Literature: Discussion, Questions & Potential Solutions

[justaloser]

Hi everyone

Anyone do Heart of Darkness or Only the Animals? What did you think of the prompt and passages?

I wrote on Heart of Darkness for Part A and was pleasantly surprised by the prompt. Sure, the mention of "European intrusion" did hint towards a post-colonial perspective (at least in my opinion) but after some discussion with classmates we agreed that it was as flexible and accessible as we wanted it to be.

Anyone else here wrote only 10 pages?

[landem]

So what did people think of passage analysis for The Leopard by Lampedusa? What were people's approaches? 

I didn't think they'd do similar passages to last year but they did! It's a little strange that they didn't include Lampedusa's vivid imagery and symbolism and focused on politicky stuff, but there was still enough to write about I guess! I can't even remember now... pretty sure my main focus was metaphor, characterisation of the Prince as the aristocracy or something? and the broader themes of change and decay, I think. Yourself?

[nioka.lily]

I thought the Heart of Darkness question was a curveball, however if you planned it out really quickly at the start i found it easy to bend the question to the literary perspective i'd done the most work on, which was feminist. So i ended up talking about how the women were damaged and affected, and how their presence in the storyline was deplted as an effect of the mens intrusion into africa, and their voyages of 'glory' across the world. What did others do?

[aaronetha]

Thought it was pretty decent. Much better than the prompt for 2017 lol.
What did everyone focus on for that prompt? I talked about Mae+Gooper; Brick+Skipper; and Big Daddy. Looking back now maybe I should've mentioned Maggie and Big Mama too, to fit into the 'family' prompt but I didn't want the assessors to think I was writing from a feminist perspective.

Did anyone do Gogol?

I actually did Gogol for Lit Perspectives and I struggled a lot with the prompt. However, the passages for Gogol were actually super accessible and to some extent i regret not doing Gogol for section B instead.
Did anyone do Vasquez- The Sound of Things Falling?

[hums_student]

For section A I talked about Brick and Skipper, Big Daddy + Big Mama, Mae's five children, and Reverend Tooker. I was seriously grasping at straws with the reverend, hopefully the assessors don't mind.

Just out of curiosity, what did you talk about for the reverend? I wrote pages and pages of analysis on him and he was my strongest point but I had no idea how to bring it into an essay on family values.

And yeah I agree this year's prompts and passages all seemed rather straightforward, which can only mean that they'll be overly strict with the marking to get that bell curve.

I actually did Gogol for Lit Perspectives and I struggled a lot with the prompt. However, the passages for Gogol were actually super accessible and to some extent i regret not doing Gogol for section B instead.

What lens did you use for Gogol? I really wanted to do him for lit perspectives but I felt like the only lens you could apply to all the stories (and have enough to say) was a psychoanalytical lens.

[colline]

Just out of curiosity, what did you talk about for the reverend? I wrote pages and pages of analysis on him and he was my strongest point but I had no idea how to bring it into an essay on family values.

And yeah I agree this year's prompts and passages all seemed rather straightforward, which can only mean that they'll be overly strict with the marking to get that bell curve.

I talked about the infiltration of American family values by upheld traditional institutions, aka the catholic church.
Once you make that connection that the church is also an institution that represents marriage it's quite easy to link the reverend into a prompt on family values.