Fear and Mass Hysteria in ‘The Crucible’ and Arthur Miller’s Views on the Play

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This resource is for Mainstream English students studying the play ‘The Crucible’ in the Victorian Curriculum for Years 11 & 12

Theme of Fear & Mass Hysteria

An important theme is that of fear and mass hysteria which leads to extreme acts in the play as the human inclination to ascribe blame for pain and suffering to others and then destroy the supposedly guilty party surfaces. In Salem the witch trials are a clear example of mass hysteria, with residents engulfed in a frenzy of accusations.

Context of Fear & Mass Hysteria in Salem

In ‘The Crucible’  Salem is a strict religious community where superstition is rife and scientific explanations minimal. In the puritanical colony of Massachusetts, reading books other than the Bible was forbidden, hence any scientific thinking was unlikely.

Mass hysteria and mob violence can infect the collective consciousness when fear, ignorance and isolation are not countered with universal education.  In Salem, personal vengeance, paranoia and fear, rather than grief and illness, is what escalates the social panic.

Miller writes that because ‘it is impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin’ Salem, and analogously his own 1950’s zeitgeist, was ‘gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes.’ Such binary thinking and absolutism is another catalyst for mass panic or mob violence.

The society in Salem is spurred on to collective hysteria by a dualistic belief that things they don’t understand or can’t explain must be ‘evil’. Satan, when referred to in the Bible, is thought of as the evil one, the tempter, the wicked one. To the people of Salem, the Devil is the adversary of God and an invisible threat. But Miller’s audience sees that it is the villagers’ own inner demons that bubble to the surface and wreak havoc on the town, combined with their irrationality.

Martha Corey has done nothing particularly adversarial, she merely reads books that are not approved of by her neighbours, but she finds herself charged as a witch.

The end of Act One and Act Three of the play show just how infectious a group mentality can be. Close study of Miller’s acting directions in these two sections of the play reveals the range of causes for such a frenzy; whether that be characters offloading their own shame and resentment, or being so fearful of punishment that they will say anything to avoid it.

Briefly What is Causing Fear in The Crucible?

  • In ‘The Crucible’ Abigail and the group of girls spark fear in the town after being accused of engaging in sacrilegious activities while playing in the forest
  • The people in Salem are convinced that the Devil has arrived and must be driven from his conspirators
  • What begins with a handful of girls dancing in the forest manifests within eight days into a society whose feverish desire to rid itself of an unseen evil allows the suspending of human decency
  • Unfortunately fear leads to a rapidly growing series of accusations against various members of the community
  • Innocent people are labelled witches and forced to confess or suffer death

What does Miller Believe about the Spread of Fear?

  • Miller presents the witch hunt then as a consequence of the hysterical fear that grips citizens when faced with social and religious upheaval
  • Miller seeks not only to explore the evolution of mass hysteria but additionally to delve into what causes individuals to abandon personal loyalties in such times
  • Even justice and reason are sacrificed and religion, which should provide a moral and ethical blueprint, is used to fuel the emerging fear and hysteria
  • The theocratic society in Salem and the power of the state is under threat as individuals begin to question entrenched conservative, Puritan religious values
  • Miller explains this as a paradox as individuals seek greater freedom they become a threat to the religious and political status quo

Arthur Miller was interviewed about why he wrote ‘The Crucible’and his thoughts about fear, hysteria and the threat of the Devil in Salem.  See Arthur Miller’s views:

Fear Motivates People to Behave Unscrupulously in The Crucible

As Miller comments (on page 17 of the play in his notes before Act One), that “Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord”.

  • Personal fears instigate some characters to cry witch
  • Reverend Parris fears losing his job provokes him to cry witch and if Abigail is exposed as the fraud she is he will be punished for supporting an illegitimate court procedure
  • Parris also fears that the rebellion in Andover about the hangings will occur similarly in Salem
  • Abigail uses fear of consorting with the Devil in her motives of vengeance against Elizabeth Proctor to accuse her of witchcraft
  • The group of girls do what Abigail says for fear of getting caught so deflecting blame away from themselves is their only option
  • The Putnams use fear and the hysteria of the accusations for self interest in acquiring land from those about to hang
  • Deputy Governor Danforth uses the fear as a reason for his agenda to protect his reputation, the court and the theocracy it serves

Mob Mentality, Punitive Justice & Binary Thinking

‘The Crucible’ is a legal drama. An entire scene takes place in the Salem meeting house which is now Judge Danforth’s court, but every scene in the play is concerned with the process of arriving at a legal judgement. Because the play is an analogy for Senator McCarthy’s HUAC hearings, the audience is positioned to regard the justice system of Salem as being similarly flawed and equally ideologically motivated. Justice is not delivered by this legal system.

Indeed, the audience is led to the conclusion that the most dangerous person in the play is Judge Danforth. His lack of mercy, his willingness to believe evidence that has no proof, and his preoccupation with his own reputation, all serve to remind Miller’s audience that justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.

In ‘The Crucible’, Elizabeth humbly tells her husband that she cannot judge him; ‘The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you. I never thought you but a good man, John’ (p. 55). Elizabeth believes in the supremacy of the individual’s conscience, of his own accountability for decisions and actions. Miller shows that only when John Proctor explores the depths of his own guilt can he begin the redemptive process.

At the end of the play he dies on his own terms and sees ‘some shred of goodness’ in his decision.  Proctor does not fear death because he has made his peace with himself and is free from self-admonition. His death is a great injustice, but the courage and moral conviction he shows is his legacy and his epitaph.

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Understanding Characters in Texts Years 11/12 English

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Year 11/12 students studying Mainstream English texts in AOS1: Reading and Creating Texts and Reading and Comparing Texts, need to look carefully at the characters in their texts to be able to write an analytical interpretation for their SACs and the final English exam.

Understanding Characters in Texts

Characters generate the action of narratives /plays / films so they engage us as readers / viewers by their roles in the stories and we often become emotionally engaged by their fortunes and misfortunes, their aspirations and challenges.  If we understand the characters we come a long way to understanding the themes and values presented in the text and how the author constructs meaning.

What Do We Need to Know About Characters?

To build an understanding of characters it is a good idea to create a list of information about them that includes:

  1. Their name and age that spans the narrative
  2. If they are a protagonist (main character) or minor character
  3. Where they live or if they move around in the narrative
  4. If there is a description of what they look like (will be able to see a physical appearance if in a play or film)
  5. Their main personal qualities, attitudes and values, decisions and choices made, life experiences (which may change as the narrative develops)
  6. Relationships with other characters and interactions with others
  7. Key allies and enemies
  8. Key events in the narrative that affect their lives ie. crisis points or resolution

How Do Characters Respond at Crisis Points in the Narrative or Change as Events Unfold?

Characters can be tested at crisis and turning points in the narrative and are forced to make choices and decisions, which in turn reveal their true priorities and aspirations.  Difficult choices and decisions that characters make in narrative texts are closely linked to ideas and values.

