ATAR Notes: Forum

HSC Stuff => HSC Marking and Feedback => HSC Subjects + Help => Marking Thread Archives => Topic started by: brenden on March 16, 2015, 03:53:47 pm

Title: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: brenden on March 16, 2015, 03:53:47 pm

If you'd like your essay marked, you won't be able to post it until you make an ATAR Notes account here. Once you've done that, a little 'reply' button will come up when you're viewing threads, and you'll be able to copy and paste your essay and post it up here for us to mark!

Hey everyone!! Welcome to the Extension 1 Marking Thread. This thread is here for you to get feedback on your essays from a Band 6 student. This resource exists to help you guys make huge improvements on your essay writing... Too often, teachers just write "good" or "needs explaining" or "expand". SUPER. FRUSTRATING. This is a place to properly improve :) :) :)

Before posting, please read the essay marking rules/rationale here.

Post away, and happy studies!!  ;D ;D

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Spencerr on February 12, 2016, 09:38:41 pm

Hi there!

I'm doing ext 1 English and my module is on Romanticism! Here's an essay that I've written. Any feedback is helpful!

The criteria for the Essay is as follows, for a top band:

Composes a sophisticated response to the question posed, using the prescribed text and one other appropriate text in an insightful manner
Demonstrates perceptive understanding of the relationships between the texts, their context and Romantic ways of thinking
Demonstrates highly developed control of language to express complex ideas with clarity

The essay written is a generic one for the module.
Can you check to see if my arguments make sense? Where the holes are? If there are logical leaps? Ways to improve expression and flow.
Generally tips on how I can improve :)

The Romantic Movement was a time of great change that challenged the Enlightenment’s conventional ways of thinking. Underpinned by a deviation from Neo-classical rationality and societal submission to individual liberty and imaginative ideals, Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary manifesto “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (Vindication) (1792) and Percy Shelley’s incendiary ballad “The Mask of Anarchy” (Mask)(1819), both criticise repressive social and political institutions. Whilst, Wollstonecraft, in her utopic vision for society advocates for the liberation of women from the repressive patriarchy and restrictive social construct, Shelley elevates the oppressed, and promotes rebellion against tyrannical power structures. Nonetheless, both texts are testament to Romantic ways of thinking, privileging freedom of thought, change and rejection of social constraints.

In “’Vindication”, Wollstonecraft embraces Romantic individualism by challenging societal constraints imposed upon women. Her egalitarian ideals were heavily influenced by the French Revolution, which extolled values of freedom and equality, invidiously excluded to “one half of the human race”. Despite a shift in paradigms, Wollstonecraft subscribes to Enlightenment rationality, using the aphorism that “man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation” exists in “reason” and the theological assumption that the soul is unsexed, hence women like men must be capable of reason, to establish her arguments for gender equality. However, Wollstonecraft reveals the restrictive expectations imposed upon women to “gratify the senses of man” through her allusion to Milton who asserts that “women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace”. Thus, she condemns the patriarchal society for making women “alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers”, with the antithesis emphasising the extent to which women have been rendered incapable of rationality by society. Instead of developing “reason”, women have been “taught..that beauty is woman’s sceptre”, with the “sceptre” symbolically denoting their ironic attainment of power through the repressive feminine construct. Thus, women are mentally enslaved to “superficial graces” as the metaphoric imagery in “the mind..only seeks to adorn its prison” highlights their imprisonment to societal conventions. Literary critic, Lindsay Kohl, reaffirms Wollstonecraft’s beliefs claiming that “women were conditioned by society to perform in a weak, falsely-refined and servile manner...contributing to their loss of liberty”. As such, Wollstonecraft stresses the need for female autonomy in her authorial voice, “I do not wish them to have power over men but over themselves”, reinforcing the necessity for women to seek liberation from social constraints. By highlighting the systemic oppression of women, Wollstonecraft criticises the tyrannical edicts of establishments as impeding on individualism and autonomy.

In “Masque”, Shelly shares Wollstonecraft’s rebellious perspective, which manifests Romantic individualism in his repudiation of despotic social institutions. Written in response to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, Shelley’s poem lambastes the British government for their murderous abuse of power on a peacefully demonstrating public. From the outset, Shelley illustrates his revulsion towards the ruling institutions, by personifying them as abstract evils “I met Murder...he had a mask like Castlereagh” in an allusion to Lord Castlereagh, a prominent political figure. This satirical attack on the government is furthered by the grotesque imagery in  “he tossed them human hearts to chew”, which illustrates their inhumanity towards the oppressed population. Ironically, “Anarchy” is allegorised as the dominant political and religious power structures, the metaphor “I am God, and King, and Law” allows Shelley to extend his criticisms to all institutions founded on physical and psychological oppression. As women in “Vindication” are enslaved into “blind obedience”, the oppressed in “Mask” are characterised by the epithet “adoring multitude” to highlight the hypocrisy of their submission to tyrannical edicts. Moreover, the personification of slavery in “slavery...for its very name has grown to an echo of your own” suggests that the masses have lost their individuality as a result their subjugation, paralleling the repression of women in “Vindication”. Whereas, Wollstonecraft condemns the societal constructs of femininity for their suppression of women’s rights, Shelley critiques predominant power institutions for their tyrannical treatment of individuals, both radical ideals sourced from the Romantic revolutionary spirit.

Although Wollstonecraft criticises the restrictive conventions of society, she concurrently advocates for reform to liberate women from social constraints. Inspired by Talleyrand’s proposal for free education, Wollstonecraft champions her National Education Reform, granting females equal education to males, which in benefitting women will benefit society. Initially, she highlights the potential for education to figuratively “strengthen the female mind by enlarging it and... end blind obedience”, suggesting that with reason, individuals are able to question societal conventions and achieve liberation. Through the metaphor of women as “the graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it”, she also speculates on the improvement of marital relationships making “man and wife ONE” with the capitalisation of “one” evincing the equal union of both sexes. She idealises the power of education to engender “more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers”, as the anaphora of “more” adds emphasis to the creation of a distinctly better society with reform. Furthermore, she extends this “revolution in female manners” to political institutions, depicted through the high modality “I really think that women ought to have representatives...in government”, linking equality within the domestic sphere to the political sphere. However, her “utopian vision” is contrasted against the hyperbole “children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of women” to emphasise the perpetual cycle of misery and ignorance grounded within the status quo, accentuating her appeal to kairos “now is the time to take action!” to expedite reform.  Ultimately, the diametrical juxtaposition of “friend” and “slave” in “women will either friend or slave of man” underscores the stipulation of reform in facilitating the liberation of women from the oppressive regimes of society. As literary critic Anne Mellor explains “Wollstonecraft advocates for the egalitarian family...the prototype of genuine democracy... in which husband and wife regard each other as equals”. Thus, by promoting equality through idyllic reform, Wollstonecraft strives for the liberation of women, unifying Romantic idealism and individualism.

Whilst “Vindication” idealises education reform, Shelley in “Mask” advocates for revolution against prevailing authority. Shelley, influenced by the suffrage movement of 1819 Britain, urges peaceful reform amidst widespread political radicalism. Written as a prophetic vision “As I lay asleep...”,the poem invokes ideals of freedom by act of poetic imagination, illustrating Shelley’s embodiment of Romantic idealism. His uncomplicated style, contrasting Wollstonecraft’s philosophical diction, is characterised by a simple AABB rhyming scheme and quatrains, indicative of his intended audience, the uneducated oppressed masses. Thus, Shelley glorifies the prospect of revolution through the metaphor “Men of England, heirs of glory”, calling for “a great Assembly of the fearless and the free”. He utilises the fricative alliteration of “fearless” and “free” to associate the fight for liberation with ennobling qualities of courage. However, through the lexical chain in “tyrants..[will] slash, and stab, and main, and hew”, Shelley acknowledges the overwhelming abuse of power as a significant impediment to revolution. Contrasting such violence, Shelly idealises peaceful rebellion employing natural imagery “Stand ye calm and resolute like a forest close and mute” to elevate the oppressed in their refusal to violently retaliate.  Shelley’s idealistic beliefs are further developed through the extended metaphor “rise like lions after slumber...shake your chains to earth like dew”, which empowers the masses to revolt by understating the true difficulties of rebellion. In contrast to Wollstonecraft’s utopia of women living alongside their oppressors, men, Shelley’s vision creates an “us-versus-them” dichotomy with the antithesis “ye are many-they are few” spurring the oppressed classes into action. Hence, Shelly utilises his imagination, typical of Romantic idealism, in “Mask” as a vehicle to champion rebellion and facilitate change.

Ultimately, both texts embody Romantic ways of thinking, representing the paradigm shift from Enlightenment conformity and rationality to Romantic individualism and idealism. Although differing in purpose, Wollstonecraft and Shelley both promoted change by challenging restrictive conventions and empowering the oppressed to transcend social and political limitations. Thus .Answer Q

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: brenden on February 16, 2016, 04:29:45 pm

Quote from: diiiiiiiii on February 12, 2016, 09:38:41 pm

Romanticism

blimey, this takes me back to the early Lit days in uni

Quote from: diiiiiiiii on February 12, 2016, 09:38:41 pm

Composes a sophisticated response to the question posed, using the prescribed text and one other appropriate text in an insightful manner
Demonstrates perceptive understanding of the relationships between the texts, their context and Romantic ways of thinking
Demonstrates highly developed control of language to express complex ideas with clarity

Thanks for that!


Okay, great essay! See spoiler for feedback. Please ignore the horrible grammar I've used to give feedback. The irony isn't lost on me.

Unmarked essay for reference

The Romantic Movement was a time of great change that challenged the Enlightenment’s conventional ways of thinking. Underpinned by a deviation from Neo-classical rationality and societal submission to individual liberty and imaginative ideals, Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary manifesto “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (Vindication) (1792) and Percy Shelley’s incendiary ballad “The Mask of Anarchy” (Mask)(1819), both criticise repressive social and political institutions. Whilst, Wollstonecraft, in her utopic vision for society advocates for the liberation of women from the repressive patriarchy and restrictive social construct, Shelley elevates the oppressed, and promotes rebellion against tyrannical power structures. Nonetheless, both texts are testament to Romantic ways of thinking, privileging freedom of thought, change and rejection of social constraints.

In “’Vindication”, Wollstonecraft embraces Romantic individualism by challenging societal constraints imposed upon women. Her egalitarian ideals were heavily influenced by the French Revolution, which extolled values of freedom and equality, invidiously excluded to “one half of the human race”. Despite a shift in paradigms, Wollstonecraft subscribes to Enlightenment rationality, using the aphorism that “man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation” exists in “reason” and the theological assumption that the soul is unsexed, hence women like men must be capable of reason, to establish her arguments for gender equality. However, Wollstonecraft reveals the restrictive expectations imposed upon women to “gratify the senses of man” through her allusion to Milton who asserts that “women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace”. Thus, she condemns the patriarchal society for making women “alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers”, with the antithesis emphasising the extent to which women have been rendered incapable of rationality by society. Instead of developing “reason”, women have been “taught..that beauty is woman’s sceptre”, with the “sceptre” symbolically denoting their ironic attainment of power through the repressive feminine construct. Thus, women are mentally enslaved to “superficial graces” as the metaphoric imagery in “the mind..only seeks to adorn its prison” highlights their imprisonment to societal conventions. Literary critic, Lindsay Kohl, reaffirms Wollstonecraft’s beliefs claiming that “women were conditioned by society to perform in a weak, falsely-refined and servile manner...contributing to their loss of liberty”. As such, Wollstonecraft stresses the need for female autonomy in her authorial voice, “I do not wish them to have power over men but over themselves”, reinforcing the necessity for women to seek liberation from social constraints. By highlighting the systemic oppression of women, Wollstonecraft criticises the tyrannical edicts of establishments as impeding on individualism and autonomy.

In “Masque”, Shelly shares Wollstonecraft’s rebellious perspective, which manifests Romantic individualism in his repudiation of despotic social institutions. Written in response to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, Shelley’s poem lambastes the British government for their murderous abuse of power on a peacefully demonstrating public. From the outset, Shelley illustrates his revulsion towards the ruling institutions, by personifying them as abstract evils “I met Murder...he had a mask like Castlereagh” in an allusion to Lord Castlereagh, a prominent political figure. This satirical attack on the government is furthered by the grotesque imagery in  “he tossed them human hearts to chew”, which illustrates their inhumanity towards the oppressed population. Ironically, “Anarchy” is allegorised as the dominant political and religious power structures, the metaphor “I am God, and King, and Law” allows Shelley to extend his criticisms to all institutions founded on physical and psychological oppression. As women in “Vindication” are enslaved into “blind obedience”, the oppressed in “Mask” are characterised by the epithet “adoring multitude” to highlight the hypocrisy of their submission to tyrannical edicts. Moreover, the personification of slavery in “slavery...for its very name has grown to an echo of your own” suggests that the masses have lost their individuality as a result their subjugation, paralleling the repression of women in “Vindication”. Whereas, Wollstonecraft condemns the societal constructs of femininity for their suppression of women’s rights, Shelley critiques predominant power institutions for their tyrannical treatment of individuals, both radical ideals sourced from the Romantic revolutionary spirit.

Although Wollstonecraft criticises the restrictive conventions of society, she concurrently advocates for reform to liberate women from social constraints. Inspired by Talleyrand’s proposal for free education, Wollstonecraft champions her National Education Reform, granting females equal education to males, which in benefitting women will benefit society. Initially, she highlights the potential for education to figuratively “strengthen the female mind by enlarging it and... end blind obedience”, suggesting that with reason, individuals are able to question societal conventions and achieve liberation. Through the metaphor of women as “the graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it”, she also speculates on the improvement of marital relationships making “man and wife ONE” with the capitalisation of “one” evincing the equal union of both sexes. She idealises the power of education to engender “more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers”, as the anaphora of “more” adds emphasis to the creation of a distinctly better society with reform. Furthermore, she extends this “revolution in female manners” to political institutions, depicted through the high modality “I really think that women ought to have representatives...in government”, linking equality within the domestic sphere to the political sphere. However, her “utopian vision” is contrasted against the hyperbole “children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of women” to emphasise the perpetual cycle of misery and ignorance grounded within the status quo, accentuating her appeal to kairos “now is the time to take action!” to expedite reform.  Ultimately, the diametrical juxtaposition of “friend” and “slave” in “women will either friend or slave of man” underscores the stipulation of reform in facilitating the liberation of women from the oppressive regimes of society. As literary critic Anne Mellor explains “Wollstonecraft advocates for the egalitarian family...the prototype of genuine democracy... in which husband and wife regard each other as equals”. Thus, by promoting equality through idyllic reform, Wollstonecraft strives for the liberation of women, unifying Romantic idealism and individualism.

Whilst “Vindication” idealises education reform, Shelley in “Mask” advocates for revolution against prevailing authority. Shelley, influenced by the suffrage movement of 1819 Britain, urges peaceful reform amidst widespread political radicalism. Written as a prophetic vision “As I lay asleep...”,the poem invokes ideals of freedom by act of poetic imagination, illustrating Shelley’s embodiment of Romantic idealism. His uncomplicated style, contrasting Wollstonecraft’s philosophical diction, is characterised by a simple AABB rhyming scheme and quatrains, indicative of his intended audience, the uneducated oppressed masses. Thus, Shelley glorifies the prospect of revolution through the metaphor “Men of England, heirs of glory”, calling for “a great Assembly of the fearless and the free”. He utilises the fricative alliteration of “fearless” and “free” to associate the fight for liberation with ennobling qualities of courage. However, through the lexical chain in “tyrants..[will] slash, and stab, and main, and hew”, Shelley acknowledges the overwhelming abuse of power as a significant impediment to revolution. Contrasting such violence, Shelly idealises peaceful rebellion employing natural imagery “Stand ye calm and resolute like a forest close and mute” to elevate the oppressed in their refusal to violently retaliate.  Shelley’s idealistic beliefs are further developed through the extended metaphor “rise like lions after slumber...shake your chains to earth like dew”, which empowers the masses to revolt by understating the true difficulties of rebellion. In contrast to Wollstonecraft’s utopia of women living alongside their oppressors, men, Shelley’s vision creates an “us-versus-them” dichotomy with the antithesis “ye are many-they are few” spurring the oppressed classes into action. Hence, Shelly utilises his imagination, typical of Romantic idealism, in “Mask” as a vehicle to champion rebellion and facilitate change.

Ultimately, both texts embody Romantic ways of thinking, representing the paradigm shift from Enlightenment conformity and rationality to Romantic individualism and idealism. Although differing in purpose, Wollstonecraft and Shelley both promoted change by challenging restrictive conventions and empowering the oppressed to transcend social and political limitations.

Marked essay

The Romantic Movement was a time of great change that challenged the Enlightenment’s conventional ways of thinking I personally preferred to open essays with more specificity just because I liked the sound better. Some bs like this: "Propelled by the conventionality of the Enlightenment, Romanticism places a premium on the intensity of art bla bla bla bla". Two clause sentence, a little bit more specific, which makes it, imo, a little bt more interesting to read. (Obviously if you made the first sentence a bit longer you'd have to edit the second sentence to flow but as it is I think your first sentence could be improved BASED ON MY PERSONAL STYLISTIC PREFERENCES . Underpinned by a deviation from Neo-classical rationality and societal submission to individual liberty and imaginative ideals I like this clause because you're one word away from being over the top, but I think you escape that label and toe the line perfectly, Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary manifesto “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (Vindication) (1792) and Percy Shelley’s incendiary ballad “The Mask of Anarchy” (Mask)(1819), both criticise repressive social and political institutionsreally nicely written sentence. . Whilst, Wollstonecraft, I'm not sold on this, make the rest of the sentence prior to 'Shelley' a bit odd to read in her utopic vision for society advocates for the liberation of women from the repressive patriarchy and restrictive social construct notice the way you've structured this sentence, that last bit could grammatically read "the restrictive social construct" (you've just make the sentence conjunctive so the "the" is further away from 'restrictive social construct'. But what restrictive social construct are you talking about? Patriarchy is more than a restrictive social construct. As we know, it's a social system predicated on a social construct of gender than entails many sorts of social restrictions. So your grammar could be fixed up a bit here , Shelley elevates the oppressed, and promotes rebellion against tyrannical power structures. Nonetheless, both texts are testament to Romantic ways of thinking, privileging freedom of thought, change and rejection of social constraints.
Really digging the way you're using author verbs (i.e., Shelley elevates) - really setting up your sentences. Really well written introduction in flow/style terms, I like it a lot. Content is also there, it's not baseless writing by any means, so I think you've done a good job at dealing with substantial content in a stylistically pleasant way.

In “’Vindication”, Wollstonecraft embraces Romantic individualism by challenging societal constraints imposed upon women Great sentence. Not too much, not too little. "Just right". . Her egalitarian ideals were heavily influenced by the French Revolution, which extolled values of freedom and equality, invidiously excluded to “one half of the human race” Excluded to one half of the human race is odd. My feedback here very well be because I haven't read the quoted text, but if you're saying that freedom and equality are only offered to rich people (which I think is what you're saying), then "excluded to half" is an odd way to say it. Excluded from half might make more sense if it were excluded from poor people, but excluded to half would make more sense if it were like, "restricted to half". HOWEVER i might be misinterpreting. . Despite a shift in paradigms, Wollstonecraft subscribes to Enlightenment rationality, using the aphorism that “man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation” exists in “reason” and the theological assumption that the soul is unsexed, hence women like men must be capable of reason, to establish her arguments for gender equality a tough sentence grammatically well handled, good job. However, Wollstonecraft reveals the restrictive expectations imposed upon women to “gratify the senses of man” through her allusion to Milton who asserts that “women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace”. Flows really well, but I'm not sure that 'reveals' is the best verb to use for this sentence's meaning. I.e., that sentence after 'however', I'm not 100% sure on what you want it to do for you Thus, she condemns the patriarchal society for making women “alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers”, with the antithesis emphasising the extent to which women have been rendered incapable of rationality by society. Instead of developing “reason”, women have been “taught..that beauty is woman’s sceptre”, with the “sceptre” symbolically denoting their ironic attainment of power through the repressive feminine construct feel as if your grammar/style/flow wavered slightly in the past couple of sentences, going from 'essentially perfect' to 'a slight wobble'.. Thus, women are mentally enslaved to “superficial graces” as the metaphoric imagery in “the mind..only seeks to adorn its prison” highlights their imprisonment to societal conventions. Literary critic, Lindsay Kohl, reaffirms Wollstonecraft’s beliefs claiming that “women were conditioned by society to perform in a weak, falsely-refined and servile manner...contributing to their loss of liberty”. As such, Wollstonecraft stresses the need for female autonomy in her authorial voice, “I do not wish them to have power over men but over themselves”, reinforcing the necessity for women to seek liberation from social constraints. By highlighting the systemic oppression of women, Wollstonecraft criticises the tyrannical edicts of establishments as impeding on individualism and autonomy.Love the last few sentences of this paragraph, wraps it up super well.

In “Masque”, Shelly shares Wollstonecraft’s rebellious perspective, which manifests Romantic individualism in his repudiation of despotic social institutions feel as if the 'big words' in this sentence detract from its greatness as a sentence instead of adding to it. Sometimes minimalist writing can be good, especially when you're using a  'magnificent' flow - letting the reader have some rest can make your essay sing when it does come time for the magnificent parts.. Written in response to the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, Shelley’s poem lambastes the British government for their murderous abuse of power on a peacefully demonstrating public. From the outset, Shelley illustrates his revulsion towards the ruling institutions, by personifying them as abstract evils “I met Murder...he had a mask like Castlereagh” in an allusion to Lord Castlereagh, a prominent political figure.  You could end the sentence after 'evils' and have a better integrated quote propped up by another sentence rather than have this somewhat awkwardly tacked onto the end........ great analysis tho This satirical attack on the government is furthered by the grotesque imagery in  “he tossed them human hearts to chew”, which illustrates their inhumanity towards the oppressed population. Ironically, “Anarchy” is allegorised as the dominant political and religious power structures, the metaphor “I am God, and King, and Law” allows Shelley to extend his criticisms to all institutions founded on physical and psychological oppression. As women in “Vindication” are enslaved into “blind obedience”, the oppressed in “Mask” are characterised by the epithet “adoring multitude” to highlight the hypocrisy of their submission to tyrannical edicts. Moreover, the personification of slavery in “slavery...for its very name has grown to an echo of your own” suggests that the masses have lost their individuality as a result [of] their subjugation, paralleling the repression of women in “Vindication”. Whereas, Wollstonecraft condemns the societal constructs of femininity for their suppression of women’s rights, Shelley critiques predominant power institutions for their tyrannical treatment of individuals, both radical ideals sourced from the Romantic revolutionary spirit. Pretty mint paragraph tbh.

Although Wollstonecraft criticises the restrictive conventions of society, she concurrently advocates for reform to liberate women from social constraints. Inspired by Talleyrand’s proposal for free education, Wollstonecraft champions her National Education Reform, granting females equal education to males, which in benefitting women will benefit society a weak end to a strong sentence.. Initially, she highlights the potential for education to figuratively “strengthen the female mind by enlarging it and... end blind obedience”, suggesting that with reason, individuals are able to question societal conventions and achieve liberation. Through the metaphor of women as “the graceful ivy, clasping the oak that supported it”, she also speculates on the improvement of marital relationships making “man and wife ONE” with the capitalisation of “one” evincing the equal union of both sexes. She idealises the power of education to engender “more affectionate sisters, more faithful wives, more reasonable mothers”, as the anaphora of “more” adds emphasis to the creation of a distinctly better society with reform. Furthermore, she extends this “revolution in female manners” to political institutions, depicted through the high modality “I really think that women ought to have representatives...in government”, linking equality within the domestic sphere to the political sphere. However, her “utopian vision” is contrasted against the hyperbole “children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of women” to emphasise the perpetual cycle of misery and ignorance grounded within the status quo, accentuating her appeal to kairos “now is the time to take action!” to expedite reform.  Ultimately, the diametrical juxtaposition of “friend” and “slave” in “women will either friend or slave of man” underscores the stipulation of reform in facilitating the liberation of women from the oppressive regimes of society. As literary critic Anne Mellor explains “Wollstonecraft advocates for the egalitarian family...the prototype of genuine democracy... in which husband and wife regard each other as equals”. Thus, by promoting equality through idyllic reform, Wollstonecraft strives for the liberation of women, unifying Romantic idealism and individualism.

Whilst “Vindication” idealises education reform, Shelley in “Mask” advocates for revolution against prevailing authority. Shelley, influenced by the suffrage movement of 1819 Britain, urges peaceful reform amidst widespread political radicalism. Written as a prophetic vision “As I lay asleep...”,the poem invokes ideals of freedom by act of poetic imagination, illustrating Shelley’s embodiment of Romantic idealism. His uncomplicated style, contrasting Wollstonecraft’s philosophical diction, is characterised by a simple AABB rhyming scheme and quatrains, indicative of his intended audience, the uneducated oppressed masses. Thus, Shelley glorifies the prospect of revolution through the metaphor “Men of England, heirs of glory”, calling for “a great Assembly of the fearless and the free”. He utilises the fricative alliteration of “fearless” and “free” to associate the fight for liberation with ennobling qualities of courage. However, through the lexical chain in “tyrants..[will] slash, and stab, and main, and hew”, Shelley acknowledges the overwhelming abuse of power as a significant impediment to revolution. Contrasting such violence, Shelly idealises peaceful rebellion employing natural imagery “Stand ye calm and resolute like a forest close and mute” to elevate the oppressed in their refusal to violently retaliate.  Shelley’s idealistic beliefs are further developed through the extended metaphor “rise like lions after slumber...shake your chains to earth like dew”, which empowers the masses to revolt by understating the true difficulties of rebellion. In contrast to Wollstonecraft’s utopia of women living alongside their oppressors, men, Shelley’s vision creates an “us-versus-them” dichotomy with the antithesis “ye are many-they are few” spurring the oppressed classes into action. Hence, Shelly utilises his imagination, typical of Romantic idealism, in “Mask” as a vehicle to champion rebellion and facilitate change.

Ultimately, both texts embody Romantic ways of thinking, representing the paradigm shift from Enlightenment conformity and rationality to Romantic individualism and idealism. Although differing in purpose, Wollstonecraft and Shelley both promoted change by challenging restrictive conventions and empowering the oppressed to transcend social and political limitations.

Pretty good fucking essay, really.

I think one thing for you to be wary of is making sure you don't go "over the top". You're saying a LOT of things, with lots of adjectives and clauses. Be mindful that you don't suffocate the reader. I'm not saying that you have. In this essay, I think you were really good, it not toeing the line a bit. Just be mindful that you don't go 'extra' in future essays. Potentially, you could integrate some more 'lull' sentences, or even just more stylistic variation between sentence...but that would be getting really picky. I wish I did the HSC so I could have a better feeling of what this was work in terms of an actual mark, but I can definitely say that the essay is written to an extremely high standard.

In criteria terms...

The response is definitely sophisticated and insightful.
Certainly a perceptive understanding.
Certainly a great control of language - potentially bordering on becoming unclear - but definitely a great job on expressing complex ideas

Great work. You're clearly really talented - keep it up!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Spencerr on February 16, 2016, 06:12:15 pm

Thank you so much :) I'll be sure to edit this some more and post back up again!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: brenden on February 16, 2016, 06:13:36 pm

Quote from: diiiiiiiii on February 16, 2016, 06:12:15 pm

Thank you so much :) I'll be sure to edit this some more and post back up again!

I look forward to it! Are you taking Extension 2 as well? :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Spencerr on February 17, 2016, 04:47:04 pm

Unfortunately, no because I'm absolutely horrid at creative writing   :'(

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: brenden on February 17, 2016, 04:48:14 pm

Quote from: diiiiiiiii on February 17, 2016, 04:47:04 pm

Unfortunately, no because I'm absolutely horrid at creative writing   :'(

Aaaaah I see - fair enough. It's definitely very, very different

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: caninesandy on March 23, 2016, 04:22:05 pm

Hello!
I was wondering whether you could please check my essay...it is due tomorrow (:O) so if you could even just read over it and give your general opinion would be AWESOME but if you can't then no worries :D
I really feel kind of lost in writing this essay...agh..... Could you please check if my writing flows and is structured properly and whether my argument makes sense at all haha :D thank you!!! I love this website, so helpful and everyone is so friendly :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: cxmplete on March 23, 2016, 09:58:08 pm

Hey, i know this isn't an essay but i have a creative writing piece that is due tomorrow that is related to Gothic horror and i'm not sure whether its good enough or not. it would be awesome if you could give me feedback on the story.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on March 24, 2016, 10:51:39 am

Quote from: caninesandy on March 23, 2016, 04:22:05 pm

Hello!
I was wondering whether you could please check my essay...it is due tomorrow (:O) so if you could even just read over it and give your general opinion would be AWESOME but if you can't then no worries :D
I really feel kind of lost in writing this essay...agh..... Could you please check if my writing flows and is structured properly and whether my argument makes sense at all haha :D thank you!!! I love this website, so helpful and everyone is so friendly :)

Hey there! I'm really sorry that we couldn't get to your essay before it was due. If you ever again wanted to get some cramming feedback in, try (I know, when you're cramming it is hard) to get the essay in a few days early, even if it isn't 100% complete. This way, we can at least edit what you have while you work on the ending.

Would you like to receive feedback now, even though it is submitted? Or, would you rather wait a little bit until your teacher has given it feedback, your adjust the essay accordingly, then send it to us?

I would happily mark it today, but I just want to check with you seeing as it is submitted now and I don't want you to panic if I point out something that can be improved.

Let me know :) Again, sorry that we couldn't get to you in that short time. We try to be quick on replies but it isn't always faesible to be marked in the same day as posting. Thank you for posting though, I'm honoured that in your time of last minute cramming you thought of us :')

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: caninesandy on March 24, 2016, 01:35:26 pm

Hello Elyse,
No problem haha I really should STOP PROCRASTINATING....
It would be awesome if you could mark my essay. Thank you for being so considerate  ;D
I have attached my essay which I ended up submitted which is slightly different than my previous one. I was reading over the posts about how to write an Ext 1 essay and am really confused about how to write integrated essays...do you have any tips? :)
Thank you so much for your help and patience, I really appreciate it.  :D
Sincerely,
Sara

Here are the marking criteria from my teacher
Band A - Possible Marks: 21-25
Demonstrates with flair and insight an understand of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A sophisticated evaluation of the statement
 - A sophisticated. substantial exploration of all texts and their interrelationship supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sophisticated, sustained critical response, displaying highly developed control of language and the conventions of critical discourse to express complex ideas with clarity and originality.

Band B - Possible Marks: 16-20
Demonstrates with insight an understanding of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A substantial evaluation of the statement
 - A substantial exploration of all texts and their interrelationship, supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sound, sustained critical response, displaying effective control of language and the conventions of critical discourse to express complex ideas with clarity.

Band C - Possible Marks: 11 - 15
Demonstrates sound understanding of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A sound evaluation of the statement
 - A sound exploration of all texts and their interrelationship, supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sustained critical response, displaying highly developed control of language and the conventions of critical discourse.

I am kind of hoping I am not below a band C but if you would like to check out the other criteria please let me know :D Thank you!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on March 24, 2016, 02:10:36 pm

Quote from: cxmplete on March 23, 2016, 09:58:08 pm

Hey, i know this isn't an essay but i have a creative writing piece that is due tomorrow that is related to Gothic horror and i'm not sure whether its good enough or not. it would be awesome if you could give me feedback on the story.

Hey there! I'm really sorry that I didn't get to your essay last night. Usually the expected time for essay marking is about 2 days, just so you know for the future! So, if you are ever in the position again, just keep that in mind so that we can do our best to make sure you get important feedback!

Did you still want feedback now, or would you prefer to wait? I'm happy to give it an edit, but I want to check with you in case you'd rather wait, just in case I point something out and then you cringe because it has already been submitted  :P

Let me know what you want! :)

Again, greatest apologies!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: zeynepkorkmaz on March 24, 2016, 03:00:12 pm

Hi!

I'm doing ext 1 English and my module is on Romanticism. I have written an essay but not too confident in it. Your feedback would be much appreciated!
Criteria for the Essay:
- Composes a sophisticated response to the question posed, using the prescribed text and one other appropriate text in an insightful manner
- Demonstrates perceptive understanding of the relationships between the texts, their context and Romantic ways of thinking
- Demonstrates highly developed control of language to express complex ideas with clarity
The essay is a generic one for the module: the quote was "Scientific, religious, and philosophical paradigms have shaped and are reflected in the literature of the Romantic Period."
Can you check to see if my arguments make sense? What I can improve on and fix? If there are logical leaps? Ways to improve expression and flow.
Generally tips on how I can improve :)


Romanticism is further emphasised through scientific, religious and philosophical paradigms. Significant influences that are reflected in the literature of the Romantic Period is scientific, religious and philosophical paradigms. Romanticism captures and represents a sublime moment or experience, which can be further distinguished through scientific and religious elements. Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”, David Caspar Friedrich painting “The Abbey in the Oakwood”,Coleridge's poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Lord Byron's poem “She walks in Beauty” contains elements of Romanticism but also captures emphasises on religious, philosophical and  scientific paradigms.

The link between nature and man, is reflected through Romanticism with characteristics of religious paradigms. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” contains natural and religious symbolism, which coincide with one another to represent a connection with man and nature. The most significant role in this poem is the revelation of religious, apocalyptic and natural symbolism, which dominates the purpose of this poem. The symbolism of the “albatross” that is hung around the Mariner’s neck is religious allusion to the crucifix of Jesus, this is apparent when Coleridge writes“Instead of the cross, the albatross about my neck was hung”. Furthermore, the “cross” in “cross-bow” also alludes to the murder of Jesus Christ, which logically alludes the natural link of the albatross as a symbol for Christ. The reader is can depict that the Polar Spirit “loved the bird that loved the man who shot him with his bow.” Coleridge links man, nature and religion here in an analogy, symbolising the link between the love of God who loved his son, and His son who loved the men that killed him. Thus, the biblical and religious symbolism found in this Romantic poem mainly reflects the religious apocalypse that deals with the Mariner’s revelation that good will triumph over evil, and his acceptance of all nature as God’s creation.

Similarly,  David Caspar Friedrich painting “The Abbey in the Oakwood” distinguishes a link between nature and man that is reflected through literature of the of Romantic Period with religious paradigms. Friedrich was a very religious person and wanted to create a religious feeling through landscapes. Dualism, especially appears in his landscapes, with the body and the soul, the earthly and the spiritual side is present as one in this painting to distinguish a connection between man and nature in a Romantic artwork, in addition with religious allusions. In this painting, he represents man in the foreground and the divine in the background. The abbeys door is a symbol of man moving on into the afterlife or leaving the darkness of the natural earthly life behind, to the divine paradise. The visionary gleam of the heavenly realm is completely detached from the earthly regions, which are still sunk in darkness. Thus, this bleak landscape can translate to the religious and natural connection with man and nature, where nature is eternal, but what man creates is transient; as the abbey and the tombs have become damaged with time, but the moon continues to appear after so many years. The brightness of the sky symbolises the only optimistic thing in this bleak landscape. The snow here, symbolises winter, which embodies the Christian idea of resurrection. Hence, this Romantic painting is shaped by religious paradigms, which portray a connection between man and nature.

Scientific paradigms makes apparent its revelation in Romantic literature. It is through discovering scientific paradigms in Romantic texts that the a connection between nature and science is revealed.
The idea of scientific conception of knowledge, finding the "truth" through math and evidence, allows individuals to examine characteristics of scientific paradigms in Romantic texts. In the Romantic novel, “Frankenstein”, Mary Shelley, depicts Victor Frankenstein's role as the character of Enlightenment, having scientific morals. Drawing him out of nature, Victor learned the Enlightenment or scientific way of thinking, thus Shelley demonstrates a connection between science, man and nature. Victor tries to develop his idea that he makes a creature throughout the science, and articulate the role of man playing God. For instance, Victor says, “As a child, I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science…. the steps of the knowledge along the paths of time, and exchanged the discoveries of recent enquirers for the dreams of modern natural philosophy.” Through the short recount of Victor’s experience as a child and the hyperbole on the words “discoveries” and “knowledge”, the reader is able to comprehend that while Victor is growing up, he is learning many scientific influences. Furthermore, while Victor is distinguished as a character with qualities of the scientific paradigm and the Enlightenment period, in contrast to this, the creature or monster he creates is self-evident of Romanticism and nature, thus Shelley distinguishes a connection between man, science and nature. Similar to this notion, Mary Dwyer in her article “Mary Shelley and the Romantic Imagination” states that “… it (Romanticism) celebrates emotional depth, artistic endeavour, creative-self-expression and individuality”. Thus, the first person narration distinguishes that his discovery to make the creature is definitely influenced by science. Therefore, it is through further evaluation of Romanticism that individuals are able to gain a profound insight to how scientific paradigms have shaped Romantic texts, to reveal a connection between man and science.

In contrast, “She walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron helps the reader to understand how romantic and neoclassical elements both complement and contradict one another. “She walks in beauty” has a close inclination to nature. “She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;” This line can be seen to celebrate the beauty of the woman, furthermore with a closer examination it also focuses on nature, comparing the woman to the night and stars in the sky. The importance of nature in these lines is emphasised by the alliteration,“cloudless climes and starry skies” making it a major focus. Throughout the poem Byron continues to compare the beauty of the woman to nature, how, “her aspects and her eyes... mellowed to …the tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies”, this section's idea is emphasised by the metrical inversion of the iambic tetrameter. Thus, the unknown woman in the poem is the embodiment of nature holding many natural qualities idealised by Romantics and Byron could be seen to be expressing his love of nature through his admiration for the unnamed woman. “She walks in beauty” is a Romantic poem that reflects the Romantic period through its reference to nature found in the description of the women. McGann states that “Romanticism is thoroughly intertwined with nature and that the attitudes toward nature that are common in the Western world today emerged mostly during the Romantic period.” Hence, it is through the close examination of Romantic literature that individuals are able to gain an insight to how both neoclassical and romantic paradigms complement but also contradict one another.

 Religious and Romantic philosophy are expressed within Romantic literature. Coleridge's poem “Frost at Midnight” has a distinct portrayal of the contrast between religious and philosophical values of Romanticism, but also of the Enlightenment. During the Romantic period, worship and prayer was considered as a communal affair. “Frost at Midnight” contrasts with this attitude by revealing Coleridge’s individualistic alternate Romantic spirituality. This is reflected in “Frost at Midnight” by Coleridge’s “solitude, which suits abstruser musings,” which demonstrates the  developing individual spirituality outside of quintessential frameworks. Coleridge’s alternative spirituality is further demonstrated through the personification of the burnt matter, an “idling Spirit,” which is joined together with an unnatural “fluttering stranger” who takes on a godlike aspect within the poem. This reflects the worship of the “great city” in favour of a nonreligious spirituality found within nature.  Thus, demonstrating how Coleridge’s poem “Frost at Midnight” has been shaped by the Romantic rejection of mainstream religion during the Romantic period. Additionally, “Frost at Midnight” also reflects the significant philosophic thinkers of the Romantic era, as portrayed by the poem’s evaluation of the role of imagination. Coleridge’s dreaming “with unclosed lids” enables the reader to perceive “things to come.” This reveals underlying elements of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of Idealism, which suggested that imagination fundamentally shapes reality. Furthermore, Coleridge rejects the influence of institutionalised education, as is portrayed by the symbolic association of his school with a prison, “I gazed upon the bars.” This feature reflects the philosophy of the French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was considered to be the philosophical father of the Romantic Movement and who famously stated “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Therefore, “Frost at Midnight” has clearly been shaped to communicate Coleridge’s struggle with mainstream religion and the philosophic paradigms of the Romantic ancestors.

In a similar way, philosophical and especially Religious paradigm are made evident throughout “Frankenstein”. “Frankenstein” contains a great deal of biblical symbolism and religious allusion, particularly the theme of the outcast and the story of creation. The creature is bitter and dejected after being turned away from human civilization, much the same way that Adam in the story of “Adam and Eve” in the Bible, was turned out of the Garden of Eden. This is made apparent when the monster says “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man, did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?”, in a similar way, these lines a revealed in the story of ‘Adam and Eve” when Adam expresses his sorrows. The monster accepts himself as a tragic figure, comparing himself to both Adam and Satan. Like Adam, he is shunned by his creator, though he strives to be good. These rhetorical questions epitomize the monster’s ill will toward Victor for abandoning him in a world relentlessly hostile to him and foist responsibility for his ugliness and eventual evil upon Victor. There is also a sense in which Frankenstein himself may be compared to Satan in that he defies God and commits a profound blasphemy by attempting to usurp God's power as the creator of life. Victor says “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”; this elaborate description demonstrates to the reader the mysterious and exotic wonders of nature as a representation of the natural and unnatural, and the ability to ‘play God’. In this way, Romantic texts are emphasised with elements of philosophical and Romantic periods. In addition, references to Prometheus, who in Greek and Roman mythology and philosophy is named as the creator of humanity and who also defied the gods by teaching humans a number of important crafts. This shows the reader that Mary Shelley is not presenting her story in exclusively Christian religious allusions but also Greek philosophy. “Frankenstein” can be compared with Prometheus in the way in which he steals fire by harnessing the power of lightning to animate his monster. But, like Prometheus, he also defies the supreme being and continues to pursue knowledge, this symbolised by fire, until it has fatal consequences. Victor states “Such were the professor's words—rather let me say such the words of the fate—enounced to destroy me.”Hence, illustrating to the reader a clear parallel with Frankenstein's crimes against nature. As revealed in “Mary  Shelley and the Romantic Imagination” Dwyer explains that “creative imagination can be applied not only to the creation and meditation of art, but also to the consideration of Nature, and that like Mary Shelley, we must learn how to wake with flowers in our hands”. Therefore, there is an inextricable link between man and nature to religious and philosophical paradigms, that have shaped and are reflected in the literature of the Romantic Period. 

