Discursive Essay Marking Help! Please!

[sophiabunt1]

Hi! I have been trying to write some discursive essays just incase the mod c question is specific... I am really struggling as I feel like my discursive essays often verge into creative. Any feedback is helpful!
Question: Choose a character, persona or speaker from ONE prescribed text that you have studied in Module C. Express the motivations of this character, persona or speaker by exploring a significant turning point and its consequences in the text. (I have chosen a character from Geraldine Brooks' 'A Home In Fiction' he is a man who she claims "because of me, he travels the world".

Essay: “It’s fun to sleep with foreigners, but be warned — they can change your life.” I must say, a truer statement has never been said.

For years I had been content with living through the pages of the books I found on the shelves of the Boston city library. I made a home between bookshelves filled with books about history. Past tragedies, victories, catastrophes and revelations. I never wished to leave the shores of New York. I never felt a need to explore the world, when I had the history of it held bound between my hands. That was until I met her. Her soft face stood out to me through the window of my favourite coffee shop on the corner of 5th Avenue. After finally mustering enough courage to introduce myself, we talked for hours on end, her stories of foreign wonders and astounding people captivated me. Geraldine Brooks, the Australian novelist who explored the world. Because of me, she travels the past. And because of her, I travel the world.

As someone who had found a home in the past for so long, living in the present was a daunting prospect. I was forced to drag myself from the pages of my beloved books. Remove myself from the Battle of Marathon. Dust off the ash from the city of Pompeii. I left behind the powerful Joan of Arc. Said goodbye to the philosophical discussions of Plato and Aristotle.

I know now that the world of travel is a beautiful one. And despite my past beliefs, I know that it is a place where I can find a home. Travelling is a crucial part of living. When stuck in the past, within historical moments that have already happened, the present essentially races away from you. I have found that travelling, exploring and adventuring gives individuals the ability to grow in knowledge, to learn about cultures, about how to interact. Travelling is so flexible and customisable to every individual. There is no cookie cutter process to it. One may choose to travel for the people. You may travel for the art. For the culture. Perhaps to be engulfed in a new language, encapsulated by the foreign sounds. Myself, I have not found the skills to swim within idiosyncratic languages like Russian, or Swedish. Yet being surrounded by these words, pronounced so differently, but with one meaning. I find myself at home.

It is quite a unique concept. The idea that so far away from the four walls of our homes- mine with my dog Bruce and my beloved pot plants- so many kilometres away from the Boston city library, that we can find ourselves feeling as though we are home. There is a quote by Ibn Battuta which sums this up- “Travelling. It gives you a home in a thousand strange places, then leaves you a stranger in your own land.” When we are exposed to experience after experience, to culture after culture, our minds begin to desire these things always.

Lucky for me, travel also allows us to visit history. No longer within bound, hard cover books on the 3rd floor of the library, but instead within structures and evidence laid out in front of my eyes. Through travelling I am able to explore the history of the Khmer Empire by venturing through the tunnels of Angkor Wat, or picture the gladiator fights that occurred beneath my feet whilst standing in what is left of the Colosseum.

I have come to the conclusion that books about the past are enriching and incredible. They explore history through a looking glass, desiring fine details about noble captains and wicked battles, yet just reading does not enrich our lives, does not provide us with the comfort of a home. Travel does this and more, allowing us to be engulfed in the present and what it has to offer, whilst still allowing us to appreciate the past. If Geraldine Brooks taught me anything, it is that reading about the past is like a vacation- I am able to take a quick escape from the life I am living, to forget about the present. However, one cannot find a home within the past. A home can be found in travel, in adventure.