Like real people characters are not static but develop and adapt sometimes changing dramatically.  Important changes should be noted such as a shift in the way a character thinks or interacts with another, a transformation of the way they think of themselves and a change in their own beliefs and values.

The Importance of Narrative Viewpoint

The narrative viewpoint determines what we know about the characters and how we as readers relate to them.  Narrative viewpoint perspectives are:

  1. First Person Narrative Voice = Where a character uses the first person ‘I’ gives an inside account of events but limits the reader’s knowledge to one person’s perspective.
  2. Third Person Narrative Voice = Where the voice is located outside the text and uses ‘he, she, they’ to give a more detached and objective account. In effect the reader is put in a position of observer rather than participant.  May be an ‘omniscient’ or all knowing narrator which allows the reader to know the thoughts and feelings of as many characters as the author wishes.  This narrator encourages the reader to form their own judgements and see complexities in issues.

Characters in Non-Fiction

In a non-fiction narrative the author portrays real people rather than imaginary ones and so they have to stick to the real facts and may be even have photographs of the characters in the text.  However, the author’s own attitudes towards the characters can affect the way the reader interprets those characters.  In effect readers are subjected to the feelings of the author about the character and sometimes these feelings can be extremely subjective.

Characters in Drama and Films

Characters portrayed by actors in plays and films are obviously conveyed visually and by sound as much as the words in their dialogue.  In this way other elements help to make viewers understand a character either by visual elements such as costumes, sets, facial expressions and body movements.  Conveying meaning can be shown through directors stage directions, mise en scene, camera angles, sound tracks, music as well as the actors own style and how they represent the character they are portraying.

Identifying Themes, Ideas and Values of Characters

It is really important to identify the main themes, ideas and values of characters so you can respond to the perspective of the author through their characters and also explore the ‘big picture’ the text is trying to explore.

  1. What is a Theme?

Themes are more general terms that the author is either showing clearly or inferring by implication repeated throughout the whole text.  These general themes can be perspectives explored in texts such as:

growing up gender issues
love family
injustice prejudice
war power
survival
  1. What is an Idea?

An idea reflects on part of the theme and is the author’s message about the topic.  Think of an idea as part of the big picture that the text uses as its conduit to explore the main theme.  You can discuss different ideas and characters highlighting through their difference how people are and see the world.  Ideas can reflect the discoveries, emotions, conflicts, and experiences of a story’s main character.  They are commentaries about the way the world works and or how the author views human existence.

  1. What is a Value?

These make up our belief system.  Values are beliefs that guide our behaviour. Values define what we accept as good, right or acceptable.  We may have our own personally thought-out and constructed values but many of the values we accept are socially or culturally constructed.  Characters embody values through their thoughts, feelings and attitudes, beliefs and actions.  Values that are generally held by society:

honesty loyalty
patriotism tolerance
integrity justice
equality respect for others
compassion responsibility

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The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Quotes Linked to Themes

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Themes in The White Tiger

Themes overlap = education / self made man / self improvement / morality / Indian society / family / social breakdown / self interest / corruption / power dynamics / contrasts

Chapter 1            1st Night

Theme                  education / self improvement

“I am self taught entrepreneur”

Theme                  self made man / education / self improvement

“The story of my upbringing is the story of how a half-baked fellow is produced. But pay attention, Mr. Premier! Fully formed fellows, after twelve years of school and three years of university, wear nice suits, join companies, and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay.”

Theme                  self made man / education / morality / Indian society

“You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals—the creature that comes along only once in a generation?” “The white tiger”.  “That’s what you are, in this jungle.”

Theme                  education / morality / Indian society

“They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world.”

Chapter 2            2nd Night

Theme                  family

“You know how close they are to their families in the Darkness”

Theme                  self made man / education / self improvement

“That’s the one good thing I’ll say for myself, I’ve always been a big believer in education – especially my own”.

“Many of my best ideas are, in fact, borrowed from my ex-employer or his brother or someone else whom I was driving about. (I confess, Mr. Premier: I am not an original thinker—but I am an original listener.)

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption

“Stories of rottenness and corruption are always the best stories, aren’t they?”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“See, this country, in its days of greatness, when it was the richest nation on earth, was like a zoo… the day the British left—the cages had been let open; and the animals had attacked and ripped each other apart and jungle law replaced zoo law.”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“To sum up—in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.”

Theme                  self made man/ education

“I absorbed everything—that’s the amazing thing about entrepreneurs. We are like sponges—we absorb and grow.”

Theme                  morality / Indian society

“The Devil, according to the Muslims, was once God’s sidekick, until he fought with Him and went freelance.”

Theme                  power dynamics

“Is there any hatred on earth like the hatred of the number two servant for the number one?”

Chapter 3            4th Morning

Theme                  corruption / self interest / power dynamics

“Now the Great Socialist had been the boss of the Darkness for a decade at the time of this election.  … he was dirty from the start, but he had just fooled everyone and only now did we see him for what he was”.

Chapter 4            4th Night

Theme                  contrasts

“The capital of our glorious nation … The showcase of the republic.  That’s what they call it … the truth is that Delhi is a crazy city”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“We’re driving past Ghandi, after just having given a bribe to a minister. It’s a fucking joke ,isn’t it.”

“The judges? … they are in the racket too.  They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case.  And life goes on”.

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / family

“We were like two separate cities—inside and outside the dark egg. I knew I was in the right city. But my father, if he were alive, would be sitting on that pavement… So I was in some way out of the car too, even while I was driving it.”

Theme                  family

“You’re part of the family Balram”.

Chapter 5            5th Night

Theme                  power dynamics

“Do we loath our masters behind a facade of love – or do we love them behind a facade of loathing?”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption

“The greatest thing to come out of this country… is the Rooster Coop. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers…They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country.”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“… But where my genuine concern for him ended and where my self-interest began, I could not tell: no servant can ever tell what the motives of his heart are… We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“The Rooster Coop was doing its work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters, or entrepreneurs. Yes, that’s the sad truth, Mr. Premier. The coop is guarded from the inside.”

Theme                  family

“   the pride and glory of our nation, the repository of all our love and sacrifice … the Indian family, is the reason we are trapped and tied to the coop”.

“…without family, a man is nothing”.

Chapter 6            6th Morning

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“The rest of today’s narrative will deal mainly with the sorrowful tale of how I was corrupted from a sweet, innocent village fool into a citified fellow full of debauchery, depravity and wickedness, All these changes happened in me because they happened first in Mr. Ashok.”

Chapter 7            6th Night

Theme                  contrasts

“The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor – they never overlap, do they?”

“Enough to feed a whole family, or one rich man”

Theme                  education / self improvement

“The moment you recognise what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave”.

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption

“The city knew my secret… Even the road—the smooth, polished road of Delhi that is the finest in all of India—knew my secret.”

Theme                  education / morality / Indian society

“You were looking for the key for years/ But the door was always open!”

