who has been “counted into this temporary prison with the rest of the Trojan women”. He expects to see Helen in ruins, crawling and begging him for mercy when Menelaus commands the guards to “bring her out here, drag her out by the hair, sticky with dead men’s blood”. Instead Helen is composed and as Hecuba warned wearing make-up, well dressed and neatly brushed hair, nothing like a grieving widow or person who has any feelings of remorse. Menelaus is unprepared to see Helen in such a beautiful state and his vulnerability towards her explains his inability to decisively execute her in Troy.

Hecuba warns Menelaus that Helen is not just manipulative but dangerous

Hecuba knows how manipulative Helen is and the power of lust that self-centred Menelaus has such a weakness shows that he can easily succumb to Helen’s beauty. Hecuba warns him “If you mean to kill your wife, Menelaus, you’ll have my support. But don’t see her, don’t risk becoming a slave of your lust again”. As a result of this, the concept of his masculinity is put under scrutiny when Hecuba warns him against behaving “worthy of yourself [himself]…your race and of your family” and proving those that “called you [him] womanish” wrong by executing Helen swiftly and justly; associating mercy with a diluted sense of masculinity. Hecuba knows how Helen puts a spell on men and how dangerous she is “She makes men’s eyes her prisoners, she sacks whole cities, burns houses to the ground with that bewitching smile!” Menelaus says he wants Helen handed over to him “to kill her here on the spot” but shows his weakness when he adds “unless I decide to take her back to our Argive homeland”. His statement shows that he desires to postpone Helen’s death and does not intend to actually carry it out himself. His resolve to kill Helen is also shown to be weakened further when he states that “nothing definite was decided” about her fate.

Helen’s powerful speech to Menelaus blames everyone else but herself

In juxtaposition to the male character of Menelaus, Euripides presents a far more calculating character of his Greek wife Helen with ulterior motives that will continue their manipulation if given the chance. Helen’s refusal to admit defeat and her insistence that she is innocent is compounded as she makes attempts to alleviate the burden of guilt and place some on ‘Hecuba’s evil genius’ and the gods for their games. Helen’s powerful speech to Menelaus is brash and confident, shameless, blames everyone else not herself “To Paris … he destroyed Troy, Priam did, the old King, and he destroyed me too”. Helen claims she was just an asset, blameless “exported, I was, sold off abroad, my exceptional beauty was a saleable asset for Greece”. Helen stands firm saying she wasn’t happy in Troy in “abject slavery” and tried to escape and then shifts blame to the gods and false claims of being raped. The Chorus replies to Helen’s speech calling her arguments “for what they are, fluent, but wicked. She’s a dangerous woman!” Hecuba agrees and wants to expose “this woman’s slanders for the rubbish they are!”

It seems an important message that Euripides was keen to inject is that of the strength of a Greek woman like Helen. Even when she was disempowered after the sacking of Troy, her strength lies in her refusal to admit defeat. Euripides shows her ulterior motive of manipulation is more powerful than just a beautiful legend as told in other mythological retellings. 

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This Resource is for Mainstream English students studing ‘The Women of Troy’ play by Euripides in the English Curriculum in Victoria.

What is the Meaning of Euripides Play?

Many of the themes and issues Euripides presents in ‘The Women of Troy’ are confronting because Euripides means to confront us in every literal understanding of the word.  The audience is forced to recognise and grapple with tremendous philosophical questions: Is this humanity? Is this morality? Is this a just war? He also makes the audience face their own moral inadequacies, as Euripides holds a mirror up to Athens.  Euripides believed that it is women and children who pay the ultimate sacrifice for war; they suffer through it and suffer after it, as society’s most vulnerable, at the hands of the powerful.  The play makes extensive moral arguments against unjust conduct in war by presenting a sympathetic look at the great suffering experienced by the vanquished women of Troy being at the mercy of their brutal Greek victors.  Euripides play is both anti-war and pro-feminist.  By giving power to the Trojan women through his narrative, he renders them as complete, complex people with strong voices, if not influence over their eventual fates.  Even though slaughtering the men of Troy, sacking their city and sending their women away to be slaves was standard military practice at the time, Euripides chastises the Greek victors for their violence, comparing them with the volatile barbarians whom they routinely disparaged [mocked].