Significant influences that are reflected in the literature of the Romantic Period is scientific, religious and philosophical paradigms. Romanticism is further emphasised through scientific, religious and philosophical paradigms. Romanticism captures and represents a sublime moment or experience, which can be further distinguished through scientific, philosophical and religious elements. Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”, David Caspar Friedrich painting “The Abbey in the Oakwood”,Coleridge's poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Lord Byron's poem “She walks in Beauty” contains elements of Romanticism but also captures emphasises on philosophical, religious and scientific paradigms.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on March 24, 2016, 04:00:27 pm

Quote from: caninesandy on March 24, 2016, 01:35:26 pm

Hello Elyse,
No problem haha I really should STOP PROCRASTINATING....
It would be awesome if you could mark my essay. Thank you for being so considerate  ;D
I have attached my essay which I ended up submitted which is slightly different than my previous one. I was reading over the posts about how to write an Ext 1 essay and am really confused about how to write integrated essays...do you have any tips? :)
Thank you so much for your help and patience, I really appreciate it.  :D
Sincerely,
Sara

Here are the marking criteria from my teacher
Band A - Possible Marks: 21-25
Demonstrates with flair and insight an understand of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A sophisticated evaluation of the statement
 - A sophisticated. substantial exploration of all texts and their interrelationship supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sophisticated, sustained critical response, displaying highly developed control of language and the conventions of critical discourse to express complex ideas with clarity and originality.

Band B - Possible Marks: 16-20
Demonstrates with insight an understanding of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A substantial evaluation of the statement
 - A substantial exploration of all texts and their interrelationship, supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sound, sustained critical response, displaying effective control of language and the conventions of critical discourse to express complex ideas with clarity.

Band C - Possible Marks: 11 - 15
Demonstrates sound understanding of how Romantic ways of thinking are reflected in texts through:
 - A sound evaluation of the statement
 - A sound exploration of all texts and their interrelationship, supporting a clear thesis.
 - A sustained critical response, displaying highly developed control of language and the conventions of critical discourse.

I am kind of hoping I am not below a band C but if you would like to check out the other criteria please let me know :D Thank you!

Thanks for posting the criteria! Just a quick disclaimed, I didn't study Romanticism, I studied After the Bomb. It is still a Ways of Thinking essay, but just know that there may be jargon or conventions that I'm not familiar with :)
Original essay:

Spoiler

Romantic ways of thinking can be best understood when a range of Romantic texts are examined and the interrelationship of these texts is explored.

Following the Enlightenment age of science and rationality, Romanticism arose constituting differing ways of thinking and attempts at understanding the world and one's place in it. The opposition occurred as a rebellion to the Enlightenment and spawned from events such as the French Revolution. People began to favour subjectivity, individualism and idealism over strict, rigid laws of society. To best understand these ways of thinking Romantic texts should be examined and their interrelationships explored. In Essay VII - On the Ignorance of the Learned (Essay VII) within Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners (1822) by William Hazlitt, Edmund Burke’s book A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas and the Sublime and the Beautiful (Enquiry) (1757) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem This Lime-tree Bower my Prison (LBP) (1797) the importance of nature and the individual, the notion of the sublime and the importance of imagination can be witnessed, revealing an interrelationship of ideas and beliefs through texts.

The importance of the individual is a fundamental concept within romanticism, emphasising personal understanding and exploration. Exploration is not merely of the world but, in its action and thus of consequence, of oneself and one’s purpose. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem LBP investigates this idea, however, furthers it through the sole means of exploring nature, the only earthly entity which may free or complete man. Coleridge weighs great importance upon nature through his deep and extensive descriptions of its ‘magnific[ance]’, infact he equates it to ‘Heaven’ and personifies it with the capabilities to make one ‘wise and pure’. Coleridge juxtaposes his descriptive spiels against his ‘[loss of]/ Beauties and feelings,’ from not being within nature. This hyperbolic statement represents Coleridge’s restlessness without proper ‘nature’ immersion. He feels satisfied only when he is within nature, untouched by man’s ‘evil’ and constricting societal hand. Coleridge also utilises iambic pentameter to express his internal thoughts. When describing nature he mainly uses ten syllable lines indicating euphoria and balance, while when without nature he uses eleven, displaying his emotional distraught. Furthermore, in the beginning of stanza three Coleridge uses only tree syllables, enhancing his intense spiritual and emotional discovery.

This similar theme of man’s imperfection in understanding himself and the world can be seen through William Hazlitt’s Essay VII. Hazlitt writes about man’s thirst for knowledge and learning in an attempt to heighten one’s social status. He expresses they should be exploring nature to ‘[put] him out’, formulating a sense of terror and awe - the sublime.  This would consequently help improve understanding of one’s individuality through realising their powerlessness against the omniscient nature. He thoroughly denounces anyone attempting to understand the world through books and science as they ‘shrink[] from the fatigue of thought’. He successfully expresses this through his critiquing tone of negative descriptions, contrasting against the paradigms of the Enlightenment’s structural, rational and scientific research. This influences the audience, persuading them into adopting Hazlitt’s opinions. His opening sentence, ‘The description of persons who have the fewest ideas of all others are mere authors and readers’,  uses very strong and affirmative diction which asserts the audience immediately into Hazlitt’s opinion and the essay’s general theme. Hazlitt also writes in abrupt, brief and concise sentences, reflecting the vigor and directness of his views. In Burke’s Enquiry he correspondingly reflects Hazlitt’s view of the insufficiency of man’s attempts to understand themselves without exploring nature. In the Preface he ends writing the ‘severer sciences’ as ‘something illiberal.’ This clearly shows opposition to man’s scientific approach. Further through the book Burke emphasises on ‘beauty’, ‘passion’, and the ‘sublime’. The ways of thinking are extremely familiar in each text, compiling and extending towards better understanding of Romantic thoughts and perceptions.

Through exploring texts, understanding of the Romantic idea of the the sublime, an important component in the Romantic way of thinking, can be enhanced. One text which specifically emphasises upon this idea is Burke’s Enquiry. In Part I, Section VII, Burke defines the sublime to be the ‘productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.’ He names this emotion to be a convolution of pain, terror and astonishment. This feeling goes beyond rational understanding and experience but into vivid feeling and personal interpretation. Burke also explains how the sublime is linked to intense feelings of delight. In LBP Coleridge experiences the sublime in the third stanza when he is utterly astonished by nature noting ‘A delight/comes sudden on my heart’. This mirrors the impact of the sublime from Enquiry as it comments on the ‘delight’ and the strong emotional impact on his ‘heart’, a symbol for true raw feeling. Burke uses examples to help convey his meaning of the sublime, such as in ‘The Effects of Tragedy’ justifying audience's desire to watch tragedies to reasons of the sublime. Burke’s first person approach in expressing his views helps to create a close relationship between the author and the reader. Consequently, audiences may better connect and understand Burke’s ideas on a more personal level, thus persuading them. This conversational-like approach to approaching audiences is mirrored in LBF, a conversational poem. The sublime shows changes in paradigm from Enlightenment with rational thought, to Romanticism with strong emotional interpretation. Therefore, The examination of texts and their interrelationships provide better insight into Romantic ways of thinking.

As previously mentioned the matter of the individual is very important in Romanticism and this is further extended through emphasis on the imagination. In LBF the reader is introduced to Coleridge in an extremely distressed; isolated and imprisoned by a ‘lime-tree brower’ from greater nature. However, in stanza three Coleridge begins with ‘A delight/ Comes sudden on my heart’, starkly contrasted against the Coleridge’s initial emotions. He suddenly notices all of the natural beauties of the lime-tree bower. He realises ‘That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure’. Resultantly, Coleridge utilises his imagination to discover beauties in objects he had never once considered. This idea is assisted through Coleridge’s personal theories on the imagination in which two exist: the primary and secondary imagination. LBP initially reflects the primary imagination, "the living power and the prime agent of human perception" (Biographia Literaria, Chapter 13), as he describes the nature walk his friends journey. Then, the third stanza begins the secondary imagination, the faculty that a poet has "to idealize and unify" (Biographia Literaria, Chapter 13), where Coleridge realises the spiritual presence nature omits to ‘lift the soul’. The is especially emphasised through the symbolism of the ‘rook’ linking Coleridge and his friend, Charles Lamb, together regardless of their distance apart.  Therefore, the imagination is important for fulfillment. This idea is also expressed in Hazlitt’s Essay VII writing ‘nor can they submit their imaginations so servilely to the trammels of strict scholastic discipline’. Here he uses an example of two men, Gary and Collins, who have developed a ‘wayward disposition’ due to strict educational and social expectations. However, they refuse to lose their imagination. This highlights the importance of the imagination and its primal instinct and component within mankind. Additionally, Hazlitt describes ‘the most brilliant specimens’ to be ones with vivid imaginations. Consequently, the interrelationship between Romantic texts on the idea of the importance of imagination provides better understanding into Romantic ways of thinking.

Ultimately, through the examination and exploration of the interrelationships of a range of Romantic texts Romantic ways of thinking can be best understood. The A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas and the Sublime and the Beautiful of Edmund Burke, the Essay VII - On the Ignorance of the Learned in the collection Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners by William Hazlitt and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem This Lime-tree Bower my Prison are a testament to this through their overlapping of ideas, such as the importance the individual, especially when in nature; the notion of the sublime and the importance of imagination. The texts also use numerous literary techniques, such as conversational style, to reflect these ideas and impact upon audiences. Romantic texts powerful influence affected the many realms of literature during its time.

With my annotations:

Spoiler

Romantic ways of thinking can be best understood when a range of Romantic texts are examined and the interrelationship of these texts is explored.

Following the Enlightenment age of science and rationality, Romanticism arose constituting differing ways of thinking and attempts at understanding the world and one's place in it. Love that you've already mentioned the ways of thinking.The opposition occurred as a rebellion to the Enlightenment and spawned from events such as the French Revolution. (The opposition? Not quite sure what you mean by this?)People began to favour subjectivity, individualism and idealism over strict, rigid laws of society. To best understand these ways of thinking, (comma) Romantic texts should be examined and their interrelationships explored. In Essay VII - On the Ignorance of the Learned (Essay VII) within Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners (1822) by William Hazlitt, Edmund Burke’s book A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas and the Sublime and the Beautiful (Enquiry) (1757) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem This Lime-tree Bower my Prison (LBP) (1797) the importance of nature and the individual, the notion of the sublime and the importance of imagination can be witnessed, revealing an interrelationship of ideas and beliefs through texts. It is difficult to deal with four texts in an introduction - trust me I know! I found that breaking them into pairs made them easily to deal with in that I could identify specific ways of thinking in each, still in the intro! This is your choice, though.

The importance of the individual is a fundamental concept within romanticism, emphasising personal understanding and exploration. Exploration is not merely of the world but, in its action and thus of consequence, of oneself and one’s purpose. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem LBP investigates this idea, however, furthers it through the sole means of exploring nature, the only earthly entity which may free or complete man. Coleridge weighs great importance upon nature through his deep and extensive descriptions of its ‘magnific[ance]’, infact he equates it to ‘Heaven’ and personifies it with the capabilities to make one ‘wise and pure’. Coleridge juxtaposes his descriptive spiels against his ‘[loss of]/ Beauties and feelings,’ from not being within nature. This hyperbolic statement represents Coleridge’s restlessness without proper ‘nature’ immersion. He feels satisfied only when he is within nature, untouched by man’s ‘evil’ and constricting societal hand. Coleridge also utilises iambic pentameter to express his internal thoughts. When describing nature he mainly uses ten syllable lines indicating euphoria and balance, while when without nature he uses eleven, displaying his emotional distraught. Furthermore, in the beginning of stanza three Coleridge uses only tree three? syllables, enhancing his intense spiritual and emotional discovery. So far, so good! I mean, you've given some intro into the ways of thinking, then dived right into the text, no major issues here! However, the explicit mentioning of ways of thinking does drop off towards the end a little bit. Make sure that this is consistent!

This similar theme of man’s imperfection in understanding himself and the world can be seen through William Hazlitt’s Essay VII. Hazlitt writes about man’s thirst for knowledge and learning in an attempt to heighten one’s social status. He expresses they should be exploring nature to ‘[put] him out’, formulating a sense of terror and awe - the sublime.  This would consequently help improve understanding of one’s individuality through realising their powerlessness against the omniscient nature. He thoroughly denounces anyone attempting to understand the world through books and science as they ‘shrink[] from the fatigue of thought’. He successfully expresses this through his critiquing tone of negative descriptions, contrasting against the paradigms of the Enlightenment’s structural, rational and scientific research. Loved this sentence!!!This influences the audience, persuading them into adopting Hazlitt’s opinions. His opening sentence, ‘The description of persons who have the fewest ideas of all others are mere authors and readers’,  uses very strong and affirmative diction which asserts the audience immediately into Hazlitt’s opinion and the essay’s general theme. Hazlitt also writes in abrupt, brief and concise sentences, reflecting the vigor and directness of his views. In Burke’s Enquiry he correspondingly reflects Hazlitt’s view of the insufficiency of man’s attempts to understand themselves without exploring nature. In the Preface he ends writing the ‘severer sciences’ as ‘something illiberal.’ This clearly shows opposition to man’s scientific approach. Further through the book Burke emphasises on ‘beauty’, ‘passion’, and the ‘sublime’. The ways of thinking are extremely familiar in each text, compiling and extending towards better understanding of Romantic thoughts and perceptions. This is a really good tie in here. This brings it back to Romanticism, the texts, the ways of thinking. Bravo!

Through exploring texts, understanding of the Romantic idea of the the sublime, an important component in the Romantic way of thinking, can be enhanced. One text which specifically emphasises upon this idea is Burke’s Enquiry. In Part I, Section VII, Burke defines the sublime to be the ‘productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.’ He names this emotion to be a convolution of pain, terror and astonishment. This feeling goes beyond rational understanding and experience but into vivid feeling and personal interpretation. Burke also explains how the sublime is linked to intense feelings of delight. In LBP Coleridge experiences the sublime in the third stanza when he is utterly astonished by nature noting ‘A delight/comes sudden on my heart’. This mirrors the impact of the sublime from Enquiry as it comments on the ‘delight’ and the strong emotional impact on his ‘heart’, a symbol for true raw feeling. Burke uses examples to help convey his meaning of the sublime, such as in ‘The Effects of Tragedy’ justifying audience's desire to watch tragedies to reasons of the sublime. Burke’s first person approach in expressing his views helps to create a close relationship between the author and the reader. Consequently, audiences may better connect and understand Burke’s ideas on a more personal level, thus persuading them. This conversational-like approach to approaching audiences is mirrored in LBF, a conversational poem. The sublime shows changes in paradigm from Enlightenment with rational thought, to Romanticism with strong emotional interpretation. Therefore, The examination of texts and their interrelationships provide better insight into Romantic ways of thinking. Yas, you've done it again! A great link!

As previously mentioned the matter of the individual is very important (This bit here sounds a little less sophisticated to me. It is a combination of "previously mentioned" and "very important." Instead of very important, I would try imperative, vital, prominent, significant... in Romanticism and this is further extended through emphasis on the imagination. In LBF the reader is introduced to Coleridge in an extremely distressed; isolated and imprisoned by a ‘lime-tree brower’ from greater nature. However, in stanza three Coleridge begins with ‘A delight/ Comes sudden on my heart’, starkly contrasted against the Coleridge’s initial emotions. He suddenly notices all of the natural beauties of the lime-tree bower. He realises ‘That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure’. Resultantly, Coleridge utilises his imagination to discover beauties in objects he had never once considered. This idea is assisted through Coleridge’s personal theories on the imagination in which two exist: the primary and secondary imagination. LBP initially reflects the primary imagination, "the living power and the prime agent of human perception" (Biographia Literaria, Chapter 13), as he describes the nature walk his friends journey. Then, the third stanza begins the secondary imagination, the faculty that a poet has "to idealize and unify" (Biographia Literaria, Chapter 13), where Coleridge realises the spiritual presence nature omits to ‘lift the soul’. The is especially emphasised through the symbolism of the ‘rook’ linking Coleridge and his friend, Charles Lamb, together regardless of their distance apart.  Therefore, the imagination is important for fulfillment. This idea is also expressed in Hazlitt’s Essay VII writing ‘nor can they submit their imaginations so servilely to the trammels of strict scholastic discipline’. Here he uses an example of two men, Gary and Collins, who have developed a ‘wayward disposition’ due to strict educational and social expectations. However, they refuse to lose their imagination. This highlights the importance of the imagination and its primal instinct and component within mankind. Additionally, Hazlitt describes ‘the most brilliant specimens’ to be ones with vivid imaginations. Consequently, the interrelationship between Romantic texts on the idea of the importance of imagination provides better understanding into Romantic ways of thinking.

I think the next step for your essay, up until this point, is to start making little comments at the end or start of each sentence that link the texts. For example, "Similarly observed in ****, Hazlitt describes...." This kind of thing makes an essay integrated, even if a paragraph deals with one text at a time explicitly. You are SO on the right track here!

Ultimately, through the examination and exploration of the interrelationships of a range of Romantic texts Romantic ways of thinking can be best understood. The A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas and the Sublime and the Beautiful of Edmund Burke, the Essay VII - On the Ignorance of the Learned in the collection Table Talk: Essays on Men and Manners by William Hazlitt and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem This Lime-tree Bower my Prison are a testament to this through their overlapping of ideas, such as the importance the individual, especially when in nature; the notion of the sublime and the importance of imagination. I think the problem with this sentence is that your texts have such long names, they are all in the one, and then you have four clauses/phrases attached to the end. I think you should split it up just so it is more easily digested :)The texts also use numerous literary techniques, such as conversational style, to reflect these ideas and impact upon audiences. Romantic texts powerful influence affected the many realms of literature during its time.

So, your essay is awesome, you don't need to stress! I would think that the feedback from your teacher comes from a Romantic perspective. Because, structurally this works. Are you looking for a thoroughly integrated essay, is that what you are after? Because, this is well done. With the above mentioned tweaks, it becomes even stronger. But, in order to achieve an essay where you alternatively deal with two texts concurrently in each paragraph, you will need a major structure re-evaluation. I know this because I had to with my own! All year I stayed well away from integrated essays until just before the HSC I'm like nope, if I want the top marks, I need to sort my stuff out! So I sat down, changed ORTs, literally overhauled everything I had! You already have elements of integration, so don't sweat!

You should be proud of this!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Jimmy Barnes on June 10, 2016, 01:35:18 pm

I am currently doing a speech based assignment for extension 1 as one of the requirements for the HSC is assessing speaking or something along those lines. Would you be able to glance over my script and tell me if there are any areas that are unclear?

I understand that most classes do after the bomb but my class chose to do a comedy genre study so no in-depth information is really necessary, but any tips that could help improve my structure and coherence as a whole would be greatly appreciated

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: aoife98 on June 11, 2016, 08:55:57 pm

Hi, would you mind read over one of my paragraphs for After the Bomb? The question is 'To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?: Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this. From a speech to the South Carolina Legislature on April 16 1947.' This is by far my longest paragraph and I want to get rid of any areas which aren't contributing to the overall value.
Thank you so much :)

Paragraph 3: Sylvia Plath - Social Politics
Reacting to growing uncertainty following the dropping of the bomb, Western society returned to traditional conservative societal values creating a culture of containment. This social repression, combined with political instability and Cold War paranoia, led to the disintegration of trust in relationships. Increasingly isolated, individuals turned to material possession and social conformity to gain identities. Sylvia Plath explicitly represents this search for authenticity within her poetry from a critical perspective of social expectations. To ensure her existence, Plath begins a personal and anxious interrogation of herself, most clear in Daddy through her portrayal of “man in black with a Meinkampf look.” Through juxtaposing an insistent nursery rhyme tone with allusions to Nazism and the connotations of the black motif,, Plath develops a persona with an electra complex, satirising the clinging of society to oppressive values in order to feel purposeful. The threats posed by this global identity crisis are evident in the criticism of the crowd which shoves to see Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The dual symbolism of this image metaphorically represents Plath’s personal struggle with depression and the unfeeling and material-driven nature of society. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s representation of societies “comfortable concentration camp” (Freiden) as a form of sleazy entertainment and civilian distraction, highlighting the threat posed by social regulations. In following the philosophies of her contemporary Simone de Beauvoir that oppression creates war, Plath utilises the confessional genre to confront Cold War privacy ideologies. The analogy of writing for personal expression is evident in the simile “Sap wells like tears, like water striving to re-establish its mirror” (Words). Through the metaphor of nature imagery, Plath expresses her role to counteract social conformity to dictated truths by revealing natural truths, particularly against the disempowerment of women. In The Applicant, Plath highlights her society's return to conservatism as an attempt to retain stability, explicitly satirising the resulting oppression and commodification of women. Plath achieves this through the extended metaphor of an all knowing persona who subverts the traditional nuclear family values. The parody of housewives in “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet,” creates an emotional dissociation, reflecting the fragmentary and isolated nature of humanity in the period, and resulting distraction through materialism. Plath’s critique of these oppressive values is amplified through the application of a condescending tone. Plath further rejects the culture of containment and privacy through her self-commodification in Lady Lazarus “for a word...or a bit of blood.” Hence, Plath partakes in the interrogation of self, following isolation as a result of politically driven paranoia. However, she rejects the widespread materialism adopted by her context as a form of self medication, finding these methods to be repressive.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 13, 2016, 10:06:41 am

Quote from: Jimmy Barnes on June 10, 2016, 01:35:18 pm

I am currently doing a speech based assignment for extension 1 as one of the requirements for the HSC is assessing speaking or something along those lines. Would you be able to glance over my script and tell me if there are any areas that are unclear?

I understand that most classes do after the bomb but my class chose to do a comedy genre study so no in-depth information is really necessary, but any tips that could help improve my structure and coherence as a whole would be greatly appreciated

Hello! I'll take a look now :)

Comments in bold throughout:

Spoiler

“The comic is to show a person or a thing as it dissolves itself internally in its very gloating” – G.W.F. HEGEL

As alluded to by the German Philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, the primary role of any comic is to enact the satirisation of a ‘person or a thing’ based on its own merits, ‘in its very gloating’. A comic’s choice of target stems from their context, being their social and cultural conditions.

3


These social and cultural conditions reserve the right to either undo a comedy piece completely and plunge it into irrelevancy or elevate it into prominence and preserve its commentary throughout history. These significant comedic texts that emerge throughout history are ones that possess an enduring relevance, often attributed to their critical analysis of the human condition while maintaining core comedic values.
So far, so good!
4

Two texts that fall into this niche are Ben Elton’s imitation of the historical costume drama in Blackadder, and Voltaire’s scathing critique of Optimism in his novel Candide. Both texts arise from their own idiosyncratic social and cultural contexts, both texts provide social commentary on the human condition by exposing human mistakes and weaknesses and both texts are still deemed relevant today due to this ever-pertinent commentary on the human condition. Great - you've brought in the human condition really well.

5

Candide, as a significant text in the comedy genre, arose from Voltaire’s specific social and cultural values in the 1700s surrounding the rise of Optimism, a philosophy proposed by Leibniz, which dictated that ‘this world is the best of all possible worlds’. Voltaire’s social and cultural conditions in 1700’s France along with influence from his secular grand-father, moulded him into a Meliorist and turned him away from philosophy, with him then becoming one of the most prominent enlightenment writers in France. This is great - but there is a lot of information here. I think the key to making this super effective is to make sure that your voice makes this information really digestable. Use the tone of your voice to really pronounce the ends and starts of sentences so that it is easy for the audience to follow.

6

7

These contextual conditions manifest themselves throughout Candide, Voltaire’s satirical attack on Optimism. Voltaire’s abhorrence of Optimism is encapsulated after an Anabaptist, Jacques, (comma) falls off the boat and drowns because Pangloss, an Optimist prevents Candide from rescuing him, saying, “That Lisbon harbour was built expressly so that this Anabaptist may one day die in it”. Voltaire critiques the inherently defeatist philosophy through reductio ad absurdum by characterising Lisbon Harbour as a means to an end, being that is was specifically made for drowning the Anabaptist. Positioning the audience to disagree with this assertion through comic hyperbole, Voltaire positions the responder to sympathise with him while ensuring the responder questions the pragmatism of Optimism. By doing so, Voltaire provides a medium to his contextual audience to question and scrutinise over-arching philosophical regimes such as Optimism through the use of the comedic genre to undermine this philosophy while providing a critique on human mistakes and weakness by revealing our malleability and our inclination to adhere to such regimes, as portrayed through Pangloss’ undivided faith towards Optimism.


8




Voltaire’s scepticism towards Optimism pervades the novel, but one particularly contemptuous example is illustrated when Candide learns of the exploitation of African workers and is then asked what optimism is, saying, “It is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well”. After Candide has been subjected to innumerable trials, tribulations and abuse throughout the novel, Voltaire’s use of Socratic irony in Candide’s discovery regarding Optimism confirms both Voltaire’s and the responder’s hypothesis’, that Optimism is indeed ‘a mania’. Framing the responder to harmonise with his stance on Optimism, Voltaire’s postulation, stemming from Voltaire’s logical and pragmatic values as an enlightenment writer, denounces Optimism as a philosophy by construing it as inherently at variance with logic and reason. By doing so, Candide remains an influential novel with an enduring relevance due to its satirisation of Optimism and its unquestioning adherents.


9

Akin to Candide, Blackadder is subject to the social and contextual conditions it was constructed in. Ben Elton and Richard Curtis’ post-modernist historical costume drama Blackadder scrutinises the fixed British social class hierarchy that is still prevalent in 1980’s England through an emulation of the regency period, satirising the lack of social evolution throughout British history.

10

This satire targets the hierarchal power structures embodied in the farcical caricature of the Prince Regent, as seen in Sense and Senility when the Prince Regent visits a high-brow theatre, with Blackadder recalling a previous experience, saying ‘Last year when Brutus was about to kill Julius Caesar, the Prince yelled out, “Look behind you Mr Caesar”. It is in the hyperbolic characterisation of the Prince Regent that allows this scene to flourish as a comedic paradigm. Elton diminishes the Prince’s intelligence to that of a child, which is expertly conveyed through the travesty of highbrow theatre as the Prince treats it as though it was a pantomime. This subversion of the prince reflects Elton’s social and cultural conditions through creating a dichotomy between the pomposity of the ruling class with the Prince’s daftness and the anachronistic figure of Blackadder who acts as a proto-modernist vehicle for the modern responder to draw understanding from, framing the responder to realise that social values from the regency period still exist today while creating an enduring relevance through its social commentary on the higher classes and how social class doesn’t equate to intelligence.

11

This caustic, yet comical attack continues throughout the episode, re-occurring when the Prince Regent says to Blackadder, ““It’s not me that’s thick, it’s you! … I’m the bloody Prince and you’re only a butler”. Due to the metafictive characterisation of Blackadder as a Machiavellian foil to the idiotic Prince Regent, the audience relates to Blackadder despite the Prince’s social stature and power. This is exactly the reason why the audience can see through the Prince’s diminutive rhetoric and realise the obvious irony in the situation, as the Prince, regardless of being a prince, is incorrect and the situation is the inverse of what the prince believes. This inversion aims to subvert the current social and cultural conditions pertaining to the class system, which has not evolved since the regency period while providing the audience a glimpse into Elton’s social and cultural conditions through his ever-pertinent commentary on royalty, and how often the lower classes are the more intelligent and down to earth, as seen through the dynamics between Blackadder and the Prince Regent.


It is an undeniable fact that both Candide and Blackadder are comedic texts that possess an enduring relevance, thus this in-depth analysis into their multi-faceted homogeneity hopefully shed some light as to why both texts are highly regarded throughout history as both texts reveal and critique aspects of the human condition, specifically through exposing human mistakes and weaknesses due to their social and cultural influences.
I sincerely think that this is a very, very good analysis! I have no concerns over the information you present, or how it is written. I think what needs to happen is something that I can't critique from here: the delivery. In your delivery you need to make this very interesting to the audience. Through consistent manipulation of tone and volume you can definitely keep an audience interested. But, if you feel that this isn't your strong point, I suggest you add some rhetorical questions, the second person narrator, little ancedotes, these kind of things. If your voice alone can convey this interest, you have no problem! But if you need something to boost your engagement with the audience, I suggest you add some of these things in. It is about comedy after all, are you a bit of a comedian and can get some laughs out of it? :) You should be really stoked with your work, it is extremely hard to critique!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 13, 2016, 11:10:39 am

Quote from: aoife98 on June 11, 2016, 08:55:57 pm

Hi, would you mind read over one of my paragraphs for After the Bomb? The question is 'To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?: Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this. From a speech to the South Carolina Legislature on April 16 1947.' This is by far my longest paragraph and I want to get rid of any areas which aren't contributing to the overall value.
Thank you so much :)

Hello! I'll gladly take a look at this paragraph. Sylvia Plath is my fave.
My comments are in bold throughout:

Spoiler

Reacting to growing uncertainty following the dropping of the bomb, Western society returned to traditional conservative societal values creating a culture of containment. This social repression, combined with political instability and Cold War paranoia, led to the disintegration of trust in relationships. Increasingly isolated, individuals turned to material possession and social conformity to gain identities. Sylvia Plath explicitly represents this search for authenticity within her poetry from a critical perspective of social expectations. By this stage I was hoping to see a more explicit reference to the stimulus about the enemies. Is it possible to weave that in here? To ensure her existence, Plath begins a personal and anxious interrogation of herself, most clear in Daddy through her portrayal of “man in black with a Meinkampf look.” Through juxtaposing an insistent nursery rhyme tone with allusions to Nazism and the connotations of the black motif, Plath develops a persona with an electra complex, satirising the clinging of society to oppressive values in order to feel purposeful. The threats posed by this global identity crisis are evident in the criticism of the crowd which shoves to see Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The dual symbolism of this image metaphorically represents Plath’s personal struggle with depression and the unfeeling and material-driven nature of society. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s representation of societies “comfortable concentration camp” (Freiden) as a form of sleazy entertainment and civilian distraction, highlighting the threat posed by social regulations. In following the philosophies of her contemporary Simone de Beauvoir that oppression creates war, Plath utilises the confessional genre to confront Cold War privacy ideologies. The analogy of writing for personal expression is evident in the simile “Sap wells like tears, like water striving to re-establish its mirror” (Words). Through the metaphor of nature imagery, Plath expresses her role to counteract social conformity to dictated truths by revealing natural truths, particularly against the disempowerment of women. In The Applicant, Plath highlights her society's return to conservatism as an attempt to retain stability, explicitly satirising the resulting oppression and commodification of women. This is sooooooo good! Plath achieves this through the extended metaphor of an all knowing persona who subverts the traditional nuclear family values. The parody of housewives in “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet (name the poem it is from),” creates an emotional dissociation, reflecting the fragmentary and isolated nature of humanity in the period, and resulting distraction through materialism. Plath’s critique of these oppressive values is amplified through the application of a condescending tone. Plath further rejects the culture of containment and privacy through her self-commodification in Lady Lazarus “for a word...or a bit of blood.” Hence, Plath partakes in the interrogation of self, following isolation as a result of politically driven paranoia. However, she rejects the widespread materialism adopted by her context as a form of self medication, finding these methods to be repressive.

This is great! I usually comment a lot more than what I did here. The reason is, your analysis is so deep and very authentic. It's great to see!

What needs to be improved:
-You reference politics implicitly a fair bit, but you need to make a specific link to the essay question regarding "politics" and your own original take on the idea of "social politics." It's a very small thing, but I think this will show enormous improvement. This is the reason that I couldn't decide what to cut, I don't know which are most important to the essay question. Anything that you struggle to link to the essay question is what you should cut.

-More reference to the essay stimulus - the quote. A small thing to do, but this will also make it very clear about what you should cut and it is essential to getting the best grades.

Let me know what you think, if you adjust it then post again and I'll take another look! All the best :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on June 15, 2016, 12:13:45 am

Attention! The essay marking rules have now changed  ;D Due to increasing popularity, and to make sure essay marking services remain accessible for active members of the ATAR Notes community, a new post exchange policy is in effect for all essays below this line. Every 5 ATAR Notes posts qualifies you for one essay to be marked. 50 posts qualifies you for 10 essays, etc. Details can be found at this link! Thanks!  ;D

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: aoife98 on June 20, 2016, 04:08:21 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on June 13, 2016, 11:10:39 am

What needs to be improved:
-You reference politics implicitly a fair bit, but you need to make a specific link to the essay question regarding "politics" and your own original take on the idea of "social politics." It's a very small thing, but I think this will show enormous improvement. This is the reason that I couldn't decide what to cut, I don't know which are most important to the essay question. Anything that you struggle to link to the essay question is what you should cut.

-More reference to the essay stimulus - the quote. A small thing to do, but this will also make it very clear about what you should cut and it is essential to getting the best grades.

Let me know what you think, if you adjust it then post again and I'll take another look! All the best :)

Thank you so much for this! The essay is due in two days but I plan to use it for trials/hsc. Even if someone would be able to mark half of it, that would be great. I've also (briefly) attempted to include greater reference to the stimulus regarding Plath. Do you think a direct reference to the quote is necessary in each explanation?

Thank you again!
To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?
Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this.

A bright flash, and the world was changed forever. As the 1945 mushroom cloud ballooned over Hiroshima city, traditional global values regarding the common pursuit of man were dashed away forever and replaced by a pervading distrust, paranoia and existentialism. Responding to this shift in global consciousness, composers of the era developed the popular perception of the atomic bomb as marking the failure of the grand human narrative, and further reflected the resulting disempowerment. The characteristic political compliance before the bomb is challenged through subversion of literary conventions in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 absurdist play Waiting for Godot, and Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove (1964) reflecting the growing abandonment of tradition. The resulting isolation and disintegration of trust led to a culture of self distraction through material possession, a concept critiqued as an internal threat by Sylvia Plath’s poetic anthology Ariel and Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Through satirical representations of common post war rationales, these composers seek to reveal the ramifications of complacency as spreading internal threats, highlighting the greater enemy within the human psyche.

The dropping of the bomb saw increasing isolation due to the replacement of enlightenment thinking with existentialist doubt in the human endeavour, leading to distrust in authority. Beckett represents these paradigms throughout Waiting for Godot with the intention of exposing “the instability of every apparently solid structure.” (Worton) Emblematic of the eras increasing nihilism and rejection of authoritative trust, Beckett absurdly depicts the “bad faith” philosophies of Sartre through the darkly humourous protagonists, in their pursual of false or unfulfilling external answers to their purpose. “Terrified by (their) own emptiness” (J. Moore) they futilely put complete faith in the omniscient, controlling and metaphorical ‘Godot’. Through religious allusion, Beckett allegorically highlights the emerging disillusionment following the failure of authority, religion and science to protect humanity. Further, the disturbance to social structure and resultant dysfunction is further evident through the rejection of language conventions in the absurdist genre, including the fragmented syntax and useless repertoire in the dialogue “Nothing to be done.” Beckett uses the motif to capture the contextual paralysis and loss of hope. Beckett further criticises absolute trust in authority through the desensitised reactions of characters to inhumanity in the satirically childlike connotations of “We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.” The composer uses this metaphor for propaganda to question ‘truths’ regarding Communism as evil and Capitalism as righteous. The failure of the Christian metanarrative is most poignant through Beckett’s subversion of Christian grace and suffering ideologies. Through parenthesis and truncated sentences, the composer creates a poignant tone, revealing the extent of disempowerment “To every man his little cross. Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.” Therefore, through absurd representation, Beckett reveals the contextual loss of hope and purpose following the failure of the human metanarrative, and questions the prevalent trust in authority.

Following conventional post bomb coping attempts, Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove employs satire and black humour to express contextual disillusionment in authority and breakdown of logic, following the failure of supposed safeguards. The film plays on the audience’s contextual hyper-anxieties to reveal the flaws of total trust in authoritative bodies, alluding to McCarthy's invalid ‘Red Scare.’ Communist fears are central to the plot as the catalyst for General Ripper’s subversion of duty. Realising “the whole situation (of the Cold War) was absurd,” Kubrick sought to highlight the dangers of propaganda-driven terror by creating a sense of neurosis through Ripper’s vacant and erratic movements. This approach contrasts DeLillo’s portrayal of naive ignorance. Moreover, the composer portrays his disillusionment by reducing the atomic bomb (the symbol of civilian fear) to a metaphor for sex, and male desires to prove masculinity, through allusions to Jack the Ripper’s violent sexual tendencies, and “essence.” Kubrick further challenges the contextual political compliance by highlighting the fallibility of leaders through the characterisation of historical figures as incompetent. This is most obvious in the absurd dialogue between the opposing presidents regarding the global doom they invoked, “Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am.” Through reductionism, the film juxtaposes doom with the comical chewing of gum, through cross-cutting, to criticise politicians. Furthermore, Kubrick satirises the paradoxical M.A.D policy through the ironic military motto “Peace is our profession.” The recurring motif is used in the background of combat scenes to emphasise the theorys irrationality. The failure of authoritative bodies to protect society is made obvious in the dramatic irony of a scuffle between two politicians depicted with a dolly cam, to which the President objects “you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!” The absurdity of political motivations in the period is epitomised in the concluding contrast between the montage of explosions and the non diegetic score music. Thus, Kubrick embodies post war feelings of the failure of the capitalist metanarrative to produce stable governing bodies, and furthermore criticising the prevailing trust in authority.

Reacting to growing uncertainty following the dropping of the bomb, Western society returned to traditional conservative societal values creating a culture of containment and fear of the unknown. This social repression, combined with political instability and Cold War paranoia, led to the disintegration of trust in relationships. Increasingly isolated, individuals turned to material possession and social conformity to gain identities, becoming repressed under their own regulations. Sylvia Plath explicitly represents this search for authenticity within her poetry through a critical perspective of social expectations as a threat to humanity, posed by the individual and society. To ensure her existence, Plath begins a personal and anxious interrogation of herself, most clear in Daddy through her portrayal of “man in black with a Meinkampf look.” Through juxtaposing an insistent nursery rhyme tone with allusions to Nazism and the connotations of the black motif,, Plath develops a persona with an electra complex, satirising the clinging of society to oppressive values in order to feel purposeful. The threats posed by this global identity crisis are evident in the criticism of the crowd which shoves to see Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The dual symbolism of this image metaphorically represents Plath’s personal struggle with depression and the unfeeling and material-driven nature of society. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s representation of societies “comfortable concentration camp” (Freiden) as a form of sleazy entertainment and civilian distraction, highlighting the threat posed by social regulations. In following the philosophies of her contemporary Simone de Beauvoir that oppression creates war, Plath utilises the confessional genre to confront Cold War privacy ideologies. The analogy of writing for personal expression is evident in the simile “Sap wells like tears, like water striving to re-establish its mirror” (Words). Through the metaphor of nature imagery, Plath expresses her role to counteract social conformity to dictated truths by revealing natural truths, particularly against the disempowerment of women. In The Applicant, Plath highlights her society's return to conservatism as an attempt to retain stability, explicitly satirising the resulting oppression and commodification of women. Plath achieves this through the extended metaphor of an all knowing persona who subverts the traditional nuclear family values. The parody of housewives in The Applicant “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet,” creates an emotional dissociation, reflecting the fragmentary and isolated nature of humanity in the period, and resulting distraction through materialism. Plath’s critique of these oppressive values is amplified through the application of a condescending tone. Plath further rejects the culture of containment and privacy through her self-commodification in Lady Lazarus “for a word...or a bit of blood.” Hence, Plath partakes in the interrogation of self, following isolation as a result of politically driven paranoia. However, she rejects the widespread materialism adopted by her context as a form of self medication, finding these methods to be repressive.

The destructive effects of consumerism on family and religion is further criticised in DeLillo’s postmodernist novel White Noise through the representations of capitalism as a means of mass distraction from failure and person. Drawing on his perception of the “consume or die” American culture, DeLillo demonstrates consumerism as a method of distraction from mortality. This is explicit in the motif stream of consciousness “Who will die first?” interrupted by the mantra “Mastercard, Visa, American Express.” Through religious allusion to the Trinity, the composer draws connections between consumerism and faith, highlighting the contemporary nihilism, as material goods replace religion. The structural placement of this internal dialogue further reveals the incohesive and chaotic nature of the human psyche following 1945, as individuals sought to reconcile their fears through material distraction. Furthermore, DeLillo presents consumerism as an analogy for propaganda; an omnipresent being demanding complete submission. Through the skillful employment of lexical chain and sensory appeals, the composer creates a tone of excessive and overwhelming choice, revealing advertising as a method of cognitive repression. The endless soundtrack of “toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker and the coffee-making machines,” diverts the protagonist from his toxic environment, maintaining his naivety. The creation of false identity further harms the individual, who realises he’s a “character that follows the name around.” DeLillo uses this epiphany to reinforce the isolating effects of the rampant consumerism of his era, echoing Plath’s sentiments. Through a series of subplots and tangents, the composer dually represents through structural and creative means, the contextual social disorder and subversion of values, present through remarriage and twisted parent-child relationships. This culminates in the ultimate family disintegration of adultery, serving as a catalyst for sinful revenge, and reiterating the repercussions of consumerism. The crimes nature as a “capitalist transaction” criticises the systems sinful nature, satirically revealing its destructive consequences. Consequently, the Cold War reliance on superficial and external distractions from fears is portrayed by DeLillo as being responsible for the breakdown of traditional relations with family, religion and self. Thus, this supports Plath’s perception of consumerism as a threat, examining its undermining effects on social values.

Responding to the post 1945 shift in global ways of thinking, composers sought to reveal prevalent feelings of isolation, and distrust, and question social compliance to oppressive values and authorities. Through the portrayal of disturbing accounts of modern reality, these texts attempted to emulate the consequences of the failure of the human metanarrative, specifically regarding the disintegration of trust, identity, family and logic, and the threats posed to society by these internal doubts. Furthermore, composers challenged compliance to truths claimed by bodies of authority, provoking audience questioning of the roots of their fears, and leading to an understanding of the internal threat posed by oppressive bodies. In summation, these texts effectively challenged the prevalent fear of external enemies by revealing the threats of the human psyche, and domestic politics. 

