Mars Brainstorm

Neologisms

Sadismistic (adj.): To totally support violence, pain and suffering.

Antisadismistic (adj.): To totally oppose violence, pain and suffering.

Fiscal (adj.): hyperactive or agitated.

Perikahbobullation (n.): a description of something you cannot describe.

Triculous (adj.): confusing or hard to understand

Bible Verses for the Comparative Study

Biblical allusion is a key technique in both texts for the Comparative Module: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott. In an increasingly secular and multicultural country, it can no longer be assumed that students know the bible verses being alluded to in various texts. Here are some suggested verses and associated notes to help you out.

Matthew 6:22-23

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.

Of course eyes are a key motif in both texts. It is the creature’s eye opening that disgusts Victor. And it is Roy’s eye surveying the city (Los Angeles = City of Angels) at the beginning of the film. The above verse is one of the sources of the saying “the eye is the window to the soul”.

Unto the last generation

This phrase is used so often in the Bible I won’t bother to list all the references. Victor uses it to describe who will benefit from his creation: “all mankind to the last generation” (p4).

Deliver us from evil (part of the the Lord’s Prayer)

The creature says to Victor, “Yet it is within your power to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil.” This reinforces the notion that Victor is playing god.

Isaiah 14:12-15

“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.

First of all, isn’t that a beautiful piece of poetry? This passage is probably actually about Babylon but, since the Mediaeval period has been taken to describe Lucifer’s fall from heaven. This works beautifully with our texts in a number of ways. The Creature says to Victor, “I ought to have been thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel” (p118). The Prelude to Frankenstein quotes from Paradise Lost (check out Book 2 of Milton’s epic for a deeper understanding), which was clearly inspired by this chapter in the bible. Finally, Roy’s confrontation with Tyrell and subsequent death can be seen as an allegory of Lucifer’s challenging of god’s authority.

There is, of course, far more to it than that. In the film Roy can be linked with the prodigal son, Adam and–at his death–the crucified Christ. Key place names include (the already mentioned) Los Angeles and, in Frankenstein, ArchAngel and St Petersburg. Victor talks about Paradise and Providence. He describes his mother, Caroline, as a “guardian angel”. The Tyrell Corp building is a pagan pyramid, while the Swiss Alps are pictured as “domed” cathedrals.

Then there is the theological question raised by both texts: do the created beings (Frankenstein’s “daemon” and the replicant Roy Batty) have souls?

Practising Short Responses

Section One of Paper One is a great opportunity to gain marks quickly for a small amount of writing. Knowing how to address questions quickly and accurately can really save you precious exam time and save your poor writing hand as well. The best way to get good at these types of questions is to practise. I will post some text extracts with questions over the next week.

A few tips before you start:

1. Tone is usually an emotion. The tone of a piece is NEVER “depressing” but it might be meloncholy or even just sad. The other way to think of tone is in terms of tone of voice. If the piece was to be read aloud, what kind of voice would the reader use?
2. The word HOW in a question is asking you to identify a technique. EG Q: How does the composer create this tone? A: The composer creates a nostalgic tone through the use of the garden seat as a metaphor for the old man’s life <insert supporting quote here>.
3. Each mark in a question equals one thing that the question wants. If it’s a three mark question it wants three things, it’s up to you to identify what those three things are. The exception is the last question which is usually worth five or six marks. This should be a mini essay.

Non-Fiction: Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we consider, by so much the arguments in favour of community of descent become fewer in number and less in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole classes are connected together by a chain of affinities, and all can be classed on the same principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders.
Organs in a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the organ in a fully developed condition; and this in some cases implies an enormous amount of modification in the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at a very early age the embryos closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same great class or kingdom. I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Questions

1. What is the purpose of this extract? (1 mark)
2. Which aspect of Belonging is being discussed? (2 marks)
3. What are the connotations of Darwin’s ideas for human communities? (3 marks)

Tips for Writing the AoS Response

The Area of Study Response, also known as Section 3 of Paper 1, is a particularly strange type of essay. In it, you are asked to synthesise ideas from a range of texts with your own personal response, addressing a specific question or statement, under an umbrella concept: Belonging. It’s not an easy thing to do but here are some hints to help you:

1. Know your texts. This knowledge is demonstrated through quotes and close references, not through vague or sweeping generalisations;
2. Engage with the question and the concept. Don’t just talk about the texts, try to develop a personal response to the idea of Belonging. This can be done through having a two part intro, the first part addressing the question/concept/issues raised, the second part introducing the texts. Continue this engagement throughout your response, which brings me to the next point;
3. Develop an argument. The AoS is not a persuasive piece but having an argument can help to keep your writing focussed and structured. What is your own concept of Belonging? How has this been influenced by the portrayal or Belonging in your texts?
4. Use the magic circle. Quote – Technique – Effect. Every body paragraph should do this at least once. Make clear and distinct links between the text being discussed, the technique used in the text and how that portrays an aspect of Belonging;
5. Write clearly. Yes, English teachers love big words and complex sentence structures, but not when they obscure meaning. You are not James Joyce. Clarity is more important than verve (if you can have both, however, go ahead). Read your work aloud to check that it makes sense.

Fun with Words

A colleague of mine recently mentioned that, in the race to meet a billion outcomes, we had perhaps lost some of our love of and fun with language. One of my teaching resolutions for 2009 is to spend more time on activities that inspire a love of our crazy language. Here’s an interesting start:

This is what happens when you put the complete works of Shakespeare into Wordle. It generates a cloud of the most common words, size indicating frequency. I think this would be a great tool for creating vocabulary lists that are a bit more interesting and a bit less listy.

The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise

‘The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem of contrast and paradox. The “noise” of the title is the birdsong that haunts the poet, reminding her that although the seasons continue, individual immortality does not exist. The beauty of nature is both intensified and undermined by the memory of lost friends and family.
The setting of this poem is the edges, the in-between places, the “magical frontier” between Winter and Spring; and the moment before dawn, “night’s delicious close”. These edges are, according to British myth, the realm of faery so these allusions bring with them an air of beauty tainted with mischief and loss.
In the same way, the beauty of the changing seasons is tainted by the knowledge of that which cannot and will not be renewed: the lives of lost lovers. The memory of whom is “cruelly dear”.
Unlike other Dickinson poems, the persona here is neither childlike nor innocent, she is fully aware and even world weary. Yet in spite of this she can still appreciate and connect with nature. Her feelings, too, are on the edges. She hesitates, she “almost wish”es and Summer is “almost too heavenly near”. That last line conveys the awkwardness and anticipation of the emotion rhythmically.
Finally, the poet finds herself separated from those she loves and cruelly reminded of this fact by nature. But she is not alone. The poem uses inclusive language, particularly first person plural, to generalise the experience. We, too, have lost loved ones and must suffer through reminders of that loss as the seasons change.

Belonging Suggested Related Text (Analysis)