Theme                  morality / Indian society

“Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That’s my whole philosophy in a sentence.”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“We went from bank to bank, and the weight of the red bag grew. I felt its pressure increase on my lower back—as if I were taking Mr. Ashok and his bag not in a car, but the way my father would take a customer and his bag—in a rickshaw.”

Chapter 8            7th Night

Theme                  self made man/ education

“Now, despite my amazing success story, I don’t want to lose contact with the place where I got my real education in life. The road and the pavement.”

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“The city has its share of thugs and politicians. It’s just that here, if a man wants to be good, he can be good. In Laxmangarh, he doesn’t even have this choice. This is the difference between this India and that India; the choice.”

“… the worst kind of man … nothing in his mind but taking money from everyone who came to his office.  Scum”.

Theme                  social breakdown / self interest / corruption

“There is no end to things in India, Mr. Jiabao, as Mr. Ashok so correctly used to say. You’ll have to keep paying and paying the fuckers. But I complain about the police the way the rich complain; not the way the poor complain.”

Theme                  self made man / social breakdown / self interest / corruption / morality / Indian society

“Yet…even if they throw me in jail…I’ll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hours, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant. I think I am ready to have children, Mr. Premier.”

Theme                  self made man / education

“People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom to come from somewhere else…That will never happen. Every man must make his own Benaras. The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read.”

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Analysis of Quotes I for Isobel for AOS1 Reading & Creating Texts

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Quotes below can be used as evidence in analytical essay interpretation of I For Isobel

Chapter & Page #

Quote

Analysis

1 – p.1 “No birthday presents this year!” May Callaghan.  The significance of this statement in the second line of chapter 1 is to show from the very beginning of the novel how dominant May Callaghan is and the extent of her vindictive power and control she wields over Isobel.  The abuse of Isobel is integral to understanding her struggle as an alienated artist figure.
1 – p.7 “Birthdays, injustices, parents all vanished”. Isobel as narrator.  When Isobel reads Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes she reads to affect an imaginary escape from reality.  The promise of pleasure offered by books counters the unhappiness and deprivations of family life.  The world in her books does not contain personal hardship.
1 – p.15 “It was a present for a real girl”. Isobel as narrator.  Mr Mansell gives Isobel a brooch for her birthday even though she receives no presents from her own parents.  The present represents something a normal, caring parent would give to a child.  At the time Isobel does not completely grasp how different her mother is from other more nurturing mothers.  The emphasis on “real girl” suggests that Isobel does not fit the social requirements of the era due to her parent’s abuse.
1 – p.17 “In one way or another, she would be wearing it all her life”. Isobel as narrator.  Two interpretations of the brooch’s significance.  Firstly, May Callaghan’s reaction to Mr Mansell’s gift of the brooch becomes for Isobel an important awakening.  Even after May slaps Isobel she does not take the brooch which Isobel realises that there are things her mother cannot do.  The brooch is the first step towards her possession of self and power a tiny triumph over her mother.  Secondly, that the brooch is a metaphor for the effects of May Callaghan’s abuse on Isobel’s life.  The long term effects of the abuse are detrimental to Isobel’s whole life.
2 – p.20 “Half the time you don’t know what you’re talking about”. May Callaghan.  Her insistent scepticism about Isobel telling the truth leads Isobel to doubt her own mind.  The constant doubt in turn affects Isobel’s tone of voice.  The complex relationship between what is said and the way it is said is central to many of Isobel’s challenges and dilemmas.  Isobel is constantly trying to decipher what is said in order to grasp the underlying truth.
2 – p.23 “There was no living without the moments”. Isobel as narrator.  Isobel’s vivid imagination serves as a powerful survival tool throughout her traumatic childhood and subsequent tumultuous transition into adulthood.  The imaginary friends in Isobel’s ‘moments’ and the books she reads sustains her each night in bed from the reality of the restrictions and conflicts of her daily life.  In fact she is more at ease with her imaginary friends than the flesh and blood people she meets.
3 – p.34 “… the state of grace”. Isobel as narrator.  The ‘state of grace’ is an inner, psychological state that Isobel experiences throughout this chapter.  She aspires to a condition of saint-like tranquillity refusing to be upset by any emotional disturbance and anger of her mother.  May Callaghan wants Isobel to scream but keeping silent is more torture for May as she is powerless.  What ends the ‘state of grace’ is the ripping of the hand-me-down dress.  This is a low point in Isobel’s well being.
3 – p.35 “Then she saw that her mother’s anger was a live animal tormenting her”. Isobel as narrator.  The emotional abuse and power of May Callaghan’s rage was an inner psychotic mental illness that took joy in abusing Isobel.  When Isobel sat silently not reacting her mother is deprived the thrill of the power over Isobel.
4 – p.83 “Isobel, as she listened, tried on each life to see how it would suit her”. Isobel as narrator.  After May Callaghan’s death and Isobel moves into Mrs Bower’s boarding house where she feels happy at her independence which might lead to greater self acceptance of herself.  She even considers taking on a new name and personality, someone poised serene and quietly self-confident traits obviously in direct contrast to her real personality.  At this point Isobel searches for a sense of identity by aspiring to be like other people.  However, as she thinks about other people’s lives in terms of her own uncertain identity she finds that their lives do not suit her at all.
4 – p.120 “Isobel had an idiot in the attic”. Isobel as narrator.  Isobel now perceives herself to have a kind of split personality to have an idiot in the attic or in type of mad reality in her mind.  This suggests that Isobel is at the mercy of irrational forces within herself that threaten her.  Isobel resists the instincts of the idiot and helps Madge move out of the boarding house.
5 – p.165 “And for those who hear nothing, the dead in life, her mother and Diana – you could shed a tear for them too”. Isobel as narrator.  Isobel realises that the person in her life most like Diana is her own mother, since they both resemble corpses in their rejection of life’s changes.  In contrast Isobel is determined to experience change and in leaving Mrs Bowers boarding house she starts on her journey of self discovery and is somewhat reconciled with the ghosts of her past.
5 – p.166 “… she had discovered a small authentic piece of her lost self”. Isobel as narrator.  Isobel’s memory of the sewing class is painful but she follows her own wishes rediscovering her pleasure in embroidery by discovering a piece of her lost self.  Isobel needs to revisit the key settings of her childhood to discover the real truth about who she is.
5 – p.177 “Artesian tears rising from the centre of the earth”. Isobel as narrator.  Once Isobel realises that the anxiety her parent’s caused her over the cat poem were totally false the cruelty of their deception strikes her emotions and her tears are able to finally flow.
5 – p.177 “I am a writer”. Isobel as narrator.  Once her tears are released Isobel gains a new sense of her own identity as a writer.  For Isobel an important point about writing is that compared to relationships or love, is that writing can be performed in solitude and the writing is her true self.  In order to make the self belief and identity real and tangible she buys an exercise book from the corner store to start her writing.
5 – p.181 “I met someone”. Isobel as narrator.  The last sentence of the novel signals an end to the internal tensions and divisions that characterise Isobel’s personality for so much of the novel.  The person she has ‘met’ is her own self and her joyful feeling is due to at last attaining a sense of unity and purpose.