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 24, 2016, 12:31:28 am

Quote from: aoife98 on June 20, 2016, 04:08:21 pm

Thank you so much for this! The essay is due in two days but I plan to use it for trials/hsc. Even if someone would be able to mark half of it, that would be great. I've also (briefly) attempted to include greater reference to the stimulus regarding Plath. Do you think a direct reference to the quote is necessary in each explanation?

Thank you again!
To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?
Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this.

Hi there! I'm so sorry to let you down that I didn't get here in time for your assessment! :( But you're totally right, you can use this for trials and HSC! I'll have a look right now :)

Here is your original essay without comments:

Spoiler

To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?
Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this.

A bright flash, and the world was changed forever. As the 1945 mushroom cloud ballooned over Hiroshima city, traditional global values regarding the common pursuit of man were dashed away forever and replaced by a pervading distrust, paranoia and existentialism. Responding to this shift in global consciousness, composers of the era developed the popular perception of the atomic bomb as marking the failure of the grand human narrative, and further reflected the resulting disempowerment. The characteristic political compliance before the bomb is challenged through subversion of literary conventions in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 absurdist play Waiting for Godot, and Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove (1964) reflecting the growing abandonment of tradition. The resulting isolation and disintegration of trust led to a culture of self distraction through material possession, a concept critiqued as an internal threat by Sylvia Plath’s poetic anthology Ariel and Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Through satirical representations of common post war rationales, these composers seek to reveal the ramifications of complacency as spreading internal threats, highlighting the greater enemy within the human psyche.

The dropping of the bomb saw increasing isolation due to the replacement of enlightenment thinking with existentialist doubt in the human endeavour, leading to distrust in authority. Beckett represents these paradigms throughout Waiting for Godot with the intention of exposing “the instability of every apparently solid structure.” (Worton) Emblematic of the eras increasing nihilism and rejection of authoritative trust, Beckett absurdly depicts the “bad faith” philosophies of Sartre through the darkly humourous protagonists, in their pursual of false or unfulfilling external answers to their purpose. “Terrified by (their) own emptiness” (J. Moore) they futilely put complete faith in the omniscient, controlling and metaphorical ‘Godot’. Through religious allusion, Beckett allegorically highlights the emerging disillusionment following the failure of authority, religion and science to protect humanity. Further, the disturbance to social structure and resultant dysfunction is further evident through the rejection of language conventions in the absurdist genre, including the fragmented syntax and useless repertoire in the dialogue “Nothing to be done.” Beckett uses the motif to capture the contextual paralysis and loss of hope. Beckett further criticises absolute trust in authority through the desensitised reactions of characters to inhumanity in the satirically childlike connotations of “We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.” The composer uses this metaphor for propaganda to question ‘truths’ regarding Communism as evil and Capitalism as righteous. The failure of the Christian metanarrative is most poignant through Beckett’s subversion of Christian grace and suffering ideologies. Through parenthesis and truncated sentences, the composer creates a poignant tone, revealing the extent of disempowerment “To every man his little cross. Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.” Therefore, through absurd representation, Beckett reveals the contextual loss of hope and purpose following the failure of the human metanarrative, and questions the prevalent trust in authority.

Following conventional post bomb coping attempts, Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove employs satire and black humour to express contextual disillusionment in authority and breakdown of logic, following the failure of supposed safeguards. The film plays on the audience’s contextual hyper-anxieties to reveal the flaws of total trust in authoritative bodies, alluding to McCarthy's invalid ‘Red Scare.’ Communist fears are central to the plot as the catalyst for General Ripper’s subversion of duty. Realising “the whole situation (of the Cold War) was absurd,” Kubrick sought to highlight the dangers of propaganda-driven terror by creating a sense of neurosis through Ripper’s vacant and erratic movements. This approach contrasts DeLillo’s portrayal of naive ignorance. Moreover, the composer portrays his disillusionment by reducing the atomic bomb (the symbol of civilian fear) to a metaphor for sex, and male desires to prove masculinity, through allusions to Jack the Ripper’s violent sexual tendencies, and “essence.” Kubrick further challenges the contextual political compliance by highlighting the fallibility of leaders through the characterisation of historical figures as incompetent. This is most obvious in the absurd dialogue between the opposing presidents regarding the global doom they invoked, “Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am.” Through reductionism, the film juxtaposes doom with the comical chewing of gum, through cross-cutting, to criticise politicians. Furthermore, Kubrick satirises the paradoxical M.A.D policy through the ironic military motto “Peace is our profession.” The recurring motif is used in the background of combat scenes to emphasise the theorys irrationality. The failure of authoritative bodies to protect society is made obvious in the dramatic irony of a scuffle between two politicians depicted with a dolly cam, to which the President objects “you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!” The absurdity of political motivations in the period is epitomised in the concluding contrast between the montage of explosions and the non diegetic score music. Thus, Kubrick embodies post war feelings of the failure of the capitalist metanarrative to produce stable governing bodies, and furthermore criticising the prevailing trust in authority.

Reacting to growing uncertainty following the dropping of the bomb, Western society returned to traditional conservative societal values creating a culture of containment and fear of the unknown. This social repression, combined with political instability and Cold War paranoia, led to the disintegration of trust in relationships. Increasingly isolated, individuals turned to material possession and social conformity to gain identities, becoming repressed under their own regulations. Sylvia Plath explicitly represents this search for authenticity within her poetry through a critical perspective of social expectations as a threat to humanity, posed by the individual and society. To ensure her existence, Plath begins a personal and anxious interrogation of herself, most clear in Daddy through her portrayal of “man in black with a Meinkampf look.” Through juxtaposing an insistent nursery rhyme tone with allusions to Nazism and the connotations of the black motif,, Plath develops a persona with an electra complex, satirising the clinging of society to oppressive values in order to feel purposeful. The threats posed by this global identity crisis are evident in the criticism of the crowd which shoves to see Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The dual symbolism of this image metaphorically represents Plath’s personal struggle with depression and the unfeeling and material-driven nature of society. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s representation of societies “comfortable concentration camp” (Freiden) as a form of sleazy entertainment and civilian distraction, highlighting the threat posed by social regulations. In following the philosophies of her contemporary Simone de Beauvoir that oppression creates war, Plath utilises the confessional genre to confront Cold War privacy ideologies. The analogy of writing for personal expression is evident in the simile “Sap wells like tears, like water striving to re-establish its mirror” (Words). Through the metaphor of nature imagery, Plath expresses her role to counteract social conformity to dictated truths by revealing natural truths, particularly against the disempowerment of women. In The Applicant, Plath highlights her society's return to conservatism as an attempt to retain stability, explicitly satirising the resulting oppression and commodification of women. Plath achieves this through the extended metaphor of an all knowing persona who subverts the traditional nuclear family values. The parody of housewives in The Applicant “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet,” creates an emotional dissociation, reflecting the fragmentary and isolated nature of humanity in the period, and resulting distraction through materialism. Plath’s critique of these oppressive values is amplified through the application of a condescending tone. Plath further rejects the culture of containment and privacy through her self-commodification in Lady Lazarus “for a word...or a bit of blood.” Hence, Plath partakes in the interrogation of self, following isolation as a result of politically driven paranoia. However, she rejects the widespread materialism adopted by her context as a form of self medication, finding these methods to be repressive.

The destructive effects of consumerism on family and religion is further criticised in DeLillo’s postmodernist novel White Noise through the representations of capitalism as a means of mass distraction from failure and person. Drawing on his perception of the “consume or die” American culture, DeLillo demonstrates consumerism as a method of distraction from mortality. This is explicit in the motif stream of consciousness “Who will die first?” interrupted by the mantra “Mastercard, Visa, American Express.” Through religious allusion to the Trinity, the composer draws connections between consumerism and faith, highlighting the contemporary nihilism, as material goods replace religion. The structural placement of this internal dialogue further reveals the incohesive and chaotic nature of the human psyche following 1945, as individuals sought to reconcile their fears through material distraction. Furthermore, DeLillo presents consumerism as an analogy for propaganda; an omnipresent being demanding complete submission. Through the skillful employment of lexical chain and sensory appeals, the composer creates a tone of excessive and overwhelming choice, revealing advertising as a method of cognitive repression. The endless soundtrack of “toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker and the coffee-making machines,” diverts the protagonist from his toxic environment, maintaining his naivety. The creation of false identity further harms the individual, who realises he’s a “character that follows the name around.” DeLillo uses this epiphany to reinforce the isolating effects of the rampant consumerism of his era, echoing Plath’s sentiments. Through a series of subplots and tangents, the composer dually represents through structural and creative means, the contextual social disorder and subversion of values, present through remarriage and twisted parent-child relationships. This culminates in the ultimate family disintegration of adultery, serving as a catalyst for sinful revenge, and reiterating the repercussions of consumerism. The crimes nature as a “capitalist transaction” criticises the systems sinful nature, satirically revealing its destructive consequences. Consequently, the Cold War reliance on superficial and external distractions from fears is portrayed by DeLillo as being responsible for the breakdown of traditional relations with family, religion and self. Thus, this supports Plath’s perception of consumerism as a threat, examining its undermining effects on social values.

Responding to the post 1945 shift in global ways of thinking, composers sought to reveal prevalent feelings of isolation, and distrust, and question social compliance to oppressive values and authorities. Through the portrayal of disturbing accounts of modern reality, these texts attempted to emulate the consequences of the failure of the human metanarrative, specifically regarding the disintegration of trust, identity, family and logic, and the threats posed to society by these internal doubts. Furthermore, composers challenged compliance to truths claimed by bodies of authority, provoking audience questioning of the roots of their fears, and leading to an understanding of the internal threat posed by oppressive bodies. In summation, these texts effectively challenged the prevalent fear of external enemies by revealing the threats of the human psyche, and domestic politics.

Here is your essay with my own comments throughout, in bold font:

Spoiler

To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of politics in After the Bomb?
Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this.

A bright flash, and the world was changed forever. As the 1945 mushroom cloud ballooned over Hiroshima city, traditional global values regarding the common pursuit of man were dashed away forever and replaced by a pervading distrust, paranoia and existentialism. Great work mentioning the new ways of thinking here! Responding to this shift in global consciousness, composers of the era developed the popular perception of the atomic bomb as marking the failure of the grand human narrative, and further reflected the resulting disempowerment. The characteristic political compliance before the bomb is challenged through subversion of literary conventions in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 absurdist play Waiting for Godot, and Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove (1964) reflecting the growing abandonment of tradition. The resulting isolation and disintegration of trust led to a culture of self distraction through material possession, a concept critiqued as an internal threat by Sylvia Plath’s poetic anthology Ariel and Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Through satirical representations of common post war rationales, these composers seek to reveal the ramifications of complacency as spreading internal threats, highlighting the greater enemy within the human psyche. You've really ticked all of the boxes here! Ways of thinking post bomb, ways of thinking pre-bomb, context, key players, texts, and answering the question!

The dropping of the bomb saw increasing isolation due to the replacement of enlightenment thinking with existentialist doubt in the human endeavour, leading to distrust in authority. This is great, but if you could angle it more to imply that there is an enemy, as the essay question wants, you'll be attacking it with more direction and the marker will be more alert to your effort.Beckett represents these paradigms throughout Waiting for Godot with the intention of exposing “the instability of every apparently solid structure.” (Worton) Emblematic of the eras increasing nihilism and rejection of authoritative trust, Beckett absurdly depicts the “bad faith” philosophies of Sartre through the darkly humourous protagonists, in their pursual of false or unfulfilling external answers to their purpose. “Terrified by (their) own emptiness” (J. Moore) they futilely put complete faith in the omniscient, controlling and metaphorical ‘Godot’. Through religious allusion, Beckett allegorically highlights the emerging disillusionment following the failure of authority, religion and science to protect humanity. Further, the disturbance to social structure and resultant dysfunction is further evident through the rejection of language conventions in the absurdist genre, including the fragmented syntax and useless repertoire in the dialogue “Nothing to be done.” Beckett uses the motif to capture the contextual paralysis and loss of hope. Beckett further criticises absolute trust in authority through the desensitised reactions of characters to inhumanity in the satirically childlike connotations of “We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.” The composer uses this metaphor for propaganda to question ‘truths’ regarding Communism as evil and Capitalism as righteous. The failure of the Christian metanarrative is most poignant through Beckett’s subversion of Christian grace and suffering ideologies. Through parenthesis and truncated sentences, the composer creates a poignant tone, revealing the extent of disempowerment “To every man his little cross. Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.” Therefore, through absurd representation, Beckett reveals the contextual loss of hope and purpose following the failure of the human metanarrative, and questions the prevalent trust in authority. This is flawless in terms of tackling the ways of thinking, relating it to the text, the composer's purpose and the techniques at play. What is lacking is a direct CLEAR link to the question. If i use my imagination I can open my eyes to ways that you are relating to this really well, but I have to really think about it. A clear identification of your thought process at the start of the paragraph would guide the paragraph further, but I think it needs to be weaved throughout a bit more. The idea of "enemies" is difficult - but you could make religion or politics the enemy!

Following conventional post bomb coping attempts, Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove employs satire and black humour to express contextual disillusionment in authority and breakdown of logic, following the failure of supposed safeguards. The film plays on the audience’s contextual hyper-anxieties to reveal the flaws of total trust in authoritative bodies, alluding to McCarthy's invalid ‘Red Scare.’ Communist fears are central to the plot as the catalyst for General Ripper’s subversion of duty. Realising “the whole situation (of the Cold War) was absurd,” Kubrick sought to highlight the dangers of propaganda-driven terror by creating a sense of neurosis through Ripper’s vacant and erratic movements. This approach contrasts DeLillo’s portrayal of naive ignorance. Moreover, the composer portrays his disillusionment by reducing the atomic bomb (the symbol of civilian fear) to a metaphor for sex, and male desires to prove masculinity, through allusions to Jack the Ripper’s violent sexual tendencies, and “essence.” Kubrick further challenges the contextual political compliance by highlighting the fallibility of leaders through the characterisation of historical figures as incompetent. This is most obvious in the absurd dialogue between the opposing presidents regarding the global doom they invoked, “Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am.” Really good analysis. Each sentence in this is super valuable and adds a lot to your work. I never think "this is a pointless sentence" because everything is related to the ways of thinking. Through reductionism, the film juxtaposes doom with the comical chewing of gum, through cross-cutting, to criticise politicians. Furthermore, Kubrick satirises the paradoxical M.A.D policy through the ironic military motto “Peace is our profession.” The recurring motif is used in the background of combat scenes to emphasise the theorys irrationality. The failure of authoritative bodies to protect society is made obvious in the dramatic irony of a scuffle between two politicians depicted with a dolly cam, to which the President objects “you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!” The absurdity of political motivations in the period is epitomised in the concluding contrast between the montage of explosions and the non diegetic score music. Thus, Kubrick embodies post war feelings of the failure of the capitalist metanarrative to produce stable governing bodies, and furthermore criticising the prevailing trust in authority. Another sentence and I'm just not getting the sense of the enemy being within. If the enemy is the government here, you've done an excellent job! But it needs to be more explicitly stated. Identify the notion that Americans feared the communists, when really an enemy they faced was their own incompetent democratic leaders, according to Kurbrick. This satisfies the enemies at home - but Kubrick also satirises the enemies abroad here. So it works both ways.

Reacting to growing uncertainty following the dropping of the bomb, Western society returned to traditional conservative societal values creating a culture of containment and fear of the unknown. This social repression, combined with political instability and Cold War paranoia, led to the disintegration of trust in relationships. Increasingly isolated, individuals turned to material possession and social conformity to gain identities, becoming repressed under their own regulations. Sylvia Plath explicitly represents this search for authenticity within her poetry through a critical perspective of social expectations as a threat to humanity, posed by the individual and society. To ensure her existence, Plath begins a personal and anxious interrogation of herself, most clear in Daddy through her portrayal of “man in black with a Meinkampf look.” Through juxtaposing an insistent nursery rhyme tone with allusions to Nazism and the connotations of the black motif,, Plath develops a persona with an electra complex, satirising the clinging of society to oppressive values in order to feel purposeful. The threats posed by this global identity crisis are evident in the criticism of the crowd which shoves to see Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The dual symbolism of this image metaphorically represents Plath’s personal struggle with depression and the unfeeling and material-driven nature of society. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s representation of societies “comfortable concentration camp” (Freiden) I love Betty Friedan! It is FriedAn, not FriedEn, just for next time :)as a form of sleazy entertainment and civilian distraction, highlighting the threat posed by social regulations. In following the philosophies of her contemporary Simone de Beauvoir that oppression creates war, Plath utilises the confessional genre to confront Cold War privacy ideologies. The analogy of writing for personal expression is evident in the simile “Sap wells like tears, like water striving to re-establish its mirror” (Words). Through the metaphor of nature imagery, Plath expresses her role to counteract social conformity to dictated truths by revealing natural truths, particularly against the disempowerment of women. In The Applicant, Plath highlights her society's return to conservatism as an attempt to retain stability, explicitly satirising the resulting oppression and commodification of women. Plath achieves this through the extended metaphor of an all knowing persona who subverts the traditional nuclear family values. The parody of housewives in The Applicant “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet,” creates an emotional dissociation, reflecting the fragmentary and isolated nature of humanity in the period, and resulting distraction through materialism. Plath’s critique of these oppressive values is amplified through the application of a condescending tone. Plath further rejects the culture of containment and privacy through her self-commodification in Lady Lazarus “for a word...or a bit of blood.” Hence, Plath partakes in the interrogation of self, following isolation as a result of politically driven paranoia. However, she rejects the widespread materialism adopted by her context as a form of self medication, finding these methods to be repressive. I think that this paragraph strays from the ways of thinking. Your analysis is wonderful, but it focuses on Plath's critique and reflection of society more than it does the ways of thinking. Again, you can adapt this to talk about the enemy being within more, it's implcitly there, but I'm needing to use my imagination to locate where. Society, or rather, patriarchal society, is the enemy here. When she develops the electra complex, her own mind and love is the enemy, for example. So these enemies are "at home."

The destructive effects of consumerism on family and religion is further criticised in DeLillo’s postmodernist novel White Noise through the representations of capitalism as a means of mass distraction from failure and person. Drawing on his perception of the “consume or die” American culture, DeLillo demonstrates consumerism as a method of distraction from mortality. This is explicit in the motif stream of consciousness “Who will die first?” interrupted by the mantra “Mastercard, Visa, American Express.” Through religious allusion to the Trinity, the composer draws connections between consumerism and faith, highlighting the contemporary nihilism, as material goods replace religion. The structural placement of this internal dialogue further reveals the incohesive and chaotic nature of the human psyche following 1945, as individuals sought to reconcile their fears through material distraction. Furthermore, DeLillo presents consumerism as an analogy for propaganda; an omnipresent being demanding complete submission. Through the skillful employment of lexical chain and sensory appeals, the composer creates a tone of excessive and overwhelming choice, revealing advertising as a method of cognitive repression. The endless soundtrack of “toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker and the coffee-making machines,” diverts the protagonist from his toxic environment, maintaining his naivety. The creation of false identity further harms the individual, who realises he’s a “character that follows the name around.” DeLillo uses this epiphany to reinforce the isolating effects of the rampant consumerism of his era, echoing Plath’s sentiments. Through a series of subplots and tangents, the composer dually represents through structural and creative means, the contextual social disorder and subversion of values, present through remarriage and twisted parent-child relationships. I think you've convinced me to read this text! It sounds wild. Ridiculously interesting. I love a good capitalism critique. This culminates in the ultimate family disintegration of adultery, serving as a catalyst for sinful revenge, and reiterating the repercussions of consumerism. The crimes nature as a “capitalist transaction” criticises the systems sinful nature, satirically revealing its destructive consequences. Consequently, the Cold War reliance on superficial and external distractions from fears is portrayed by DeLillo as being responsible for the breakdown of traditional relations with family, religion and self. Thus, this supports Plath’s perception of consumerism as a threatI'd probably identify a poem here, like "Plath's perception of consumerism as a threat, as detailed in The Applicant..." Just for the reason that it was one of the many ideas you dealt with, and you might leave the marker like "wait, I just have to go back up and work out exactly where consumerism was dealt with.., examining its undermining effects on social values.  Again, not a lot of linking to the question. But, your understanding of the text simply cannot be doubted.

Responding to the post 1945 shift in global ways of thinking, composers sought to reveal prevalent feelings of isolation, and distrust, and question social compliance to oppressive values and authorities. Through the portrayal of disturbing accounts of modern reality, these texts attempted to emulate the consequences of the failure of the human metanarrative, specifically regarding the disintegration of trust, identity, family and logic, and the threats posed to society by these internal doubts. Furthermore, composers challenged compliance to truths claimed by bodies of authority, provoking audience questioning of the roots of their fears, and leading to an understanding of the internal threat posed by oppressive bodies. In summation, Without using this start phrase, your sentence still makes perfect sense, and even sounds better! these texts effectively challenged the prevalent fear of external enemies by revealing the threats of the human psyche, and domestic politics.

Okay, wow!

So, your analysis of each text is just so rich. You consistently link back to the ways of thinking (this is weakest in Plath's paragraph). People say that in extension you need highly integrated (textual) essays to get the top bands and this essay truly is an example that it isn't the truth, in my opinion. I say this because no one can doubt your understanding of the ways of thinking, the context, or the texts. And they are all the key components, except...the question. The enemies at home or abroad needs some imagination work to fit with your essay in the first place, (extension 1 essays are sooo unpredictable, so it's not just you!!!) but you lack in dealing with the question explicitly. You don't "take it on" which is what I'd love to see because this essay is simply outstanding in every other aspect!

I certainly was not confident enough to take on big ideas like McCarthyism and de Beaviour like you have, at this stage in the course. So this is just wonderful. This puts you in a wonderful position!!!!!!!! I'm genuinely really excited for you because of it. Now, if I were you, I'd take three past papers, take their essay questions, and take your essay, and mash it all together! Sit with an essay question and carefully weave it through your essay as it currently stands and work out exactly where you want it to go. Top and tail each paragraph, but also weave it through the body. Please feel free to post your essay again. I genuinely think the main thing you need to focus on to secure the best possible mark is adjusting to the essay question. They are very unpredictable, but the more you are exposed to, the better really!

The only last tiny thing is that since finishing your essay, I'm left wondering about your first sentence. I expected a more dramatic style essay after that first sentence, but the rest of your essay was very neat and sophisticated. So what I'm saying is, there's nothing wrong with it, but it sets a misleading tone for your essay. Would you consider writing a less descriptive, more analytical, opening? Totally up to you.

To answer your initial question about the stimulus: I do see it more explicitly referenced to in Plath, and this seems to be the same paragraph that lacks ways of thinking for me. So that's a bizarre mix! Quoting the stimulus isn't harmful if you are making sure it is well embedded and relevant. Don't say "as the stimulus suggests..." but rather use a quotation mark for "enemy" if you wanted to - although I think it might flow better without the quotation mark, but instead just using the words of the question!

Please clarify with me if anything doesn't make sense. I hate to let you down in a time of need by not getting back to you quicker! All the best :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: aoife98 on June 24, 2016, 12:43:36 pm

Thank you so much! I'll definitely try with the past papers. If I were to make it more integrated, how would I go about it?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 24, 2016, 01:48:51 pm

Quote from: aoife98 on June 24, 2016, 12:43:36 pm

Thank you so much! I'll definitely try with the past papers. If I were to make it more integrated, how would I go about it?

I think that an integration of ideas/themes/ways of thinking will work far better for you than integrated texts. You can certainly do integrated textual paragraphs (by this I mean, dealing with two texts concurrently in the paragraph) but it will mean you have to basically re-write your entire essay. You can keep a lot of the ideas and analysis, but you'll need to shake up the structure entirely.

As for ideas and ways of thinking, I think it stood out to me so well that in your last paragraph (before the conclusion), you linked back to the consumerism dealt with in Plath's text.
So, I'd starting making a conscious effort to connect ideas through ways of thinking/paradigms. Consumerism flows through the texts nicely, economic systems, religion, politics, gender. These all flow through the texts in some way or another.
A suggestion: Make a table with the ways of thinking/paradigms in one column (a row for each), and make another column after for each text. Find a quote or textual reference for each text to fit the ways of thinking. Does this make sense visually?
This way, you have all you need to build up a textually integrated essay if you wanted to do that, but you also have a great resource!

So, I'd make a conscious effort of connecting texts to ideas ("this consumerist critique is also observed in Plath's...") without actually  changing the focus of your paragraphs from one text at a time to two. Then, if you want to take it further, then integrate your paragraphs by concurrently dealing with two texts at a time. Connecting the ideas will lay the foundations for this :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on July 22, 2016, 11:34:59 am

I'm not sure if this thread is for creatives as well, but would anyone have time to read this creative piece for Romanticism? It needs to be 1800-2000 words and be based around key phrases from the syllabus. It also has to be based off our related/prescribed texts, which for me is Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Shelley, and Wordsworth poetry.
I'm concerned I A) have too many ideas/they aren't clear enough B) It's way too cliche/too much telling not showing. Thanks!

“Fanny Godwin? Do you present any knowledge to transform us this afternoon?”
The teacher’s biting tone stings my skin in the cold, stagnant air of the classroom as his pipe dangles from protruding lips. Each pair of passive eyes stares as I heave myself out of my seat, knees quivering, lips hanging open with the suggestion of speaking. Trembling, I twirl a strand of coffee-brown hair around pallid fingertips.
Outside, newly sprouted buildings teeter into the sky, exhaling dusty fumes. I ignore them and glance down at the careful zig-zag of carpet boring into my mind.
No more of this.
“As I sit, amidst the golden melodies of falling leaves, it is here I drink in the cry of the roaring river calling to the essence of my being. The wind begins to flow, with it’s fresh breath as free as a…”
“No, no, NO!” I jump as the teacher slams his hand down on my desk like the very hand of Napoleon, red and commanding in its fury. Savagely, he rips the white paper from my lingering grasp. “What is this poetic nonsense?”
Titters of laughter fill the air in a derisive chorus. My eyes prickle with burning, fiery tears.
“Girls, please learn from our dear student,” the man drawls, puffing out a stream of smoke with a sneering smile. Controlling black eyes set my heart ablaze with dangerous fury. It yearns for something more — it yearns to be freed from this icy cage.
“Young ladies should not be writing fanciful or imaginative tales. Next time, Fanny, exercise your logic and restraint for us. Yes sir?”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
Pain courses through my body as I struggle to lift a coffee-brown wing chained to the cold, metal floor.
My world is one only of restraint. Logic. The vertical bars I have been forced to call my home. The occasional smattering of seeds thrown in by the monstrous human. Every now and then his eyes bulging in at my feathered form, perhaps giving a poke. My desperate pleas for help, for escape, with a faltering cuckoo cry.
My words falling on dull, ignorant ears.
Time is irrelevant in this emotionless existence. The eternal monotony of dark, light, food, dark, sleep is all I can recall. Hope seems a dwindling promise at the end of a non-existent tunnel.

It wasn’t always like this.

I recall joyfully the blue azure of the sky, and the dusky pink hues it would emit as the glowing light began to dim. The translucent waters waving beneath me, the flowing zig-zag of the grass, the flowers bending their heads in polite, gentle nods.
Until: the caging. That dreadful moment when a smoke-blowing, sneering man turned every colour to grey with one thrust of his red hands.
I still remember benevolent humans whose eyes would become wet to see my companions injured, or underfed. Some would scatter seeds and bread on nearby pathways, and the small ones would clap in delight.
It is for these memories that I continue hoping. Hoping that there is goodness in the essence of this complex human — who can be so kind and sympathetic one moment, so cold and cruel the next.
My spirits elevate as a lithe, pale girl emerges innocently from the blackened sky behind her. Her infrequent visits bring gentle, benevolent smiles and shining green eyes. It is her emotions alone that preserve my yearning for that same humanity.
“I am awfully sorry to have left you so alone, beauty,” she sighs with a dispirited air, extending a hand overflowing with nuts and seeds through the bars. “At last Mr Godwin let me finish all those dreadful chores…”
I am concerned to see her face slump at the words. These days, the names of William and Mary Godwin seem only to bring oppressive sadness.
Bending down, her brow furrows to see my rusting chains.
“As free as a bird,” she whispers. Tears filling her emerald green eyes, she reaches in to stroke my brown, striped feathers. “If only it could change.”
“It can, it can!” I cry, helplessly rattling the metal chains grasping my feet. But her back is turned, and my visionary hope is swallowed once more into billows of smoke.
* * *
The evening breeze gestures me down to the River Itchen as I enter the temple of it’s presence. Willow fronds brush my forehead gently as the curtains open freely. It is here, with time interrupted only by the comings and goings of the tide, that I am completely united with the essence of my being.
“Logic and restraint,” I mutter, turning from the brilliant yellow orb that is beginning to shine on the dancing waters. “Exercise your logic and restraint…”
I seat myself comfortably on the edge of the delicately arching bridge with pen poised for destruction. Silence slowly washes over me with calming breath, soft and sonorous, far removed from the overpowering roar of male voices. It’s the kind of solitude that lets one reflect on every crevice of their mind and body without restriction.
Grimly, I search my memory for any vestige of the logical ideas my teacher commands me to spit back in his face.
All the moment offers is bright blue water, wandering white clouds, a gently glowing red  sunset illuminating a rippling horizon. Three shades of change.
As the sky begins to dance with a melodious cacophony of colour, my lips can no longer be silenced. The words fall freely from my tongue:
“My heart leaps up when I behold, a rainbow in the sky…
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!” (W. Wordsworth, 1803)
My spirits are elevated by the poet’s glorious new words. As each willow sways freely around me, I can only imagine the world released from the chains of authority into their warm embrace.
I hardly comprehend the sky slowly disappearing into a purple bruise of smoke, the streets beginning to rumble noisily without the sunshine urging them into their proper duty.

My eyes are firmly fixed on the horizon.
* * *
The girl’s face is clear as she bursts into the room with a stream of morning light. It transforms my cage with refracted colours, overwhelming the darkness that hides behind them.
“Hello, girl,” she beams unexpectedly. Green eyes glow with excitement. “Today is the day it will change, you hear me?”
Feverishly, she begins to fiddle with the locks that bind me. Her hands tremble, face flushed with inexplicable joy, as she utters — “Today you will have freedom.”

I am surrounded at once by air. Unhindered space. My heart beats faster, faster until I think it will burst out of my chest. Is this — freedom?

I cry a feeble “thank you” as her eyes open wide, watching for my jubilant egress.
Clenching my wings, I hobble determinedly to the edge of the grey expanse. For an instant I stumble and squawk in pain, but before long, my feathers are spread wide and soaring freely through the open skies.
My heart leaps up with pure joy at the sight of the brilliant clear sky which had awaited me  so long, the sun gloriously shining its golden light. A kaleidoscope of colour covers the ground beneath, red, blue, and white flashing before my eyes.

Then — SLAM.

Every ounce of joy vanishes as my body is flung into a magnanimous grey building protruding from the hazy air. It’s cold, hard zenith towers higher than the clouds, as if it were about to topple over from the weight of the burden it carried. Bursts of soiled air freely infiltrate the sky as they spit out of grotesquely twisting pipes.
Everything is enveloped by a thick, black, smog covering each colour with it’s own opaque hue. It smells oddly of sulphur and coal, mingled with the faintly metallic flavour of blood.
Heart pounding, I swoop lower. Perhaps this is an oddity of nature I had never experienced.

It is then that I see the humans, pouring from every crack and crevice of creation. Humans that are swallowed into yawning black mouths beneath them. Marching with lumps of dark black matter strapped to their tiny frames. Thrashing iron helplessly with terrifying weapons. Bending to be beaten by towering men, red hands just like my captor’s.

Rarely reappearing into disappearing green meadows.

More red men stand to the left of the river, which by now appears darkly viscous and smells pungently of sewage. They point and laugh at large expanses of grass before them, fold their arms across protruding stomachs.
Beside them sit shrivelled figures wearing withered farmer’s hats. Disfigured bodies wracked by hacking coughs. Children left in their own waste. Small damp huts which reek of rotting flesh and crying mothers.

All pleading for a simple human benevolence that doesn't appear to exist.

No one scatters them seeds. No one tears them bread. No one has a tear in their eye, only a plank of wood as they freely bark orders while holding others in chains.
No, this blackened sky was no feat of the natural realm I had so naively yearned for.

Humans.

Without a cage like mine, humans had twisted nature’s perfect world into their own disfigured creature.

Their blackness had covered every inch of flowing, emerald grass around them until only red, spotted blood remained in vision.
And the colours. The beautiful colours of the flowers, red, blue, and white, are painted on a flag that is trampled in the dust on the side of the road.
Is this — freedom?
For at last, I have seen the freedom for what it is — a monster. A black, smoky monster allowed to permeate every emotion until all that remains is red blood of victory.

Somehow, a cold, logical cage seems only too inviting.
* * *
High above me, the bird soars freely with coffee-brown wings outstretched. Amidst the din of steam engines and clanging metal, my spirit is elevated to see her released from her own icy cage.
Time eludes us as I watch it scale the clouds, dive through streams of smoke to find each clear patch of sky, completely unbound by male restraints.

My heart stops as my friend is stagnated by a thick black haze. Flecks of dirt block my vision as the puffing billy rolls past. It hurtles dangerously into the future, never looking back to see the dark trails it leaves behind.
Disoriented, I peer frantically around for her small, feathered frame to reappear.

When the mist clears, all that remains is emptied, smoky skies.

Surely it is still basking in nature’s warm embrace? Surely it has not returned to the cold reason of a cage? (clearer link)
Running, panting, I return to the village with bated breath. My mind races as red, blue, and white flashes past me in a blur of distorted and undefined shapes.
Yet when I reach the teacher’s house, the bird is sitting placidly on the cold, metal floor of her cage. The only confusion is my own as I peer with horror into it’s tiny, yellow eyes.
No longer are they filled with restless pain, a creative yearning to be released from her chains. Now, all I see is a calm, dutiful acceptance — that seems almost to long for the logic and restraint of metal bars.

Grief is heavy on my tongue as I whisper: “As free as a bird?”

I cannot understand.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on July 22, 2016, 04:44:52 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on July 22, 2016, 11:34:59 am

I'm not sure if this thread is for creatives as well, but would anyone have time to read this creative piece for Romanticism? It needs to be 1800-2000 words and be based around key phrases from the syllabus. It also has to be based off our related/prescribed texts, which for me is Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Shelley, and Wordsworth poetry.
I'm concerned I A) have too many ideas/they aren't clear enough B) It's way too cliche/too much telling not showing. Thanks!

Hey there! Just a heads up that I'm busy scanning groceries tonight (my part time job) but you will get some feedback on this tomorrow! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on July 22, 2016, 06:27:57 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on July 22, 2016, 04:44:52 pm

Hey there! Just a heads up that I'm busy scanning groceries tonight (my part time job) but you will get some feedback on this tomorrow! :)

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on July 24, 2016, 12:28:49 pm

Sorry to bother, but are you able to have a look at this creative sometime today? I need to hand it in tomorrow! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on July 24, 2016, 09:12:25 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on July 24, 2016, 12:28:49 pm

Sorry to bother, but are you able to have a look at this creative sometime today? I need to hand it in tomorrow! :)

Hey Lauradf36! Elyse is ill, and I have no idea about Romanticism, but do you think my feedback will help at all? If so I will give it a look immediately to look at it as a general creative ;D

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on July 24, 2016, 09:37:21 pm

Quote from: jamonwindeyer on July 24, 2016, 09:12:25 pm

Hey Lauradf36! Elyse is ill, and I have no idea about Romanticism, but do you think my feedback will help at all? If so I will give it a look immediately to look at it as a general creative ;D

Oh no, hope she gets better soon :( And yes, any fresh set of eyes on a creative would be great!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on July 24, 2016, 10:47:42 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on July 22, 2016, 11:34:59 am

I'm not sure if this thread is for creatives as well, but would anyone have time to read this creative piece for Romanticism? It needs to be 1800-2000 words and be based around key phrases from the syllabus. It also has to be based off our related/prescribed texts, which for me is Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Shelley, and Wordsworth poetry.
I'm concerned I A) have too many ideas/they aren't clear enough B) It's way too cliche/too much telling not showing. Thanks!

Okay!! So, I've had a read, and since you have to hand this in tomorrow I'll keep my feedback brief! This doesn't count as an "essay marked" in terms of the post count rule, so feel free to get some further feedback if you need it later, Elyse will definitely be happy to give it a proper read if it is still useful to you later  ;D

First of all, in terms of my very limited understanding of Romanticism, this fits in that style quite well. I've also read Frankenstein, and I can see the conceptual connections you are making with the nature of humanity as portrayed by Shelley as well, that is fantastic!!  ;D I imagine you've represented the other texts equally effectively  ;D

To address your specific concerns, though the concept might be a tad cliche, your method of exploring it is definitely not. Very clever to use the alternating perspectives to tie in with the "As free as a bird" motif, truly beautiful. No cliche here, good work  ;D

That said, as some quick feedback you can implement before submitting this tomorrow (so sorry we didn't get to it properly in time), I do think there are some sentences where you do tell just the tiniest bit too much. This isn't a stylistic issue so much as it is an issue of being, the tiniest bit, either overly descriptive or too explicit with your concepts. Sentences like "Without a cage like mine, humans had twisted nature’s perfect world into their own disfigured creature." are almost a bit like: "Here is my concept, deal with it." A touch more subtlety is something I'd try to achieve, but then you want the concept to shine, so take my opinion with a grain of salt  ;D

I think your conceptual drive is perfect. There is one clear concept permeating through the creative, and the story arc works quite well (though I did have to read it twice to catch the details)  ;D

On the whole, I love this piece. At the very least, take solace in the fact that you aren't being cliche (in my opinion), and that I think you have an excellent concept (group of concepts) on display. Playing with expression would be my only recommendation, and that is picking, because this is definitely far beyond what is required in the AoS! Thus, you're doing more with language than I've ever been assessed on, so you are beyond my expertise  ;) I hope this helps, even just a little!  :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on July 25, 2016, 07:16:22 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on July 24, 2016, 09:37:21 pm

Oh no, hope she gets better soon :( And yes, any fresh set of eyes on a creative would be great!

Hi! I'm so sorry I couldn't help out over the weekend :(
If you do want some more feedback on this, just say the word and I can take a look! I'd do it automatically now, but I don't want to bombard you if you'd like to repost after trials or something like that. But, if you'd like some feedback, drop by and let me know :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on July 26, 2016, 03:27:57 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on July 25, 2016, 07:16:22 pm

Hi! I'm so sorry I couldn't help out over the weekend :(
If you do want some more feedback on this, just say the word and I can take a look! I'd do it automatically now, but I don't want to bombard you if you'd like to repost after trials or something like that. But, if you'd like some feedback, drop by and let me know :)

That's fine! If you want to take a look now it'd be great to have any feedback, with trials in a few weeks. I hope you are feeling better now!  :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on July 27, 2016, 12:39:03 am

Attention! The essay marking requirements have been updated, in effect for every essay posted below this mark  ;D The post exchange rate has now been increased to 15, that is, every piece of feedback is now worth 15 posts. 3 essays marked needs 45 ATAR Notes posts, 10 essays needs 150 posts, etc etc. The full essay rules are available at this link! Thanks everyone!  ;D

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on August 02, 2016, 10:03:15 pm

Hey, when you have time, could you have a brief look at this practise essay for extension 1? I typed it under timed conditions so it's not very refined, but I'd appreciate thoughts/feelings anyway! It's from Elective 2 - Romanticism. And I hope the rest explains itself :)

Q. The art of words and images has the power to evoke questioning and resistance.

Evaluate this statement with reference to TWO prescribed texts and at least TWO texts of your own choosing.

The Romantic era was a movement between 1770 and 1850 concerned with radically redefining the nature and condition of humanity through social, political, and intellectual change. During this period, society rebelled against the oppression of dictators, the Neoclassic dictation of knowledge through rationality and the classics, and the division of society in a hierarchy of power. However, the ruthless violence and bloodshed during the Reign of Terror caused individuals to challenge this ideal. Texts of the Romantic era thus reveal how the art of words and images have the power to evoke questioning about the nature and condition of humanity. This can be explored through the use of essay, novel, and pictorial formats to question dictated education and innate morality, and express resistance to the oppression of authority and class boundaries. The texts Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie, and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya are used to demonstrate these ideas. Overall, the form of the texts allow both the composer and the audience to profoundly consider their individual experiences of humanity and its restriction by society.

The art of words and images used in Romantic texts firstly evokes a radical questioning of dictated standards of education and knowledge. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written during the late 1700s, during a period when females where in a legal position of couverture, and had few rights and little independence within a patriarchal society. The composer uses an essay format to express a revolutionary view of the role of education in transforming these dictated intellectual standards for women. The author questions “the more specious slavery which chains the very soul of the woman, keeping her forever under the bondage of ignorance.” (p179). These symbols of “slavery” and “chains” correspond with the abolition movement to represent the educational restraints coercing females into “ignorance”. This negative representation of the ignorance imposed on females displays a clear challenging of earlier revolutionaries such as Rousseau, who held that females “ought to study the mind of men”. Moved by the rebellious atmosphere of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft was thus convicted of the need to emancipate females through education. She contrastingly asserted that “some degree of liberty of mind is necessary even to form the person” (p97). This represents a clear desire for intellectual freedom rather than dictated knowledge of the Neoclassic era.
These ideas are supported by Mackenzie’s sentimental Scottish novel, The Man of Feeling. The text follows protagonist Harley as he mourns over the corruption of his world by urbanisation and aristocracy. Mackenzie challenges a restrictive education, stating that “the young gentleman was suffered to be his own master in the subsequent branches of literature” (p25). Similar to Wollstonecraft, this demonstrates the significance of individual freedom for the pursuit of knowledge. Harley also encounters a misanthrope who criticises the mode of education of the day, which he believes does not fulfil the individual’s unique needs. He emotively berates how “the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them” (p73). The author hence elevates the development of knowledge through experience by questioning the dictated ideas of Neoclassic society. Mackenzie also uses ideas of gender similar to Wollstonecraft, complaining that “Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught…that a young woman is a creature to be married” (p31). This essay style form allows Mackenzie to integrate sentiment and sensibility with ideas of social and political reform in the gender oriented education. This displays a revolutionary questioning of regimented knowledge in early Romantic society.