‘Iron’ by Primo Levi
Related Text Analysis

‘Iron’ is a biographical essay by twentieth century Italian-Jewish chemist and writer, Primo Levi and forms part of his greater work The Periodic Table. It chronicles his developing friendship with a fellow chemist and outsider during a time when fascism was spreading, like a cancer, across Europe.
Levi pictures fascism using a variety of metaphors including “the night of Europe”, a disease, and a “grumous dew” with a terrible “stench”. In contrast, Chemistry and the scientific method are pictured as “white”, something “from which a emanated a good smell, dry and clean” and “an antidote”.
Within this safe but ever narrowing world where rationalism triumphs over propaganda, Levi meets Sandro, who he describes as “blasphemous”, “laconic” and “sarcastic”. Sandro is a “loner”, “the quiet one”. Levi, too, is an outsider but not by choice: “the laws against the Jews had been proclaimed…following an ancient pattern, I withdrew as well.” The allusion here is to the ostracisms and proscriptions of the Jewish people across the centuries, an horrific tradition beginning in Egypt’s biblical past four thousand years earlier.
In an attempt to capture Sandro’s personality—which remains “elusive, untamed”—and their friendship, Levi engages two seemingly contradictory central metaphors: the elements of their chemical studies and the wild but pastoral scenery of the Piedmont region. Sandro is “made of iron” (hence the title of the essay) but also “cat with whom one could live for decades without ever being permitted to penetrate its sacred pelt”. Their friendship is “cation and anion” (a mixing of positive and negative ions) but also something personified and wild, “a comradeship was born”.
It is only when the action moves from the lab to the wilderness that this conflict is resolved. Matter, personified as “Mother” and “teacher” is not to be found in the lab but in the “true, authentic, timeless Urstoff, the rocks and ice of the nearby mountains”. This appropriation of the German word for element empowers Levi’s writing, his use of language, like the wilderness, is outside the control of fascism. It is here in this “island”, this “elsewhere” that Sandro finds “his place”, “a new communion with the earth and sky”. The use of Christian allusion within what is consistently pictured as a pagan setting serves to devalue and mock the colleagues who “were civil people…but withdrew” with their “dozing consciences”. The mocking tone is broadened to include the whole of Italy, “the small time pirate”.
In contrast to those who warrant Levi’s derision, Sandro is spoken of with a respect bordering, at times, on awe. As well as being “made of iron”, Sandro is a paradox, displaying “sinister hilarity” and “splendid bad faith”. He becomes not only Levi’s comrade but also his teacher preparing them both for “an iron future, drawing closer month by month”. The “iron” in Levi’s future is surviving Auschwitz, for which his treks with Sandro helped prepare him. But “they didn’t help Sandro, or not for long”. At the end of the essay Levi anchors the almost mythological Sandro to history, “Sandro Delmastro, the first man to be killed fighting in the Resistance with the Action Party’s Piedmontese Military Command”.
Levi’s chronicle of a significant but short friendship between two outsiders is also a struggle—like the chemist “fencing” with the elements—to “dress” his “elusive” friend and their friendship in words. Ironically, although Sandro was “not the sort of person you can tell stories about”, stories are all that remain, “nothing but words”.

My Belonging Texts

I have been thinking about which texts I would use for this Area of Study. I have been intermittently reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Intermittently because of its heartbreaking nature. I need other texts with lighter subject matter in between bouts of pure grief and the deeper joy that comes after. It is a wonderful but also a difficult text. Dave’s interior monologues as his mother dies are pure agony to read because they are so realistic. His easy going relationship with his younger brother swings between self indulgence and intense concern. I won’t write any more about this book because I don’t think I can analyse its eclectic techniques effectively within the confines of the Area of Study.

A shorter text which I think will work well is Primo Levi’s Iron, Potassium, Nickel. It, too, is a memoir, chronicling Levi’s experiences from working at the Chemical Institute in Italy, through the exploitation of his skills by his enemies, to his seeing out the war in a concentration camp. The other text I’m thinking of is one of Shaun Tan’s picture book. The Arrival would be good, but so would The Red Tree, The Lost Thing or Tales from Outer Suburbia. The images from the Belonging WebQuest is an excellent place to get started with an analysis of Shaun Tan’s work and I’ve really enjoyed exploring it.

An unusual suggestion which came up during a search I was doing yesterday is The St Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V. The aspect of Belonging being portrayed is shared experience, in this case; war.

Being Shakespeare, this has lots of great language techniques to analyse, which is what I’m looking for in a related text.

What Belonging means to me

Belonging is the new HSC Area of Study but it’s more than that, it’s a fundamental human need. I tend to conceptualize belonging in the negative, to think of the outsider, of the person who doesn’t belong. I always identified with those characters in books, with Erika Yurken in Hating Alison Ashley, with Elspeth in The Obernewtyn Chronicles and with poor ignored Anne Eliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Each character was competent in her own way but out of place within their family, school, society. What made them not fit? What made these characters square pegs in round holes? For Erika it is simply a matter of perception, she thinks herself better than (or different from) what she is and, when she finds herself, she finds that she fits exactly in her own place. Anne and Elspeth are both out of place because they are extraordinary. I was always attracted to this idea of not belonging because of being special.

I love this quote about Belonging:

Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature.
The word ‘belonging’ holds together the two fundamental aspects of life:
Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing.
- John O’Donohue

It is what we are and what we want to be all wrapped up into one. In this module I’m looking forward to exploring the idea of belonging to a Place as well as to groups, communities and families. My next entry will be about a time when I felt I belonged.