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Creative Essay on ‘The Boat’ short story in Island by Alistair MacLeod

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Creative Essay on ‘The Boat’ from Island by Alistair MacLeod for Year 12 English on the old VCE Curriculum prior to 2024

Creative Prompt:

Years later, one of the daughters has to tell her daughter about her childhood, the role of the island and why she eventually left Cape Breton.  Refer back to the story in Island ‘The Boat’.

Research:

  • Scottish Gaelic names for father = dadaidh formal, dadai = dad or daddy
  • Scottish Gaelic names for mother = mathair
  • Scottish Gaelic girls names = Ainslie, Fiona, Alana, Annis, Morag, Catriona
  • Scottish Gaelic name for island = Innis

Creative Story Based Around ‘The Boat’ Short Story

Looking through my kitchen window over the Cape Cod seashore I heard the sharp laughter of a gull.  The moment was broken as my 15 year old daughter Alana called out “Hey ma, I have to do a literature assignment on our family’s ancestry which is due Friday can you help me with it?”  This middle daughter was just like me and her grandfather.  We all loved literature and reading.  Yet she was tall, willowy with fine facial features set off by long dark hair tinged a reddish copper colour, energetic and beautiful like her grandmother.  “Sure” I called back to Alana as she lopped into the kitchen with her notebook and pen; “What do you want to know?”  “I need information about where you came from, you know ma, the traditional stuff you never talk about”.  I looked at her striking face and my mind wandered back to an old-fashioned kitchen with a wood and coal burning stove next to a heavy table, around it stood five wooden homemade chairs.  Alana said “For instance ma why did you give the three of us girls a weird middle name like ‘Innis’, what does it mean?”

“Innis is Scottish Gaelic for island” I told Alana.  “I wanted to link you and your sisters like a chain of tradition back to my home land of Cape Breton.  It was my way of retaining the custom of someone of the sea like my mother’s people”.  Was that my real reason for calling the girls ‘Innis’ I wondered?  My five sisters and brother Callum were all born at Cape Breton but my three girls Fiona, Alana and Catriona were born at Harwich Port Massachusetts.  Looking over the Cape Cod seashore and the Atlantic Coast, Harwich Port is 848 miles from the bitter windswept island of Cape Breton.  No one at Harwich Port had to carve out an existence as a fisherman or give up their dreams to sustain a family of seven children.  Not like my old father who yearned for a life taken from the imaginative stories in his books away from the sea.

As children we called our father by the Gaelic ‘dadai’ an informal way of speaking to him while he was in his room lying on his bed smoking his handmade cigarettes.  His ashtray overflowed with tobacco shreds and ash as my sisters, one by one, sat on his bed or in a single chair reading his stack of paperbacks.  No one called our mother anything but the more formal ‘mathair’ because we were all scared of her as she would look at us with her dark and fearless eyes.  ‘Mathair’ never thought reading trashy books would help anyone in life.  I remember clearly she slapped my sister so hard she left the print of her hand upon my sister’s cheek just because Fiona was reading one of ‘dadai’s’ paperbacks.  We all knew it was difficult to defy our ‘mathair’ but the call of reading books outweighed our restlessness and we lost interest in darning socks and baking bread.

“So who are your mother’s people of the sea then?” Alana asked me.  I explained the ancestry story as clearly as I could; “The Cape Breton Islanders were mostly families from the Highlands in Scotland who were forced to leave their homes in the 1800’s.  ‘Mathair’s’ family were all inshore fisherman sailing Cape Island boats in search of lobsters, mackerel, cod, haddock and hake.  Her brothers all had large families to sustain.  In fact my uncle Bryce had thirteen children to support while he worked with my ‘dadai’ on our boat the Jenny Lynn”.

Alana was intrigued and followed up with a question about what the people of the sea were like and the importance of the ‘boat’.  As I told her about the boats racing out to sea with their traps I could see in my mind uncle Bryce tall and dark like ‘mathair’, standing at the tiller guiding the boat between the floating pans of ice and my ‘dadai’ in the stern with his hands upon the ropes that lashed the cargo to the deck.  I remember watching from the kitchen window of our old house that faced the sea, while my ‘dadai’ was away fishing in the boat.  We were always working on repairing clothes, preparing food or just looking for the return of the boat.  When ‘dadai’ returned home the first question my ‘mathair’ would ask was “Well, how did things go in the boat today?”

Alana stretched out her long legs and stood up with a yawn and said “OK I know about dad’s family history settling in Boston from 1630, but why did you choose to leave Cape Breton for Harwich Port?”  How do you explain to your own daughter that restlessness that you get at 15 looking for a life elsewhere and the imaginative world that books inspire?  Each of my five sisters felt the need for change from raising hens to growing vegetables.  When the Sea Food Restaurant opened it catered to tourists that flooded the island during July and August.  I got a job as a waitress and met people who were not classified as “our people” according to ‘mathair’, but they were fun, carefree and well educated.  Sometimes my sisters and I would stay out late on hot summer nights and try to dodge ‘mathair’s’ questions about who we were associating with.  ‘Dadai’ understood as we talked softly to him late at night about our ambitions beyond the island while the music of his radio floated up the stairs.

I cleared my throat and said to Alana “Then one day your father and his family came to Cape Breton for a summer holiday.  I was swept off my feet by your father’s brilliant smile and his welcoming family.  I didn’t care that ‘mathair’ believed he was not one of ‘her people’ or that she couldn’t understand I wanted a life outside of ‘the sea’ at Cape Breton”.  “Wow ma that’s why we never see our grandmother but what happened to your ‘dadai’? Alana asked me.

It was long after I left Cape Breton and settled in Harwich Port with my husband and three young daughters when I received a call from Callum to say that ‘dadai’ had drowned at sea.  It seemed nonsensical that my father and my uncles who were all experienced fisherman sailing the Atlantic waters could not swim a stroke.  The news of my father’s drowning devastated all of us.  It left Callum with a terrible choice whether to continue the seafaring tradition of ‘mathair’s’ family or leave Cape Breton for his own dream of becoming a university professor.  In the end the Jenny Lynn left my mother with bitterness that neither her husband nor her son was able to sustain the fisherman’s life.

Answering Alana as best I could I just said “My father drowned at sea during a violent storm when he was fishing with Uncle Callum.  The towering waves hit him as he stood in the stern of the Jenny Lynn and he went overboard”.  As Alana hugged me I did not tell her the details of how my father’s body was found at the base of rock-strewn cliffs where he had been hurled and slammed many times so there was not much left of him physically but for the brass chains on his wrists and the seaweed in his hair.

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Island: Collected Stories by Alistair MacLeod

Front Cover

Page numbers referenced in my analysis of Island: Collected Stories is from the Vintage publication dated 2002 (picture of the front cover shown above).