The art of language employed in these texts also conveys questioning about human morality, and its innate disposition for benevolence or evil. The traditional Romantic view celebrated the human potential for revolutionary social and political change, and upheld the value of life and oneness. However, Shelley’s later Romantic text Frankenstein uses language to challenge this idealistic perception and portray the dangers of giving excessive freedoms to humanity. This is manifest in the creature, who initially connects with humble lower classes as trait of kindness moved me sensibly”, and consequently “brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (p114). Shelley makes classical allusions to Prometheus, who demonstrated benevolence by attempting to put the power of life in the hands of humans. Nonetheless, the creature soon encounters the impact of such power, stating that “For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there are laws and governments, but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed… I turned away with disgust & loathing” (p122). Shelley employs emotive language to portray the creature’s horror at the reality of the innately evil humanity he perceives. The creature thus epitomises later conservative questioning about the human condition following the devastation of the Terror.
The art of images employed through The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francis Goya also demonstrates a challenge to revolutionary optimism by displaying the innate evil that emerges when reason and rationality are abandoned. The artwork depicts owls, bats, and other animals of the night appearing from the artist’s mind as they allow imagination and the faculties of the mind to be explored without restriction. Robert Hughes corroborates this by stating the characters are ‘creatures of night, and thus of ignorance-and possibly of bloodsucking evil as well, in their association with the devil’. The artwork hence represents the inherent evil of the human mind that Shelley depicted when untamed by societal restrictions. Goya also uses artistic techniques to question the celebration of the inherent human spirit. The chiascorou utilised emphasises the difference in light and shade, and thus exemplifies the darkness of human morality. The scaling employed also depicts the animals appearing from the human world and coming toward the natural world. This further examines the morality of humanity, suggesting that a desire for unity with nature is misused by individually driven desires. Overall, this powerfully questions the Romantic ideal of the potential for humanity, and instead displays ideas of inner darkness manifest in the Terror.

Texts of the Romantic era also employ the art of words and images to convey a resistance to authorities. Whilst Neoclassicism highly valued the monarchy, the corruption of French dictator Louis XIV and societal institutions instigated widespread rebellion against it. In Vindication, Wollstonecraft claimed this “convenient handle for despotism” (p182) had forced a universal depravity over original benevolence, and that transformative moral change was required in response. Her conviction was influenced by mentoring philosopher Dr Price, who declared that “the world is in darkness” (Discourse, 1789). Wollstonecraft particularly deplores the morality of females under this authority by using an essay format. She alleges they were “Confined then in cages like the feathered race” and thus had “nothing to do but plume themselves” (p72). This animalistic metaphor suggests that women were coerced by society to form a vapid materialism removed from their basest humanity. Hence, Wollstonecraft announces, “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners… time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” (p60) The repetition of “time” creates an urgency in this charge, emotively rallying readers to resist the corrupt teachings of authority and develop unprecedented new values.
The images employed in Goya’s The Sleep of Reason also evoke ideas of this resistance to authority and power. Similar to Wollstonecraft’s context, the revolutionary artwork was created during a time of dictatorship in Spanish society, when the Spanish Inquisition controlled religion under the Spanish monarchy. This is demonstrated by the position of the artist’s body, which is slumped and hides the individual’s face. Goya hence suggests the removal of personal autonomy due to the dictation of the authorities. He then indicates that this overt authority has a detrimental impact on human and natural worlds. The symbolism of outstretched wings on animals associated with evil reveals his perception that those in power misuse this for corrupt ends, and even impinge on the sacredness of nature that was upheld in Romantic thought. Vector lines also draw attention to the defeated position of the artist, revealing the detrimental impact of such heteronomy on the individual human spirit. This ridicules the crippling deficiencies of Spanish aristocracy as the artist perceived, like Wollstonecraft. The emotive response evoked by such monsters and the darkness enveloping them, hence encourages individuals to resist this loss of freedom caused by corrupt authorities.

Finally, the texts of the era employed words and pictures to evoke resistance against regimented class boundaries. The Romantics valued the oneness of human life and unity of human experience, thus the division of society into classes was perceived negatively in Shelley’s Frankenstein. The creature emotively considers, “I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty… was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth…whom all men disowned?” (p123) This clear antagonism of humanity and its “divisions” reveals a desire for unity rather than unjust class systems. The creature further recognises the detriment of these divisions on personal identity by applying them to his own status. He emotively describes himself as “a blot upon the earth” within this system to portray his disillusionment with the structures. Conversely, the creature esteems the societal oneness created by the undivided family he encounters. He praises them that, “Here there is less distinction in the classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and more moral.” (p66) Shelley again employs emotive language to resist the injustice and poverty created by class compared to the intellectual progress allowed by unity.
The Man of Feeling additionally communicates the spurious impact of the hierarchy by demonstrating the collective destitution of its lowest members. Sentimental texts often focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathise with them. Mackenzie thus emotively describes how “so many pensioners [were] allowed to take the bread out of the mouth of the poor” (p51). This metaphorically illustrates the inequities created by class structures that Shelley perceived, with higher classes imposing poverty rather than societal oneness on those below them. As the Man of Feeling, Harley thus “stood fixed in astonishment and pity!… he burst into tears, and left them.” (p27) The author uses imagery to evoke empathy in the reader and a desire to resist these class restrictions. The protagonist then blames this on the divisions created by excessive wealth and power, just as Shelley had communicated. He laments that “[the world] bring to an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.” (p22) The art of an essay style is able to implement ideas of social reform with Harley’s sentimentalism, thus conveying the detrimental impact of class and wealth on a society desperately needing unity.

In conclusion, it is evident that texts of the Romantic era thus reveal how the art of words and images have the power to evoke questioning about the nature and condition of humanity. This can be explored through the use of essay, novel, and pictorial formats to question dictated education and innate morality, and express resistance to the oppression of authority and class boundaries. The texts Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie, and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya are used to demonstrate these ideas. Overall, the form of the texts allow both the composer and the audience to profoundly consider their individual experiences of humanity and its restriction by society. Ultimately, the words and pictures employed reveal that Romantic questioning and resistance was imperative to achieving the full recognition of the rights and justice of humanity in a corrupted society.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 03, 2016, 11:46:55 am

Quote from: Lauradf36 on August 02, 2016, 10:03:15 pm

Hey, when you have time, could you have a brief look at this practise essay for extension 1? I typed it under timed conditions so it's not very refined, but I'd appreciate thoughts/feelings anyway! It's from Elective 2 - Romanticism. And I hope the rest explains itself :)

Q. The art of words and images has the power to evoke questioning and resistance.

Hello! I'll jump to this now :)

In the spoiler is your essay, with my own comments throughout. But I tend to stop writing comments towards the end if there is a recurring suggestion, in which case I'll write it below the spoiler :)

Spoiler

Q. The art of words and images has the power to evoke questioning and resistance.

Evaluate this statement with reference to TWO prescribed texts and at least TWO texts of your own choosing.

The Romantic era was a movement between 1770 and 1850 concerned with radically redefining the nature and condition of humanity through social, political, and intellectual change. During this period, society rebelled against the oppression of dictators, the Neoclassic dictation of knowledge through rationality and the classics, and the division of society in a hierarchy of power. However, the ruthless violence and bloodshed during the Reign of Terror caused individuals to challenge this ideal. Texts of the Romantic era thus reveal how the art of words and images have the power to evoke questioning about the nature and condition of humanity I like how you've changed the human condition, to the condition of humanity. Something fresh!. This can be explored through the use of essay, novel, and pictorial formats to question dictated education and innate morality, and express resistance to the oppression of authority and class boundaries. The texts Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie, and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya are used to demonstrate these ideas. Overall, the form of the texts allow both the composer and the audience to profoundly consider their individual experiences of humanity and its restriction by society. I tend to think that extension introductions are stronger when all four texts aren't in the one sentence. I chose to group mine into pairs, and then paired it with the argument that I would use. So, I did after the bomb, not romanticism, but I'd say something like: "Text A and Text B are both a response to the existential way of thinking, as is observed through the manipulation of art in their cinematic form." And then Text C and D would be introduced and grouped, potentially focusing more on the 'words' part of the question, or whatever suited. I think your introduction is hard to flaw because you've fleshed out what romanticism is, the purpose of the composers, you've introduced the texts, and related to the audience. This is just a small suggestion that might give some more unique direction to your essay, because your marker knows exactly what ideas you want to flesh out with each text.

The art of words and images used in Romantic texts firstly evokes a radical questioning of dictated standards of education and knowledge. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman was written during the late 1700s, during a period when females where were in a legal position of couverture, and had few rights and little independence within a patriarchal society. The composer uses an essay format to express a revolutionary view of the role of education in transforming these dictated intellectual standards for women. The author questions “the more specious slavery which chains the very soul of the woman, keeping her forever under the bondage of ignorance.” (p179). These symbols of “slavery” and “chains” correspond with the abolition movement to represent the educational restraints coercing females into “ignorance”. This negative representation of the ignorance imposed on females displays a clear challenging of earlier revolutionaries such as Rousseau, who held that females “ought to study the mind of men”. Solid sentence!! Moved by the rebellious atmosphere of the French Revolution, Wollstonecraft was thus convicted of the need to emancipate females through education. She contrastingly asserted that “some degree of liberty of mind is necessary even to form the person” (p97). This represents a clear desire for intellectual freedom rather than dictated knowledge of the Neoclassic era.
These ideas are supported by Mackenzie’s sentimental Scottish novel, The Man of Feeling. The text follows protagonist Harley as he mourns over the corruption of his world by urbanisation and aristocracy. Mackenzie challenges a restrictive education, stating that “the young gentleman was suffered to be his own master in the subsequent branches of literature” (p25). Similar to Wollstonecraft, this demonstrates the significance of individual freedom for the pursuit of knowledge. Harley also encounters a misanthrope who criticises the mode of education of the day, which he believes does not fulfil the individual’s unique needs. He emotively berates how “the education of your youth is every way preposterous; you waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them” (p73). The author hence elevates the development of knowledge through experience by questioning the dictated ideas of Neoclassic society. Mackenzie also uses ideas of gender similar to Wollstonecraft, complaining that “Nor are your females trained to any more useful purpose: they are taught…that a young woman is a creature to be married” (p31). This essay style form allows Mackenzie to integrate sentiment and sensibility with ideas of social and political reform in the gender oriented education. This displays a revolutionary questioning of regimented knowledge in early Romantic society. I can't believe you wrote this in exam conditions! It is so well structured. However, it is worth noting that you used the word "art" once in the body paragraphs so far. Also, "words" once. I think we need to increase the usage of the key words of the question. You have great analysis, we just need to pair it with a completely confident attack on the question in order to enhance the overall integrity!

The art of language employed in these texts also conveys questioning about human morality, and its innate disposition for benevolence or evil. The traditional Romantic view celebrated the human potential for revolutionary social and political change, and upheld the value of life and oneness. However, Shelley’s later Romantic text Frankenstein uses language to challenge this idealistic perception and portray the dangers of giving excessive freedoms to humanity. This is manifest in the creature, who initially connects with humble lower classes as trait of kindness moved me sensibly”, and consequently “brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (p114). Shelley makes classical allusions to Prometheus, who demonstrated benevolence by attempting to put the power of life in the hands of humans. Nonetheless, the creature soon encounters the impact of such power, stating that “For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there are laws and governments, but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed… I turned away with disgust & loathing” (p122). Shelley employs emotive language to portray the creature’s horror at the reality of the innately evil humanity he perceives. The creature thus epitomises later conservative questioning about the human condition following the devastation of the Terror. I just want to see a tiny bit more about the idea of morality or evil in this last bit to tie the paragraph off. When you mentioned it in your topic sentence, my eyes were peeled to hear more about it. And you definitely don't ignore it, but a really explicit tie at the end might just round it off perfectly.
The art of images employed through The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francis Goya also demonstrates a challenge to revolutionary optimism by displaying the innate evil that emerges when reason and rationality are abandoned. The artwork depicts owls, bats, and other animals of the night appearing from the artist’s mind as they allow imagination and the faculties of the mind to be explored without restriction. Robert Hughes corroborates this by stating the characters are ‘creatures of night, and thus of ignorance-and possibly of bloodsucking evil as well, in their association with the devil’. This is some awesome analysis that links directly with the question - so good!The artwork hence represents the inherent evil of the human mind that Shelley depicted when untamed by societal restrictions. Goya also uses artistic techniques to question the celebration of the inherent human spirit. The chiascorou utilised emphasises the difference in light and shade, and thus exemplifies the darkness of human morality. The scaling employed also depicts the animals appearing from the human world and coming toward the natural world. This further examines the morality of humanity, suggesting that a desire for unity with nature is misused by individually driven desires. Overall, this powerfully questions the Romantic ideal of the potential for humanity, and instead displays ideas of inner darkness manifest in the Terror. So far, this paragraph is the most impressive in terms of your response to the question, being intertwined with your analysis. This is wonderful!

Texts of the Romantic era also employ the art of words and images to convey a resistance to authorities. Whilst Neoclassicism highly valued the monarchy, the corruption of French dictator Louis XIV and societal institutions instigated widespread rebellion against it. In Vindication, Wollstonecraft claimed this “convenient handle for despotism” (p182) had forced a universal depravity over original benevolence, and that transformative moral change was required in response. Her conviction was influenced by mentoring philosopher Dr Price, who declared that “the world is in darkness” (Discourse, 1789). Wollstonecraft particularly deplores the morality of females under this authority by using an essay format. She alleges they were “Confined then in cages like the feathered race” and thus had “nothing to do but plume themselves” (p72). This animalistic metaphor suggests that women were coerced by society to form a vapid materialism removed from their basest humanity. Hence, Wollstonecraft announces, “It is time to effect a revolution in female manners… time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.” (p60) The repetition of “time” creates an urgency in this charge, emotively rallying readers to resist the corrupt teachings of authority and develop unprecedented new values.
The images employed in Goya’s The Sleep of Reason also evoke ideas of this resistance to authority and power. Similar to Wollstonecraft’s context, the revolutionary artwork was created during a time of dictatorship in Spanish society, when the Spanish Inquisition controlled religion under the Spanish monarchy. This is demonstrated by the position of the artist’s body, which is slumped and hides the individual’s face. Goya hence suggests the removal of personal autonomy due to the dictation of the authorities. He then indicates that this overt authority has a detrimental impact on human and natural worlds. The symbolism of outstretched wings on animals associated with evil reveals his perception that those in power misuse this for corrupt ends, and even impinge on the sacredness of nature that was upheld in Romantic thought. Vector lines also draw attention to the defeated position of the artist, revealing the detrimental impact of such heteronomy on the individual human spirit. This ridicules the crippling deficiencies of Spanish aristocracy as the artist perceived, like Wollstonecraft. Great link! The emotive response evoked by such monsters and the darkness enveloping them, hence encourages individuals to resist this loss of freedom caused by corrupt authorities.

Finally, the texts of the era employed words and pictures to evoke resistance against regimented class boundaries. The Romantics valued the oneness of human life and unity of human experience, thus the division of society into classes was perceived negatively in Shelley’s Frankenstein. The creature emotively considers, “I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty… was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth…whom all men disowned?” (p123) This clear antagonism of humanity and its “divisions” reveals a desire for unity rather than unjust class systems. The creature further recognises the detriment of these divisions on personal identity by applying them to his own status. He emotively describes himself as “a blot upon the earth” within this system to portray his disillusionment with the structures. Conversely, the creature esteems the societal oneness created by the undivided family he encounters. He praises them that, “Here there is less distinction in the classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and more moral.” (p66) Shelley again employs emotive language to resist the injustice and poverty created by class compared to the intellectual progress allowed by unity.
The Man of Feeling additionally communicates the spurious impact of the hierarchy by demonstrating the collective destitution of its lowest members. Sentimental texts often focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathise with them. Mackenzie thus emotively describes how “so many pensioners [were] allowed to take the bread out of the mouth of the poor” (p51). This metaphorically illustrates the inequities created by class structures that Shelley perceived, with higher classes imposing poverty rather than societal oneness on those below them. As the Man of Feeling, Harley thus “stood fixed in astonishment and pity!… he burst into tears, and left them.” (p27) The author uses imagery to evoke empathy in the reader and a desire to resist these class restrictions. The protagonist then blames this on the divisions created by excessive wealth and power, just as Shelley had communicated. He laments that “[the world] bring to an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.” (p22) The art of an essay style is able to implement ideas of social reform with Harley’s sentimentalism, thus conveying the detrimental impact of class and wealth on a society desperately needing unity.

In conclusion, "In conclusion" is a bit of a cheat way to start a conclusion. Your essay is so strong throughout, you don't want to let it down with a less than perfect conclusion introduction.  You could just start the conclusion with "it is evident that..."it is evident that texts of the Romantic era thus reveal how the art of words and images have the power to evoke questioning about the nature and condition of humanity. This can be explored through the use of essay, novel, and pictorial formats to question dictated education and innate morality, and express resistance to the oppression of authority and class boundaries. The texts Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie, and The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya are used to demonstrate these ideas. Overall, the form of the texts allow both the composer and the audience to profoundly consider their individual experiences of humanity and its restriction by society. Ultimately, the words and pictures employed reveal that Romantic questioning and resistance was imperative to achieving the full recognition of the rights and justice of humanity in a corrupted society.

Your conclusion is awesome! Although, my same suggestion stands for the introduction and conclusion: You don't want to be seen as dismissing the texts by listing all four in one sentence. It's not the end of the world, but I think it is a small thing that gives you some more scope to dig into it, in the hopes of increasing the sophistication of the essay.

Overall, I cannot believe this was in exam conditions! It's so great! I didn't point out the small areas of awkward wording (there was like, 2) because when you read this out loud you'll find them for yourself. So my next suggestion is to read this out loud and see how it reads. You'll notice so many little things. Some things won't necessarily be mistakes, but you'll see a way to turn what is good into great, in terms of expression.

Your analysis is awesome, your quotes are diligently selected and reflect a lot of study. The only problem that I see as needing to be fixed by your trial is your response to the question. You deal with art really well in that particular paragraph that I commented on. It was like your analysis was made to fit the question there, it was wonderful! You can definitely use synonyms, like language instead of words, as you've done. But, the words of the question may sound awkward but you need to use them explicitly. Perhaps you can be certain to use the words of the question at the start and end of the paragraph, and substitute for more suitable synonyms throughout the paragraph's body. The reason for this is, the marker can be reading your work and thinking, "good...goood...goood" but then you'll re-affirm their thoughts by dropping the words of the question, perfectly embedded, and they'll be like "good..goood..GREAT!!!" In Extension essays, you have a lot of freedom for creativity, but then you also need to be ticking boxes at the same time. And using the words of the question needs to be a really conscious effort that is at the forefront of your mind in an exam.

I haven't studied Romanticism like I said, so I can't really deliver an opinion on the way that you're speaking with accuracy. But, I can say that as someone who doesn't know a lot about Romanticism, I definitely felt as though you knew what you were talking about! You write with such clarity!!

I hope this gives you a bit of direction for the trials! Good luck! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on August 03, 2016, 04:59:00 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 03, 2016, 11:46:55 am

Hello! I'll jump to this now :)

In the spoiler is your essay, with my own comments throughout. But I tend to stop writing comments towards the end if there is a recurring suggestion, in which case I'll write it below the spoiler :)

Thanks so much for your feedback! It's always great to have a new perspective and fresh eyes, so I will definitely try and implement your advice. This gives me a bit more confidence going into trials!  :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 03, 2016, 05:41:26 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on August 03, 2016, 04:59:00 pm

Thanks so much for your feedback! It's always great to have a new perspective and fresh eyes, so I will definitely try and implement your advice. This gives me a bit more confidence going into trials!  :)

I'm so glad! Hopefully if you gain anything from the creative feedback on the other forum, it is confidence for trials! But you are such a skilled writer, your expression is so clear. It's a real skill you have, even apparently in exam conditions! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: Lauradf36 on August 04, 2016, 04:58:40 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 03, 2016, 05:41:26 pm

I'm so glad! Hopefully if you gain anything from the creative feedback on the other forum, it is confidence for trials! But you are such a skilled writer, your expression is so clear. It's a real skill you have, even apparently in exam conditions! :)

Well, to be honest, I had my quotes & ideas & "bomb.com lines" as my teacher says for my paragraphs already written out. So not completely spur of the moment. And typing is different to handwriting of course! Let's just hope I can replicate it on the day!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 04, 2016, 05:17:50 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on August 04, 2016, 04:58:40 pm

Well, to be honest, I had my quotes & ideas & "bomb.com lines" as my teacher says for my paragraphs already written out. So not completely spur of the moment. And typing is different to handwriting of course! Let's just hope I can replicate it on the day!

That's always a good idea, for any essay! I'm sure you'll do wonderfully, especially if this is anything to go by!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on October 08, 2016, 03:43:25 am

Hi everyone! So exams are right around the corner, and unsurprisingly, there are a HEAP of people wanting feedback on essays. Given that demand is really high, it is only natural that we will need to increase the post requirement for the coming days, to make sure that our feedback remains of the highest possible quality. Thus, for all essays posted between now (this post) and this time next week, you will need 30 posts for every essay you would like marked. Note that this does not apply to essays before this point, meaning no one is in post debt. It just means that essays 'cost more' for the next week. We appreciate your understanding :)


Note: We will be very harsh on our posting rules over the coming days. Posting in old threads, multi-posting, shit-posting and spamming (etc) to access essay marking won't work. Immediate 48 hour posting bans will be applied in all circumstances :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: sunshinelollipops on October 16, 2016, 11:11:42 am

Is the post requirement still 30? :(

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: sunshinelollipops on October 17, 2016, 12:30:15 pm

Hi ATAR Notes! Do I qualify for your essay marking service? I would really love some feedback on my extension essay before the exam!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 17, 2016, 01:26:05 pm

Quote from: sunshinelollipops on October 16, 2016, 11:11:42 am

Is the post requirement still 30? :(

It's back to 15! I will give you some feedback whenever you're ready to post it! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: sunshinelollipops on October 17, 2016, 06:07:36 pm

Hi Elyse! When you have the chance could you please have a look at my essay. I'm doing ATB and the same texts as you did but my essay is not nearly as good as yours. Thanks for taking the time to mark it! I really appreciate it!!!!! :) :)

Spoiler

“The texts in the After the Bomb period share a common purpose: to challenge the contextual values of their society.”

Following the unprecedented violence and destruction of World War Two, the ‘After the Bomb’ period prompted a reconstruction of not only infrastructure, but institutions, ideologies and systems. Consequently, texts of the era challenged and changed social, political and religious values with radical forms and ideas that provided new ways of thinking. Sylvia Plath’s confessional poems ‘The Applicant’ re-examined the female experience in America during the mid-20th century whilst Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 Swedish art film Persona encompasses Surrealist aesthetics to critique the post-war value placed upon marriage. Another of Plath’s poems, ‘Fever 103’ and Samuel Beckett’s Absurdist play Waiting for Godot presents the lack of Christian compassion and questions the reliability of religion following the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1946 which fused worldwide tension and uncertainty. The mercurial play also promotes camaraderie and company as solace in light of widespread re-evaluation of religious and social institutions, as does Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1986 novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Both ‘The Applicant’ and Persona criticise and challenge the traditional notion that marriage is a social expectation and requirement for acceptance, which existed during the ATB period. In ‘The Applicant’, Plath highlights the issue with this view on marriage through her depiction of marriage as a three-way transaction involving two unwilling parties and society as the matchmaker. The didactic voice of society personified in the voice of the unseen ‘Interviewer’, “open your hand… Here is a hand to fill it”, appears omnipotent through its mutual objectification of both the man and woman, representing the ingrained social expectations that pervaded not only a woman’s identity as a wife, but a man’s identity as the carer for the wife. The woman is referred to with the derogatory “it” and objectified by sales jargon, “it is waterproof, shatterproof”, which reminisces the rising capitalist consumerist culture in the US. Likewise, the man is also treated as an automaton that equally has no choice in the marriage – “Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.” The tautology in the final line of the poem transforms the initial question “will you marry it?” into an order, which echoed New York Times journalist, Mary Cantwell’s comment “God knows what would be left if you waited until you were 25 or 26”, thus demonstrating the value for marriage during this time and the determining role marriage in defining a person’s identity and acceptance within 1950s America.

Bergman’s iconic thriller, Persona, similarly interrogates the institution of marriage through the disintegration of the principal characters, Alma and Elisabet’s serene ‘personas’. The globalised world of the ATB period prioritised normalisation and social reintegration over the effective treatment of significant ‘wounds’ caused by the war. For Alma, this ‘treatment’ was to further her career and marry her fiancé, whilst Elisabet’s manifests in a symbolic mutism. Elisabet’s inability to continue playing the ‘persona’ of the perfect mother, wife, and actress, comes from her sense of personal responsibility for the traumas of the war, indicated by a close up shot of her mortified reaction to historical footage of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk and photograph of a Warsaw ghetto. Her marriage breakdown contrasts with Alma’s desperate desire for a successful marriage, a juxtaposition which Bergman foregrounds in a surreal dream sequence where he superimposes the women's faces. Alma’s absorption of Elisabet’s ‘persona’ at the end of the film culminates in her surreal kiss with Elisabet’s husband, reflecting the abating worth of marriage due to the fluidity of identity and ‘personas’ in the changing world. Therefore, both Plath and Bergman’s subversive portrayals of the disintegration of marriage during the ATB period serves as their criticism of their society’s over-valuation of traditional customs such as marriage.

Religion as a cultural influence is challenged in Beckett’s Godot and Plath’s ‘Fever 103’, through the respective representation of the hypocrisy of Christianity and the ways its teachings failed its followers. Beckett’s play interprets religion as a totalising grand narrative but upon reconsideration of it’s inherent sanctimony, rejects religion thusly. The play centres on two characters, Vladimir ‘Gogo’ and Estragon ‘Didi’, who wait endlessly for the arrival of Godot. Immediately after Godot is first mentioned, Vladimir and Estragon reference the crucifixion of Christ, “one of the thieves were saved” and discuss the Evangelists’ four accounts of Christ’s death, of which only one mentions the salvation of the thief. The presentation of the irregularities in the accounts of Christianity serves as Beckett’s criticism of people’s blind faith in an unaccounted god-like being. Further, in Act 2, Pozzo is compared to Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel, the scriptural origins of murder and guilt. This biblical reference not only suggests that the characters in the play represent the human race, but illustrate religion as a promulgator of crime, which furthers Beckett’s view of the imprudence of religious belief. Thus the dropping of the atomic bomb led to an intensified questioning of religion as revealed in nihilistic tensions of Godot.

Similarly, in ‘Fever 103’, Plath echoes the widespread re-evaluation of traditional Christian values in post-WW2 America. Her depiction of a delirious and frenzied fever, articulates a vision of the consequences of war. The Dantean imagery of Hell, “the tongues of hell are dull… as the triple tongues of dull, fat Cerberus”, along with the hallucinatory style of the poem, insinuates the speaker’s internal struggles to commit to, and submit to the teachings of a failed and now archaic institution. These tactile images of Hell are contrasted with symbols of purity in “acetylene Virgin… cherubs”, reinforcing the Church’s failure to protect its disciples ‘after the bomb’. Further, the parallelism with which she states, “your body hurts me, as the world hurts God” demonstrates the persona’s self-deification and affinity with God as a sufferer and sacrifice, echoing Plath’s existential crisis and anguish, which lead to her subsequent suicide. However, unlike Plath, the speaker ultimately ‘rises’ above the confusion of the world, “to paradise”. Whilst there is discomfort in Plath’s symbolic apotheosis at the end of the poem, the speaker expresses awareness of the sin that is permeating society and the fear and questioning of religion which epitomised the post-war period. Therefore, both Plath and Beckett critique the role and relevance of religious faith and contemplate the collapse of religious beliefs through their respective American and French perspectives.

Disappointment in the institution of marriage and of the validity of religious grand narratives precipitated a fundamental secular shift which transformed relationships and camaraderie into something to be relied upon in the ATB period. The symbiotic relationship between Estragon and Vladimir and the dependency of Pozzo and Lucky in Godot and the decorum between the prisoners in Ivan is indicative of this value of friendship. ‘Gogo’ and ‘Didi’s’ dependence on each other to provide distraction from the fractured world is portrayed in the repetitiveness of their comedic cross-talk routine, “You must be happy too”, “Happy about what?”, “To be back with me again”. Paralleling this relationship, Pozzo and Lucky also share a dependence on each other but unlike Estragon and Vladimir, their relationship is based on subjugation. The ironically named Lucky, who represents the working class, is characterised as dependent on Pozzo, who represents the aristocracy. Lucky, the oppressed, needs Pozzo, the oppressor, to provide direction and order, “Leave him in peace… Basket!” Reciprocating this dependency, Pozzo requires Lucky to serve him, “I'd very much like to sit down, but I don't quite know how to go about it”. Their mutual dependence on each other indicates the need for a functioning relationship between the top and bottom echelons of power especially during the ATB as society reverted back old ways of thinking in an attempt to gain stability and a sense of normalcy.

In the same way, Ivan presents camaraderie as vital to survival during the hopeless ATB period. Solzhenitsyn recounts the repressive anxiety of the Cold War period through the portrayal an “almost happy day” in a Gulag. Ivan and the members of Gang 104 work together to earn extra supplies to complete the arduous tasks assigned by the prison officials and prolong their survival in the prison. Solzhenitsyn uses the prison as a microcosm of the Soviet Union and renders the hostile prison environment and lingering threat of starvation in Ivan’s conversation with fellow “zek” Alyoshka, “our Lord commanded us to pray for our daily bread”. Alyoshka satirically elevates the prison officials to God, which foregrounds the power wielded by the guards, who are models of Stalin’s totalitarian leadership. The inmate’s dependence on each other which mirrors the relationships between Estragon on Vladimir and Pozzo’s and Lucky in Godot, illustrates the indispensability of camaraderie in the ATB period, whereby all these characters maintain their sanity and survive in the oppressive world through their meaningful relationships with others.

Ultimately, significant texts in the ATB period challenged the political, religious and social values of their era. Plath’s poems ‘Fever 103’ and ‘The Applicant’, Bergman’s Minimalist Thriller Persona, Beckett’s Absurdist play, Godot, as well as Solzhenitsyn’s novella, Ivan, all challenged the paradigms and institutions which dictated an individual’s livelihood in the ATB climate of Cold War anxiety and displacement. These texts respectively provided an American, Swedish, French and Russian representation of societies’ blind certainty and belief in the institution of marriage and religion, to convey the climate of denial, existentialism and rising value of camaraderie in the ATB period.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: aoife98 on October 18, 2016, 02:27:33 pm

I was hoping someone could look over my generic ATB essay. With every paper I've attempted, I've basically adjusted my generic essay and ended up with a really long and chaotic essay. Any advice for where I've lost focus/areas which could be easily moulded to a particular question and how to better address ways of thinking would be great  :)


As the 1945 mushroom cloud ballooned over Hiroshima city, traditional values regarding the pursuit of man were dashed away forever, replaced by distrust, paranoia and existentialism, indicating a loss of faith in former certainties such as the Christian metanarrative. Responding to this shift in global consciousness, composers of the era saw the atomic bomb as humanity's failure and reflected the resulting disillusionment and changing values through their texts. This is explicit through the subversion of literary conventions, as in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play Waiting for Godot, and Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove (1964) which embody popular nihilistic and hopeless views. Further, the culture of distraction through material possession and adoption of social restrictions, which developed to mask the pervading isolation is critiqued by Sylvia Plath’s poetic anthology Ariel and Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Through diverse representations of common post war rationales, these composers reveal the ways of thinking of the period.

The dropping of the bomb saw increasing isolation as enlightenment thinking was replaced by existentialist doubt regarding .... This intensive questioning of perceived truths and resulting instability is represented through Beckett’s absurdist text Waiting for Godot. Emblematic of the eras increasing rejection of Christianity, Beckett absurdly depicts Sartre’s teachings through the protagonists Vladimir and Estragon, who embody “bad faith” through their pursual of external answers to their purpose, which Sartre finds false and unfulfilling. This provides insight into the prevailing disillusionment following the contextual horrors which leads the characters to put complete faith in the omniscient, controlling and metaphorical ‘Godot,’ creating a stagnant plot which allegorically highlights the consequences of trusting authority, reflecting changing values. This realisation of human powerlessness is amplified to readers through darkly humorous stage directions which demonstrate societies struggle to continue daily life without the faith they had previously trusted. This manifests differently through the characters as frantic pacing and emotional breakdowns in Didi and incoherent intellectual musings by Gogo. This characterisation manipulates the absurdist form to express the underlying dysfunction which grew from the sudden absence of individuals power. Beckett further reveals this through the rejection of traditional language conventions through fragmented syntax and useless repertoire in the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. The motif captures the prevailing loss of faith in leaders and religion following the bomb. Absolute trust in authority is further criticised through characters desensitised reactions to inhumanity through the satirically childlike connotations of “We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.” The characters empathy is subverted, metaphorically questioning the consequences of the periods reliance on propaganda to suppress and control and revealing the rejection of dictated truths. Through stage directions and truncated sentences, the composer creates a poignant tone, revealing the extent of disempowerment “To every man his little cross. Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.” This questions the prevalent trust in religious authority by subverting Christian ideologies of reaching salvation through suffering. Instead, Beckett proposes individuals are insignificant, revealing the contextual existentialism and rejection of religion which resulted from the dropping of the bomb.

Following post bomb conventions, Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove employs satire to express contextual disillusionment in authority following its failure to protect humanity, embodying  political unrest as opposed to Beckett’s nihilism. The film manipulates audience’s contextual hyper-anxieties to reveal the flaws of total trust in authority, alluding to McCarthy's ‘Red Scare’ through General Ripper. Realising the absurdity of the Cold War, Kubrick highlights the dangers of propaganda-driven terror through Ripper’s erratic movements which suggest a brainwashed neurosis, connotating the suppression of thought. By reducing the atomic bomb to a sexual metaphor which alludes to Jack the Ripper’s violent sexual tendencies, the composer satirised leaders egos, likening the arms race to a male desire to prove his masculinity through the size of his genitalia. Their incompetent protection of society manifests in the President's dramatically ironic objection to a scuffle between two delegates, “you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!” The contextual political compliance was further criticised through historical figures incompetent characterisation, paralleling disillusionment in the Christian god. Their fallibility is evident through cross-cutting which undermines their authority by contrasting the comical chewing of gum with absurd dialogue between opposing leaders  “Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am.”  regarding the global doom they invoked. This subverts prevailing notions of right versus wrong, finding the surrendering of power to any one body as dangerous. The paradoxical policy M.A.D is satirised through the ironic motto “Peace is our profession,” which appears in the background of combat scenes to emphasise the irrationality of deterrent policies. This is reiterated by the contrasting montage of explosions and non diegetic score music which foreshadow Kubrick's perceived future. Thus, Kubrick embodies post war disillusionment, revealing all politicians as incompetent and reflecting the resultant hopelessness as the concept of American greatness collapsed.

Reacting to growing instability, Western society turned to traditional conservative values for order. Satirically representing the commodification of women, Plath utilises historical allusions and emotive personas to criticise her society for its culture of superficial containment. The contextual disintegration of trust associated with fears of Communism left individuals isolated. Seeking identity, they conformed to stereotypical roles, as criticised by Plath in Daddy through the satirical character representation. Transfixed by a “man in black with a Meinkampf look,” the developed Electra complex satirises societal clinging to oppressive values in order to gain identity, alluding to the Nazi regime and black motifs to reveal the oppressive relationships between women and men. The authors criticism of her society for accepting these values is evident through the juxtaposition of these harsh images with an insistent nursery rhyme tone, using language to metaphorically reveal the inequality. Plath exposes social expectation as a threat to wellbeing through the characterisation of a leering crowd at Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The symbolism metaphorically represents the unfeeling, self regulating society emerging to cope with the new terrifying reality of their mortality, alluding to the constant fear of being labelled a Communist during the Red Scare. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s criticism of society’s “comfortable concentration camp” (Freidan) where women are viewed as a commodity, drawing on the corporate setting and stereotypical roles of married partners to demonstrate her society's attempt to regain stability following the bomb. This is clear in The Applicant through an extended interview metaphor which satirises traditional family values. The housewife parody “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet” is aided by a condescending tone to create an emotional dissociation, reflecting the inferior role of women in the context and more broadly, the harm caused by social constraints on individuality. Plath ultimately rejects the traditional values adopted by her context to impose order, finding them oppressive and destructive. Embodying the growing feminist movement, Plath’s satirical use of persona’s and reliance on evocative historical allusions provides insight into the struggle of individuals in questioning their own identity amidst social restrictions and expectations.

Consumerism as a distraction from fear is criticised in DeLillo’s postmodernist novel White Noise as disintegrating the family unit. Depicting the ‘consume or die’ American culture, DeLillo demonstrates the growing contextual consumerism as a method of diversion from mortality. This is explicit in the motif stream of consciousness “Who will die first?”  interrupted by the mantra “Mastercard, Visa, American Express.” The composer uses religious allusion to the Trinity to highlight the contextual replacement of religion with material goods. The structural placement of this internal dialogue reveals the chaotic human psyche following 1945, which individuals sought to reconcile through material distraction. DeLillo presents consumerism as an analogy for propaganda; an omnipresent being demanding complete submission.  Through a lexical chain and sensory appeals, the composer creates a tone of overwhelming choice, revealing advertising as a method of cognitive repression. The endless soundtrack of “toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker” diverts the protagonist from his toxic environment, maintaining his naivety and suppressing his individuality. Submersion in the superficial is revealed as creating dysfunction through a series of subplots and tangents. These reveal the resulting disorder where family values are subverted. This culminates in adultery for material gain, explicitly criticised by the composer as a “Capitalist transaction”, satirically revealing the consequences of consumerism on society. Cold War reliance on superficial distractions from fear is thus portrayed by DeLillo as responsible for the breakdown of traditional values, reiterating Plath’s acknowledgment of social coping mechanisms as threatening humanity. This criticism of consumerism is thus a response to the author's distaste in his society's ignorance, offering a significant understanding into the contextual focus on distraction from mortality which developed following significant human loss in the period.

Responding to the post 1945 shift in ways of thinking, composers sought to reveal the prevalent isolation and disillusionment which affected all aspects of society. By portraying disturbing accounts of modern reality from multiple perspectives, texts emulated the prevalent questioning of former certainties about technology as furthering civilisation and the Christian metanarrative. These are apparent through various text representations which convey the disintegration of trust, identity, family and logic. These are significant as they reveal both popular paradigms from the context and the response of some to challenge these ways of thinking.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 18, 2016, 07:46:37 pm

Quote from: sunshinelollipops on October 17, 2016, 06:07:36 pm

Hi Elyse! When you have the chance could you please have a look at my essay. I'm doing ATB and the same texts as you did but my essay is not nearly as good as yours. Thanks for taking the time to mark it! I really appreciate it!!!!! :) :)

Stoked to help a fellow ATB-er!!!!!

Spoiler

“The texts in the After the Bomb period share a common purpose: to challenge the contextual values of their society.” Good question! To take on this question, you'd need to make sure you're addressing the common purpose (linking the texts), identifying the contextual values, and the word "challenge."
Following the unprecedented violence and destruction of World War Two, the ‘After the Bomb’ period prompted a reconstruction of not only infrastructure, but institutions, ideologies and systems. Consequently, texts of the era challenged and changed social, political and religious values with radical forms and ideas that provided new ways of thinking. Sylvia Plath’s confessional poems you've identified "poems" as plural, and then talked about a specific poem? Perhaps talk about her anthology, Ariel. ‘The Applicant’ re-examined the female experience in America during the mid-20th century whilst Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 Swedish art film Persona encompasses Surrealist aesthetics to critique the post-war value placed upon marriage. Another of Plath’s poems, ‘Fever 103’ and Samuel Beckett’s Absurdist play Waiting for Godot presents the lack of Christian compassion and questions the reliability of religion following the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1946 which fused worldwide tension and uncertainty. The mercurial play also promotes camaraderie and company as solace in light of widespread re-evaluation of religious and social institutions, as does Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1986 novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. At this point we haven't yet identified exactly what the contextual values in the essay question are. You've linked them wonderfully, but not yet anything really unique, like the identification of the values YOU perceive, to set you apart from the bunch.