Themes

The Cost of War               Euripides chose to focus on the aftermath of war and gives the women and children victims of war a voice in his play.  He highlights how the women are treated like chattels divided up between their Greek victors and the atrocities of war on innocent people.  Quote: “This is the crown of my sufferings, my last ordeal: to sail away and leave Troy in flames” (Hecuba).

Duty and Honour             Hecuba and Andromache cling to the ideas of obligation and duty and are honourable women who built reputations in respect of their royal positions in Troy.  Euripides places emphasis on a citizen’s service to family, friends and country which continues long after the death of their menfolk.  Quote: Hecuba as leader of the women is “a mother bird at her plundered nest”.

Fate                                       It is not until the last remaining lines of the play that Hecuba acknowledges the Trojans have always been fated with ill-luck and pleads with the gods to find another people to exercise their dastardly plans on.  Euripides argues that fortunes are changeable and tragedy indiscriminate.  Quote: “For what purpose have we suffered?  Why call on them [gods] we called before and they did not listen” (Hecuba).

Loss                                       The play is about loss on several levels – loss of a great war, loss of many lives both Trojan and Greek and the continual loss experienced by the survivors of war.  The Trojan women have lost many things in a physical sense and symbolically they have also lost power, position and Troy. Quote: “How must I deal with my grief?” (Hecuba) “What words of yours can release pity to match your pain?” (The Chorus)

Gender                                Menelaus is portrayed in the play as weak and officious while the other male Talthybius is represented as sensitive and decent but torn between his chivalrous inclinations and his duty as a Greek soldier.  In juxtaposition Euripides injects into the play the strength of the women who are disempowered.  He portrays Helen as more than just the beautiful legend, rather he presents her as a more calculating character with ulterior motives.  He presents Hecuba as one who has reasoning and strength of leadership, Andromache has pragmatism and Cassandra has revenge.  Quote: He puts masculinity under the microscope when Hecuba warns Menelaus about Helen and him behaving “worthy of yourself … your race and of your family” (Hecuba)

Social Class                         After Troy is destroyed all the women prisoners are reduced to equality and united in their suffering and loss.  Euripides chose to be realistic in his depiction of the Trojan royalty despite their torment, he comments on their social fall, deterioration of the class system and now they are reduced to mere slaves.  Quote: “Everything is turned upside down: royalty enslaved” (Andromache) “No queen’s bed for me now: I shall lay my shrivelled body to rest on the floor, and wear faded, worn rags to match my skin and mock my royalty” (Hecuba)

Symbols

The Flaming Torch           By entering the scene carrying a flaming torch, Cassandra is not only heralded as being different from the other women but also a vestibule of foresight.  The torch can be seen as hope to the women ordering them to “raise the torch and fling the flame … flood the walls with holy light” (Cassandra).  Also, the flaming torch can symbolise destruction of Troy at the end of the play “Let those officers appointed to fire the city now bring out their torches and use them well.  Up with the flames” (Talthybius).  The flaming torch can also symbolise the destruction Cassandra will reek on Agamemnon and his family when she sails to Greece as his slave.

The Walls of Troy             Poseidon, God of the Sea exclaims the sorrow he feels as the great city of Troy and its magnificent walls crumble “Troy and its people were my city.  That ring of walls and towers I and Apollo built, squared every tone in it”.  The significance of the high walls of Troy are symbolic of a great city, good people and a great royal line, but also symbolise fallibility of the gods and the things the people of Troy cherished can easily be destroyed and brought down low.  Significantly, the death of Astaynax who is thrown from the walls that should have protected him now are part of his brutal death.  Talthybius says the young prince’s end is nasty “You must climb to the topmost fringe of your father’s towers, where the sentence says you must leave your life behind”.

Hector’s Shield                 The great shield of the Trojan prince Hector “the bravest of the Trojans” holds a special memory to those who loved him the most, his wife Andromache and his mother Hecuba.  The shield first appears when Andromache enters the stage with her son on her lap and the shield by her side along with Hector’s armour.  The saddest mention of the shield is when the body of Astaynax, broken and bloodied is carried atop it, toted by Talthybius and Greek soldiers.  Talthybius carries the boy on the shield to give to Hecuba to bury.  Andromache begged to give the child a proper burial with “this bronze-ribbed shield … which used to protect his father’s body in battle, should serve him instead as a coffin”.  While Hector was protected in many battles from the shield, it was powerless to protect him from his ultimate death and also the death of his son and family.  The shield in this instance also symbolises the dying of the Trojan royal family and the tragedy of the play.