Genre and Structure of Island: Collected Stories by Alistair MacLeod

The obvious Genre within which Island fits is that of the short story collection.  Collections generally feature some linking factors.  These may be thematic, cultural, geographical or historical.  With a single-author text such as Island, the obvious shared factor among the stories is their author, but there are stylistic and thematic links too.  However, students should also analyse broader ideas, values and concerns along with recurrent settings, motifs and character types that have differences and similarities across the stories.

The structure of Island contains sixteen stories varying in length but averaging twenty pages.  There are many common themes, values and ideas, recurrent settings, images and relationship types and even commonalities of structure and style.  The stories are ordered chronologically tracing a period of more than thirty years in the author’s life.  Some stories incorporate multiple time frames, moving between past and present (both recent and distant).  Whilst most of the stories’ narrative voices share social and geographical origins and are from a teenager or adult others construct the voice of a young boy.

Cape Breton Setting of Island

Alistair MacLeod’s sixteen short stories, collected in Island, are all set on Cape Breton Island off the coast of Nova Scotia in south-eastern Canada.  Raised in Cape Breton in the 1960’s MacLeod writes primarily about a time and place closely related to his own.  He worked at the occupations he describes – a miner, a logger and a fisherman – before becoming a teacher and professor of English in Ontario.  In this way, his life mirrors the lives of the men who narrate his stories, who labour under great difficulty or who leave their early homes to find a wider world.  MacLeod has an intimate knowledge of the physical landscape he is writing about.  The importance of memory and place is intimately explored in MacLeod’s works.

It is an interesting fact that nearly all the central characters in Island are males, suggesting that MacLeod is comfortable writing from a familiar perspective.

While the stories explore a range of ideas, in each one the landscape of the island features prominently.  As the title of the collection suggests, MacLeod has made the isolated island pivotal to each story.  More than just a setting, Cape Breton features as a character in itself (the landscape and the natural elements are often personified), exerting its influence over the characters who give birth, work and die there.

Cape Breton Communities Founded on Tradition and Families

The communities of Cape Breton are founded on the bedrock of tradition and family.  The people have struggled against poverty, accidents and the elements to hold their lives together and remain constant in their values.  However, MacLeod shows that they cannot keep the modern world from intruding and altering their lives and their landscape.  He presents the tragedy of the inevitable loss of their world.  As traditional work of Cape Breton begins to dry up the men have to go further away to find employment.  As their men leave, the communities feel the strain of separation and the landscape, once bordered by the edges of their little harbour is forced to expand.

Outsiders make their way into the landscape and see the locals as objects of curiosity.  The old culture and music of the fishermen becomes the subject of academic study, like things of novelty.  As progress takes over the old world the beautiful landscape is also seen as a business opportunity for people to cater for the ever increasing number of summer tourists.

The fragility of the old world is shown by MacLeod in the inevitable changes to the landscape that are mourned by the characters.  Even the old Gaelic language spoken by the people on Cape Breton represents the private world they inhabit that seems ‘irrelevant and meaningless’ (p.195) to the new world.  Yet to the miners and others in Cape Breton they try to continue to speak Gaelic with friends and family or sing traditional Gaelic songs as a way of connecting with their own past and culture.

Language of Island

The collection uses descriptive language and often more poetic figurative language.  In times when it is needed, concrete language is used to convey pragmatic facts in stories such as descriptions of landscapes or environments that show great detail but little emotion.  On other occasions descriptions do the exact opposite and serve to show the feelings of the narrator or character.  In some instances descriptions of the imagery of the landscape and animals is matter of fact or business like to describe farming and the killing of animals on the farm as in ‘Second Spring’ (p.218-248).  The descriptions are devoid of figurative language and are kept unemotional otherwise it might become too hard to maintain one’s distance and the killing of the animals would become too distressing to the reader.  In other instances figurative language expresses emotions to create mood and feelings about the home Cape Breton represents to many of the characters.

Significance of the Historical Setting of Cape Breton

MacLeod’s stories are populated with miners and fishermen, and their wives and children, whose lives are shaped by the isolated landscape of Cape Breton Island.  For all the inhabitants, the island is intrinsic to their understanding of themselves and their place in the world.  For some characters, the island ties them to their ancestors and their history.  For others, the island is a suffocating prison they seek to escape.

MacLeod shows how strong the historical ties are that bind the inhabitants to the land. Cape Breton is explicitly associated with its link to the ‘old countries’ of Scotland and Ireland – ‘seeming almost hazily visible now in imagination’s mist’ – is reflected by the many characters who sing and speak in Gaelic.

Since the first settlers settled on the island, generations of the same families have lived on and worked their land.  It is mostly the older inhabitants of the island who see themselves as custodians of the land.

Many of the island’s younger inhabitants, conversely, respond to the island in a very different way, seeking to leave the island to escape the insularity and isolated lives of the tiny communities.

Themes and Ideas in Island

Many of the themes and ideas in Island cross over into other stories so that there is a linking of similar story lines.  This becomes apparent when students start to analyse the stories and see the same inter-linking themes and ideas.  For instance in the first story ‘The Boat’ (p.1-25) the themes of Tradition, Education, Literature and Death are inter-linked with the symbolism of the boat representing a journey through life.