Both ‘The Applicant’ and Persona criticise and challenge the traditional notion that marriage is a social expectation and requirement for acceptance, which existed during the ATB period. It isn't clear here that you are discussing the applicant and the persona as two different entities, it sounds like you're talking about the poem as a whole and then another persona within. I'd start this paragraph by talking about a specific contextual value. This is another opportunity for you make your unique presence known to a marker - identifying a contextual value. Then introduce the texts accordingly. In ‘The Applicant’, Plath highlights the issue with this view on marriage through her depiction of marriage as a three-way transaction involving two unwilling parties and society as the matchmaker. I love the description "transaction."The didactic voice of society personified in the voice of the unseen ‘Interviewer’, “open your hand… Here is a hand to fill it”, The punctuation goes inside the quotation mark. Ok I'm on the train and I think I backspaced something at the start of this sentence...sorry!appears omnipotent through its mutual objectification of both the man and woman, representing the ingrained social expectations that pervaded not only a woman’s identity as a wife, but a man’s identity as the carer for the wife. The woman is referred to with the derogatory “it” and objectified by sales jargon, “it is waterproof, shatterproof”, which reminisces the rising capitalist consumerist culture in the US. Likewise, the man is also treated as an automaton that equally has no choice in the marriage – “Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.” The tautology in the final line of the poem transforms the initial question “will you marry it?” into an order, which echoed New York Times journalist, Mary Cantwell’s comment “God knows what would be left if you waited until you were 25 or 26”, thus demonstrating the value for marriage during this time and the determining role marriage in defining a person’s identity and acceptance within 1950s America. Unfortunately I think this last section is the first real attack on "contextual values" indicated in the essay question. It's important in an exam, as well as always, to take the time to dissect the question and identify which sections require significant emphasis. In this situation, the values are identified uniquely and supported at each turn - every time there's a technique mentioned, bring in the values (or whatever it is that the question specifies) I also think it isn't worth bringing in the Persona at the start of the paragraph. Linking at the beginning of the next paragraph is enough! :)

Bergman’s iconic thriller, Persona, similarly interrogates the institution of marriage through the disintegration of the principal characters, Alma and Elisabet’s serene ‘personas’. Great link :) The globalised world of the ATB period prioritised normalisation and social reintegration over the effective treatment of significant ‘wounds’ caused by the war. For Alma, this ‘treatment’ was to further her career and marry her fiancé, whilst Elisabet’s manifests in a symbolic mutism. Elisabet’s inability to continue playing the ‘persona’ of the perfect mother, wife, and actress, comes from her sense of personal responsibility for the traumas of the war, No solid analysis yet - I'd take out the sentence prior to this one, else, cling it to a technique of some sort and turn it into analysis. In ext 1, there is very little time for context/plot without analysis. It's a very dense essay in Extension :)indicated by a close up shot of her mortified reaction to historical footage of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk and photograph of a Warsaw ghetto. Her marriage breakdown contrasts with Alma’s desperate desire for a successful marriage, a juxtaposition which Bergman foregrounds in a surreal dream sequence where he superimposes the women's faces. Great!!Alma’s absorption of Elisabet’s ‘persona’ at the end of the film culminates in her surreal kiss with Elisabet’s husband, reflecting the abating worth of marriage due to the fluidity of identity and ‘personas’ in the changing world. Therefore, both Plath and Bergman’s subversive portrayals of the disintegration of marriage during the ATB period serves as their criticism of their society’s over-valuation of traditional customs such as marriage. Wonderful closing sentence - really ties it together.

Religion as a cultural influence is challenged in Beckett’s Godot and Plath’s ‘Fever 103’, through the respective representation of the hypocrisy of Christianity and the ways its teachings failed its followers. Beckett’s play interprets religion as a totalising grand narrative but upon reconsideration of it’s inherent sanctimony, rejects religion thusly. The play centres on two characters, Vladimir ‘Gogo’ and Estragon ‘Didi’, who wait endlessly for the arrival of Godot. Immediately after Godot is first mentioned, Vladimir and Estragon reference an allusion!the crucifixion of Christ, “one of the thieves were saved” and discuss the Evangelists’ four accounts of Christ’s death, of which only one mentions the salvation of the thief. The presentation of the irregularities in the accounts of Christianity serves as Beckett’s criticism of people’s blind faith in an unaccounted god-like being. Further, in Act 2, Pozzo is compared to Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel, the scriptural origins of murder and guilt. This biblical reference not only suggests that the characters in the play represent the human race, but illustrate religion as a promulgator of crime, which furthers Beckett’s view of the imprudence of religious belief. Thus the dropping of the atomic bomb led to an intensified questioning of religion as revealed in nihilistic tensions of Godot. Wonderful - similar criticism as earlier - the values take is talked about at the end more than throughout. Nice for rounding off!

Similarly, in ‘Fever 103’, Plath echoes the widespread re-evaluation of traditional Christian values in post-WW2 America. Her depiction of a delirious and frenzied fever, articulates a vision of the consequences of war. Nice take! The Dantean imagery of Hell, “the tongues of hell are dull… as the triple tongues of dull, fat Cerberus”, along with the hallucinatory style of the poem, insinuates the speaker’s internal struggles to commit to, and submit to the teachings of a failed and now archaic institution. These tactile images of Hell are contrasted with symbols of purity in “acetylene Virgin… cherubs”, reinforcing the Church’s failure to protect its disciples ‘after the bomb’. Further, the parallelism with which she states, “your body hurts me, as the world hurts God” demonstrates the persona’s self-deification and affinity with God as a sufferer and sacrifice, echoing Plath’s existential crisis and anguish, which lead to her subsequent suicide. However, unlike Plath, the speaker ultimately ‘rises’ above the confusion of the world, “to paradise”. Whilst there is discomfort in Plath’s symbolic apotheosis at the end of the poem, the speaker expresses awareness of the sin that is permeating society and the fear and questioning of religion which epitomised the post-war period. Therefore, both Plath and Beckett critique the role and relevance of religious faith and contemplate the collapse of religious beliefs through their respective American and French perspectives. I love that you've compared perspectives from America and France - really nice. It's a great touch!

Disappointment in the institution of marriage and of the validity of religious grand narratives precipitated a fundamental secular shift which transformed relationships and camaraderie into something to be relied upon in the ATB period. The symbiotic relationship between Estragon and Vladimir and the dependency of Pozzo and Lucky in Godot and the decorum between the prisoners in Ivan is indicative of this value of friendship. ‘Gogo’ and ‘Didi’s’ dependence on each other to provide distraction from the fractured world is portrayed in the repetitiveness of their comedic cross-talk routine, “You must be happy too”, “Happy about what?”, “To be back with me again”. Paralleling this relationship, Pozzo and Lucky also share a dependence on each other but unlike Estragon and Vladimir, their relationship is based on subjugation. The ironically named Lucky, who , in an economic viewing/reading/perspective, represents the working class, is characterised as dependent on Pozzo, who represents the aristocracy. Lucky, the oppressed, needs Pozzo, the oppressor, to provide direction and order, “Leave him in peace… Basket!” Reciprocating this dependency, Pozzo requires Lucky to serve him, “I'd very much like to sit down, but I don't quite know how to go about it”. Their mutual dependence on each other indicates the need for a functioning relationship between the top and bottom echelons of power especially during the ATB as society reverted back old ways of thinking in an attempt to gain stability and a sense of normalcy. I think this is a good opportunity to talk about wider paradigms of this period - socialism, capitalism, etc, etc. When you talk about aspects of a text being representative of wider scenarios - ensure you talk about the perspective that you are espousing. Like I suggested above :)

In the same way, Ivan presents camaraderie as vital to survival during the hopeless ATB period. Solzhenitsyn recounts the repressive anxiety of the Cold War period through the portrayal an “almost happy day” in a Gulag. Ivan and the members of Gang 104 work together to earn extra supplies to complete the arduous tasks assigned by the prison officials and prolong their survival in the prison. Solzhenitsyn uses the prison as a microcosm of the Soviet Union and renders the hostile prison environment and lingering threat of starvation in Ivan’s conversation with fellow “zek” Alyoshka, “our Lord commanded us to pray for our daily bread”. Alyoshka satirically elevates the prison officials to God, which foregrounds the power wielded by the guards, who are models of Stalin’s totalitarian leadership. The inmate’s dependence on each other which mirrors the relationships between Estragon on Vladimir and Pozzo’s and Lucky in Godot, illustrates the indispensability of camaraderie in the ATB period, whereby all these characters maintain their sanity and survive in the oppressive world through their meaningful relationships with others.

Ultimately, significant texts in the ATB period challenged the political, religious and social values of their era. Plath’s poems ‘Fever 103’ and ‘The Applicant’, Bergman’s Minimalist Thriller Persona, Beckett’s Absurdist play, Godot, as well as Solzhenitsyn’s novella, Ivan, all challenged the paradigms and institutions which dictated an individual’s livelihood in the ATB climate of Cold War anxiety and displacement. These texts respectively provided an American, Swedish, French and Russian representation of societies’ blind certainty and belief in the institution of marriage and religion, to convey the climate of denial, existentialism and rising value of camaraderie in the ATB period.

A few critiques:
-The essay question needs like, a good 30 seconds to a minute of staring at. You need to identify usually about two key terms, and sometimes there's a little something extra that they want you to excel in - in this case, the comparison of the two. I think the "values" in the essay question was never "attacked" and rather, used as a placid guideline for your essay. It might be a situation of topping and tailing your paragraphs, and then filling it in with content in the middle that at least once references the question. If this is the approach you need to take, then by all means! :)
-The ways of thinking, similarly to the essay question, are present, but hardly challenged/attacked/explored. The conclusion sums it up well, and the paragraphs about marriage do a really good job. But, I think the introduction and conclusion could tease them out more. Leading into my next point.
-The conclusion does espouse a listing form when talking about the texts. I think if you just deal with two at a time per sentence, you give yourself the opportunity to tie them together one last time!
-I like your quote in the first body paragraph - great for contextualising!!!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: sunshinelollipops on October 18, 2016, 09:10:18 pm

Hey Elyse thanks so much for your feedback! It's super super helpful!

Just a quick question, when you say I need to attack the ways of thinking and values, do you mean go beyond/make a unique point out of marriage/religion/relationships... Not just for instance say that marriage was relied upon as a means to revert to the old ways of thinking to provide stability and a sense of normalcy?

And is there a difference between values and ways of thinking? Because aren't values what shape ways of thinking in the same way that ways of thinking shape values?

Thanks again!!!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 18, 2016, 10:02:56 pm

Quote from: sunshinelollipops on October 18, 2016, 09:10:18 pm

Hey Elyse thanks so much for your feedback! It's super super helpful!

Just a quick question, when you say I need to attack the ways of thinking and values, do you mean go beyond/make a unique point out of marriage/religion/relationships... Not just for instance say that marriage was relied upon as a means to revert to the old ways of thinking to provide stability and a sense of normalcy?

And is there a difference between values and ways of thinking? Because aren't values what shape ways of thinking in the same way that ways of thinking shape values?

Thanks again!!!

The ways of thinking and the values are closely linked. I think the ways of thinking should be clearly identified like: nihilism, suspicion of politics, fear of instability, etc. These lead to new values, often, like: definite truths of faith, new political agendas, the family unit. So, extremely closely linked - but I think in your work actually saying "Plath reflected a common way of thinking amongst women..." will elevate your work and draw attention where it's deserved.

In response to your first question, I think it's best that you take on some kind of thesis that potentially is used despite what the essay question is. Something universal that you understand of all of your texts, so that you can tag it with the great take you took on marriage, relationships, etc.
I'm kind of suggesting: complicating your work in a clear way.

I know this seems intense because there is sooo much in an extension essay, but this kind of thread to tag it all through together is taking it to the next level. I definitely should have said in the original feedback that I think this is worthy of the top band! It's just about developing a distinct voices and style amongst hundreds of people who have done the same texts, and have taken the same ideas. It's just about bringing a new perspective to your work, to add onto the perspective you've got based on the essay question.

Let me know if anything doesn't make sense. I did a LOT of last minute editing on my extension 1 piece. A LOT.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 19, 2016, 08:32:49 am

Quote from: aoife98 on October 18, 2016, 02:27:33 pm

I was hoping someone could look over my generic ATB essay. With every paper I've attempted, I've basically adjusted my generic essay and ended up with a really long and chaotic essay. Any advice for where I've lost focus/areas which could be easily moulded to a particular question and how to better address ways of thinking would be great  :)

I will give you some feedback on this today aoife! Stay tuned :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 19, 2016, 05:49:15 pm

Quote from: aoife98 on October 18, 2016, 02:27:33 pm

I was hoping someone could look over my generic ATB essay. With every paper I've attempted, I've basically adjusted my generic essay and ended up with a really long and chaotic essay. Any advice for where I've lost focus/areas which could be easily moulded to a particular question and how to better address ways of thinking would be great  :)

I had a really quite generic essay throughout the year and then at last minute I made hugely enormous changes to make my essay textually and conceptually dense - so that might make your experience seem a little more normal! I had a very similar experience to you :)

Spoiler

As the 1945 mushroom cloud ballooned over Hiroshima city, traditional values regarding the pursuit of man were dashed away forever, replaced by distrust, paranoia and existentialism, indicating a loss of faith in former certainties such as the Christian metanarrative. I'd introduce the metanarrative idea in a sentence that isn't the very first - let your awesome ideas sink in! Then bring in the specifics :) Responding to this shift in global consciousness, composers of the era saw the atomic bomb as humanity's failure and reflected the resulting disillusionment and changing values through their texts. This is explicit through the subversion of literary conventions, as in Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play Waiting for Godot, and Stanley Kubrick's film Dr Strangelove (1964) which embody popular nihilistic and hopeless views. Great introduction of texts!Further, the culture of distraction through material possession and adoption of social restrictions, which developed to mask the pervading isolation is critiqued by Sylvia Plath’s poetic anthology Ariel and Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. Through diverse representations of common post war rationales, these composers reveal the ways of thinking of the period. Stellar introduction - no other criticisms other than what I said in the first sentence. Fabulous!

The dropping of the bomb saw increasing isolation as enlightenment thinking was replaced by existentialist doubt regarding .... Keen to know what goes here! This is an excellent opening!This intensive questioning of perceived truths and resulting instability is represented through Beckett’s absurdist text Waiting for Godot. Emblematic of the eras increasing rejection of Christianity, Beckett absurdly depicts Sartre’s teachings through the protagonists Vladimir and Estragon, who embody “bad faith” through their pursual of external answers to their purpose, which Sartre finds false and unfulfilling. This provides insight into the prevailing disillusionment following the contextual horrors which leads the characters to put complete faith in the omniscient, controlling and metaphorical ‘Godot,’ creating a stagnant plot which allegorically highlights the consequences of trusting authority, reflecting changing values. This realisation of human powerlessness is amplified to readers through darkly humorous stage directions which demonstrate societies struggle to continue daily life without the faith they had previously trusted. This manifests differently through the characters as frantic pacing and emotional breakdowns in Didi and incoherent intellectual musings by Gogo. This characterisation manipulates the absurdist form to express the underlying dysfunction which grew from the sudden absence of individuals power. Beckett further reveals this through the rejection of traditional language conventions through fragmented syntax and useless repertoire in the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. LOVE THIS!!!!!!! The motif captures the prevailing loss of faith in leaders and religion following the bomb. Absolute trust in authority is further criticised through characters desensitised reactions to inhumanity through the satirically childlike connotations of “We could play at Pozzo and Lucky.” The characters empathy is subverted, metaphorically questioning the consequences of the periods reliance on propaganda to suppress and control and revealing the rejection of dictated truths. Through stage directions and truncated sentences, the composer creates a poignant tone, revealing the extent of disempowerment “To every man his little cross. Till he dies. (Afterthought) And is forgotten.” This questions the prevalent trust in religious authority by subverting Christian ideologies of reaching salvation through suffering. Instead, Beckett proposes individuals are insignificant, revealing the contextual existentialism and rejection of religion which resulted from the dropping of the bomb.This is wonderfully. it's incredibly dense with everything you need: ways of thinking, analysis, texts, WONDERFUL!

Following post bomb conventions, Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove employs satire to express contextual disillusionment in authority following its failure to protect humanity, embodying  political unrest as opposed to Beckett’s nihilism. The film manipulates audience’s contextual hyper-anxieties to reveal the flaws of total trust in authority, alluding to McCarthy's ‘Red Scare’ through General Ripper. Realising the absurdity of the Cold War, Kubrick highlights the dangers of propaganda-driven terror through Ripper’s erratic movements which suggest a brainwashed neurosis, connotating the suppression of thought. By reducing the atomic bomb to a sexual metaphor which alludes to Jack the Ripper’s violent sexual tendencies, the composer satirised leaders egos, likening the arms race to a male desire to prove his masculinity through the size of his genitalia. Their incompetent protection of society manifests in the President's dramatically ironic objection to a scuffle between two delegates, “you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!” Love this part of the text - you've used it well!The contextual political compliance was further criticised through historical figures incompetent characterisation, paralleling disillusionment in the Christian god. Their fallibility is evident through cross-cutting which undermines their authority by contrasting the comical chewing of gum with absurd dialogue between opposing leaders  “Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am.”  regarding the global doom they invoked. This subverts prevailing notions of right versus wrong, finding the surrendering of power to any one body as dangerous. The paradoxical policy M.A.D is satirised through the ironic motto “Peace is our profession,” which appears in the background of combat scenes to emphasise the irrationality of deterrent policies. This is reiterated by the contrasting montage of explosions and non diegetic score music which foreshadow Kubrick's perceived future. Thus, Kubrick embodies post war disillusionment, revealing all politicians as incompetent and reflecting the resultant hopelessness as the concept of American greatness collapsed.

Reacting to growing instability, Western society turned to traditional conservative values for order. Satirically representing the commodification of women, Plath utilises historical allusions and emotive personas to criticise her society for its culture of superficial containment. The contextual disintegration of trust associated with fears of Communism left individuals isolated. Seeking identity, they conformed to stereotypical roles, as criticised by Plath in Daddy through the satirical character representation. Transfixed by a “man in black with a Meinkampf look,” the developed Electra complex really good link to a sophisticated school of thought - the Electra Complex. Amazing! satirises societal clinging to oppressive values in order to gain identity, alluding to the Nazi regime and black motifs to reveal the oppressive relationships between women and men. The authors criticism of her society for accepting these values is evident through the juxtaposition of these harsh images with an insistent nursery rhyme tone, using language to metaphorically reveal the inequality. Plath exposes social expectation as a threat to wellbeing through the characterisation of a leering crowd at Lady Lazarus’ “big strip tease.” The symbolism metaphorically represents the unfeeling, self regulating society emerging to cope with the new terrifying reality of their mortality, alluding to the constant fear of being labelled a Communist during the Red Scare. A titillating and perverse tone furthers Plath’s criticism of society’s “comfortable concentration camp” (Freidan) Add a date for when Betty Friedan said this, I can't tell you what it is off the top of my head. But I've learnt this year that it's best to cite the year! :)where women are viewed as a commodity, drawing on the corporate setting and stereotypical roles of married partners to demonstrate her society's attempt to regain stability following the bomb. This is clear in The Applicant through an extended interview metaphor which satirises traditional family values. The housewife parody “Come here, sweetie, out of that closet” is aided by a condescending tone to create an emotional dissociation, reflecting the inferior role of women in the context and more broadly, the harm caused by social constraints on individuality. Plath ultimately rejects the traditional values adopted by her context to impose order, finding them oppressive and destructive. Embodying the growing feminist movement, Plath’s satirical use of persona’s and reliance on evocative historical allusions provides insight into the struggle of individuals in questioning their own identity amidst social restrictions and expectations.

Consumerism as a distraction from fear is criticised in DeLillo’s postmodernist novel White Noise as disintegrating the family unit. Depicting the ‘consume or die’ American culture, DeLillo demonstrates the growing contextual consumerism as a method of diversion from mortality. This is explicit in the motif stream of consciousness “Who will die first?”  interrupted by the mantra “Mastercard, Visa, American Express.” The composer uses religious allusion to the Trinity to highlight the contextual replacement of religion with material goods. The structural placement of this internal dialogue reveals the chaotic human psyche following 1945, which individuals sought to reconcile through material distraction. DeLillo presents consumerism as an analogy for propaganda; an omnipresent being demanding complete submission.  Through a lexical chain and sensory appeals, the composer creates a tone of overwhelming choice, revealing advertising as a method of cognitive repression. The endless soundtrack of “toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker” diverts the protagonist from his toxic environment, maintaining his naivety and suppressing his individuality. Submersion in the superficial is revealed as creating dysfunction through a series of subplots and tangents. These reveal the resulting disorder where family values are subverted. This culminates in adultery for material gain, explicitly criticised by the composer as a “Capitalist transaction”,  Do you have the source for this quote? satirically revealing the consequences of consumerism on society. Cold War reliance on superficial distractions from fear is thus portrayed by DeLillo as responsible for the breakdown of traditional values, reiterating Plath’s acknowledgment of social coping mechanisms as threatening humanity. This criticism of consumerism is thus a response to the author's distaste in his society's ignorance, offering a significant understanding into the contextual focus on distraction from mortality which developed following significant human loss in the period.

Responding to the post 1945 shift in ways of thinking, composers sought to reveal the prevalent isolation and disillusionment which affected all aspects of society. By portraying disturbing accounts of modern reality from multiple perspectives, texts emulated the prevalent questioning of former certainties about technology as furthering civilisation and the Christian metanarrative. These are apparent through various text representations which convey the disintegration of trust, identity, family and logic. These are significant as they reveal both popular paradigms from the context and the response of some to challenge these ways of thinking.

This is simply amazing, I couldn't fault it! This is more than definitely worth the top band. Your text selection is great because you have political and personal attitudes in all, and that will give you some flexibility in the exam. I'm sorry I can't tell you much how to improve, it's just such an impressive piece! I know it seems complicated and crazy to you right now because you've just adjusted it all, but it reads as smooth as butter to new eyes!

Have you applied this to past questions? Has any particular topic in the past questions thrown you?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: aoife98 on October 19, 2016, 07:57:13 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 19, 2016, 05:49:15 pm

I had a really quite generic essay throughout the year and then at last minute I made hugely enormous changes to make my essay textually and conceptually dense - so that might make your experience seem a little more normal! I had a very similar experience to you :)

This is simply amazing, I couldn't fault it! This is more than definitely worth the top band. Your text selection is great because you have political and personal attitudes in all, and that will give you some flexibility in the exam. I'm sorry I can't tell you much how to improve, it's just such an impressive piece! I know it seems complicated and crazy to you right now because you've just adjusted it all, but it reads as smooth as butter to new eyes!

Have you applied this to past questions? Has any particular topic in the past questions thrown you?

I have applied it to a few questions but I always sit between 21-23/25. I'm probably not explicitly addressing the question just because i've spent so long refining my generic essay  :-\ Thank you Elyse!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 20, 2016, 10:13:08 am

Quote from: aoife98 on October 19, 2016, 07:57:13 pm

I have applied it to a few questions but I always sit between 21-23/25. I'm probably not explicitly addressing the question just because i've spent so long refining my generic essay  :-\ Thank you Elyse!

If you learn this piece really well (however you do that - memorisation, mnemonics, whatever), then I'm certain you'll be able to manipulate it really well in an exam. This is one of the best pieces I have seen for ATB this year! Excellent work :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: danijela.mitrovic99 on October 28, 2016, 06:25:26 pm

Hello! I was wondering if you could provide feedback on my paragraphs for my prescribed texts; 'Waiting for Godot' and 'Good Night, and Good Luck'. As you know, the exam is on Monday so if you could provide feedback as soon as possible, I would be most grateful! Thank you!
A little information into the elective I'm doing:
- Module B: Texts and Ways of Thinking
- Elective 1: After the Bomb
The following paragraphs are not for a specific question; I was planning to change a few elements in the paragraphs in order to fit the question in the exam.

‘Waiting for Godot’ is an absurdist play that examines the repetitive essence of the existence of mankind, one that is generated by fear and paranoia. It accentuates man’s dependency on hope and authority, regardless of the inescapability of a futile existence. Beckett portrays a post-nuclear wasteland that is void of any real time or space. It is in this bleak setting that the fruitless endeavours of Vladimir and Estragon takes place. The two “tramps” wait in endless limbo for Godot, who remains an unidentified controlling entity throughout the play, and thus attempt to satisfy the Sisyphean nature of existence. Beckett explores the self-interrogation of personal values and beliefs, which are the result of the reliance upon a non-existent hegemonic force. Despite the concept that Vladimir and Estragon are cognisant in their purpose in life, Beckett reflects ultimate worthlessness through the use of illogical dialogue and devices like stichomythia. The sempiternal essence of the play exhibited within the motif of “nothing to be done”, and Vladimir and Estragon’s suppression in the line “we’ve lost our rights” reflects the way in which people’s personal values and beliefs became lost in a repetitive and obedient existence. Beckett relates the loneliness of an individual to the societal reliance upon authority and their dictation of philosophical paradigms in order to provide caution against an unquestioning reliance upon weakened social pillars, like the political sphere. Beckett ultimately judges man’s ability to accept a nihilistic nature when challenged by utter hopelessness, hence the central characters’ persistence in waiting for Godot, despite the fact that he hasn’t come for “60 years”. However, the arrival of the boy at the end of both acts signifies the reigniting of hope, and is symbolic of the restoration of faith within the futile political supremacy. Beckett suggests that, in the Cold War context, it is man’s innate ability to accept meaninglessness in the face of extinction, which leads to the involvement of an individual becoming dependent on authority. He then concludes that society will finally become institutionalised as they are obstructed from the true discovery of meaning.

George Clooney’s black-and-white film “Good Night, and Good Luck” tells the story of Edward R. Murrow as he created a sequence of reports that assisted in the condemnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The film establishes the intertwined nature of the personal and political through the examination of an individual’s competence to challenge authority. Clooney investigates the ramification of a fearful Cold War society through an individual’s bold defiance of a seemingly unparalleled political realm. The authority in the film, which is embodied by Senator McCarthy, is depicted as a politically and ideologically corrupt body through the unbalanced political power and dictation of societal values. This is emphasised through Friendly and Murrow’s whispered exchange, “it’s not McCarthy…is it?” Clooney surpasses the inherent view of authority in the Cold War climate through his depiction of Senator McCarthy, presenting a vulnerable political sphere by elevating Murrow to a position equal to authority. This is established through Murrow’s repetitive stance, “we will not walk in fear.” Murrow is ideologically motivated by McCarthy’s trials, which destroyed all meaning within society through the construction of fear and anxiety as a mechanism for control. The dark mise-en-scene of Murrow typing alone in an empty office with only his face lit is symbolic of the isolation of the individual within the Cold War context. This therefore highlights the importance of a universal moral compass, and acts as prevention for the political abuse of power. Both McCarthy and Murrow are pushed out of their respective fields due to their conflict, making way for a new figure of authority and a new symbol of the public. This indicates the futility of the Cold War through the meaninglessness of Murrow and McCarthy’s philosophical conflict highlighted through the ability of both the political and personal spheres to progress and continue.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: cmbarnes on October 29, 2016, 01:20:34 pm

Quote from: Lauradf36 on August 02, 2016, 10:03:15 pm

Hey, when you have time, could you have a brief look at this practise essay for extension 1? I typed it under timed conditions so it's not very refined, but I'd appreciate thoughts/feelings anyway! It's from Elective 2 - Romanticism. And I hope the rest explains itself :)

Q. The art of words and images has the power to evoke questioning and resistance.

Evaluate this statement with reference to TWO prescribed texts and at least TWO texts of your own choosing.

Honestly, the fact that this was written under timed conditions is so weird to me! It was really well written, especially the conclusion. You're going to do so well in the exam!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 29, 2016, 03:53:44 pm

Quote from: danijela.mitrovic99 on October 28, 2016, 06:25:26 pm

Hello! I was wondering if you could provide feedback on my paragraphs for my prescribed texts; 'Waiting for Godot' and 'Good Night, and Good Luck'. As you know, the exam is on Monday so if you could provide feedback as soon as possible, I would be most grateful! Thank you!
A little information into the elective I'm doing:
- Module B: Texts and Ways of Thinking
- Elective 1: After the Bomb
The following paragraphs are not for a specific question; I was planning to change a few elements in the paragraphs in order to fit the question in the exam.

Hi there! I'll give you some thoughts :)

Spoiler

I think it is best to start your paragraph with the identification of a way of thinking, or else the context or event that prompts the way of thinking. You're writing a ways of thinking essay - and this is the best way to ground it in that :) ‘Waiting for Godot’ is an absurdist play that examines the repetitive essence of the existence of humankind, one that is generated by fear and paranoia. It accentuates human’s dependency on hope and authority, regardless of the inescapability of a futile existence. Beckett portrays a post-nuclear wasteland that is void of any real time or space. It is in this bleak setting that the fruitless endeavours of Vladimir and Estragon takes place. The two “tramps” wait in endless limbo for Godot, who remains an unidentified controlling entity throughout the play, and thus attempt to satisfy the Sisyphean nature of existence. Beckett explores the self-interrogation of personal values and beliefs, which are the result of the reliance upon a non-existent hegemonic force I don't necessarily know that this is a non-existent force - do you? Perhaps, never-appearing?. Despite the concept that Vladimir and Estragon are cognisant in their purpose in life, Beckett reflects ultimate worthlessness through the use of illogical dialogue and devices like stichomythia. Explain where stichomythia is found. The sempiternal essence of the play exhibited within the motif refrain? More than a motif, I think. Although it can be a recurring motif...if you explain the significance it will make more sense. of “nothing to be done”, and Vladimir and Estragon’s suppression in the line “we’ve lost our rights” reflects the way in which people’s personal values and beliefs became lost in a repetitive and obedient existence. Beckett relates the loneliness of an individual to the societal reliance upon authority and their dictation of philosophical paradigms in order to provide caution against an unquestioning reliance upon weakened social pillars, like the political sphere. Beckett ultimately judges man’s ability to accept a nihilistic nature when challenged by utter hopelessness, hence the central characters’ persistence in waiting for Godot, despite the fact that he hasn’t come for “60 years”. However, the arrival of the boy at the end of both acts signifies the reigniting of hope, and is symbolic of the restoration of faith within the futile political supremacy. Beckett suggests that, in the Cold War context, it is man’s innate ability to accept meaninglessness in the face of extinction, which leads to the involvement of an individual becoming dependent on authority. He then concludes that society will finally become institutionalised as they are obstructed from the true discovery of meaning.

Again, start with the way of thinking to be explored.George Clooney’s black-and-white film “Good Night, and Good Luck” tells the story of Edward R. Murrow as he created a sequence of reports that assisted in the condemnation of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The film establishes the intertwined nature of the personal and political through the examination of an individual’s competence to challenge authority. Clooney investigates the ramification of a fearful Cold War society through an individual’s bold defiance of a seemingly unparalleled political realm. The authority in the film, which is embodied by Senator McCarthy, is depicted as a politically and ideologically corrupt body through the unbalanced political power and dictation of societal values. This is emphasised through Friendly and Murrow’s whispered exchange, “it’s not McCarthy…is it?” Clooney surpasses the inherent view of authority in the Cold War climate through his depiction of Senator McCarthy, presenting a vulnerable political sphere by elevating Murrow to a position equal to authority. This is established through Murrow’s repetitive stance, “we will not walk in fear.” Murrow is ideologically motivated by McCarthy’s trials, which destroyed all meaning within society through the construction of fear and anxiety as a mechanism for control. The dark mise-en-scene of Murrow typing alone in an empty office with only his face lit is symbolic of the isolation of the individual within the Cold War context. This therefore highlights the importance of a universal moral compass, and acts as prevention for the political abuse of power. Both McCarthy and Murrow are pushed out of their respective fields due to their conflict, making way for a new figure of authority and a new symbol of the public. This indicates the futility of the Cold War through the meaninglessness of Murrow and McCarthy’s philosophical conflict highlighted through the ability of both the political and personal spheres to progress and continue.

I think that the first way to improve your work is to identify the ways of thinking clearly - this should be in your introduction and also at the start of each new paragraph. Then every single time you talk about a piece of evidence, it either needs to link back to the way of thinking, or else the essay question/thesis you adapt. At the moment, the ways of thinking are sparsely placed, and the evidence doesn't clearly link back. Remember, the way of thinking isn't just "paranoia" - the way of thinking is nihilism, rejection of patriarchy, suspicion of politics, or the inversion of any of these :)

The good news is that all of your evidence is judiciously selected, and you spend just the right amount of time explaining the texts. The way to bump this into the highest mark possible is to work on making the effect of the technique link to the way of thinking. When this is adapted to an essay question, it will become even more dense.

I hope this makes sense to you!

Title: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bsdfjnlkasn on May 20, 2017, 11:26:07 am

Hey there,

Sorry if I'm posting this too late but I would really love to get some feedback on this oral presentation on After the Bomb which I have to know off by heart by Monday (so would really appreciate some time to edit and learn it, but whenever I get this back, I'll be happy). I've attached a photo of the notification and the marking guidelines are:

    Sophistication of multimodal presentation (still working on it)
    Sophisticated speaking skills demonstrated in communication of complex ideas clearly and cohesively
    Extensive investigation and analysis
    Extensive reflection on how a study of set and related texts shapes an understanding of After the Bomb ways of thinking
    Highly developed control of language to express complex ideas with clarity 

If you could please mark this speech as an assessment (so in alignment with the outcomes assessed on the notification and the above criteria) I'd really appreciate it as the task if 40% and I can't afford to be losing any marks. I know that sets a really high standard but I haven't done particular well in EX1 this year and am looking to bump up my rank a fair bit. If the speech comes off more as sounding like an essay, do let me know because i'll need to fix that! Also, I'm struggling to integrate specific references to the Cold War context and would love some suggestions as to where you think the ways of thinking i'm discussing are relevant in the Cold War timeline. Im struggling to think of events other than the dropping of the atomic bomb - if I can reference smaller events which added to the time's consciousness that will show my markers "extensive investigation". Also, as form is such a big part of the module i'd really appreciate it if you could comment on my discussion on form as I suspect there isn't enough and so would love some suggestions as to where I can better discuss it. I sort of link the form to the audience but am not sure if there's a better, more sophisticated approach in doing this.

I know the feedback is incredibly detailed on here so I'm looking forward to some really specific points for improvement - if you're able to give more feedback than usual I will be so incredibly grateful for it, and if not, that's cool too  8)

Thank you so much for offering this service and I hope to hear back from you soon (so that I can start learning it  ;D)!!

(http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170520/b71a99e2e7868691b1ac95bc5a8393fe.jpg)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: jamonwindeyer on May 21, 2017, 04:23:02 pm

Quote from: bsdfjnlkasn on May 20, 2017, 11:26:07 am

Hey there,

Hey! So first off, so sorry that it's me giving you this feedback - El will definitely give you way better feedback when she's on steadier internet, so that even if it doesn't benefit you for this task, you have points to move forward with.

Jeez, reading this was seriously intimidating. I've done my best to sort of assess you based on the criteria, and here are my comments:

Sophistication of multimodal presentation: Can't really assess this aspect, put on a cool show and you'll be all sweet!
Sophisticated speaking skills demonstrated in communication of complex ideas clearly and cohesively: Speak slowly, add emphasis where you want it. Remember that although the words flow naturally to you, the audience will need time to think and digest your points - Give them those short 1-3 second break to do so. Look at everyone in the room at least once by the end of the presentation. Speak with confidence, even if you think you are talking absolute nonsense ;)
Extensive investigation and analysis: Can't comment on this a lot - I do think you could do more to link the concepts/ideas you are raising to contextual cues for those concepts. Like, you are exploring aspects of the post-bomb social zeitgeist, tell me the specific things you see that suggest certain ideas/concepts, if you catch me.
Extensive reflection on how a study of set and related texts shapes an understanding of After the Bomb ways of thinking - Perhaps more comparison between the texts? The criteria/task seems to suggest that this is quite important, and you do make some links, but I think you could make more, at least in a slightly more obvious way.
Highly developed control of language to express complex ideas with clarity - Use of language is fine, besides a few spots I don't think quite make sense. You should score really well here.

I think the biggest issue I had reading it was structure - Even though it's a speech, I think it might need just a little something more to tie it all in together - Perhaps it is because I don't know this Module, but I struggled to tie all your points together into a cohesive argument. I didn't quite get how one paragraph tied to the next or to your big ideas. Again, this could very well be simply that I don't know the Module, don't know the aims, don't know the sorts of things that typically get raised.

I think you've definitely discussed aspects of humanity (be a little more specific in linking with Cold War I reckon), I think the techniques need to have a bit more of a focus if you can. Definitely more discussion of form - Though exactly how you could link this I am not quite sure. I'm not sure how well you've linked to "Ways of Thinking" - FIngers crossed El can shed some light before tomorrow.

I realise this feedback is probably so crap, and I feel so so so bad that I can't give you more cohesive direction or feedback - But hopefully this mismash of thoughts is at least a little helpful?

(Check comments throughout as well - Not many, but again, my little sporadic thoughts might be helpful)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on May 22, 2017, 09:51:48 am

Quote from: bsdfjnlkasn on May 20, 2017, 11:26:07 am

Hey there,

Sorry if I'm posting this too late but I would really love to get some feedback on this oral presentation on After the Bomb which I have to know off by heart by Monday (so would really appreciate some time to edit and learn it, but whenever I get this back, I'll be happy).

Hey there! I've taken a quick skim and on the whole I definitely agree with Jamon's points. Is this due today? If you mean next Monday, I'll go through and have an intensive look at it. But I don't want to do that now if you're going to present it in an hour and then read my feedback later and panic. But if it's due next Monday I'll get to it ASAP. Just let me know! I love Ways of Thinking :) If it is due today but you'd still like feedback, I'll still mark it by all means.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bsdfjnlkasn on May 22, 2017, 04:40:16 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on May 22, 2017, 09:51:48 am

Hey there! I've taken a quick skim and on the whole I definitely agree with Jamon's points. Is this due today? If you mean next Monday, I'll go through and have an intensive look at it. But I don't want to do that now if you're going to present it in an hour and then read my feedback later and panic. But if it's due next Monday I'll get to it ASAP. Just let me know! I love Ways of Thinking :) If it is due today but you'd still like feedback, I'll still mark it by all means.

Hey Elyse!

Yeah I presented the attached version of the speech today, hopefully it was better than what Jamon so kindly marked.
Thank you anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback and see where I could have improved regardless of what happened :) :)
 

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on May 23, 2017, 07:46:29 am

Quote from: bsdfjnlkasn on May 22, 2017, 04:40:16 pm

Hey Elyse!

Yeah I presented the attached version of the speech today, hopefully it was better than what Jamon so kindly marked.
Thank you anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback and see where I could have improved regardless of what happened :) :)
 

Great! I'm going to the library tomorrow (it's Monday night where I am) so I will sit to look at this then. How did you think you went with the presentation? :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bsdfjnlkasn on May 23, 2017, 09:27:13 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on May 23, 2017, 07:46:29 am

Great! I'm going to the library tomorrow (it's Monday night where I am) so I will sit to look at this then. How did you think you went with the presentation? :)

Hey Elyse!

Unfortunately, I had some technical issues with the presentation but that wasn't completely my fault so hopefully the markers can overlook that :) .
I think I spoke clearly although wish I spoke slower, leaving room for pauses. Also, I wasn't particularly nervous which was a nice surprise!
Reflecting on the actual content, I probably could have included more evidence but I believe my take on the audience's engagement with the text (as well as the explicit reflections called on in the marking criteria) was unique. Hopefully my evidence and the link to ways of thinking was insightful - I hope they could see the links without me literally stating "the ways of thinking in .... " as I didn't do that.
I hope my expression was clear (what was actually written rather than how I said it) and that the focus on the individual and how people reacted to the changing global consciousness will make me stand out a bit.

Anyway, regardless of what I thought - i'd love to hear a bit more of a critical perspective.

Thanks again for keeping in touch :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on May 23, 2017, 11:36:50 pm

Quote from: bsdfjnlkasn on May 23, 2017, 09:27:13 pm

Hey Elyse!

Unfortunately, I had some technical issues with the presentation but that wasn't completely my fault so hopefully the markers can overlook that :) .
I think I spoke clearly although wish I spoke slower, leaving room for pauses. Also, I wasn't particularly nervous which was a nice surprise!
Reflecting on the actual content, I probably could have included more evidence but I believe my take on the audience's engagement with the text (as well as the explicit reflections called on in the marking criteria) was unique. Hopefully my evidence and the link to ways of thinking was insightful - I hope they could see the links without me literally stating "the ways of thinking in .... " as I didn't do that.
I hope my expression was clear (what was actually written rather than how I said it) and that the focus on the individual and how people reacted to the changing global consciousness will make me stand out a bit.

Anyway, regardless of what I thought - i'd love to hear a bit more of a critical perspective.

Thanks again for keeping in touch :)

That sounds like it ran pretty well aside from the technical failures! Congratulations!

Here is my feedback in the spoiler below :)

Spoiler

The dropping of the atomic bombs Fat Man and Little Boy threw the world into a moral wilderness love this! which created a climate of uncertainty and vulnerability. This resulted in the individual becoming a ‘tool’ within broader political networks. Steven Spielberg’s history film Bridge of Spies uses 1960’s America with it’s backdrop of espionage to reveal this. Yet the oppression this amounted to revealed a revolutionary discourse between the oppressors and the oppressed as individuals began to assert “unique selves.”  Not a single qualm here!

This is seen in Spielberg’s depiction of James Donovan’s rejection of McCarthyism as well as in Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry in Ariel where she undermines the Cold War’s patriarchal discourse. Ishiguro’s self-reflexive novel An Artist of the Floating World, however is a little different.I can imagine the way you said "a little different" in a conversational yet appropriate way. I talk like this in speeches as well! Masuji Ono’s unbreakable bond with the past prevents him from accepting Japan’s failed nationalism and so his own insignificance. Thus the importance of being independent of cultural and political dictations has been impressed on me Not sure about this wording? "Has influenced me" works better, but I'm not sure it is what you're trying to say. via these diverse explorations of human worth and so, values.

The Cold War’s famous espionage, cumulating in events such as the Rosenberg Trials, defined a culture of deceit and suspicion that placed extreme pressure on the individual to conform. Beginning in Rudolf Abel’s apartment, Spielberg presents us with three images of the man which creates an impression of transparency. However, the dim lighting taints this objectivity and evokes our suspicion. In this way, Spielberg uses the audience to collectively target the man as “a foreign threat” and so, capture the paranoia of Communism Excellent - I was waiting for the specific indentification of a way of thinking. which plagued American consciousness during the Cold War.

In this same scene, Spielberg establishes the theme of duplicity in private. This unexpected subversion of the audience’s understanding of espionage, as implied by the film’s title, reveals the strict expectation that the private be separate from the public. The social cohesion that resulted from constructing an existence and identity by this principle was used by America to promise security from foreign and so, nuclear threats. However, the unspoken oppression which resulted is revealed by the man who seeks to define his own identity, literally, by painting his portrait.