Waves/Ocean                   As they wait shackled at the shore, the Aegean Sea serves as a constant reminder to the Trojan women that their fate is inevitable and soon, they will be parted from each other and will sail to their allotted locations in Greece.  Much like the tempestuous ocean, their future is unpredictable and lonely.  Hecuba has never sailed but considers the waves of the ocean as like fortune, calm or stormy and sailors helpless to do anything but submit to them “The tide has turned at length/Ebb with the tide, drift helpless down/Useless to struggle on/Breasting the storm when Fate prevails” (Hecuba)

Helen’s Clothing              In direct contrast to the haggard appearance of the other Trojan women prisoners, Helen’s rich robes symbolise her difference from them and hint to the audience she will again live on the side of victory with Menelaus.  Her appearance and hair are kept neatly symbolising how she will use her beauty to manipulate Menelaus to forgive her and not behead her as he said he would do.  If Helen had pulled out her hair, scratched her face (as other women in mourning have done), she would have no leverage with Menelaus.  Her beauty is her weapon.  Hecuba exposes Helen’s superficiality and greed believing her dress and grooming shows “loathsome impudence” and that Helen feels no guilt for her past crimes.

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Years 11 and 12 VCE Mainstream English Students in the Victorian Curriculum

This Resource is for Mainstream English Students studying the play ‘Extinction’ by Hannie Rayson in the Victorian Curriculum.

Analysing Characters in a Drama

When characters are portrayed by actors, characterisation depends on what is conveyed through visuals and sound as much as on the words in their dialogue. In this way playwrights can directly portray the many ways in which people communicate without using words. They can also use the aural qualities of speech to enhance and sometimes complicate the literal meaning of the character’s dialogue.

Characters and Stage Directions

When analysing a play script it is important to remember that the play is meant to be performed in front of an audience. While students are reading the play, take particular notice of the stage directions that can indicate essential visual elements of character, such as costumes, facial expressions and body movements. Pay attention to how the Director Hannie Rayson wants a word or line to be delivered by the actor, perhaps indicating an emotion such as anger or empathy and the vocal tone. The tone in the character’s language can link with the way the Director wants to convey information about the characters and how these words convey ideas and values to the audience.

Characters and Relationships

In the play ‘Extinction’ the physical interactions with other characters is relevant to the themes and values Hannie Rayson wants the audience to connect with and reflect on their own values. Within the structure of the play all characters have equally important parts. Note how the Director wants to reinforce relatonships through thoughts and feelings and differences of opinions. The play presents the values of characters through their intense relationships with each other and the conflicts that arise between them. In ‘Extinction’ several characters compromise their core values in order to achieve their goals and the play highlights their difficult choices linking the tension between economic and environmental values that Hannie Rayson wants to endorse. It is Piper who says “We all exist in relationship with one another” and the concept of how vulnerable all life on earth is conveyed through the relationships of the characters in the play. Hannie Rayson wants to draw attention to how we all exist in relationship with other living creatures. She also wants the audience to recognise that human beings can be vulnerable and at times influenced by others in negative ways.

A Brief Synopsis of the Characters from the play ‘Extinction’:

• Piper Ross

Dr Piper Ross is a 30-year-old American zoologist on secondment from the San Diego Zoo.  Piper works at CAPE and volunteers at a wildlife rescue centre in the Cape Otway rainforest run by veterinarian and boyfriend Andy Dixon.  Piper views the Otways as “paradise” (p.103) and values the restorative qualities of the Australian bush where her time in the wilderness allows her the chance to “renew” (p.78) herself to experience “awe” and “to feel reverence” (p.78).

An idealist who believes that all species are “worth saving” (p.83).  Piper is optimistic that “everyone transforming the way they live” (p.113) will be what saves the planet from destructive forces.  As a woman who values all life and considers it the role of every member of the human species to safeguard the lives of all animals, her anger at Andy when he euthanises the wounded tiger quoll is palpable. 