  1. Tradition = Tradition connects family members, both close and distant and members of communities. Tradition in some stories offers continuity and belonging but it can also be a restrictive force on character’s lives that becomes a chain of imprisonment as well as providing strength.  The collection places the value of tradition in opposition to that of individuality so that those who are restricted by tradition are challenged when their individual desires conflict with the paths set for them by tradition.  Stories that cover Tradition are: ‘The Boat’ (p.1), ‘The Vastness of the Dark’ (p.26), ‘The Return’ (p.79), ‘The Road to Rankin’s Point’ (p.143), ‘The Closing Down of Summer’ (p.180), ‘Second Spring’ (p.218), ‘The Tuning of Perfection’ (p.271), ‘As Birds Bring Forth the Sun’ (p.310), ‘Vision’ (p.321), ‘Island’ (p.369), ‘Clearances’ (p.413).
  2. Transition and Change = Change is the opposite of Tradition but MacLeod is interested in Change at multiple levels in the stories. For the whole Cape Breton community change is a turning point as it faces the decline in traditional industry and culture while being exposed to the wider world.  Many of the characters are poised at important points in their lives as they transition from often childhood to adulthood or different stages of their employment on Cape Breton and have to struggle to accept the change.  Some stories embrace change by showing the negative impact on those who cannot accept change in their lives but others are fiercely resistant to change as it takes away their culture and tradition.  Ultimately change is inevitable even though accepting it is a universally difficult task for people to do.  Stories that cover Transition and Change are: ‘The Vastness of the Dark’ (p.26), ‘The Golden Gift of Grey’ (p.59), ‘The Return’ (p.79), ‘In the Fall’ (p.98), ‘The Lost Salt Gift of Blood’ (p.118), ‘The Road to Rankin’s Point’ (p.143), ‘The Closing Down of Summer’ (p.180), ‘To Every Thing There is a Season’ (p.209),Second Spring’ (p.218), ‘As Birds Bring Forth the Sun’ (p.310), ‘Island’ (p.369), ‘Clearances’ (p.413).
  3. Education and Literature = Education in particular Literature is a source of conflict between characters in a number of stories. Some value education and what it can provide and others scorn the opportunity to go to school and learn beyond the traditional needs and practices of their families before them.  Education represents new prospects for those characters who want to learn as it gives them a chance to be employed in jobs far removed from the traditional work such as farmers, fisherman or miners.  However, the education also takes them away from their families which cause conflict between characters.  It is often due to the mother or father being frightened or threatened by a new set of values or belief systems of their children associated with a new world outside of Cape Breton.  Stories that cover Education and Literature are: ‘The Boat’ (p.1), ‘The Golden Gift of Grey’ (p.59).
  4. Outsiders and Belonging = Outsiders are people excluded from groups in the text of Island either from outside a family or a culture and defined by their lack of belonging. Many of the older characters in the stories are threatened by outsiders while the younger characters tend to be more welcoming.  This mixed reception to outsiders supports MacLeod’s argument that older generations struggle more with the transition to new ways and habits, while younger generations tend to embrace change more readily.  Belonging is shown clearly in the relationships between those characters related by blood, as with parents, grandparents and siblings.  It suggests that a sense of belonging to a family or a culture provides safety and support for individuals.  Stories that cover Outsiders and Belonging are: ‘The Vastness of the Dark’ (p.26), ‘The Return’ (p.79), ‘The Lost Salt Gift of Blood’ (p.118), ‘The Road to Rankin’s Point’ (p.143), ‘Island’ (p.369), ‘Clearances’ (p.413).
  5. Death = Death is ever-present in the world of these stories. It could be depressing but MacLeod represents death as part of the remote existence of Cape Breton due to its extreme weather that creates life-threatening occasions for people.  Not only does the weather play a part in many deaths, so do the difficult physical occupations of mining, fishing and agriculture that make death a common event for not just humans but animals as well.  The characters grieve and are touched by death including loneliness and a loss of purpose or direction.  As death is inevitable the stories suggest that life should be valued, protected and celebrated.  Stories that cover Death are:  ‘The Boat’ (p.1), ‘In the Fall’ (p.98), ‘The Road to Rankin’s Point’ (p.143), ‘To Every Thing There is a Season’ (p.209), ‘Winter Dog’ (p.249), ‘As Birds Bring Forth the Sun’ (p.310), ‘Vision’ (p.321), ‘Island’ (p.369), ‘Clearances’ (p.413).

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Peter Skrzynecki Old / New World Poetry Year 12 English

peter1.jpgFor year 12 students studying Mainstream English AOS1 Unit 3: Reading and Creating Texts, either as an Analytical Interpretation or as a Creative Response, you will be analysing and writing essays based on Peter Skrzynecki’s poetry from his Old / New World Poetry Collection.

About the Poet Peter Skrzynecki

Peter Skrzynecki (pronounced sher-neski) is an Australian poet and author of Polish-Ukrainian descent.  He was born in Germany in 1945 and migrated to Australia with his Polish parents in 1949.  After a four week sea voyage, Skrzynecki’s family arrived in Sydney on 11th November 1949.  They lived in a migrant camp in Bathurst for two weeks before being moved to the Parkes Migrant Centre, NSW.  In 1951 the family moved to the working class Sydney suburb of Regents Park where a home had been purchased at 10 Mary Street.  Peter’s father, Feliks Skrzynecki, worked as a labourer for the Water Board and his mother Kornelia found work as a domestic in Strathfield.  In 1956 Skrzynecki began school at St Patrick’s College, Strathfield, where he completed his Leaving Certificate in 1963.

After a year at Sydney University in 1964, he completed a Primary Teacher Training Course at Sydney Teachers’ College in 1965-66 and began teaching in small schools in 1967.  In 1968 he recommenced his university studies at the University of New England where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1975.  Post Graduate studies include a Master of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1984 and a Master of Letters from the University of New England in 1986.  From 1987 he started teaching at the University of Western Sydney as a Senior Lecturer.

About the Volume Old/New World: New and Selected Poems

Year 12, VCE Mainstream English students studying AOS1, Unit 3: Reading and Creating Texts, will analyse poems by Peter Skrzynecki from his volume of poetry entitled Old/New World.  This volume contains over 180 poems selected from eight collections published between 1970 and 2000 and the 2006 collection, Blood Plums.  The book’s strength is its bringing together of old and new poems in a single collection, allowing the reader to become immersed in Skrzynecki’s poetry and to gauge his development as a poet over many years of writing practice.

Skrzynecki’s Style of Poetry

Skrzynecki mainly writes three kinds of poems, all in a similarly distinctive, almost prosaic style:

  1. the family poem, in which he often displays a deft ability to portray character through description;
  2. the immigrant experience, which ranges between the new and old worlds and often has a documentary quality; and
  3. the landscape poem, which is often idyllic, with a poetic persona not that dissimilar to a boy wandering and meditating in a garden or countryside.

Surprisingly, the poems that focus on family and the poems that observe people, primarily, stand out in this book, rather than specific accounts of the immigrant experience, although this theme is rarely absent from his work.

Skrzynecki’s Poetry Rhythm & Imagery

Skrzynecki’s poetry has a delicate rhythm, which suits (or emerges from) his frequently plain diction, which often takes the form of naming things, usually in a garden or a landscape. There are few fireworks in his writing and his understated, occasionally beautiful images appear all the more striking as a consequence.

Notable examples include the description of the road in A Year at Kunghur (p.189), which is “like a ribbon of dust mended/ with patches of bitumen”, or the moving Elegy for Roland Robinson (p.193), where the desolate cry of a spur-winged plover leads to the conclusion:

that when the cry of such a bird
is lodged in the heart
that moment is the start
of eternity.

In order to look at Peter Skrzynecki’s poetry on a broader level it is worth analysing the poems by a process that includes

  • Describing the poem & annotating it
  • Interpreting the annotations explaining what the words and ideas mean, figurative language, poetry terminology ie. metaphors, assimilation, personification etc.
  • Analysing the poems to look outside the text to search for hidden meaning that links parts of the poems with values and beliefs in the world of the poet
  • Synthesising the poems is the hardest part of analysing as it requires you to think about linking more than just those analysed ideas or themes from the poems but find connections outside the text. Peter searches for belonging in many of his poems and you can look beyond just him but what it means for migrants who have to renegotiate the relationship they have between self and place.