Through this, Spielberg captures the disillusionment of those who began to see the hypocrisy in America’s aggressive enforcement of single-minded identity veiled as “patriotism”. I think this would be an excellent place to discuss the ways of thinking. Current and past ways of thinking collide here: hypocrisy is being noted! The previous way of thinking put a lot of faith in the government, and this new way of thinking is more critical as cracks start to appear. As Cold War anxiety is tied to these struggles of asserting a unique identity, Spielberg uses our viewing experience to prove the outer and inner worlds as inextricably linked. Sylvia Plath extends this in her use of the confessional form to invite the reader to equate poet with persona. Absolutely seamless link here! Expected to marry and mother children, Plath aligns her personal context to her global context by the simile of herself in Fever 103° ‘Hiroshima ash... eating in. The sin. The sin.’ The internal rhyme creates a claustrophobic echo linking the atomic bomb’s destruction directly to the time’s oppressive nuclear family values. Excellent analysis - genuinely spectacular

But rather than despairing, Plath leaves us with a flicker of hope in The Applicant. I hope you've presented this as you've written it. I love using the inclusive first person "us" when making a speech, it's really engaging I think!The necessity of our engagement in defying gender expectations is urged in the concluding “will you marry it, marry it, marry it”. Each authoritative repetition empowers us to resist the blatant denial of autonomy we are coerced to accept. Therefore, we alongside Plath, are encouraged to see value in ourselves and defy these dictations. This central way of thinking which asserted a value in the human spirit instead of arbitrary expectations has therefore, been revealed to me via the involving forms of each text. Outstanding

As the infallible facades of authority begin to fall, the previously concealed true power of the is revealed and celebrated. Spielberg frames his protagonist, James Donovan between the pillars of the supreme court, aligning him with the justice they represent. The Doric style columns are reminiscent of Ancient Greece, a nod to democracy in an America which restricted free speech and justified it by the dissent it deterred. Further, Spielberg uses a low angle shot to empower his audience to recognise the scale of Cold War injustice in it’s undermining of the individual. Doing so, highlights the significance of defying it. 

Seeing the flaws of capitalism lie in state-sanctioned oppression has led me to conclude the importance of an identity which is politically removed, and so immune to it’s instability. Ishiguro elaborates on Spielberg’s indictment through Ono’s feelings of displacement. Left, “searching … for significance” we see his resilience in the sibilance. Yet as his effort amounts to nothing, we realise how his sense of meaninglessness is a reflection of Japan’s failed imperialism. As this promised prosperity is left unfulfilled, we, like those in the Cold War are led to question the authority which convinced us otherwise.

As new dimensions of the Cold War are constantly being revealed, as I’m sure they will in the speeches to come, Great engagement! we see the time’s questioning of humanity as being incredibly complex – both intensified and incomplete, despairing and hopeful. Ultimately, it was paradoxical – much like the period itself.

Wow! You should be so impressed with this. I hope your physical presence and oral manipulation nailed it home. This is a really tight little piece that expresses ideas really concisely. You've moved between the texts quite effectively in my opinion! I do think there is a little room for improvement in the way you approach the ways of thinking, and this is likely most important for essays rather than for the speeches. So, you've recognised that there is a shift in global consciousness, and that the climate changed. What better way to prove change than to show the before and after. What developed into what? I think you've done a fair job when looking at Sylvia Plath's work- you've engaged with the "new" way of thinking there. But remember, the module doesn't just ask for "new" ways of thinking, it leaves it open! So, I think you can engage with the idea of CHANGING ways of thinking in a stronger manner.

Also, I think that you could toy with the idea of: "Does a text come as a response to ways of thinking, or does a text prompt new ways of thinking?" So which came first - the chicken or the egg? You don't need to deal with this idea explicitly, although you could, it's just most important that you get a grip on the idea of how texts and ways of thinking relate to one another, and I suggest this is how you should do it! I think it works well to explore this in an essay as well, but you could just do it for your own study and then implement the findings.

Hopefully this gives you a new direction to work in when you get the feedback from the marker. It's not so much that there is a fault in your existing work, it's more than I think we can extend the work!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bsdfjnlkasn on May 25, 2017, 04:54:01 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on May 23, 2017, 11:36:50 pm

That sounds like it ran pretty well aside from the technical failures! Congratulations!

Here is my feedback in the spoiler below :)

Spoiler

The dropping of the atomic bombs Fat Man and Little Boy threw the world into a moral wilderness love this! which created a climate of uncertainty and vulnerability. This resulted in the individual becoming a ‘tool’ within broader political networks. Steven Spielberg’s history film Bridge of Spies uses 1960’s America with it’s backdrop of espionage to reveal this. Yet the oppression this amounted to revealed a revolutionary discourse between the oppressors and the oppressed as individuals began to assert “unique selves.”  Not a single qualm here!

This is seen in Spielberg’s depiction of James Donovan’s rejection of McCarthyism as well as in Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry in Ariel where she undermines the Cold War’s patriarchal discourse. Ishiguro’s self-reflexive novel An Artist of the Floating World, however is a little different.I can imagine the way you said "a little different" in a conversational yet appropriate way. I talk like this in speeches as well! Masuji Ono’s unbreakable bond with the past prevents him from accepting Japan’s failed nationalism and so his own insignificance. Thus the importance of being independent of cultural and political dictations has been impressed on me Not sure about this wording? "Has influenced me" works better, but I'm not sure it is what you're trying to say. via these diverse explorations of human worth and so, values.

The Cold War’s famous espionage, cumulating in events such as the Rosenberg Trials, defined a culture of deceit and suspicion that placed extreme pressure on the individual to conform. Beginning in Rudolf Abel’s apartment, Spielberg presents us with three images of the man which creates an impression of transparency. However, the dim lighting taints this objectivity and evokes our suspicion. In this way, Spielberg uses the audience to collectively target the man as “a foreign threat” and so, capture the paranoia of Communism Excellent - I was waiting for the specific indentification of a way of thinking. which plagued American consciousness during the Cold War.

In this same scene, Spielberg establishes the theme of duplicity in private. This unexpected subversion of the audience’s understanding of espionage, as implied by the film’s title, reveals the strict expectation that the private be separate from the public. The social cohesion that resulted from constructing an existence and identity by this principle was used by America to promise security from foreign and so, nuclear threats. However, the unspoken oppression which resulted is revealed by the man who seeks to define his own identity, literally, by painting his portrait.

Through this, Spielberg captures the disillusionment of those who began to see the hypocrisy in America’s aggressive enforcement of single-minded identity veiled as “patriotism”. I think this would be an excellent place to discuss the ways of thinking. Current and past ways of thinking collide here: hypocrisy is being noted! The previous way of thinking put a lot of faith in the government, and this new way of thinking is more critical as cracks start to appear. As Cold War anxiety is tied to these struggles of asserting a unique identity, Spielberg uses our viewing experience to prove the outer and inner worlds as inextricably linked. Sylvia Plath extends this in her use of the confessional form to invite the reader to equate poet with persona. Absolutely seamless link here! Expected to marry and mother children, Plath aligns her personal context to her global context by the simile of herself in Fever 103° ‘Hiroshima ash... eating in. The sin. The sin.’ The internal rhyme creates a claustrophobic echo linking the atomic bomb’s destruction directly to the time’s oppressive nuclear family values. Excellent analysis - genuinely spectacular

But rather than despairing, Plath leaves us with a flicker of hope in The Applicant. I hope you've presented this as you've written it. I love using the inclusive first person "us" when making a speech, it's really engaging I think!The necessity of our engagement in defying gender expectations is urged in the concluding “will you marry it, marry it, marry it”. Each authoritative repetition empowers us to resist the blatant denial of autonomy we are coerced to accept. Therefore, we alongside Plath, are encouraged to see value in ourselves and defy these dictations. This central way of thinking which asserted a value in the human spirit instead of arbitrary expectations has therefore, been revealed to me via the involving forms of each text. Outstanding

As the infallible facades of authority begin to fall, the previously concealed true power of the is revealed and celebrated. Spielberg frames his protagonist, James Donovan between the pillars of the supreme court, aligning him with the justice they represent. The Doric style columns are reminiscent of Ancient Greece, a nod to democracy in an America which restricted free speech and justified it by the dissent it deterred. Further, Spielberg uses a low angle shot to empower his audience to recognise the scale of Cold War injustice in it’s undermining of the individual. Doing so, highlights the significance of defying it. 

Seeing the flaws of capitalism lie in state-sanctioned oppression has led me to conclude the importance of an identity which is politically removed, and so immune to it’s instability. Ishiguro elaborates on Spielberg’s indictment through Ono’s feelings of displacement. Left, “searching … for significance” we see his resilience in the sibilance. Yet as his effort amounts to nothing, we realise how his sense of meaninglessness is a reflection of Japan’s failed imperialism. As this promised prosperity is left unfulfilled, we, like those in the Cold War are led to question the authority which convinced us otherwise.

As new dimensions of the Cold War are constantly being revealed, as I’m sure they will in the speeches to come, Great engagement! we see the time’s questioning of humanity as being incredibly complex – both intensified and incomplete, despairing and hopeful. Ultimately, it was paradoxical – much like the period itself.

Wow! You should be so impressed with this. I hope your physical presence and oral manipulation nailed it home. This is a really tight little piece that expresses ideas really concisely. You've moved between the texts quite effectively in my opinion! I do think there is a little room for improvement in the way you approach the ways of thinking, and this is likely most important for essays rather than for the speeches. So, you've recognised that there is a shift in global consciousness, and that the climate changed. What better way to prove change than to show the before and after. What developed into what? I think you've done a fair job when looking at Sylvia Plath's work- you've engaged with the "new" way of thinking there. But remember, the module doesn't just ask for "new" ways of thinking, it leaves it open! So, I think you can engage with the idea of CHANGING ways of thinking in a stronger manner.

Also, I think that you could toy with the idea of: "Does a text come as a response to ways of thinking, or does a text prompt new ways of thinking?" So which came first - the chicken or the egg? You don't need to deal with this idea explicitly, although you could, it's just most important that you get a grip on the idea of how texts and ways of thinking relate to one another, and I suggest this is how you should do it! I think it works well to explore this in an essay as well, but you could just do it for your own study and then implement the findings.

Hopefully this gives you a new direction to work in when you get the feedback from the marker. It's not so much that there is a fault in your existing work, it's more than I think we can extend the work!

Hey Elyse!

You've really reassured me with this feedback, hopefully the teachers enjoyed the content as much as you did!
Your feedback was super detailed and I actually love how you gave me some areas for enhancement :D
I'll definitely look to get more feedback in the future for tasks here and there - thanks so much again, I really appreciate it :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: maria1999 on June 11, 2017, 02:13:46 pm

hey!
So I have a hand in extension narrative due on Wednesday and was wondering if someone could take a look at it? It's based around the red scare in America and is from the point of view of two families. Structure is probs way off and spelling and grammar is also probably a low key horror movie so please be as critical as possible!!

Red over the Hedge

[/b]


The McCarthy’s
 
Is your b[/center]athroom breeding Bolsheviks? Do you have the overwhelming urge to wake up two hours before work to “seize the means of production”?
 
Mr James McCarthy certainly did.
 
At dawn, James McCarthy would rise from his slumber and trudge to the kitchen, popping in eight slices of bread into the toaster for his family of four. Two slices each. How plentiful! How decadent! How utterly excessive. Leon and Vladimir, both too young to to understand the socio-economic implications of bread for both breakfast and lunch nagged their father about their predicament.
“Dad!” they both moaned in unison.
“What?” 
“How are we supposed to share one carrot between us for lunch and recess?” James paused for a moment to consider this.
“Rationing my dear boys, it’s a dying art!” He quickly pecked both his sons on the forehead before he hurried out the door to work.
 
The Johnsons
Anthony and Jacqueline Johnson were dipping in discussion at the kitchen table. Anthony was tapping the linoleum floor in haste, anxious for Jacqueline's reply. She would open her mouth in a succession of “ah’s” and “ums”, simultaneously shifting her weight between each elbow.
“Are you sure honey?” she said, directing her gaze straight towards him.
“It’s beyond doubt. Linden and Dwight said his kids came to school with a carrot between them. It’s chronic I tell you, chronic.” Anthony rubbed his palm against his face,
“Maybe we should give it time, it’s quite a serious accusation to make, don’t you think sweetheart?”
“I’m telling you Jackie, that family is sick” He stood up from the table defiantly.
 “I will protect our children.”
 
The McCarthy’s
“Falin’s Panel Beater’s” was a shed on the corner of Liberty Lane; James McCarthy’s place of employment.  There was an irrevocable sense of fellowship amongst the workers who slaved away in the liminal space amongst suburban Washington that seemed to glorify the beauty of work. Every aspect of this place reminded James of how he was just a pawn in another man’s game. Everything from the grimy air that seemed to slick over his skin whenever he walked into the premise to the mould spores that took refuge in the back room fridge. The foreman promised to have it check out but hasn’t gotten around to it. Typical. Regardless of the hardships, James relished in the comfort of his comrades when push came to shove. Every so often, he would help out one of his fellow workers finish up their quota of cars for the day.
“So how’s the family?” Billy was one of James's closest colleagues.
“Not too bad my friend, and yours?” The both of them we’re wiping down either side of a salvaged camaro.
“Yeah they're doing okay.” He stood up briefly and wiped the remainder of the polish from off his hands with the tattered grease cloth.
“We’re thinking of having a barbeque after the boy’s soccer game. We better see your face there after all you did for the boys this season!” James chuckled as Billy came around and patted his shoulder in gratitude. It was this feeling of camaraderie that he relished in whenever he came to the shed. It was a dog eat dog world that he lived in but whenever he came to his place of labour, he knew that he was looked after. At the end of his shift, he grabbed his rucksack from the back room and left his shift feeling accomplished.
 
The Johnson’s
The tinge of dusk had washed over the fringes of Lincoln Street. Anthony was busy finishing up the last of the plates which the family had eaten brunch on and noticed by chance the repulsiveness of the overgrown hedges. Peering outside the window he looked over at either side of his neighbor's yards and saw the clean and clipped shrubs which lined the outside of their humble abodes.. Walking out into the yard, he immediately began to rectify the issue that was the lush vegetation that swallowed his front yard. He began to open the trimmers when the sound of a beaten up Chevy truck filled the vicinity of the neighbourhood. It was James McCarthy. Hurrying out of his truck, he run up the cobblestone steps to his home before double taking. His eyes lasered the hedges that ran across the parameter of his home. Walking promptly to the tray of his chevy, he took out what appeared to be a curved contraption. He swung it behind his back and looked both ways, briefly making eye contact with James before entering his garden bed.
“Shit!” Anthony muttered underneath his breath, grappling the branches of his sugar maple tree and take refuge in it’s lowest canopy. He squinted his eyes to focus on his neighbour. McCarthy swung the contraption side to side, the greenery falling like butter being cut by a hot knife. It was then he saw it. What an idiot he thought to himself. How could he have missed it? The gleam of the sickle was undeniable. This was the final straw. It was beyond questionable now. Anthony marched over into the kitchen and grabbed his telephone, hammering the buttons to call the police. Jacqueline was preparing the pot-roast for later this evening.
“What are you doing honey?” She look at him in confusion
“I’m taking care of that situation” He pointed abruptly to across the road and tucked his phone between his head and shoulders.
“But how-”
“Jacquline” He stared directly into her face. She knew that there was no convincing him otherwise.
“Better yet..” He finished his sentence quickly and put down the receiver.
“We go over to the house right now, and if we see anything even more compromising than what we have already seen, we’re alerting the authorities”
He grabbed Jacqueline's hand and pulled her out of the house. They walked across the road and paced across garden bed of the McCarthy residence. They stood briefly at the door and then looked at each other for a second. He raised his hand and went to knock when the door swung open.
“Thank you so much for your contributions, Mr McCarthy. You know, In this day and age, it’s so nice to see young men like yourself thinking about the good of society instead of this horrid “everyman for himself” mentality. The people of the Red Cross pass on their best wishes to you and your fa--.” James looked over at both Anthony and Jacqueline. Both of their mouths hung open in shock and disbelief. They could not have known the horrifying truth.
“Anthony, Jacquie, what brings you over at this time of day” He chuckled at them both and the Red Cross officer.
“Would you like to make a donation today? The officer raised the burlap sack that jingled with loose change.
“There will be none of that today Sir.” Anthony turned and put his arm around Jacquline, looking back at James”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re playing at” James furrowed his brow confusion and watched as the Johnsons walked away. Immediately once inside their home, he knew what to do. With one hand on the bench, he tapped impatiently waiting for the response on the other side of the receiver.
“Hello, welcome to Suspicious Activities Agency. To report crime press 1. To report a missing person 2. To report Communist activity press 3.”

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: raylmao on June 11, 2017, 03:59:04 pm

Hiiiiiii,

I'm only prelim (no h8), but I was wondering if I could submit my essay for some marking???? I can't find many resources that provide help to preliminary students... We're currently doing a genre study on horror and I just want a fresh pair of eyes to review my essay. I understand the 15 post rule, but I was just wondering if you'd accept a prelim essay.

THANKS :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 12, 2017, 05:07:48 pm

Quote from: raylmao on June 11, 2017, 03:59:04 pm

Hiiiiiii,

I'm only prelim (no h8), but I was wondering if I could submit my essay for some marking???? I can't find many resources that provide help to preliminary students... We're currently doing a genre study on horror and I just want a fresh pair of eyes to review my essay. I understand the 15 post rule, but I was just wondering if you'd accept a prelim essay.

THANKS :)

Heya! Welcome to the forums :) Definitely can help with a preliminary essay! Just because I'm not as familiar with the demands of this kind of question, if you can post your essay question, and any other relevant info (or marking criteria) then I can be more helpful :) See you at 15 posts! Let me know if I can help with anything in the meantime.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: marcusgrahamm on June 12, 2017, 08:05:54 pm

I know I still have a few more posts till I should be allowed to get this essay marked, I have it due on Wednesday and I would really appreciate some feedback from you guys, its sooo helpful.

I promise ill make up the posts soon, just kinda urgent bc I feel like I'm wayyyy off track on this essay in terms of the way I'm answering the question

Thanks!! :)

The individual’s pursuit of truth was inextricably linked to the natural world during the Romantic period. Evaluate to what extent this statement reflects the perspective in your core text and one related text.

Ensuing the Age of Enlightenment’s process of scientific reasoning, a Romantic movement emerged. Central to new-found ways of thinking, and fundamental to the conceptualisation of free thought and nature’s relevance in pronouncing the deeper, sub-textual meaning of humanity. Lord Byron’s 1816 poem Darkness, emphasises the pantheistic role nature plays in man’s pursuit of veracity and its linkage in understanding life’s purpose in the face of death. Similarly, Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic Novel, Frankenstein, explores the uniqueness and the jeopardies arising from an unbounded quest for ingenious virtuosity. Through nature’s role in developing truth within, and for the individual, coinciding with the notion of sublimity and its significance in shaping candour these thematic concerns forebode a parallel, interrelationship.

The complex notion of individualism is concurrent with veracity’s formation of humanity. Romantics valued the oneness of human life intertwined with a unification of human experience through the realistic traits nature offers man. Shelley’s Frankenstein epitomizes the idea of truth through the scientific paradigm, whereby Victor is symbolic of the Age of Enlightenment’s rational ways of thinking. Hence, in his pursuit of a ‘logically true creation’ we witness an intricate link between the natural and metaphysical world. Driven by a desire to highlight sagacities role in natures evolution Victors conjures the plans to create what will become an abomination of the biological world. His instincts of philosophical rationality can be interpreted from the hyperbolic recount of Victor’s naïve years “I had not been content…with the results…of natural science…and exchanged the discoveries…for the dreams of modern philosophy”. However, contrasting to his interpretation of what genuine livelihood embodies is the creature which is characterized by the dominant traits of romanticism through its harmonious response when surrounded by the physical world. Subsequently, it is obvious that Shelley has interwoven the impact pursuit of rational truth has on the realistic outcomes nature ultimately forebodes. Thematically we are presented with the contextually contemporary concern of individualism which was treasured by the Romantics but despised by their rational counterparts. Throughout the progression of the novel the creature comes to stand as an extended metaphor for humanities ignorance and inability to accept the inevitable truth of change. This is highlighted when he suggests “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man, did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?” this dichotomising the story of ‘Adam and Eve”, specifically Adam’s apologies for his sins. Here the monster pictures himself as a tragic figure, primarily shown through the religious iconography and allusiveness to his alikeness of both Satan and Adam. Rhetorical questions fortify the confusion of the monster’s mentalities and his foist of Victor’s choice to pervade natures barriers for true science. Consequently, Frankenstein comes to symbolise Satan through the sacrilege of his attempt to arrogate God’s power and bend the authentic process of natural evolution. Furthermore, the pathetic fallacy manifested in “a dreary night of November” foreshadows Frankenstein’s forthcoming demise due to his unruly desire to overcome natures laws. Aiding this is “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open… and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”; here visual imagery alludes to further negative connotations, and the reader comes to the realisation that Victor’s choice to avail truth has resulted in an unfixable mistake. Consequently, he decrees “the beauty of the dream vanished”, in turn elucidating the philosophical enigma of Romanticism. His ardent, enigmatic psyche correlates with the bizarre powers of nature. Romantics rejected the absolutes of scientific thought in its attempt to reduce nature’s answers validity. Thus, Shelley’s Frankenstein exemplifies the inseparable connection the natural world evokes when resonating with the notion of truth.
Human experience is central to the romantic ideal of truth through its illustration of nature’s pertinence to man’s survival and sense of self. Lord Byron’s Darkness tackles humanities degradation, through a post-apocalyptic description of earth in order to challenge societies ignorance relating to nature’s significant role in sustaining genuine life and developing truth. Composed in the Year Without A Summer, whereby the world was succumbed in volcanic ash clouds, Byron cultivates a sense of irony and metaphorical substance in the title of this poem. “Darkness” itself expounds on the fear and uncertainty striking society contextually. Thus, the bleak, gloomy mood is symbolic of the dangers incited when forgoing nature’s bliss in the industrial metropolis which ultimately disregards core ways of Romantic thinking. Aiding such is the paradoxical remark of “I had a dream, which was not at all a dream” here true existence is intertwined with an elusive reality. Subsequently, Byron’s perplexing tone prompts the audience to query the corruptive demeanour of humankind within the natural world as civilisations consecutively and continually overlook their genuine existence with scientific and rational progression. Therefore, within the philosophical paradigm the notion of truth is presented with an inseparable linking to nature- If mankind relentlessly questions the truth of his existence, nature will undoubtedly suffer and with it humanity fails. Developing this interpretation is the visual imagery in ‘the bright sun extinguished…and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space’ which highlights a world without order, living environments and actuality itself. Consequently, the ambiguous persona, demonstrates the literal meaning as overpowering darkness and the end of times. However, a subjacent angle indicates the self-destruction man experiences in an unrealistic pursuit of truth above pantheistic laws. As a result, Byron had conjured a world lacking in Romantic ideals, thus accentuating the human experiences need for an authentic understanding of idealism, creativity and individualism. Additionally, the amplification of contextual fears through the pathetic fallacy of weather heightened apprehensions that the destruction of the world was a celestial reckoning, “vipers, hissing but stingless…they were slain for food”. The religious iconography allows us to interpret this as a direct biblical allusion to a utopic worlds descent into suffering. Likewise, to Shelly, Byron now offers a truthful mirror of humanities concerns in a gothic representation of nature’s power above man in its sheer, corruptive force. Primarily, “The meagre by the meagre were devour'd” reinforces the selfishness of Enlightenment idealists who Byron compares to as beasts amidst animalistic imagery, yet again strengthening man’s inextricable connection to the natural world and its ominous abilities when discredited. Hence, ‘Two…of an enormous city did survive…and they were enemies’ deepens the impression of civilisations meekness to the physical. This mirrors Frankenstein’s creature as the monster desires revenge on the human community for disobeying the divine prospect of truth. Similarly, Byron’s apocalypse extends such as it warns how discounting Romantic values could destroy life as we know it. Thus, the oceanic imagery of ‘ships lay sailorless on the sea…rotting, the sails fell down piecemeal’ finalises the chaotic pandemonium initiated when man strives to rise beyond truth into the logically scientific.  Accordingly, Lord Byron’s Darkness resonates with the idea of an ignorant, industrialisation of society and its lasting connotations on the natural landscape.

Conclusively, both texts typify the core traits of Romantic thinking through their discussion of respective zeitgeist’s perception of truth when tackling the natural world vs the industrial. Whilst vastly different in their sensualisation of this notion Shelley and Byron effectively contemplate man’s existence and reliance on nature when seeking to comprehend humanities reality and individual place in the world.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 12, 2017, 09:34:53 pm

Quote from: marcusgrahamm on June 12, 2017, 08:05:54 pm

I know I still have a few more posts till I should be allowed to get this essay marked, I have it due on Wednesday and I would really appreciate some feedback from you guys, its sooo helpful.

I promise ill make up the posts soon, just kinda urgent bc I feel like I'm wayyyy off track on this essay in terms of the way I'm answering the question

Thanks!! :)

Hey Marcus,

I'm going to give feedback to the people who have qualified for marking first and then I'll do my best to get to you before Wednesday :) You're only 6 posts off eligibility, so you're not too far :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 13, 2017, 12:33:47 am

Quote from: maria1999 on June 11, 2017, 02:13:46 pm

hey!
So I have a hand in extension narrative due on Wednesday and was wondering if someone could take a look at it? It's based around the red scare in America and is from the point of view of two families. Structure is probs way off and spelling and grammar is also probably a low key horror movie so please be as critical as possible!!

I'm so excited to read this - I haven't read a creative in a little while! :)

Spoiler

Red over the Hedge

[/b]


The McCarthy’s
 
Is your b[/center]athroom breeding Bolsheviks? Do you have the overwhelming urge to wake up two hours before work to “seize the means of production”?
 
Mr James McCarthy certainly did.
 
At dawn, James McCarthy would rise from his slumber and trudge to the kitchen, popping in eight slices of bread into the toaster for his family of four. Two slices each. How plentiful! How decadent! How utterly excessive.I love this. Leon and Vladimir, both too young to to understand the socio-economic implications of bread for both breakfast and lunch nagged their father about their predicament.
“Dad!” they both moaned in unison.
“What?” 
“How are we supposed to share one carrot between us for lunch and recess?” James paused for a moment to consider this.
“Rationing my dear boys, it’s a dying art!” He quickly pecked both his sons on the forehead before he hurried out the door to work. The creation of atmosphere, tone, comedy....this part is excellent.
 
The Johnsons
Anthony and Jacqueline Johnson were dipping in discussion at the kitchen table. Anthony was tapping the linoleum floor in haste, anxious for Jacqueline's reply. She would open her mouth in a succession of “ah’s” and “ums”, simultaneously shifting her weight between each elbow.
“Are you sure honey?” she said, directing her gaze straight towards him.
“It’s beyond doubt. Linden and Dwight said his kids came to school with a carrot between them. It’s chronic I tell you, chronic.” Anthony rubbed his palm against his face,
“Maybe we should give it time, it’s quite a serious accusation to make, don’t you think sweetheart?”
“I’m telling you Jackie, that family is sick” He stood up from the table defiantly.
 “I will protect our children.”
 
The McCarthy’s
“Falin’s Panel Beater’s” was a shed on the corner of Liberty Lane; James McCarthy’s place of employment.  There was an irrevocable sense of fellowship amongst the workers who slaved away in the liminal space amongst suburban Washington that seemed to glorify the beauty of work. Every aspect of this place reminded James of how he was just a pawn in another man’s game. Everything from the grimy air that seemed to slick over his skin whenever he walked into the premise to the mould spores that took refuge in the back room fridge. The foreman promised to have it check out but hasn’t gotten around to it. Typical. Regardless of the hardships, James relished in the comfort of his comrades when push came to shove. Every so often, he would help out one of his fellow workers finish up their quota of cars for the day.
“So how’s the family?” Billy was one of James's closest colleagues.
“Not too bad my friend, and yours?” The both of them we’re wiping down either side of a salvaged camaro.
“Yeah they're doing okay.” He stood up briefly and wiped the remainder of the polish from off his hands with the tattered grease cloth.
“We’re thinking of having a barbeque after the boy’s soccer game. We better see your face there after all you did for the boys this season!” James chuckled as Billy came around and patted his shoulder in gratitude. It was this feeling of camaraderie that he relished in whenever he came to the shed. It was a dog eat dog world that he lived in but whenever he came to his place of labour, he knew that he was looked after. At the end of his shift, he grabbed his rucksack from the back room and left his shift feeling accomplished. You still paint a wonderful picture here, but I think of the first three paragraphs this is the one that doesn't grab me as much. I'm still following the story so it's fine, I can appreciate this paragraph. But I think it's worth me telling you where my interest rises and falls because that's important for you to know as a writer.
 
The Johnson’s
The tinge of dusk had washed over the fringes of Lincoln Street. What an incredible description - so simple yet so stark. Anthony was busy finishing up the last of the plates which the family had eaten brunch on sounds a bit awkward - maybe: "up the last of the plates the family used for brunch" and noticed by chance the repulsiveness of the overgrown hedges. Peering outside the window he looked over at either side of his neighbor's yards and saw the clean and clipped shrubs which lined the outside of their humble abodes.. Walking out into the yard, he immediately began to rectify the issue that was the lush vegetation that swallowed his front yard. He began to open the trimmers when the sound of a beaten up Chevy truck filled the vicinity of the neighbourhood. It was James McCarthy. Hurrying out of his truck, he run up the cobblestone steps to his home before double taking. His eyes lasered the hedges that ran across the parameter of his home. Walking promptly to the tray of his chevy, he took out what appeared to be a curved contraption. He swung it behind his back and looked both ways, briefly making eye contact with James before entering his garden bed.
“Shit!” Anthony muttered underneath his breath, grappling the branches of his sugar maple tree and take he took? refuge in it’s lowest canopy I could be wrong - but is canopy not the highest level of the trees? The one with mostly leaves and not much branches?. He squinted his eyes to focus on his neighbour. McCarthy swung the contraption side to side, the greenery falling like butter being cut by a hot knife. It was then he saw it. What an idiot he thought to himself. How could he have missed it? The gleam of the sickle was undeniable. This was the final straw. It was beyond questionable now. Anthony marched over into the kitchen and grabbed his telephone, hammering the buttons to call the police. Jacqueline was preparing the pot-roast for later this evening.
“What are you doing honey?” She look at him in confusion
“I’m taking care of that situation” He pointed abruptly to across the road and tucked his phone between his head and shoulders. maybe just one shoulder?
“But how-”
“Jacquline” He stared directly into her face. She knew that there was no convincing him otherwise.
“Better yet..” He finished his sentence quickly and put down the receiver.
“We go over We are going over?* to the house right now, and if we see anything even more compromising than what we have already seen, we’re alerting the authorities”
He grabbed Jacqueline's hand and pulled her out of the house. They walked across the road and paced across garden bed of the McCarthy residence. They stood briefly at the door and then looked at each other for a second. He raised his hand and went to knock when the door swung open.
“Thank you so much for your contributions, Mr McCarthy. You know, In this day and age, it’s so nice to see young men like yourself thinking about the good of society instead of this horrid “everyman for himself” mentality. The people of the Red Cross pass on their best wishes to you and your fa--.” James looked over at both Anthony and Jacqueline. Both of their mouths hung open in shock and disbelief. They could not have known the horrifying truth.
“Anthony, Jacquie, what brings you over at this time of day” He chuckled at them both and the Red Cross officer.
“Would you like to make a donation today? The officer raised the burlap sack that jingled with loose change.
“There will be none of that today Sir.” Anthony turned and put his arm around Jacquline, looking back at James” <<Accidental quotation mark?

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re playing at” James furrowed his brow confusion and watched as the Johnsons walked away. Immediately once inside their home, he knew what to do. With one hand on the bench, he tapped impatiently waiting for the response on the other side of the receiver.
“Hello, welcome to Suspicious Activities Agency. To report crime press 1. To report a missing person 2. To report Communist activity press 3.”

I was immediately engaged by your use of language to portray to different yet similar scenes between the two house holds. I think your use of names is really clever as it adds another level to your work. The ending can be improved, I think. It definitely shows ways of thinking, so you tick that box, but as it came to the end I thought it was quite an anticlimax in terms of story structure. We stopped flipping between the houses so often, we had the opportunity to get comfortable, whereas when it was flipping between the families it emulated that "on edge" vibe that the situation shows. I just wanted a little more intensity towards the end, I think. And I don't think it's your plot that lets you down, but rather the structure. Do you think it's possible to extend flipping between the characters a bit more towards the end? Maybe this isn't the solution, but just a suggestion. You definitely have a whole lot of ways of thinking here, some properly explored and others just touched on enough to show you understand the era well. But, I'd love to see a little more intensity to grip me. At the start I was so enthused, but it did wear off throughout. What do you think?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: maria1999 on June 13, 2017, 05:54:08 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on June 13, 2017, 12:33:47 am

I'm so excited to read this - I haven't read a creative in a little while! :)

Yes, I see exactly where your coming from! I'll definitely try and switch it up a bit as I did think the start was dynamic but the end a little stagnant. I really struggle with creatives so I do appreciate the feedback so much Elyse!! Thank you!!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: marcusgrahamm on June 13, 2017, 07:05:08 pm

Totally understandable @elysepopplewell, I reached the target of 45 posts hopefully you can have a look at it when you get a free chance.

Thanks so much,
Marcus!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 15, 2017, 02:26:56 am

Quote from: marcusgrahamm on June 13, 2017, 07:05:08 pm

Totally understandable @elysepopplewell, I reached the target of 45 posts hopefully you can have a look at it when you get a free chance.

Thanks so much,
Marcus!

I'm really sorry I couldn't get to this in time Marcus. Would you still like feedback on it or will that make you anxious because you've already submitted? I'll happily mark it for you if that's what you'd like :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: marcusgrahamm on June 16, 2017, 09:59:23 am

Yes I would like to get it marked still !

Thanks.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: herb123 on June 16, 2017, 11:13:13 am

Hey are there any markers on here who specialise in Genre: Science Fiction?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 17, 2017, 01:37:43 am

Quote from: herb123 on June 16, 2017, 11:13:13 am

Hey are there any markers on here who specialise in Genre: Science Fiction?

Hey herb123! I'm sorry I can't say there is. In saying this, I have read a bit of science fiction (I live for Margaret Atwood...although she says she doesn't class as SF), and in preliminary I studied dystopian texts. If you think I can help at all I happily will :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on June 17, 2017, 06:10:30 pm

Quote from: marcusgrahamm on June 16, 2017, 09:59:23 am

Yes I would like to get it marked still !

Thanks.

No worries marcus! Comments are attached below :)

Spoiler

The individual’s pursuit of truth was inextricably linked to the natural world during the Romantic period. Evaluate to what extent this statement reflects the perspective in your core text and one related text.

Ensuing the Age of Enlightenment’s process of scientific reasoning, a Romantic movement emerged. Central to new-found ways of thinking, and fundamental to the conceptualisation of free thought and nature’s relevance in pronouncing the deeper, sub-textual meaning of humanity. Lord Byron’s 1816 poem Darkness, emphasises the pantheistic role nature plays in man’s pursuit of veracity and its linkage in understanding life’s purpose in the face of death. Similarly, Mary Shelley’s 1818 Gothic Novel, Frankenstein, explores the uniqueness and the jeopardies arising from an unbounded quest for ingenious virtuosity. Through nature’s role in developing truth within, and for the individual, coinciding with the notion of sublimity and its significance in shaping candour these thematic concerns forebode a parallel, interrelationship. I like this, There's literally no waffling, it's to the point, really strong.

The complex notion of individualism is concurrent with veracity’s formation of humanity. Romantics valued the oneness of human life intertwined with a unification of human experience through the realistic traits nature offers man. Shelley’s Frankenstein epitomizes the idea of truth through the scientific paradigm, whereby Victor is symbolic of the Age of Enlightenment’s rational ways of thinking. Hence, in his pursuit of a ‘logically true creation’ we witness an intricate link between the natural and metaphysical world. Driven by a desire to highlight sagacities role in natures evolution Victors conjures the plans to create what will become an abomination of the biological world. I'm just going to point out that at this part of the paragraph, we've not yet had any analysis. Up until the second last sentence I was thinking this is ok, but the last sentence for me had me wondering "when does the analysis start?" You do get to the point right after I had these thoughts, so it's ok...but if you have the opportunity to revise and refine this bit, I would just to see if condensing it works, or if you can connect this last sentence with some analysis.His instincts of philosophical rationality can be interpreted from the hyperbolic recount of Victor’s naïve years “I had not been content…with the results…of natural science…and exchanged the discoveries…for the dreams of modern philosophy”. However, contrasting to his interpretation of what genuine livelihood embodies is the creature which is characterized characterised* by the dominant traits of romanticism through its harmonious response when surrounded by the physical world. Subsequently, it is obvious that Shelley has interwoven the impact pursuit of rational truth has on the realistic outcomes nature ultimately forebodes. Thematically we are presented with the contextually contemporary concern of individualism which was treasured by the Romantics but despised by their rational counterparts. Throughout the progression of the novel the creature comes to stand as an extended metaphor for humanities humanity's* ignorance and inability to accept the inevitable truth of change. This is highlighted when he suggests “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man, did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?” this dichotomising the story of ‘Adam and Eve”, This doesn't seem to make sense, maybe it needs "this dichotomising OF"? I'm not sure what you're trying to say. specifically Adam’s apologies for his sins. Here the monster pictures himself as a tragic figure, primarily shown through the religious iconography and allusiveness to his alikeness of both Satan and Adam. Rhetorical questions fortify the confusion of the monster’s mentalities and his foist of Victor’s choice to pervade natures barriers for true science. Consequently, Frankenstein comes to symbolise Satan through the sacrilege of his attempt to arrogate God’s power and bend the authentic process of natural evolution. Furthermore, the pathetic fallacy manifested in “a dreary night of November” foreshadows Frankenstein’s forthcoming demise due to his unruly desire to overcome natures laws. Aiding this is “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open… and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”; here visual imagery alludes to further negative connotations, and the reader comes to the realisation that Victor’s choice to avail truth has resulted in an unfixable mistake. Consequently, he decrees “the beauty of the dream vanished”, in turn elucidating the philosophical enigma of Romanticism. His ardent, enigmatic psyche correlates with the bizarre powers of nature. Romantics rejected the absolutes of scientific thought in its attempt to reduce nature’s answers validity. Thus, Shelley’s Frankenstein exemplifies the inseparable connection the natural world evokes when resonating with the notion of truth. Link back to way of thinking: what do people think about the notion of truth? Is it being challenged or agreed with?
Human experience is central to the romantic ideal of truth through its illustration of nature’s pertinence to man’s survival and sense of self. So far your essay has a lot of direction - it's really going forward in a way that I can easily organise and understand! Lord Byron’s Darkness tackles humanities degradation, through a post-apocalyptic description of earth in order to challenge societies ignorance relating to nature’s significant role in sustaining genuine life and developing truth. Composed in the Year Without A Summer, whereby the world was succumbed in volcanic ash clouds, Byron cultivates a sense of irony and metaphorical substance in the title of this poem. “Darkness” itself expounds on the fear and uncertainty striking society contextually. Thus, the bleak, gloomy mood is symbolic of the dangers incited when forgoing nature’s bliss in the industrial metropolis which ultimately disregards core ways of Romantic thinking. Aiding such This makes sense, I just don't know that the wording is appropriate for this essay. I'm being picky with this,
 but I think there are better expressions you could use than "such" for this section. is the paradoxical remark of “I had a dream, which was not at all a dream” here true existence is intertwined with an elusive reality. Subsequently, Byron’s perplexing tone prompts the audience to query the corruptive demeanour of humankind within the natural world as civilisations consecutively and continually overlook their genuine existence with scientific and rational progression. Therefore, within the philosophical paradigm the notion of truth is presented with an inseparable linking to nature- If hu*mankind relentlessly questions the truth of his existence, nature will undoubtedly suffer and with it humanity fails. Developing this interpretation is the visual imagery in ‘the bright sun extinguished…and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space’ which highlights a world without order, living environments and actuality itself. Consequently, the ambiguous persona, demonstrates the literal meaning as overpowering darkness and the end of times. However, a subjacent angle indicates the self-destruction man experiences in an unrealistic pursuit of truth above pantheistic laws. As a result, Byron had conjured a world lacking in Romantic ideals, thus accentuating the human experiences need for an authentic understanding of idealism, creativity and individualism. But how does this link to ways of thinking? An understanding of idealism prompts what kind of way of thinking? Additionally, the amplification of contextual fears through the pathetic fallacy of weather heightened apprehensions that the destruction of the world was a celestial reckoning, “vipers, hissing but stingless…they were slain for food”. The religious iconography allows us to interpret this as a direct biblical allusion to a utopic worlds descent into suffering. Likewise, to Shelly, Byron now offers a truthful mirror of humanities concerns in a gothic representation of nature’s power above man in its sheer, corruptive force. Primarily, “The meagre by the meagre were devour'd” reinforces the selfishness of Enlightenment idealists who Byron compares to as beasts amidst animalistic imagery, yet again strengthening man’s inextricable connection to the natural world and its ominous abilities when discredited. Hence, ‘Two…of an enormous city did survive…and they were enemies’ deepens the impression of civilisations meekness to the physical. This mirrors Frankenstein’s creature as the monster desires revenge on the human community for disobeying the divine prospect of truth. Similarly, Byron’s apocalypse extends such as it warns how discounting Romantic values could destroy life as we know it. Thus, the oceanic imagery of ‘ships lay sailorless on the sea…rotting, the sails fell down piecemeal’ finalises the chaotic pandemonium initiated when man strives to rise beyond truth into the logically scientific. The link between this sentence and the next seems a bit rushed, not very fluid. Accordingly, Lord Byron’s Darkness resonates with the idea of an ignorant, industrialisation of society and its lasting connotations on the natural landscape. Perhaps you could adjust the wording here from "the idea of an..." to something about the practical way of thinking. Ways of thinking and ideas have relationships - but you need to make that link clearer.