She is emotional and at times her judgement can be clouded.  While she is in love with Andy, she is unsure about his commitment to her which leads to her compromising her beliefs and values by having a sexual relationship with Harry Jewell and accepting a job from him.  She tells Harry that she wants to be a person who “faces up to things” (p.116) and ultimately, she is able to make a strong commitment to stand by her own words “if you loved someone and they were dying, you would do everything you could to help them (p.90).  This shows her courage and compassion.  It also enables her to redeem herself for the abandonment of her principles and her earlier betrayal of Andy.

• Andy Dixon

Andy Dixon is the 35-year-old brother of Heather Dixon-Brown, in a relationship with Piper Ross, a vet and a committed conservationist, who is suffering from GSS a rare, hereditary, fatal neurodegenerative disease.  Andy, like the quoll, is a symbol of imminent extinction.  Rayson’s portrayal of Andy as the innocent victim of circumstances beyond his control reinforces a thematic link between him and the quoll.

Until the end of the play, only he and Heather know about his illness.  His seemingly heartless euthanising of the dying quoll reflects his embittered attitude to his own inevitable death.  He is unwilling to reveal the truth about his condition to Piper knowing she is the sort of person to “stay up all night looking after a bloody possum” (p.86) and rejects her desire to “marry … have babies and live in a house together” (p.104) seems to be part of his desire to spare her the pain of watching him degenerate and die.

He is an idealist who is passionate about the natural world and shows a strong commitment to environment values by condemning mining and even disapproves of using computers to run a diary farm (p.82).  Yet he is also “stubborn” and “rude” (p.106) when he disagrees or dislikes people.  This is true about his views of Heather’s acceptance of funds from Harry Jewell as “environmental vandalism” (p.119). 

Ultimately, Andy’s cynical worldview is challenged by the appearance of a live tiger quoll at the play’s conclusion.  In highlighting the fragility of life, Rayson reminds audiences not to take our survival, either as individuals or as a species for granted.

• Heather Dixon-Brown

The 50-year-old director of CAPE, Heather Dixon-Brown, is the sister of Andy, boss of Piper, an ecologist in the process of a divorce and is acutely aware of her responsibility to ensure funding for the institute and the 25 people on staff at the institute who “rely on [her] to come up with their salaries” (p.79).  At first, she is portrayed to be a morally upright character, pragmatic and intelligent, aware of the issues that conservation faces with limited funding available.

Heather’s desire to assist endangered species with her Dixon-Brown Index is moderated by a realistic understanding that “You should only invest in those that are going to give you a good return” (p.99).  When Harry Jewell arrives on the scene, she compromises her environmental principles and her professional ethics by accepting his “dirty money” (p.100) and by sleeping with him.  She also uses spite and jealousy to try and get rid of Piper as a rival for Harry’s affections.  Rayson shows a stereotypical representation of an older woman who regards her own old age a disadvantage against the younger, Piper that Harry finds attractive, simply because he “prefer[s] a younger woman” (p.129).

• Harry Jewell

A 45-year-old MD of Powerhouse Mining, Harry Jewell is recently divorced and has returned to the Otways in search of comfort.  Introduced by Rayson at the start of the play as a sensitive, charming and responsible character who is trying to save a quoll he has accidently hit, as the play progresses the audience see there are hidden depths and complexities to his character.  Andy calls him “Mr Evil” (p.80) and as such Harry has little sympathy for the farmers whose land he will destroy in his search for coal.  As a ruthless and heartless businessman, he is unlike the tender-hearted quoll rescuer in the opening scene of the play.

The audience and Piper struggle to come to terms with a man whose money enables him to live “a big life” (p.113) but who also seeks to use his fortune to do what he can to save the tiger quoll from extinction.  He recognises the harm the coal industry has done to the environment but also contends that “if you want to make a difference to the environment you have to be rich” (p.113).

Harry is also a shrewd operator, convincing Heather to accept funding from a coalmining company and uses his sexual power to exploit both Heather and Piper for his own enjoyment.  While he complains about his wife’s infidelity, he seems untroubled by his own duplicity. 

Through the construction of Harry’s character, Rayson makes a strong connection with the notion of extinction.  As a miner of coal, not only will Harry further erode the habitat of endangered species, but coal-fired energy will increase greenhouse gases, contributing to the unsustainability of life on earth (and hence extinction).

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