Synthesising Poems about Birds Compared to Immigrants

Symbolically birds in Peter’s poems represent freedom from the petty concerns of the everyday.  Black Cockatoos (p.192) have the ability to express themselves clearly and loudly they screech and even their cries are so loud they can be heard “above the boom and crash of waves”.  If you synthesise the birds in this poem with the immigrants you will see the immense difference in the old domesticated species of the parents (old types of birds) of the immigrants from the old world (Europe devastated by war) against the newer, wilder and brasher new species of birds who represent Australians.

Poems from The Immigrant Chronicle

Poems from Peter’s collection called The Immigrant Chronicle first published in 1975 are some of my favourite poems in his new volume.  In these poems Peter chronicles his own family’s experiences as well as other immigrant’s experiences in 1951.  In Immigrants at Central Station (p.34) Peter reminisces about his family’s immigrant journey and the promise of a new life as immigrants wait with fear and anxiety on Central Station in Sydney to board a train to a new future that they have no control over.  He uses personification in the second stanza as: “Time waited anxiously with us” and a metaphor to describe the choking emotions of the travellers: “The air was crowded with a dampness that slowly sank into our thoughts”.

Belonging in Feliks Skrzynecki

In many poems Peter belongs to his new home in Australia where he has grown up but his father Felik’s bond is still with his past which becomes a barrier to his belonging.  It becomes apparent to Peter that his mother and father find assimilating in their new environment and culture more difficult as they get older.  As such, Feliks never really ‘belongs’ in Australia.  This is evident in the poem Feliks Skrzynecki (p.36).  Feliks recreates his life with his garden, his work and his Polish friends but continues to latch onto the past.  Reminiscing about pre-war Poland reminds him of his youth and happier, uncomplicated times before the trauma of war and the destruction of everything he knew.  As Peter grows, school represents the growing chasm between Feliks and himself.  It is another area where he and Feliks are divided by experience and adds depth of meaning to the battle that ends up occurring between Peter and his father.

Themes in the New Collection

The poems in this new and selected edition represent lived experiences from an often-nostalgic perspective, as demonstrated in The Wind in the Pines (p.228).  Past and present, old and new are embedded structures in the majority of these poems, as the poet revisits landscapes (predominantly Australian) remembering significant places and phases of his life. Birds are often the subject of Skrzynecki’s poems and this collection is alive with ravaging lorikeets, fearless seabirds, mythological bellbirds, sparrows, swans, apostlebirds, finches and black cockatoos. Animals, fish and reptiles also feature.

Skrzynecki’s character portraits capture and express the little details of everyday life that make his subjects live on the page.  Feliks Skrzynecki, the poet’s father, later revealed not to be his biological father, ‘loved his garden like an only child’; we see him sweeping paths, holding the broom with his cement-darkened hands and cracked fingers, smoking on the back steps, watching the stars.

The theme of old and new worlds encompasses the poems of migration, the elegies, the character poems and is used in the poem Leukaemia (p.199) to signify hope:

[waiting] for a new world
to take over your body
so the old can be defeated,
left behind

Old/New World is peopled with a lifetime of poems, chronicling the forging of new lives in new countries and the adjustments to be made when old familiar worlds are changed forever by trauma or grief.  The journey is not merely one of physical travel, but of spiritual quest and emotional travail punctuated by moments of joy and nostalgic remembering.

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Tips on Oral Presentations for English Years 9-12

 JFK Giving Speech

A few tips on writing your speech:

  • Have a CAPTIVATING introduction sentence; use a short, clear and powerful sentence. You can even ask a rhetorical question of your audience to make them think right at the start.
  • RELATE to your audience so that it keeps them interested so they actually WANT to listen.
  • If you are taking on a persona, firstly study and UNDERSTAND your character. (A persona is how you present your speech, ie. in a friendly voice, a business type strictly formal speech or using lots of colloquial phrases).
  • Don’t forget your persuasive techniques. Use repetition and rhetorical questions, emotive language and inclusive language.
  • Remember that you are writing a SPEECH, not an essay. Instill your oral with emotion, varied tone and sentence lengths.

A few tips on your performance:

Memorise your speech

Always remember that practice makes perfect. Practice as much as possible; in front of anyone and everyone including yourself (use a mirror). Keep practicing until you can recite it.

As for cue cards, use dot points. Don’t just copy and paste whole sentences onto cue cards or else you’ll rely on them too much. Not to mention that it’ll be hard finding out where you are in the middle of your speech. Use “trigger words” so that if you forget your next point, you have something there.

Use your Powerpoint presentation to best advantage. Keep the images relevant to your speech. Have the images not too “busy” so that the audience are looking attentively at the screen and forget to listen to your speech. Make sure the presentation is on mouse click to the next slide or timed so you don’t have to fiddle around with the computer, but remember to keep talking.

But most importantly, if you mess up, keep going. Even if you screw up a word or suddenly forget your next point, just take a breath, correct yourself, and keep going. Do not giggle. If your friends make you laugh, don’t look at them.

Control your voice

Do not be monotone. Give it some energy; be pumped but not “I-just-downed-5-cans-of-Red Bull” pumped. Give it as much energy as it is appropriate for your speech. As you transition through various intense emotions such as anger, happiness and shock, your performance should reflect it. This is achieved in both your tone and your body language (moving around, not jumping around as that will distract from what you are trying to say).

Speak as if you believe in your contention – with passion. If you sound confident, then your audience will think, ‘wow, they sure know what they’re talking about’. Remember, confidence is the key.

Don’t rush through your speech and speak at a million kilometers an hour – or even worse; skipping half of your speech because you just want to get the hell out of there. Also, speak so that the teacher can actually hear you. More likely than not, they’ll be sitting somewhere near the back of the room. Don’t be “too quiet” master the art/power of projecting your voice. It actually does make a huge difference.

Be aware of your actions

Don’t just stand like a statue in one spot. Think about real life – do you know anyone that stands completely and utterly still when talking to you? Make sure you look around the room; you’re addressing everyone, not just one person. Don’t stare at your teacher; it freaks them out. You don’t even have to look at a specific place. Start off looking at the back wall… then as you go through the speech, naturally turn from one back corner of the room to the other. Also, try not to look down because it will make you mumble and be hard to understand or hear. Don’t try to look at your cue cards while they’re right up next to your body. Move it out when you need to have a GLANCE at them then go back to the audience.

Always make sure that you face the audience.

Use some natural hand gestures they don’t hurt either!

Take some long, deep breaths before you go on and tell yourself that you can do it!

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How to Effectively Annotate Texts

 Image result for pictures of writing booksWhy Annotate Your Texts in Studying English?

Annotating texts is a powerful step in getting to know your text and optimizing your essay responses. Keep in mind as a reader and annotator 2 important questions:

  1. “What is the author saying?
  2. How are they constructing their meaning/values in their text?”

Listed below are some helpful tips in learning how to annotate:

A Definition: To annotate means to add notes to a text where you provide extra comments or explanations (usually in the margins of the book).

Break up the text by using post flags to distinguish sections or chapters

Some texts are large and sections or chapters are not easy to recognise but a good way to identify the sections is to use post flags to break up the text. This will make scanning the book much easier later when you are searching for a specific passage for an essay.