Conclusively, both texts typify the core traits of Romantic thinking through their discussion of respective zeitgeist’s perception of truth when tackling the natural world vs the industrial. Whilst vastly different in their sensualisation of this notion Shelley and Byron effectively contemplate man’s existence and reliance on nature when seeking to comprehend humanities reality and individual place in the world.

For the most part, my comments are in the spoiler :) But I will add that I think there needs to be a greater attack on ways of thinking. So you're obviously dealing with important IDEAS of the time, but you need to say how IDEAS manifest in WAYS OF THINKING. So - do ideas change ways of thinking? Do ideas produce ways of thinking? Or, do ideas come about because of ways of thinking? It won't hurt you to actually say "ways of thinking" in there a few times, so you don't need to avoid that wording if it makes it easier for you to address the demands of the module that way. In saying this, I know you know what you're talking about because all the comment is there, we just need to see more in the way of directly addressing the module. In ATB we engaged with critics and philosophers a lot - do you think this would help your response?

Let me know! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: thewayitis on July 16, 2017, 03:09:40 pm

Hey!

With trials coming up I'm pretty worried about how to prepare for the intense and unpredictable nature of the english extension essay question. I know that there are about 7-8 different types of questions they can ask on anything from form to modular elements to elective elements and I don't know how to prepare an essay for so many different seemingly unrelated questions.

We've done an in school assessment for an essay and I did really well in that but everytime I try and apply that essay to past questions it takes a lot of adapting and thinking (something I can't afford in the exam) to answer - and even then it can be sketchy at best.

I'd love some help with tips on preparing for the essay, this subject is driving me crazy!

Thanks so much.  :D :D

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on July 26, 2017, 05:35:14 pm

Hey all, in 48 hours from now we will be locking these marking threads for the trial period. The two main reasons being, we want to be able to help lots of students in the time it takes to mark an essay/creative (usually 30-45 minutes at least) while lots of students need the help during trials, and also because feedback becomes less constructive with minimal time until the exam because we want to avoid panicking you with big changes, so the feedback isn't as worthwhile for you.

Not to fear - you still have 48 hours to post your work and we will get to marking them even after the threads are locked (if there's backlog).

We'll still be here to help you during the trials with all of our Q+A threads, downloadable notes, thesis statement feedback and so on. Thanks for understanding! We're still here to help on all of the boards that aren't marking threads! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: dancing phalanges on August 04, 2017, 10:56:26 pm

Hey guys, I was just wondering if you could take a look at my Romanticism essay as my trial is next week :) I'm a bit unsure about the conclusion and whether I should just make it a rewording of the intro or leave the marker with a really powerful ending.
Thanks!

Spoiler

'The Spirit of Individualism is a celebration of the self'
To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of Romanticism?

The Romantic Movement was highly interested in the celebration of the individual as it reacted against social, political and economic developments in society that threatened the creative power of the individual. The growth of the Industrial Revolution made human beings replaceable parts in a system and the strict rules of the Enlightenment period limited the expression of unrestrained emotions. Therefore, in response, the Romantics underlined the importance of a personal relationship with nature and a trust in emotion and subjective experience. This celebration of the individual is heavily featured in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Lime Tree Bower My Prison’, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. However, while the Romantics treasured the imaginative genius of the individual, Shelley’s Frankenstein also warns against the dangers of the ‘Romantic overreacher’. Therefore, whilst Romanticism was greatly influenced by the spirit of individualism, it also acknowledged the potential issues that may arise if the individual is given too much freedom.

The works of Coleridge, belonging to the “first wave” of Romanticism, reveal his pantheistic view of nature, and his belief in the power of the imagination to liberate, enlighten and transform the individual. This is evident in his conversational poem This Lime Tree Bower My Prison. Here, Coleridge celebrates the ability of the individual imagination to liberate the individual and achieve a closer connection between man and God. This mental illumination is chronicled primarily through the persona’s change in tone as the poem progresses. The first stanza begins with the negative connotations of “prison” and “must” in “here must I remain”, reflecting the persona’s melancholy and unwillingness to remain in his surroundings. However, Coleridge expresses the transformative powers of the imagination in experiencing the sublimity of nature when he describes the grandeur of “the wide wide Heaven” and “hues as veil the Almighty Spirit.” Furthermore, Coleridge continues to profess that nature “ne’er deserts the wise and pure” disclosing the role of nature as the source of true wisdom, rather than science and reason as previously believed in the Neo-Classic era. In this sense, Coleridge celebrated the Romantic belief in the power of the individual imagination within the natural world.

The concept of the Romantic individual is one captured in the ‘heroic overreacher’ based on figures such as Napoleon, the mythical Prometheus and Paradise Lost’s Satan, who embodied the Romantic quest for knowledge and sense of tragic heroism. Similarly, the Romantic idealism that Shelley presents is based upon the faith in men’s divine and creative powers. Shelley, however, subverts this construct by foreshadowing the dangers of humanity’s hubris through her representation of the Romantic ‘overreacher’ Victor Frankenstein. Following the outburst of the French Revolution, a belief in divine creative activity emerged, to which Dr. Frankenstein is guilty of when professing “an eager desire to learn . . . the secrets of heaven and earth.” While Victor is highly Romantic in the sense that he personifies the belief in Romantic idealism and imagination, his ignorance ultimately separates him from the Romantic’s respect for the power of nature and humanity’s limits of control over it. Once his creature begins to murder Victor realises “a panic on seeing the pale yellow light fill the chamber.” Shelley transforms the symbolism of light in the Enlightenment, being civilised knowledge into a Gothic Romantic representation of the disturbing knowledge Victor is now constrained by.  Here, Shelley is warning the dangers of the spirit of individualism in the form of the overreaching ambition of the Romantics. 

Conversely, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ is a celebration of the self as Blake protests against the exploitation of the individual within Industrial England. Blake’s poem appeared in Songs of Innocence in 1789, the year which marked the outburst of the French Revolution, revealing his revolutionary attitude towards the treatment of chimney sweepers, with the 1788 Chimney Sweepers Act yet to bring any great change to their conditions. Blake’s work intellectually challenged the responder as it mirrors the ways of thinking put forward by philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in Emile (1762). Rousseau argues that innocence is a child’s essential quality, which is menaced by social institutions such as family and the state. The exploitation of the children is established by Blake through the line “in soot I sleep” which displays the bleak hope of escape from the inhumane conditions of child labour. The tale of “little Tom Dacre” is introduced by Blake to give a sense of identity to the child sweeper, thus also emphasising to the audience his individuality, a key aspect of the Romantic way of thinking. Yet, this is abruptly destroyed through the narrator’s imitation of an adult, when advising Tom that it is all for the best, so “soot cannot spoil your white hair.” The juxtaposition between black and white contrasts the angelic nature of childhood with the darkness of the soot, and thereby, alluding to the malevolence of those who exploit him, namely adults. The power of the condition of innocence, however, is powerfully symbolised by Blake through Tom’s dream where they are “set free” to run over “a green plain.” To this extent, Blake expressed the desire of English Romantic intellectuals for a yearning for the pre-industrial past and reaction to the perversion of individual spirit as a result of the modern industrial world.

Romantic writers also challenged the constraints of the social hierarchy and moral code of the Enlightenment period on the individual, an idea expressed in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Through characterisation, Brontë argues the Romantic belief that nature, even in its most frightening and uncontrollable state, is superior to civilisation. The construct of civilisation as a corrupting force on the spirit of the individual is also reflected in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1754). Rousseau taught that men would be free in the state of nature and that emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilisation, is a great source of wisdom. Bronte represents Rousseau’s way of thinking through the dichotomy of Catherine and Edgar’s values. The novel’s very name – Wuthering Heights, is closely associated with a powerful, stormy wind, and so are its inhabitants. For instance, when Heathcliff overhears Catherine saying that marriage with him will “degrade” her, she runs out of the house and experiences a raging storm. The violent thunder and rain of the storm are symbolic of Catherine’s own conflicted state as well as her passionate feelings for Heathcliff. In contrast, the uncontrollable Wuthering Heights is juxtaposed by Thrushcross Grange, a “splendid place carpeted with crimson.” Compared with Catherine’s emotional plea for Heathcliff in the storm, Edgar’s reaction to the dying Catherine represents the rational way of thinking present during the Enlightenment Period. Her cries for help remain unheard as instead, Edgar “is continually among his books”, which are emblematic of civilisation.

In addition, the characterisation of Heathcliff appears to align with Rousseau’s idea of the Noble Savage. While Rousseau never actually used the phrase, the wildness of Heathcliff’s character connects with Rousseau’s view that the Noble Savage stands in direct opposition to the man of culture. For instance, after Catherine’s death, Heathcliff “howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast”, emphasising that even after Heathcliff has acquired manners and appears to be cultivated, he is still inseparably linked with the natural world. Catherine’s own desire to return to her “savage” self on the moors leads her to the conclusion that death is the only way she can escape the entrapment of civilised life. Therefore, through characterisation, Emily Bronte celebrates the individual emotion over reason as well as the importance of a deep union with nature.

Thus, the Romantic Movement was deeply infused with an interest in celebrating intense individualism and emotional expression that had been constrained by the previous Age of Enlightenment. (Ideas on a powerful ending without just rewording ideas of introduction)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 08, 2017, 11:01:31 pm

Quote from: dancing phalanges on August 04, 2017, 10:56:26 pm

Hey guys, I was just wondering if you could take a look at my Romanticism essay as my trial is next week :) I'm a bit unsure about the conclusion and whether I should just make it a rewording of the intro or leave the marker with a really powerful ending.
Thanks!

Heya! I regret I have to look at this through the eyes of an ATB student, but the ways of thinking modules aren't so varied in what's expected.

Spoiler

'The Spirit of Individualism is a celebration of the self'
To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of Romanticism?

The Romantic Movement was highly interested in the celebration of the individual as it reacted against social, political and economic developments in society that threatened the creative power of the individual. Nice! The growth of the Industrial Revolution made human beings replaceable parts in a system and the strict rules of the Enlightenment period limited the expression of unrestrained emotions. Therefore, in response, the Romantics underlined the importance of a personal relationship with nature and a trust in emotion and subjective experience. I've learned a whole lot about romanticism so far! This celebration of the individual is heavily featured in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Lime Tree Bower My Prison’, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. However, while the Romantics treasured the imaginative genius of the individual, Shelley’s Frankenstein also warns against the dangers of the ‘Romantic overreacher’. Therefore, whilst Romanticism was greatly influenced by the spirit of individualism, it also acknowledged the potential issues that may arise if the individual is given too much freedom. Wonderful!

The works of Coleridge, belonging to the “first wave” of Romanticism, reveal his pantheistic view of nature, and his belief in the power of the imagination to liberate, enlighten and transform the individual. This is evident in his conversational poem This Lime Tree Bower My Prison. Here, Coleridge celebrates the ability of the individual imagination to liberate the individual and achieve a closer connection between man and God. This mental illumination is chronicled primarily through the persona’s change in tone as the poem progresses. The first stanza begins with the negative connotations of “prison” and “must” in “here must I remain”, reflecting the persona’s melancholy and unwillingness to remain in his surroundings. Not 100% on board with the way you've quoted "prison" and "must" but then only "must" is in the quote that comes after? Just not 100% clear. However, Coleridge expresses the transformative powers of the imagination in experiencing the sublimity of nature when he describes the grandeur of “the wide wide Heaven” and “hues as veil the Almighty Spirit.” Furthermore, Coleridge continues to profess that nature “ne’er deserts the wise and pure” disclosing the role of nature as the source of true wisdom, rather than science and reason as previously believed in the Neo-Classic era. In this sense, Coleridge celebrated the Romantic belief in the power of the individual imagination within the natural world. Wonderful - exceptionally well rounded article.

The concept of the Romantic individual is one captured in the ‘heroic overreacher’ based on figures such as Napoleon, the mythical Prometheus and Paradise Lost’s Satan, who embodied the Romantic quest for knowledge and sense of tragic heroism. Similarly, the Romantic idealism that Shelley presents is based upon the faith in men’s divine and creative powers. Shelley, however, subverts this construct by foreshadowing the dangers of humanity’s hubris through her representation of the Romantic ‘overreacher’ Victor Frankenstein. Following the outburst of the French Revolution, a belief in divine creative activity emerged, to which Dr. Frankenstein is guilty of when professing “an eager desire to learn . . . the secrets of heaven and earth.” While Victor is highly Romantic in the sense that he personifies the belief in Romantic idealism and imagination, his ignorance ultimately separates him from the Romantic’s respect for the power of nature and humanity’s limits of control over it. Once his creature begins to murder Victor realises “a panic on seeing the pale yellow light fill the chamber.” Shelley transforms the symbolism of light in the Enlightenment, being civilised knowledge into a Gothic Romantic representation of the disturbing knowledge Victor is now constrained by.  Here, Shelley is warning the dangers of the spirit of individualism in the form of the overreaching ambition of the Romantics. 

Conversely, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ is a celebration of the self as Blake protests against the exploitation of the individual within Industrial England. Blake’s poem appeared in Songs of Innocence in 1789, the year which marked the outburst of the French Revolution, revealing his revolutionary attitude towards the treatment of chimney sweepers, with the 1788 Chimney Sweepers Act yet to bring any great change to their conditions. Blake’s work intellectually challenged the responder as it mirrors the ways of thinking put forward by philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in Emile (1762). Rousseau argues that innocence is a child’s essential quality, which is menaced by social institutions such as family and the state. The exploitation of the children is established by Blake through the line “in soot I sleep” which displays the bleak hope of escape from the inhumane conditions of child labour. The tale of “little Tom Dacre” is introduced by Blake to give a sense of identity to the child sweeper, thus also emphasising to the audience his individuality, a key aspect of the Romantic way of thinking. This is really good the way you've embedded the idea of the individual in the middle. It's too often that people just top and tail their paragraph with it (across all subjects with essays!)Yet, this is abruptly destroyed through the narrator’s imitation of an adult, when advising Tom that it is all for the best, so “soot cannot spoil your white hair.” The juxtaposition between black and white contrasts the angelic nature of childhood with the darkness of the soot, and thereby, alluding to the malevolence of those who exploit him, namely adults. The power of the condition of innocence, however, is powerfully symbolised by Blake through Tom’s dream where they are “set free” to run over “a green plain.” To this extent, Blake expressed the desire of English Romantic intellectuals for a yearning for the pre-industrial past and reaction to the perversion of individual spirit as a result of the modern industrial world.

Romantic writers also challenged the constraints of the social hierarchy and moral code of the Enlightenment period on the individual, an idea expressed in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Through characterisation, Brontë argues the Romantic belief that nature, even in its most frightening and uncontrollable state, is superior to civilisation. The construct of civilisation as a corrupting force on the spirit of the individual is also reflected in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1754). Nice engagement! Rousseau taught that men would be free in the state of nature and that emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilisation, is a great source of wisdom. Read this sentence back - "is a great sense of wisdom" doesn't make sense. The way I realise is that when you take out the comma splice out, so the things between the commas, you realise it doesn't make sense to read it through. I can't suggest how to fix it because I don't know what you're trying to say with the end bit unfortunately! It's not a huge thing, just a one-off slip. Bronte represents Rousseau’s way of thinking through the dichotomy of Catherine and Edgar’s values. The novel’s very name – Wuthering Heights, is closely associated with a powerful, stormy wind, and so are its inhabitants. For instance, when Heathcliff overhears Catherine saying that marriage with him will “degrade” her, she runs out of the house and experiences a raging storm. The violent thunder and rain of the storm are symbolic of Catherine’s own conflicted state as well as her passionate feelings for Heathcliff. In contrast, the uncontrollable Wuthering Heights is juxtaposed by Thrushcross Grange, a “splendid place carpeted with crimson.” Compared with Catherine’s emotional plea for Heathcliff in the storm, Edgar’s reaction to the dying Catherine represents the rational way of thinking present during the Enlightenment Period. Her cries for help remain unheard as instead, Edgar “is continually among his books”, which are emblematic of civilisation. Splendid! Wonderful paragraph.

In addition, the characterisation of Heathcliff appears to align with Rousseau’s idea of the Noble Savage. While Rousseau never actually used the phrase, the wildness of Heathcliff’s character connects with Rousseau’s view that the Noble Savage stands in direct opposition to the man of culture. For instance, after Catherine’s death, Heathcliff “howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast”, emphasising that even after Heathcliff has acquired manners and appears to be cultivated, he is still inseparably linked with the natural world. Catherine’s own desire to return to her “savage” self on the moors leads her to the conclusion that death is the only way she can escape the entrapment of civilised life. Therefore, through characterisation, Emily Bronte celebrates the individual emotion over reason as well as the importance of a deep union with nature.

Thus, the Romantic Movement was deeply infused with an interest in celebrating intense individualism and emotional expression that had been constrained by the previous Age of Enlightenment. (Ideas on a powerful ending without just rewording ideas of introduction) I think one of the strongest points of your essay is the way that each idea seems to flow from each other without you making overly obviously comparisons between the texts, if that makes sense. It reads like butter, very smooth. You could be creative here, and do something along the lines of, "Romantic Literature echoes the blah blah of content and the blah blah of thinkers...manifesting in the texts that offer a window to the spectacle today." And be a little creative in your wording, despite being an essay. That could be nice and simple, and it avoids using the exact same language as above.

An incredible essay. I'm not sure if there are more mini ways of thinking to be explored within Romanticism, but from your paragraph structure I can see this is clearly an incredible essay. The writing is, as always, clear, wonderful, insightful, and judiciously selected. Another incredible essay from you dancing phalanges! A few wording things throughout, and obviously need to consider your conclusion. But from my viewpoint as a non-romantic student, this is an exemplary piece.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: dancing phalanges on August 08, 2017, 11:07:51 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 08, 2017, 11:01:31 pm

Heya! I regret I have to look at this through the eyes of an ATB student, but the ways of thinking modules aren't so varied in what's expected.

Spoiler

'The Spirit of Individualism is a celebration of the self'
To what extent does this statement reflect your understanding of Romanticism?

The Romantic Movement was highly interested in the celebration of the individual as it reacted against social, political and economic developments in society that threatened the creative power of the individual. Nice! The growth of the Industrial Revolution made human beings replaceable parts in a system and the strict rules of the Enlightenment period limited the expression of unrestrained emotions. Therefore, in response, the Romantics underlined the importance of a personal relationship with nature and a trust in emotion and subjective experience. I've learned a whole lot about romanticism so far! This celebration of the individual is heavily featured in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Lime Tree Bower My Prison’, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. However, while the Romantics treasured the imaginative genius of the individual, Shelley’s Frankenstein also warns against the dangers of the ‘Romantic overreacher’. Therefore, whilst Romanticism was greatly influenced by the spirit of individualism, it also acknowledged the potential issues that may arise if the individual is given too much freedom. Wonderful!

The works of Coleridge, belonging to the “first wave” of Romanticism, reveal his pantheistic view of nature, and his belief in the power of the imagination to liberate, enlighten and transform the individual. This is evident in his conversational poem This Lime Tree Bower My Prison. Here, Coleridge celebrates the ability of the individual imagination to liberate the individual and achieve a closer connection between man and God. This mental illumination is chronicled primarily through the persona’s change in tone as the poem progresses. The first stanza begins with the negative connotations of “prison” and “must” in “here must I remain”, reflecting the persona’s melancholy and unwillingness to remain in his surroundings. Not 100% on board with the way you've quoted "prison" and "must" but then only "must" is in the quote that comes after? Just not 100% clear. However, Coleridge expresses the transformative powers of the imagination in experiencing the sublimity of nature when he describes the grandeur of “the wide wide Heaven” and “hues as veil the Almighty Spirit.” Furthermore, Coleridge continues to profess that nature “ne’er deserts the wise and pure” disclosing the role of nature as the source of true wisdom, rather than science and reason as previously believed in the Neo-Classic era. In this sense, Coleridge celebrated the Romantic belief in the power of the individual imagination within the natural world. Wonderful - exceptionally well rounded article.

The concept of the Romantic individual is one captured in the ‘heroic overreacher’ based on figures such as Napoleon, the mythical Prometheus and Paradise Lost’s Satan, who embodied the Romantic quest for knowledge and sense of tragic heroism. Similarly, the Romantic idealism that Shelley presents is based upon the faith in men’s divine and creative powers. Shelley, however, subverts this construct by foreshadowing the dangers of humanity’s hubris through her representation of the Romantic ‘overreacher’ Victor Frankenstein. Following the outburst of the French Revolution, a belief in divine creative activity emerged, to which Dr. Frankenstein is guilty of when professing “an eager desire to learn . . . the secrets of heaven and earth.” While Victor is highly Romantic in the sense that he personifies the belief in Romantic idealism and imagination, his ignorance ultimately separates him from the Romantic’s respect for the power of nature and humanity’s limits of control over it. Once his creature begins to murder Victor realises “a panic on seeing the pale yellow light fill the chamber.” Shelley transforms the symbolism of light in the Enlightenment, being civilised knowledge into a Gothic Romantic representation of the disturbing knowledge Victor is now constrained by.  Here, Shelley is warning the dangers of the spirit of individualism in the form of the overreaching ambition of the Romantics. 

Conversely, William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ is a celebration of the self as Blake protests against the exploitation of the individual within Industrial England. Blake’s poem appeared in Songs of Innocence in 1789, the year which marked the outburst of the French Revolution, revealing his revolutionary attitude towards the treatment of chimney sweepers, with the 1788 Chimney Sweepers Act yet to bring any great change to their conditions. Blake’s work intellectually challenged the responder as it mirrors the ways of thinking put forward by philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau in Emile (1762). Rousseau argues that innocence is a child’s essential quality, which is menaced by social institutions such as family and the state. The exploitation of the children is established by Blake through the line “in soot I sleep” which displays the bleak hope of escape from the inhumane conditions of child labour. The tale of “little Tom Dacre” is introduced by Blake to give a sense of identity to the child sweeper, thus also emphasising to the audience his individuality, a key aspect of the Romantic way of thinking. This is really good the way you've embedded the idea of the individual in the middle. It's too often that people just top and tail their paragraph with it (across all subjects with essays!)Yet, this is abruptly destroyed through the narrator’s imitation of an adult, when advising Tom that it is all for the best, so “soot cannot spoil your white hair.” The juxtaposition between black and white contrasts the angelic nature of childhood with the darkness of the soot, and thereby, alluding to the malevolence of those who exploit him, namely adults. The power of the condition of innocence, however, is powerfully symbolised by Blake through Tom’s dream where they are “set free” to run over “a green plain.” To this extent, Blake expressed the desire of English Romantic intellectuals for a yearning for the pre-industrial past and reaction to the perversion of individual spirit as a result of the modern industrial world.

Romantic writers also challenged the constraints of the social hierarchy and moral code of the Enlightenment period on the individual, an idea expressed in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Through characterisation, Brontë argues the Romantic belief that nature, even in its most frightening and uncontrollable state, is superior to civilisation. The construct of civilisation as a corrupting force on the spirit of the individual is also reflected in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1754). Nice engagement! Rousseau taught that men would be free in the state of nature and that emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilisation, is a great source of wisdom. Read this sentence back - "is a great sense of wisdom" doesn't make sense. The way I realise is that when you take out the comma splice out, so the things between the commas, you realise it doesn't make sense to read it through. I can't suggest how to fix it because I don't know what you're trying to say with the end bit unfortunately! It's not a huge thing, just a one-off slip. Bronte represents Rousseau’s way of thinking through the dichotomy of Catherine and Edgar’s values. The novel’s very name – Wuthering Heights, is closely associated with a powerful, stormy wind, and so are its inhabitants. For instance, when Heathcliff overhears Catherine saying that marriage with him will “degrade” her, she runs out of the house and experiences a raging storm. The violent thunder and rain of the storm are symbolic of Catherine’s own conflicted state as well as her passionate feelings for Heathcliff. In contrast, the uncontrollable Wuthering Heights is juxtaposed by Thrushcross Grange, a “splendid place carpeted with crimson.” Compared with Catherine’s emotional plea for Heathcliff in the storm, Edgar’s reaction to the dying Catherine represents the rational way of thinking present during the Enlightenment Period. Her cries for help remain unheard as instead, Edgar “is continually among his books”, which are emblematic of civilisation. Splendid! Wonderful paragraph.

In addition, the characterisation of Heathcliff appears to align with Rousseau’s idea of the Noble Savage. While Rousseau never actually used the phrase, the wildness of Heathcliff’s character connects with Rousseau’s view that the Noble Savage stands in direct opposition to the man of culture. For instance, after Catherine’s death, Heathcliff “howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast”, emphasising that even after Heathcliff has acquired manners and appears to be cultivated, he is still inseparably linked with the natural world. Catherine’s own desire to return to her “savage” self on the moors leads her to the conclusion that death is the only way she can escape the entrapment of civilised life. Therefore, through characterisation, Emily Bronte celebrates the individual emotion over reason as well as the importance of a deep union with nature.

Thus, the Romantic Movement was deeply infused with an interest in celebrating intense individualism and emotional expression that had been constrained by the previous Age of Enlightenment. (Ideas on a powerful ending without just rewording ideas of introduction) I think one of the strongest points of your essay is the way that each idea seems to flow from each other without you making overly obviously comparisons between the texts, if that makes sense. It reads like butter, very smooth. You could be creative here, and do something along the lines of, "Romantic Literature echoes the blah blah of content and the blah blah of thinkers...manifesting in the texts that offer a window to the spectacle today." And be a little creative in your wording, despite being an essay. That could be nice and simple, and it avoids using the exact same language as above.

An incredible essay. I'm not sure if there are more mini ways of thinking to be explored within Romanticism, but from your paragraph structure I can see this is clearly an incredible essay. The writing is, as always, clear, wonderful, insightful, and judiciously selected. Another incredible essay from you dancing phalanges! A few wording things throughout, and obviously need to consider your conclusion. But from my viewpoint as a non-romantic student, this is an exemplary piece.

Was just about to go to bed so I can get some sleep before my french exam tomorrow so this gives me great comfort for Thursday's exam :) Thank you so much for doing this after such a long working day! I was just wondering quickly with my creative if this is enough context for the slave being educated?
I share with you a letter I found from Quaco, who was sold off early in his life to an officer in the Royal Navy. He was one of the lucky few introduced to the British way of life, which included an education. Regrettably, the poor soul was later kidnapped by his former owner and sent back to sea on the Aurore, where recently he penned his final farewells.
It's the same sort of way that Olaudah Equiano who wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano received his education :)
I also signed off/started off a couple of the letters with stuff like: My dearest Lucy. Forgive my long delay in writing... and at the end when the ship is about to sink: Farewell, my dear, excellent Lucy! Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.
Hopefully that sounds right? But thanks once again for giving my essay a look! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 10:55:14 am

Quote from: dancing phalanges on August 08, 2017, 11:07:51 pm

Was just about to go to bed so I can get some sleep before my french exam tomorrow so this gives me great comfort for Thursday's exam :) Thank you so much for doing this after such a long working day! I was just wondering quickly with my creative if this is enough context for the slave being educated?
I share with you a letter I found from Quaco, who was sold off early in his life to an officer in the Royal Navy. He was one of the lucky few introduced to the British way of life, which included an education. Regrettably, the poor soul was later kidnapped by his former owner and sent back to sea on the Aurore, where recently he penned his final farewells.
It's the same sort of way that Olaudah Equiano who wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano received his education :)
I also signed off/started off a couple of the letters with stuff like: My dearest Lucy. Forgive my long delay in writing... and at the end when the ship is about to sink: Farewell, my dear, excellent Lucy! Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.
Hopefully that sounds right? But thanks once again for giving my essay a look! :)

Yes! You had a tricky task ahead of you by incorporating the context as to how the slave became so literate, and I admit to not considering referencing another character to do this - but I think this is great! An excellent idea! Truly :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: dancing phalanges on August 09, 2017, 12:25:53 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 10:55:14 am

Yes! You had a tricky task ahead of you by incorporating the context as to how the slave became so literate, and I admit to not considering referencing another character to do this - but I think this is great! An excellent idea! Truly :)

Great thank you :) Just to clarify I'm not mentioning Olaudah Equanio just taking inspiration from his way of doing it :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 01:24:48 pm

Quote from: dancing phalanges on August 09, 2017, 12:25:53 pm

Great thank you :) Just to clarify I'm not mentioning Olaudah Equanio just taking inspiration from his way of doing it :)

No of course! I mean, the reference of Quaco. Stellar!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: dancing phalanges on August 09, 2017, 07:48:23 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 01:24:48 pm

No of course! I mean, the reference of Quaco. Stellar!

Hi Elyse,
Just with the bit where you talked about the comma splicing and stuff,
what i was trying to say there is that the romantics followed their emotions (ie. that it was a source of wisdom, that it governed the choices/decisions they made) if you get my drift.
how do you suggest i fix it to make it flow better :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 08:31:36 pm

Quote from: dancing phalanges on August 09, 2017, 07:48:23 pm

Hi Elyse,
Just with the bit where you talked about the comma splicing and stuff,
what i was trying to say there is that the romantics followed their emotions (ie. that it was a source of wisdom, that it governed the choices/decisions they made) if you get my drift.
how do you suggest i fix it to make it flow better :)

Rousseau taught that men would be free in the state of nature and that emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilisation, is a great source of wisdom.

Riiiight, ok I see it now. I think the solution is "and also that emotion..." adding the also changes the flow of how I read it and it makes sense then :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: dancing phalanges on August 09, 2017, 08:58:40 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on August 09, 2017, 08:31:36 pm

Rousseau taught that men would be free in the state of nature and that emotion, when not distorted by the unnatural limitations of civilisation, is a great source of wisdom.

Riiiight, ok I see it now. I think the solution is "and also that emotion..." adding the also changes the flow of how I read it and it makes sense then :)

Okay great thank you :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 16, 2017, 03:24:33 pm

Ok so I overwrote this SOOOO much whoops. Just looking from some overall feedback and what to cut down because it is over 2000 words aaahhh!

Would love for a mod to go in depth with this but if anyone else wants to give some general advice I am more than happy to hear it!

Spoiler

Experimentation with form and ideas within the texts of this module are reflective of the intensified questioning of humanity and human beliefs during their respective contexts.

To what extent does this statement reflect your study of After the Bomb?

In your response, refer to TWO prescribed texts from the elective you have studied, and at least TWO texts of your own choosing

The After the Bomb period brought upon a wide range of change within the ways of thinking of individuals. Therefore, this was extended onto the literature of the time, and thus this experimentation with form and ideas have been catalysed by the deepened investigation of humankind and the human paradigms during this era to a great extent. The questioning of humanity and human beliefs surrounded the worth of individuals, and as a collective, and whether that be great or hopeless. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 existential play Waiting for Godot and John F. Kennedy’s 1963 elegant historical Berlin Speech both experiment within the form of the print text, though are on opposing sides when deliberating the power or powerless of individuals. Similarly, whilst George Clooney’s 2001 film noir Good Night and Good Luck and Raymond Briggs’ 1982 graphic novel When the Wind Blows experiment with the visual text, they are also opposing values of the constructive supremacy of various bodies within this time period, against the weakness of the mundane individual. These authors use the values within their texts to intensify the questioning of humanity and human beliefs.

The experimentation of the use of voice within print texts during the Cold War era was generated from the importance society placed on saying one’s opinion – whether that be seen as right or wrong. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett interacts with human beliefs by using the power of the voice of his characters to relate to and engage with his audience. When questioning the purpose of humanity, Vladimir states that “But that is not the question. What are we doing here that is the question,” adding comic relief for the audience through the intertextual reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A conversation between Vladimir and Estragon also reveals the questioning of humanity’s worth during this time period, where Estragon asks “Who believes him?” to which Vladimir replies “Everybody. It's the only version they know.” Estragon further comments “People are bloody ignorant apes.” The conversation acts as an allegory regarding the naivety of many individuals who believed the propaganda that was generated, as well as the metaphor of apes used to further trivalise the human population. Similarly, in his Berlin Speech, John F. Kennedy uses the power of his own voice to convey ideas regarding humanity, although instead treating human existence with respect and to be of a complex dimension. Kennedy states that “I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.” The polysyndeton used slows down the pace of the sentence to ensure the audience grasps the full effect of the ideas are being conveyed, as Kennedy flatters his live audience by portraying the strength he believes the human has. The appeal to hope in the quote the “Hopes of tomorrow,” has the greatest moral power, and through the didactic language used, an optimistic tone is created for the audience. Through his own voice, Kennedy shows that he values human beliefs, and that humanity is imperatively important. Both texts could have easily been turned into a novel or an academic essay respectively. However, the experimentation that was seen within the form of the written text during the After the Bomb period, of choosing texts to be heard rather than read, allowed composers to deeply entwine their own voice into their writing. Although these composers were of opposing stances in their ideas, through the experimentation within this medium, they were able to convey important ideas and allow a timeless audience to get an insight into the influence various paradigms had on the questioning of humanity and human beliefs.

Within the visual text medium, the After the Bomb period brought upon experimentation through a popular use of symbols to question humanity and the human experience. This particularly was inspired from the significant amounts of propaganda that surrounded humanity on an everyday basis, used as symbols for various political ideologies. In her academic article regarding the visual text, Tegally Bibi states that in this form, “the meaning of signs is extraordinarily complex,” and the symbols used are complex in the ideas they represent. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney uses the soundtrack of the film as a symbol for the devastation humanity experienced during this time period. As Ed Murrow hears of colleague Don Hollenbeck’s passing, the non-diegetic soundtrack plays in a sombre tone, stating “Somewhere there’s heaven.” The symbols used in this extract show that Clooney recognised the destruction humanity went through, however with the use of the word ‘heaven’ he valued the human belief of a higher nirvana of safety. In When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs uses colour and objects as symbols for his own views on humanity and human beliefs. As the bomb hits the town of Hilda and Jim, a bright hue of white with faint expressions of red fill the double page, with the red representing the communist ideals that have acted as a catalyst for the warfare. Briggs uses the colour in this piece to show the overpowering nature of nuclear weapons that consumed the lives of numerous individuals by taking up two entire pages to express this way of thinking. Briggs also uses pictures of a missile, plane, and submarine, symbolising land, air and water respectively as these objects have the ability to destroy their corresponding elements – all which are fundamental aspects of human life on Earth. Briggs uses both colour and objects to symbolise the formidable impact the threat of nuclear weaponry has over humanity, and whilst he does not dismiss the power of humans, he hints that this peril is so large that its devastating impact is almost uncontrollable. Both Clooney and Briggs experiment with the use of symbols within their texts as a result of the excessive propaganda used within the context they are set in. Through this, they are able to reflect the human experience within these time periods, whilst also portraying their own beliefs about humanity.

During the After the Bomb period, a dichotomous nature of how individuals viewed those in power was created, both within their own nations and on the other side of the political spectrum. This generated the idea of power to be expressed in various texts of the time, where composers chose whether to take the stance of those that possessed this attributed to have a positive or negative on humanity and human beliefs. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney stresses the idea that media holds an extremely powerful status in society. The human belief within this idea is that the media is able to orchestrate news credibly. When talking about the television, Ed Murrow states that “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.” The alliteration used draws attention to the fact that the media, as an “instrument”, been trusted with the power to “illuminate” and “inspire” humanity during times where there is a desperate desire for the truth. Clooney further uses alliteration in the quote “I believe today that mature Americans can engage in conversation and controversy, the clash of ideas, with Communists anywhere in the world without becoming contaminated or converted.” In this instance, the alliteration also serves to draw attention to the main ideas conveyed as that individuals should be tolerant of one another to limit conflict. In capitalist societies, as Good Night and Good Luck was set in, only rarely would one speak of Communists in a light that was not demeaning. However, as touched on by Hochscherf and Laucht in their critical reading of the text, “the film epitomises on the hegemonial power of the relatively new medium” – the media were able to do speak somewhat controversially whilst possibly changing the view of their audience due to the power they held and continue to hold today. John F. Kennedy has also been influenced by the idea of power during the After the Bomb period, and has used his position as an authoritative individual to convey his own beliefs about humanity in his Berlin Speech. Kennedy speaks highly of the statement “Civus romanus sum,” an allusion to what use to be said to become a Roman citizen. When saying this quote in the context that it was used, the individual was promised freedom and rights, which is exactly what Germans were desperate for during the Cold War era. Kennedy’s use of “Ich bin ein Berliner” inspired by this statement was able to effectively deliver optimism for his audience, and for humanity by establishing the ideas individuals intensely wanted. Kennedy goes on to say that his nation “Will come again if ever needed,” with the high modal emotive language generating unity and the building of power between capitalist societies, essential to promoting hope for a peaceful future as a common human belief and way of thinking. The deliberation of views on bodies and individuals with power has notably had an impact on the composers who construct their texts within the context of the After the Bomb period. In both Good Night and Good Luck and the Berlin Speech, Clooney and Kennedy illustrate the positive use of power, to create human beliefs of optimism, and ensure that faith remained for humanity.

Whilst some individuals preferred to focus on the resilience of humanity, others recognised the futility felt during the After the Bomb period as a result of the destruction surrounding them. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett displays the human belief that individuals continued to wait for a saviour of sorts during times of despair, even when there was no certainty that this relief would come. In his reading of the play, James H Reid states that “Its anguished anticipation repeatedly fades into game playing,” thus exemplifying the naivety of humanity shown throughout the play. When expressing that he wants to leave, Estragon asks Vladimir “Why not?” when he dismisses the idea, to which Vladimir replies “We’re waiting for Godot.” The short syntax creates a frantic tone, whilst the inclusive language used shows that whilst the two may feel alone, they are unable to leave each other and unable to stop waiting. This reveals that whilst humans may have felt weak, humanity was experiencing this time period as a collective. Estragon also states “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer,” showing his fear by using enigmatic language, not making sense when first read or heard, and as though the fear is making his expression incomprehensible. Beckett again shows the fragile side of humanity during this time period as language being one of the only areas of power left for the everyday individual has now also been destroyed due to the fear that is stimulated from waiting. In When the Wind Blows, Briggs uses pessimism and tone to demonstrate the feebleness of humanity. Jim states that “The powers that be will get to us in the end,” in which continues to be repeated, continuing the feeling of being powerless as they feel the threat of the bomb every day. Near the time of the bomb hitting, speech bubbles turn sharp and the fonts grow larger in capital letters, creating an anxious tone and exemplifies the overpowering fear of the bomb that eventually controlled the lives of individuals. Whilst humanity tried to believe in hope, in some circumstances it was this belief that revealed their fragility, and thus a vicious cycle of weakness continued.

The deliberation on whether humanity has worth, or if it is the opposite in being purposeless, has been reflective on the experimentation of form and ideas during the After the Bomb period to a significant extent. The constructers have used their texts to portray their own beliefs regarding human kind, and have strategically used various functions to ensure their audience gain a new perspective or renew their own, and thus exhibiting the importance and power of literature during this time.

Thank youuuuu! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 22, 2017, 07:34:36 pm

Quote from: paigek3 on October 16, 2017, 03:24:33 pm

Ok so I overwrote this SOOOO much whoops. Just looking from some overall feedback and what to cut down because it is over 2000 words aaahhh!

Would love for a mod to go in depth with this but if anyone else wants to give some general advice I am more than happy to hear it!

Spoiler

Experimentation with form and ideas within the texts of this module are reflective of the intensified questioning of humanity and human beliefs during their respective contexts.

To what extent does this statement reflect your study of After the Bomb?

In your response, refer to TWO prescribed texts from the elective you have studied, and at least TWO texts of your own choosing

The After the Bomb period brought upon a wide range of change within the ways of thinking of individuals. Therefore, this was extended onto the literature of the time, and thus this experimentation with form and ideas have been catalysed by the deepened investigation of humankind and the human paradigms during this era to a great extent. The questioning of humanity and human beliefs surrounded the worth of individuals, and as a collective, and whether that be great or hopeless. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 existential play Waiting for Godot and John F. Kennedy’s 1963 elegant historical Berlin Speech both experiment within the form of the print text, though are on opposing sides when deliberating the power or powerless of individuals. Similarly, whilst George Clooney’s 2001 film noir Good Night and Good Luck and Raymond Briggs’ 1982 graphic novel When the Wind Blows experiment with the visual text, they are also opposing values of the constructive supremacy of various bodies within this time period, against the weakness of the mundane individual. These authors use the values within their texts to intensify the questioning of humanity and human beliefs.

The experimentation of the use of voice within print texts during the Cold War era was generated from the importance society placed on saying one’s opinion – whether that be seen as right or wrong. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett interacts with human beliefs by using the power of the voice of his characters to relate to and engage with his audience. When questioning the purpose of humanity, Vladimir states that “But that is not the question. What are we doing here that is the question,” adding comic relief for the audience through the intertextual reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A conversation between Vladimir and Estragon also reveals the questioning of humanity’s worth during this time period, where Estragon asks “Who believes him?” to which Vladimir replies “Everybody. It's the only version they know.” Estragon further comments “People are bloody ignorant apes.” The conversation acts as an allegory regarding the naivety of many individuals who believed the propaganda that was generated, as well as the metaphor of apes used to further trivalise the human population. Similarly, in his Berlin Speech, John F. Kennedy uses the power of his own voice to convey ideas regarding humanity, although instead treating human existence with respect and to be of a complex dimension. Kennedy states that “I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.” The polysyndeton used slows down the pace of the sentence to ensure the audience grasps the full effect of the ideas are being conveyed, as Kennedy flatters his live audience by portraying the strength he believes the human has. The appeal to hope in the quote the “Hopes of tomorrow,” has the greatest moral power, and through the didactic language used, an optimistic tone is created for the audience. Through his own voice, Kennedy shows that he values human beliefs, and that humanity is imperatively important. Both texts could have easily been turned into a novel or an academic essay respectively. However, the experimentation that was seen within the form of the written text during the After the Bomb period, of choosing texts to be heard rather than read, allowed composers to deeply entwine their own voice into their writing. Although these composers were of opposing stances in their ideas, through the experimentation within this medium, they were able to convey important ideas and allow a timeless audience to get an insight into the influence various paradigms had on the questioning of humanity and human beliefs.