Think of your text as a colouring book

One way is to use different coloured highlighters for different themes. Think of it as creating a trail for you to follow throughout the book. If you don’t like using highlighters, another simple way is to use coloured post flags to highlight certain pages where you can underline the themes with explanations at the top of the page.

Circle new vocabulary

Look it up and then write their definitions next to the word. Using higher level metalanguage in your essays is going to help to gain better marks.

Write notes in the margins or at the top of pages

Here you can summarise the chapters at the top of the page and then other significant points of a passage as you read through the text.

What are the best items to annotate?

  • Character descriptions & dialogues significant to the plot/character development
  • Historical, cultural, social and natural contexts relevant to understanding the text
  • Structure of the text, narrative voice/viewpoint, implications for the plot & characters
  • Themes, motifs & symbols that are connected to characters & plot and how these represent ideas or concepts that show the author’s values and meaning
  • Literary devices such as metaphors, similes and foreshadowing that show how the author constructs meaning and structure of the text
  • Plot changes, major events and how they affect characters and meaning of the text

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Every Man in This Village is a Liar by Megan Stack A Brief Synopsis

What is Every Man in This Village is a Liar about?

A few weeks after the planes crashed into the World Trade Centre on 9/11, journalist Megan Stack, a 25-year-old national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, was thrust into Afghanistan and Pakistan, dodging gunmen and prodding warlords for information. From there, she travelled to war-ravaged Iraq and Lebanon and to other countries scarred by violence, including Israel, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, witnessing the changes that swept the Muslim world, and striving to tell its stories.

Every Man in This Village Is a Liar is Megan Stack’s unique and breathtaking account of what she saw in the combat zones and beyond. It is her memoir about the wars of the 21st century. She relates her initial wild excitement and her slow disillusionment as the cost of violence outweighs the elusive promise of freedom and democracy. She reports from under bombardment in Lebanon; documents the growth of unusual friendships; records the raw pain of suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq; and, one by one, marks the deaths and disappearances of those she interviews.

The Prologue

The Prologue is Megan’s way of looking back on 10 years of killing and dying. She says that “… the first thing I knew about war was also the truest, and maybe it’s as true for nations as for individuals: You can survive and not survive, both at the same time” [p.4]. Megan reflects that the US determination in the wake of the September 11 attacks to go out and ‘tame all the wilderness of the world’ was an instinctive response. With the benefit of retrospect Megan surveyed the damage this folly has done to the US, to the affected nations in the Middle East and to her. In the end she judged that September 11 was the beginning of a ‘disastrous reaction’.

The quote “Every man in this village is a liar”

Megan realises that in the new reality of the war on terror, truth is no longer an absolute but the servant of political necessity. In Pakistan someone said to Megan, “Every man in this village is a liar” [p.9]. She explains it as “… one of the world’s oldest logic problems … If he’s telling the truth, he’s lying. If he’s lying, he’s telling the truth. That was Afghanistan after September 11” [p.9].

Conflict in the Text

The text is primarily concerned with Megan’s encounters with violent military conflicts in the Middle East. It does also deal with conflict on many levels. Not only does it examine deadly force used by countries at war it also considers how people subjected to this invasion or assault live with the constant fear of arrest, torture or death.

Megan also contemplates her own survival of what covering these wars has done to her as a person. In effect she documents the political and also moral price of the war on terror for America. She speaks about ‘sacrifice’ in chapter 8 [p.96] in countries that have historical conflict that stretches back over centuries. As a result Megan asserts that “Violence is a reprint of itself, an endless copy” [p.96].

Writing an Essay on Conflict

The challenge when writing a Context Essay is to think outside the box when it comes to the IDEAS that the Context is based on. The task in the SAC’s or Exam is to determine the exact nature of the relationship between an idea and the text. The set texts are chosen so that they reflect the issue of encountering conflict on many levels. It is a good idea to use the characters in the set text as a way to explore the context but also to consider the implications of their actions, responses and efforts to resolve their conflict. The next task is to use the prompt you are given in the SAC or Exam as a starting point for your ideas in your own writing.

Ask yourself questions about Conflict

The Context of Conflict asks you to question the types, causes and consequences of conflict. There are many different types of conflict, ranging from:

  1. Internal conflict: When a person is confronted with a difficult choice to make. It is a mental or emotional struggle that occurs within a character‘s mind.
  2. Conflict of conscience: When a person struggles internally either because they have done something they feel is wrong, or are being asked to overcome their conscience and do something that they feel is wrong
  3. Cultural conflict: When people from different cultural backgrounds disagree, find it difficult to live with one another or even fight because of their inability to understand one another (either literally, in terms of language, or because of different beliefs, traditions and cultural practices)
  4. Interpersonal conflict: When two or more people disagree or fight
  5. Physical conflict: When there is a conflict that leads to physical violence
  6. Familial conflict: When there is conflict between people from the same family
  7. Generational conflict: When there is conflict between people from different generations (this often overlaps with familial conflict)
  8. Class conflict: When there is conflict between people of different social classes
  9. International conflict: Conflict between countries. Think about the text Every Man in this Village is a Liar by Megan Stack where conflict in the Middle East is on a regional level that involves countries after 9/11. Think about the complexities and issues of Conflict and nationhood / Conflict and political power / Conflict and cultures / Conflict in paradox / Conflict without hope or despair /Conflict and conscience.
  10. National conflict: Conflict within countries, such as different ethnic groups.
  11. Local community or neighbourhood conflict
  12. Science and Religious conflict: Conflict between science and religion is based on two conflicting ways of knowing, one based on faith and authority and the other on observation, reason and doubt. Think about the text Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht where the great religious powers of the Catholic Church bring all their ideological firepower to battle against Galileo’s science because he was a threat to their supremacy in the universe. Think about Conflict and power / Conflict and morality / Conflict and truth / Conflict and the individual. In terms of more recent conflict with the Catholic Church have a think about writing on the Royal Commission Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse in not only Catholic institutions but also other groups who abused children. Think of the consequences for the victims of conflict and the emotional stress and trauma taking on the might of the Catholic Church long after the physical conflict is over.

Conflict also asks you to think about how it arises

What are the causes of a particular conflict, or conflict in general? The causes of conflict may range from ignorance and prejudice, to self interest and fear, to the struggle for power, justice or truth. One might even argue that conflict is an essential or inevitable part of human life.

Finally, Conflict asks you to think about its consequences 

You might like to think about how individuals, or a society as a whole, respond and react to conflict. The way an individual or a community responds to conflict reveals a lot about them, especially their strengths and their weaknesses. You might also like to think about the lasting consequences of conflict for individuals, families and communities. Conflicts rarely end once the war is over, or the fight has been won. There are winners and losers in every conflict, who remain affected long after the conflict is over. The consequences may range from trauma and physical and emotional pain to more positive outcomes, such as change, opportunity and growth. One thing is certain: people are changed by experiences of conflict.

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