Within the visual text medium, the After the Bomb period brought upon experimentation through a popular use of symbols to question humanity and the human experience. This particularly was inspired from the significant amounts of propaganda that surrounded humanity on an everyday basis, used as symbols for various political ideologies. In her academic article regarding the visual text, Tegally Bibi states that in this form, “the meaning of signs is extraordinarily complex,” and the symbols used are complex in the ideas they represent. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney uses the soundtrack of the film as a symbol for the devastation humanity experienced during this time period. As Ed Murrow hears of colleague Don Hollenbeck’s passing, the non-diegetic soundtrack plays in a sombre tone, stating “Somewhere there’s heaven.” The symbols used in this extract show that Clooney recognised the destruction humanity went through, however with the use of the word ‘heaven’ he valued the human belief of a higher nirvana of safety. In When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs uses colour and objects as symbols for his own views on humanity and human beliefs. As the bomb hits the town of Hilda and Jim, a bright hue of white with faint expressions of red fill the double page, with the red representing the communist ideals that have acted as a catalyst for the warfare. Briggs uses the colour in this piece to show the overpowering nature of nuclear weapons that consumed the lives of numerous individuals by taking up two entire pages to express this way of thinking. Briggs also uses pictures of a missile, plane, and submarine, symbolising land, air and water respectively as these objects have the ability to destroy their corresponding elements – all which are fundamental aspects of human life on Earth. Briggs uses both colour and objects to symbolise the formidable impact the threat of nuclear weaponry has over humanity, and whilst he does not dismiss the power of humans, he hints that this peril is so large that its devastating impact is almost uncontrollable. Both Clooney and Briggs experiment with the use of symbols within their texts as a result of the excessive propaganda used within the context they are set in. Through this, they are able to reflect the human experience within these time periods, whilst also portraying their own beliefs about humanity.

During the After the Bomb period, a dichotomous nature of how individuals viewed those in power was created, both within their own nations and on the other side of the political spectrum. This generated the idea of power to be expressed in various texts of the time, where composers chose whether to take the stance of those that possessed this attributed to have a positive or negative on humanity and human beliefs. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney stresses the idea that media holds an extremely powerful status in society. The human belief within this idea is that the media is able to orchestrate news credibly. When talking about the television, Ed Murrow states that “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.” The alliteration used draws attention to the fact that the media, as an “instrument”, been trusted with the power to “illuminate” and “inspire” humanity during times where there is a desperate desire for the truth. Clooney further uses alliteration in the quote “I believe today that mature Americans can engage in conversation and controversy, the clash of ideas, with Communists anywhere in the world without becoming contaminated or converted.” In this instance, the alliteration also serves to draw attention to the main ideas conveyed as that individuals should be tolerant of one another to limit conflict. In capitalist societies, as Good Night and Good Luck was set in, only rarely would one speak of Communists in a light that was not demeaning. However, as touched on by Hochscherf and Laucht in their critical reading of the text, “the film epitomises on the hegemonial power of the relatively new medium” – the media were able to do speak somewhat controversially whilst possibly changing the view of their audience due to the power they held and continue to hold today. John F. Kennedy has also been influenced by the idea of power during the After the Bomb period, and has used his position as an authoritative individual to convey his own beliefs about humanity in his Berlin Speech. Kennedy speaks highly of the statement “Civus romanus sum,” an allusion to what use to be said to become a Roman citizen. When saying this quote in the context that it was used, the individual was promised freedom and rights, which is exactly what Germans were desperate for during the Cold War era. Kennedy’s use of “Ich bin ein Berliner” inspired by this statement was able to effectively deliver optimism for his audience, and for humanity by establishing the ideas individuals intensely wanted. Kennedy goes on to say that his nation “Will come again if ever needed,” with the high modal emotive language generating unity and the building of power between capitalist societies, essential to promoting hope for a peaceful future as a common human belief and way of thinking. The deliberation of views on bodies and individuals with power has notably had an impact on the composers who construct their texts within the context of the After the Bomb period. In both Good Night and Good Luck and the Berlin Speech, Clooney and Kennedy illustrate the positive use of power, to create human beliefs of optimism, and ensure that faith remained for humanity.

Whilst some individuals preferred to focus on the resilience of humanity, others recognised the futility felt during the After the Bomb period as a result of the destruction surrounding them. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett displays the human belief that individuals continued to wait for a saviour of sorts during times of despair, even when there was no certainty that this relief would come. In his reading of the play, James H Reid states that “Its anguished anticipation repeatedly fades into game playing,” thus exemplifying the naivety of humanity shown throughout the play. When expressing that he wants to leave, Estragon asks Vladimir “Why not?” when he dismisses the idea, to which Vladimir replies “We’re waiting for Godot.” The short syntax creates a frantic tone, whilst the inclusive language used shows that whilst the two may feel alone, they are unable to leave each other and unable to stop waiting. This reveals that whilst humans may have felt weak, humanity was experiencing this time period as a collective. Estragon also states “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer,” showing his fear by using enigmatic language, not making sense when first read or heard, and as though the fear is making his expression incomprehensible. Beckett again shows the fragile side of humanity during this time period as language being one of the only areas of power left for the everyday individual has now also been destroyed due to the fear that is stimulated from waiting. In When the Wind Blows, Briggs uses pessimism and tone to demonstrate the feebleness of humanity. Jim states that “The powers that be will get to us in the end,” in which continues to be repeated, continuing the feeling of being powerless as they feel the threat of the bomb every day. Near the time of the bomb hitting, speech bubbles turn sharp and the fonts grow larger in capital letters, creating an anxious tone and exemplifies the overpowering fear of the bomb that eventually controlled the lives of individuals. Whilst humanity tried to believe in hope, in some circumstances it was this belief that revealed their fragility, and thus a vicious cycle of weakness continued.

The deliberation on whether humanity has worth, or if it is the opposite in being purposeless, has been reflective on the experimentation of form and ideas during the After the Bomb period to a significant extent. The constructers have used their texts to portray their own beliefs regarding human kind, and have strategically used various functions to ensure their audience gain a new perspective or renew their own, and thus exhibiting the importance and power of literature during this time.

Thank youuuuu! :)

Hi Ella, just touching base to say this is on my list for tomorrow. Optimistically it will be tonight, but more likely tomorrow. So won't be too long! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 24, 2017, 12:00:15 am

Quote from: paigek3 on October 16, 2017, 03:24:33 pm

Ok so I overwrote this SOOOO much whoops. Just looking from some overall feedback and what to cut down because it is over 2000 words aaahhh!

Would love for a mod to go in depth with this but if anyone else wants to give some general advice I am more than happy to hear it!
Thank youuuuu! :)

Hey Ella!! Loooong essay we've got here - must mean you're super keen and you know a lot, so that can't be a bad thing at all! :)

Spoiler

Experimentation with form and ideas within the texts of this module are reflective of the intensified questioning of humanity and human beliefs during their respective contexts.

To what extent does this statement reflect your study of After the Bomb?

In your response, refer to TWO prescribed texts from the elective you have studied, and at least TWO texts of your own choosing

The After the Bomb period brought upon "brought upon" isn't really correct wording - If you take "upon" away it makes perfect sense. Or else use the word "induced" or "triggered" a wide range of change within the ways of thinking of individuals. Therefore, this was extended onto to the literature of the time, and thus this experimentation with form and ideas have been catalysed by the deepened investigation of humankind and the human paradigms during this era to a great extent. The questioning of humanity and human beliefs surrounded the worth of individuals, and as a collective, and whether that be great or hopeless. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 existential play Waiting for Godot and John F. Kennedy’s 1963 elegant historical Berlin Speech both experiment within the form of the print text, though are on opposing sides when deliberating the power or powerless of individuals. Similarly, whilst George Clooney’s 2001 film noir Good Night and Good Luck and Raymond Briggs’ 1982 graphic novel When the Wind Blows experiment with the visual text, they are also opposing values of the constructive supremacy of various bodies within this time period, against the weakness of the mundane individual. These authors use the values within their texts to intensify the questioning of humanity and human beliefs. I like the way you've paired the two texts here, it works really well to make nice comparisons. Very smooth!

The experimentation of the use of voice within print texts during the Cold War era was generated from the importance society placed on saying one’s opinion – whether that be seen as right or wrong. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett interacts with human beliefs by using the power of the voice of his characters to relate to and engage with his audience. When questioning the purpose of humanity, Vladimir states that “But that is not the question. What are we doing here that is the question,” adding comic relief for the audience through the intertextual reference to the most famous line of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A conversation between Vladimir and Estragon also reveals the questioning of humanity’s worth during this time period, where Estragon asks “Who believes him?” to which Vladimir replies “Everybody. It's the only version they know.” Estragon further comments “People are bloody ignorant apes.” The conversation acts as an allegory regarding the naivety of many individuals who believed the propaganda that was generated, as well as the metaphor of apes used to further trivalise I see that trivialise works, but I think maybe something like "to further diminish the intellect of the human population..." works better. To trivialise is to deduce, but to specifically mention the intellect of the overall population is more precise, rather than just trivialising the existence of the population. the human population. Similarly, in his Berlin Speech, John F. Kennedy uses the power of his own voice to convey ideas regarding humanity, although instead treating human existence with respect and to be of a complex dimension. I'd adjust the wording of this last sentence to show you are comparing the two texts in a stronger way. Instead of "although instead treating" maybe something more like "although,
 unlike in Waiting for Godot, treating..." Just to be really precise in your comparison. Kennedy states that “I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.” The polysyndeton used slows down the pace of the sentence to ensure the audience grasps the full effect of the ideas are being conveyed, as Kennedy flatters his live audience by portraying the strength he believes the human has. Really nice piece of analysis! The appeal to hope in the quote the “Hopes of tomorrow,” has the greatest moral power, and through the didactic language used, an optimistic tone is created for the audience. This last bit needs a bit more reflection of the effect of this. I know in your next sentence you analyse this, but it's in a broader sense of the use of voice, not so much about the optimistic tone you've just mentioned. The next sentence, could in fact, be deleted and replaced with an analysis that more directly relates to the part you have just focused on. Through his own voice, Kennedy shows that he values human beliefs, and that humanity is imperatively important. Both texts could have easily been turned into a novel or an academic essay respectively. I think this is an unusual statement to make. Why would they have made novels or essays instead? Are you saying that is the preferred style of this era, therefore the composers showed a deviation from this? However, the experimentation that was seen within the form of the written text during the After the Bomb period, of choosing texts to be heard rather than read, allowed composers to deeply entwine their own voice into their writing. Nice! If you agree, and don't want to add anything to the prior sentence, I'd connect these two sentences by cutting little parts from each so you can sew it back together as one sentence. This will shorten your word usage as well,
 and it will become more precise. Although these composers were of opposing stances in their ideas, through the experimentation within this medium, they were able to convey important ideas and allow a timeless audience to get an insight into the influence various paradigms had on the questioning of humanity and human beliefs. I'd bring this back to the idea of "voice" that you were exploring in the first part of this paragraph, just to bring it all together really nicely again.

Within the visual text medium, the After the Bomb period brought upon experimentation through a popular use of symbols to question humanity and the human experience. This particularly was inspired from the significant amounts of propaganda that surrounded humanity on an everyday basis, used as symbols for various political ideologies. In her academic article regarding the visual text, Tegally Bibi states that in this form, “the meaning of signs is extraordinarily complex,” and the symbols used are complex in the ideas they represent. Nice quote! Works well here with your argument and the direction of this paragraph. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney uses the soundtrack of the film as a symbol for the devastation humanity experienced during this time period. As Ed Murrow hears of colleague Don Hollenbeck’s passing, the non-diegetic soundtrack plays in a sombre tone, stating “Somewhere there’s heaven.” The symbols used in this extract show that Clooney recognised the destruction humanity went through, however with the use of the word ‘heaven’ he valued the human belief of a higher nirvana of safety. In When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs uses colour and objects as symbols for his own views on humanity and human beliefs. As the bomb hits the town of the protagonists,Hilda and Jim, a bright hue of white with faint expressions of red fill the double page, with the red representing the communist ideals that have acted as a catalyst for the warfare. I don't know that this is a true or particularly well backed up statement. I see what you're saying with the red being symbolic, but I don't think it's a catalyst for warfare, so to say? Particularly because the text is so critical of the way people so blindly believe their own government (eg, the pamphlets about staying safe in a bomb), so I'd word this differently so as to not place the entire war's blame on communist ideals. Briggs uses the colour in this piece to show the overpowering nature of nuclear weapons that consumed the lives of numerous individuals by taking up two entire pages to express this way of thinking. Briggs also uses pictures of a missile, plane, and submarine, symbolising land, air and water respectively as these objects have the ability to destroy their corresponding elements – all which are fundamental aspects of human life on Earth. Briggs uses both colour and objects to symbolise the formidable impact the threat of nuclear weaponry has over humanity, and whilst he does not dismiss the power of humans, he hints that this peril is so large that its devastating impact is almost uncontrollable. Both Clooney and Briggs experiment with the use of symbols within their texts as a result of the excessive propaganda used within the context they are set in. Through this, they are able to reflect the human experience within these time periods, whilst also portraying their own beliefs about humanity. I like the idea in this paragraph about visual representations! It features in a strong way and it brings together the two texts really nicely.

During the After the Bomb period, a dichotomous nature of how individuals viewed those in power was created, both within their own nations and on the other side of the political spectrum.  The word "dichotomous" is sticking out to me here and the bit I've underlined all jars a little. Perhaps, the polarised responses of individuals to those in power?This generated the idea of power to be expressed in various texts of the time, where composers chose whether to take the stance of those that possessed this attributed to have a positive or negative on humanity and human beliefs. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney stresses the idea that media holds an extremely powerful status in society. The human belief within this idea is that the media is able to orchestrate news credibly. When talking about the television, Ed Murrow states that “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.” The alliteration of which sound? I'd even say "assonance" instead used draws attention to the fact that the media, as an “instrument”, been trusted with the power to “illuminate” and “inspire” humanity during times where there is a desperate desire for the truth. Clooney further uses alliteration in the quote “I believe today that mature Americans can engage in conversation and controversy, the clash of ideas, with Communists anywhere in the world without becoming contaminated or converted.” In this instance, the alliteration also serves to draw attention to the main ideas conveyed as that individuals should be tolerant of one another to limit conflict. In capitalist societies, as Good Night and Good Luck was set in, only rarely would one speak of Communists in a light that was not demeaning. However, as touched on by Hochscherf and Laucht in their critical reading of the text, “the film epitomises on the hegemonial power of the relatively new medium” – the media were able to do speak somewhat controversially whilst possibly changing the view of their audience due to the power they held and continue to hold today. John F. Kennedy has also been influenced by the idea of power during the After the Bomb period, and has used his position as an authoritative individual to convey his own beliefs about humanity in his Berlin Speech. Kennedy speaks highly of the statement “Civus romanus sum,” an allusion to what use to be said to become a Roman citizen. When saying this quote in the context that it was used, the individual was promised freedom and rights, which is exactly what Germans were desperate for during the Cold War era. Kennedy’s use of “Ich bin ein Berliner” inspired by this statement was able to effectively deliver optimism for his audience, and for humanity by establishing the ideas individuals intensely wanted. Kennedy goes on to say that his nation “Will come again if ever needed,” with the high modal emotive language generating unity and the building of power between capitalist societies, essential to promoting hope for a peaceful future as a common human belief and way of thinking. The deliberation of views on bodies and individuals with power has notably had an impact on the composers who construct their texts within the context of the After the Bomb period. In both Good Night and Good Luck and the Berlin Speech, Clooney and Kennedy illustrate the positive use of power, to create human beliefs of optimism, and ensure that faith remained for humanity. Nice paragraph!

Whilst some individuals preferred to focus on the resilience of humanity, others recognised the futility felt during the After the Bomb period as a result of the destruction surrounding them. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett displays the human belief that individuals continued to wait for a saviour of sorts during times of despair, even when there was no certainty that this relief would come. Rewrite this sentence - the human belief is not a past tense action, which you have as "continued to wait" perhaps, "the human belief in a saviour, especially during times of despair." In his reading of the play, James H Reid states that “Its anguished anticipation repeatedly fades into game playing,” thus exemplifying the naivety of humanity shown throughout the play. When expressing that he wants to leave, Estragon asks Vladimir “Why not?” when he dismisses the idea, to which Vladimir replies “We’re waiting for Godot.” The short syntax creates a frantic tone, whilst the inclusive language used shows that whilst the two may feel alone, they are unable to leave each other and unable to stop waiting. This reveals that whilst humans may have felt weak, humanity was experiencing this time period as a collective. Estragon also states “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer,” showing his fear by using enigmatic language, not making sense when first read or heard, and as though the fear is making his expression incomprehensible. Beckett again shows the fragile side of humanity during this time period as language being one of the only areas of power left for the everyday individual has now also been destroyed due to the fear that is stimulated from waiting. In When the Wind Blows, Briggs uses pessimism and tone to demonstrate the feebleness of humanity. Jim states that “The powers that be will get to us in the end,” in which continues to be repeated, continuing the feeling of being powerless as they feel the threat of the bomb every day. Near the time of the bomb hitting, speech bubbles turn sharp and the fonts grow larger in capital letters, creating an anxious tone and exemplifies the overpowering fear of the bomb that eventually controlled the lives of individuals. Whilst humanity tried to believe in hope, in some circumstances it was this belief that revealed their fragility, and thus a vicious cycle of weakness continued.

The deliberation on whether humanity has worth, or if it is the opposite in being purposeless, has been reflective on the experimentation of form and ideas during the After the Bomb period to a significant extent. The constructers have used their texts to portray their own beliefs regarding human kind, and have strategically used various functions to ensure their audience gain a new perspective or renew their own, and thus exhibiting the importance and power of literature during this time.

Excellent essay! Really well written. There are a few expression things to work on, but your overall structure really shows your confidence in exploring ideas through texts. I really, really, like the structure. It's complex but seamless. In terms of answering the question, you've only addressed the "intense" part of the question three times, once in the introduction. I'd be tackling this head on to separate yourself further from other students who will fall to the same mistake as you of leaving that important adverb out of the equation!

Your textual evidence is great, although sometimes the quotes are long, and only explored with a simple analysis of one technique. Where you can, try and compound techniques (tone and alliteration, or truncated sentence with connotation, etc) in order to really show you understand how the components of the text work together.

You should be really proud of this overall! :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 24, 2017, 09:01:13 am

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 24, 2017, 12:00:15 am

Hey Ella!! Loooong essay we've got here - must mean you're super keen and you know a lot, so that can't be a bad thing at all! :)

Spoiler

Experimentation with form and ideas within the texts of this module are reflective of the intensified questioning of humanity and human beliefs during their respective contexts.

To what extent does this statement reflect your study of After the Bomb?

In your response, refer to TWO prescribed texts from the elective you have studied, and at least TWO texts of your own choosing

The After the Bomb period brought upon "brought upon" isn't really correct wording - If you take "upon" away it makes perfect sense. Or else use the word "induced" or "triggered" a wide range of change within the ways of thinking of individuals. Therefore, this was extended onto to the literature of the time, and thus this experimentation with form and ideas have been catalysed by the deepened investigation of humankind and the human paradigms during this era to a great extent. The questioning of humanity and human beliefs surrounded the worth of individuals, and as a collective, and whether that be great or hopeless. Samuel Beckett’s 1953 existential play Waiting for Godot and John F. Kennedy’s 1963 elegant historical Berlin Speech both experiment within the form of the print text, though are on opposing sides when deliberating the power or powerless of individuals. Similarly, whilst George Clooney’s 2001 film noir Good Night and Good Luck and Raymond Briggs’ 1982 graphic novel When the Wind Blows experiment with the visual text, they are also opposing values of the constructive supremacy of various bodies within this time period, against the weakness of the mundane individual. These authors use the values within their texts to intensify the questioning of humanity and human beliefs. I like the way you've paired the two texts here, it works really well to make nice comparisons. Very smooth!

The experimentation of the use of voice within print texts during the Cold War era was generated from the importance society placed on saying one’s opinion – whether that be seen as right or wrong. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett interacts with human beliefs by using the power of the voice of his characters to relate to and engage with his audience. When questioning the purpose of humanity, Vladimir states that “But that is not the question. What are we doing here that is the question,” adding comic relief for the audience through the intertextual reference to the most famous line of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A conversation between Vladimir and Estragon also reveals the questioning of humanity’s worth during this time period, where Estragon asks “Who believes him?” to which Vladimir replies “Everybody. It's the only version they know.” Estragon further comments “People are bloody ignorant apes.” The conversation acts as an allegory regarding the naivety of many individuals who believed the propaganda that was generated, as well as the metaphor of apes used to further trivalise I see that trivialise works, but I think maybe something like "to further diminish the intellect of the human population..." works better. To trivialise is to deduce, but to specifically mention the intellect of the overall population is more precise, rather than just trivialising the existence of the population. the human population. Similarly, in his Berlin Speech, John F. Kennedy uses the power of his own voice to convey ideas regarding humanity, although instead treating human existence with respect and to be of a complex dimension. I'd adjust the wording of this last sentence to show you are comparing the two texts in a stronger way. Instead of "although instead treating" maybe something more like "although,
 unlike in Waiting for Godot, treating..." Just to be really precise in your comparison. Kennedy states that “I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope, and the determination of the city of West Berlin.” The polysyndeton used slows down the pace of the sentence to ensure the audience grasps the full effect of the ideas are being conveyed, as Kennedy flatters his live audience by portraying the strength he believes the human has. Really nice piece of analysis! The appeal to hope in the quote the “Hopes of tomorrow,” has the greatest moral power, and through the didactic language used, an optimistic tone is created for the audience. This last bit needs a bit more reflection of the effect of this. I know in your next sentence you analyse this, but it's in a broader sense of the use of voice, not so much about the optimistic tone you've just mentioned. The next sentence, could in fact, be deleted and replaced with an analysis that more directly relates to the part you have just focused on. Through his own voice, Kennedy shows that he values human beliefs, and that humanity is imperatively important. Both texts could have easily been turned into a novel or an academic essay respectively. I think this is an unusual statement to make. Why would they have made novels or essays instead? Are you saying that is the preferred style of this era, therefore the composers showed a deviation from this? However, the experimentation that was seen within the form of the written text during the After the Bomb period, of choosing texts to be heard rather than read, allowed composers to deeply entwine their own voice into their writing. Nice! If you agree, and don't want to add anything to the prior sentence, I'd connect these two sentences by cutting little parts from each so you can sew it back together as one sentence. This will shorten your word usage as well,
 and it will become more precise. Although these composers were of opposing stances in their ideas, through the experimentation within this medium, they were able to convey important ideas and allow a timeless audience to get an insight into the influence various paradigms had on the questioning of humanity and human beliefs. I'd bring this back to the idea of "voice" that you were exploring in the first part of this paragraph, just to bring it all together really nicely again.

Within the visual text medium, the After the Bomb period brought upon experimentation through a popular use of symbols to question humanity and the human experience. This particularly was inspired from the significant amounts of propaganda that surrounded humanity on an everyday basis, used as symbols for various political ideologies. In her academic article regarding the visual text, Tegally Bibi states that in this form, “the meaning of signs is extraordinarily complex,” and the symbols used are complex in the ideas they represent. Nice quote! Works well here with your argument and the direction of this paragraph. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney uses the soundtrack of the film as a symbol for the devastation humanity experienced during this time period. As Ed Murrow hears of colleague Don Hollenbeck’s passing, the non-diegetic soundtrack plays in a sombre tone, stating “Somewhere there’s heaven.” The symbols used in this extract show that Clooney recognised the destruction humanity went through, however with the use of the word ‘heaven’ he valued the human belief of a higher nirvana of safety. In When the Wind Blows, Raymond Briggs uses colour and objects as symbols for his own views on humanity and human beliefs. As the bomb hits the town of the protagonists,Hilda and Jim, a bright hue of white with faint expressions of red fill the double page, with the red representing the communist ideals that have acted as a catalyst for the warfare. I don't know that this is a true or particularly well backed up statement. I see what you're saying with the red being symbolic, but I don't think it's a catalyst for warfare, so to say? Particularly because the text is so critical of the way people so blindly believe their own government (eg, the pamphlets about staying safe in a bomb), so I'd word this differently so as to not place the entire war's blame on communist ideals. Briggs uses the colour in this piece to show the overpowering nature of nuclear weapons that consumed the lives of numerous individuals by taking up two entire pages to express this way of thinking. Briggs also uses pictures of a missile, plane, and submarine, symbolising land, air and water respectively as these objects have the ability to destroy their corresponding elements – all which are fundamental aspects of human life on Earth. Briggs uses both colour and objects to symbolise the formidable impact the threat of nuclear weaponry has over humanity, and whilst he does not dismiss the power of humans, he hints that this peril is so large that its devastating impact is almost uncontrollable. Both Clooney and Briggs experiment with the use of symbols within their texts as a result of the excessive propaganda used within the context they are set in. Through this, they are able to reflect the human experience within these time periods, whilst also portraying their own beliefs about humanity. I like the idea in this paragraph about visual representations! It features in a strong way and it brings together the two texts really nicely.

During the After the Bomb period, a dichotomous nature of how individuals viewed those in power was created, both within their own nations and on the other side of the political spectrum.  The word "dichotomous" is sticking out to me here and the bit I've underlined all jars a little. Perhaps, the polarised responses of individuals to those in power?This generated the idea of power to be expressed in various texts of the time, where composers chose whether to take the stance of those that possessed this attributed to have a positive or negative on humanity and human beliefs. In Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney stresses the idea that media holds an extremely powerful status in society. The human belief within this idea is that the media is able to orchestrate news credibly. When talking about the television, Ed Murrow states that “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.” The alliteration of which sound? I'd even say "assonance" instead used draws attention to the fact that the media, as an “instrument”, been trusted with the power to “illuminate” and “inspire” humanity during times where there is a desperate desire for the truth. Clooney further uses alliteration in the quote “I believe today that mature Americans can engage in conversation and controversy, the clash of ideas, with Communists anywhere in the world without becoming contaminated or converted.” In this instance, the alliteration also serves to draw attention to the main ideas conveyed as that individuals should be tolerant of one another to limit conflict. In capitalist societies, as Good Night and Good Luck was set in, only rarely would one speak of Communists in a light that was not demeaning. However, as touched on by Hochscherf and Laucht in their critical reading of the text, “the film epitomises on the hegemonial power of the relatively new medium” – the media were able to do speak somewhat controversially whilst possibly changing the view of their audience due to the power they held and continue to hold today. John F. Kennedy has also been influenced by the idea of power during the After the Bomb period, and has used his position as an authoritative individual to convey his own beliefs about humanity in his Berlin Speech. Kennedy speaks highly of the statement “Civus romanus sum,” an allusion to what use to be said to become a Roman citizen. When saying this quote in the context that it was used, the individual was promised freedom and rights, which is exactly what Germans were desperate for during the Cold War era. Kennedy’s use of “Ich bin ein Berliner” inspired by this statement was able to effectively deliver optimism for his audience, and for humanity by establishing the ideas individuals intensely wanted. Kennedy goes on to say that his nation “Will come again if ever needed,” with the high modal emotive language generating unity and the building of power between capitalist societies, essential to promoting hope for a peaceful future as a common human belief and way of thinking. The deliberation of views on bodies and individuals with power has notably had an impact on the composers who construct their texts within the context of the After the Bomb period. In both Good Night and Good Luck and the Berlin Speech, Clooney and Kennedy illustrate the positive use of power, to create human beliefs of optimism, and ensure that faith remained for humanity. Nice paragraph!

Whilst some individuals preferred to focus on the resilience of humanity, others recognised the futility felt during the After the Bomb period as a result of the destruction surrounding them. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett displays the human belief that individuals continued to wait for a saviour of sorts during times of despair, even when there was no certainty that this relief would come. Rewrite this sentence - the human belief is not a past tense action, which you have as "continued to wait" perhaps, "the human belief in a saviour, especially during times of despair." In his reading of the play, James H Reid states that “Its anguished anticipation repeatedly fades into game playing,” thus exemplifying the naivety of humanity shown throughout the play. When expressing that he wants to leave, Estragon asks Vladimir “Why not?” when he dismisses the idea, to which Vladimir replies “We’re waiting for Godot.” The short syntax creates a frantic tone, whilst the inclusive language used shows that whilst the two may feel alone, they are unable to leave each other and unable to stop waiting. This reveals that whilst humans may have felt weak, humanity was experiencing this time period as a collective. Estragon also states “Don’t let’s do anything. It’s safer,” showing his fear by using enigmatic language, not making sense when first read or heard, and as though the fear is making his expression incomprehensible. Beckett again shows the fragile side of humanity during this time period as language being one of the only areas of power left for the everyday individual has now also been destroyed due to the fear that is stimulated from waiting. In When the Wind Blows, Briggs uses pessimism and tone to demonstrate the feebleness of humanity. Jim states that “The powers that be will get to us in the end,” in which continues to be repeated, continuing the feeling of being powerless as they feel the threat of the bomb every day. Near the time of the bomb hitting, speech bubbles turn sharp and the fonts grow larger in capital letters, creating an anxious tone and exemplifies the overpowering fear of the bomb that eventually controlled the lives of individuals. Whilst humanity tried to believe in hope, in some circumstances it was this belief that revealed their fragility, and thus a vicious cycle of weakness continued.

The deliberation on whether humanity has worth, or if it is the opposite in being purposeless, has been reflective on the experimentation of form and ideas during the After the Bomb period to a significant extent. The constructers have used their texts to portray their own beliefs regarding human kind, and have strategically used various functions to ensure their audience gain a new perspective or renew their own, and thus exhibiting the importance and power of literature during this time.

Excellent essay! Really well written. There are a few expression things to work on, but your overall structure really shows your confidence in exploring ideas through texts. I really, really, like the structure. It's complex but seamless. In terms of answering the question, you've only addressed the "intense" part of the question three times, once in the introduction. I'd be tackling this head on to separate yourself further from other students who will fall to the same mistake as you of leaving that important adverb out of the equation!

Your textual evidence is great, although sometimes the quotes are long, and only explored with a simple analysis of one technique. Where you can, try and compound techniques (tone and alliteration, or truncated sentence with connotation, etc) in order to really show you understand how the components of the text work together.

You should be really proud of this overall! :)

Thank you soooo much Elyse!! As you know it has been the year from hell for me with Extension 1, and I’ve honestly had to teach the course to myself. So I’m really glad the essay wasn’t a complete failure!! Hope you don’t mind me submitting a creative soon but don’t worry it’s much shorter ;D

Thank you again for your help!!!


EDIT: What mark out of 25 do you think I could get with this?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 24, 2017, 11:20:10 am

Quote from: paigek3 on October 24, 2017, 09:01:13 am

Thank you soooo much Elyse!! As you know it has been the year from hell for me with Extension 1, and I’ve honestly had to teach the course to myself. So I’m really glad the essay wasn’t a complete failure!! Hope you don’t mind me submitting a creative soon but don’t worry it’s much shorter ;D

Thank you again for your help!!!


EDIT: What mark out of 25 do you think I could get with this?

Not a worry! I love reading creatives :)

Now you've asked me to give it a mark out of 25 I've noticed that there's something I didn't mention but should have, and it's about the ways you're addressing the ways of thinking. Paradigms are addressed well, and textual concerns and manipulations, but I think the "ways of thinking" could be a stronger feature. For example, you're talking about beliefs of human kind - but in what ways are these beliefs shaped by, or do they shape, ways of thinking? Political compliance, religious criticism, nuclear family structures being a bastion of safety, etc. So with this in mind, I'd give it a 20, because it needs to be addressed critically. But it ultimately is a great essay, but needs that further address to move up!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 24, 2017, 11:28:46 am

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 24, 2017, 11:20:10 am

Not a worry! I love reading creatives :)

Now you've asked me to give it a mark out of 25 I've noticed that there's something I didn't mention but should have, and it's about the ways you're addressing the ways of thinking. Paradigms are addressed well, and textual concerns and manipulations, but I think the "ways of thinking" could be a stronger feature. For example, you're talking about beliefs of human kind - but in what ways are these beliefs shaped by, or do they shape, ways of thinking? Political compliance, religious criticism, nuclear family structures being a bastion of safety, etc. So with this in mind, I'd give it a 20, because it needs to be addressed critically. But it ultimately is a great essay, but needs that further address to move up!

Okay perfect I will head over and work on it now!

Here is my creative writing, now I warn you, creatives have always been something I have struggled with. I honestly love the setting/idea/event I am exploring in it because I find it so interesting, and little bits I do like. But overall I feel as though it isn't at the standard of an E4 at all, and I am just stuck on how to fix it. Hopefully you think different, or know some ways to make it a whole lot better, as I am sure you do :) Would appreciate your help so much! Thanks again :)

Spoiler

I sat down at the dinner table and reached out anxiously, grabbing my wife Elke’s hand, “I can’t do this anymore,” I exclaimed pointing down to the crossword I was doing. Her eyes fell to where my finger landed on the newspaper, as it read ‘EAST’. It was all bugged – the apartment, the car – everything. The Stasi surveilled every aspect of our daily lives, to make sure no one was disloyal. Anytime we needed to express our displeasure with the East we would have to talk in code to limit the risk of getting caught. “Honey, you just have to keep doing the crossword, you can’t stop,” she replied metaphorically.
“We need to,” I whispered.
“We can’t Frank,”
“We can try.”

***************************************************************************

I stepped off the plane in Australia for the 1956 Summer Olympic games with the United Team of Germany as the scorching sun joined hues of honeycomb yellow with a fierce orange. It glistened and warmed my skin, as I heard voices of friendly tones that spoke replacing ‘er’s with ‘ah’s. It was beautiful – a land of friendly people, and most admirably, freedom. It was the last time I had any contact with the West.

These people weren’t trapped by an iron curtain, they could live their lives free of surveillance. The Australians treated us strangers with kindness, a trait that we forgot existed back where we had come from.

Back in my motherland, Olympic athletes were pampered. We were treated much better than everyone else because the government did not want any talent leaving to the West. Though even with this status, threats of nuclear weaponry and mass destruction across the world was enough to destroy any sense of safety. Uncertainty in the world was frightening enough, but we were more afraid of the powers within our nation.

I opened the door to what we hollowly called home, because our habitation was at the very most a shelter. We lived on the second floor, the paint of the apartment building peeled, revealing the muck that lay trapped from neglect. We were fortunate to live in a place that had windows that were attached to their frames. It was the first time I had been home since leaving for the Games.

Elke sat on the couch with our four-year-old son Wolfgang in her arms. Her blonde hair was pinned back, with the strands that lay loose placed behind her ear. Her cobalt eyes sparkled as they fixed on me walking through the door. Wolfgang’s eyes as blue as the ocean were following a toy plane he had in his hand, and his hair was the same colour as the snow white sand I saw in Australia.

They were the only reason I had any pull to come back to East Berlin. Elke gave me a gentle hug resting her head on my shoulder as our blonde hair faded into one another’s, whilst Wolfgang wrapped his short arms around my leg.

I sat with Elke on the couch and told her stories of Australia and the Games – the water polo bloodbath that was Hungary against the USSR, the way my delayed start caused me to finish fourth in my race, and the land of the free that was the incredible country I had set foot on. I told her that we needed to go. We needed to escape. We began to bicker, Elke demanded taking the risk was too great, I agreed – indeed, the risk would be ‘great’. Elke pulled at her hair shouting that it is too selfish for us to do, I argued back saying it was selfish of us not to escape, whilst Wolfgang remained in a deep sleep through his afternoon nap. “We are lucky enough, Frank,” she quietly said, caressing my chin after calming down.

Slowly I stood up out of the chair that was withering away, looking out through window that sat tilted noticeably too far to its left. The streets were dreary, buildings stood wrecked from negligence and soldiers were on almost every corner, especially the closer to the Wall you got. They walked side by side in uniforms that could not be described using any colour but ‘dull’. East Berlin had not changed much since I was a child, except for the fact that smoke clouds from the projection of nuclear weapons being tested had been exchanged for flashing from the projection of bullets across the Wall - it was in ruins in every meaning of the word possible.

Elke joined a line that formed in front of the store, only a block away from the apartment. Just like the Wall, forming lines had become a part of daily life. We weren’t always sure of what exactly we were lining up for, but we knew we would probably need it. Elke cradled the treasure in her hands like it was our own child, ensuring she would not drop it.

Its colour flashed vividly, almost as if the sun was reflecting golden rays off it. It was the only colour other than red that I had seen in a while. It was a banana. They were sparse, and getting your hands on one was as about as exciting as daily life would get in Mitte.

Elke went to sleep that night staring out at the sky where the moon beamed brightly through the curtains of the bedroom. It was almost as if it was sitting in the West, too afraid to venture into the East. I drifted off, but awoke turbulently as Elke sprung up from where she lay as the clock struck three. Gasping for air, she cried “I can’t do the crossword anymore, Frank”. I stared into her eyes in shock from hearing her say those words, as well as being dazed. I never found out whether she had been dreaming of soft fields of green grass meeting with radiant shades of yellow, red and blue, or if instead it was a nightmare full of red, but she knew we had to be with the moon. We had to go.

We spent the next week talking in puzzle by using the newspaper to point out words of ‘Monday’, ‘car’ and ‘Charlie’, to make plans of the escape ensuring we would not get caught. We decided it would be too hard for the three of us to go together – I was escaping first. We lived in Tieckstraße, only 800m from the Wall and just under 3km from Checkpoint Charlie. I knocked on an old Austrian man named Martin’s door, who lived in our building. After an hour of asking him about his car and his family on the other side, he finally understood on what I was attempting to communicate, and agreed to smuggle me over in his car when he was heading to see one of his brothers in the West.

On the day of escape my wife and son walked out the front of the apartment block with me where Martin was going to pick me up. I gave Wolfgang a kiss on the cheek and ensuring I remembered his smiling, innocent face. I then turned to Elke and lightly pressed my lips onto her forehead and shakily told her I loved her before it was time to go.

Martin had a compartment at the bottom of the back seat of his car which he would use to store anything his brother’s in the West gave him that he knew he would not be allowed in the East. I was going to hide in there, with a blanket on top in case the guards had any suspicion of the compartment. As the car rolled closer to Checkpoint Charlie I hid, curling up every inch of my body to avoid being seen. Its wheels made a cracking noise as they slowly went over the gravel that lay underneath. My heart began to race and palms became sweaty as I heard Martin talking to the guard, but there was only one word on my mind – freedom. The car began to move again, but this time it was much faster than before. I couldn’t see anything but I presumed we had made it to the West. The corners of my mouth went up, as did the butterflies that had laid at the pit of my stomach, dormant for years – I had not smiled like this since the day Wolfgang was born, or the day I stepped off the plane into Australia.

My eyes would soon be filled with vibrant colour of blue, pink, red, orange, green, yellow and purples. I rose from my hiding place, full of excitement, faith and – everything turned black. Where was the colour? There was no flashing of a burning gun anymore, no dull soldier uniforms, no shades of Communism red. Freedom was only an illusion. There was nothing.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: justwannawish on October 25, 2017, 06:46:00 pm

Hey, I was hoping you could look over a generic essay I wrote for extension! I have so many doubts about it (and whether it properly addresses ways of thinking) so any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Somehow the italics around the titles have been destroyed bc of my phone, but don't worry I'll remember them in the exam!

Spoiler

Responding to the intensifying paranoia around nuclear warfare, composers of the Cold War era distinctly manipulate their works to confront the essence of humanity in the times. As authors contemplate the rising political tensions between capitalism and communism, they ultimately enable audiences from all milieu to redefine the value of life amid domestic containment and the growing philosophy of existentialism, a belief based on individual agents defining the meaning of existence. After being exposed to a climate of paranoia, Samuel Beckett’s 1949 play, Waiting for Godot, and Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 poem, America, both share a post-modernist style to critique their salient disillusionment with the War and how it demeans self-agency for external factors. Likewise, Sylvia Plath’s 1965 poetry oeuvre Ariel and Isao Takahata’s 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies capture the absence of self-identity and human morality, reflecting their composers’ attitude to their conservative societies. All four texts encourage their responders to share the need for humanity within the competing discourses of their zeitgeist.
 
Stemming from their composers’ disenchantment with Cold War politics, texts often mirror the dichotomy between social stability and the resulting paralysis of human ethics. A sceptical outlook of an irrational Western world, Plath and Takahata both construct microcosms of 1950s America and post-Hiroshima Japan, emulating how fears of an atomic holocaust facilitated a culture of domestic containment. Plath’s The Applicant entwines promises of societal stability with the second wave feminist movement, giving her “naked” applicant a “suit” to protect him against “fire and bombs”. Her enjambment rejects traditional verse to challenge her Western society’s retreat to conservative gender roles to control an uncontrollable war. The poet marries the wordplay of “suit”, a metonym for marriage and a symbol for a radiation suit, with the vulnerable connotations of “naked”, extending beyond her personal plights to encompass the impact of social constraints on individuals. Plath’s unsuccessful struggle to adjust to the enforced gender roles emerges in her rigid form, asking “will you marry it, marry it, marry it”. The triple utterance of third-person pronouns and declarative syntax engineer a critique of the coercive social pressures of Cold War family unit that is irrationally adopted by mechanised women and weak men. Facilitating social discourse through the objectification and dehumanising language, Plath mimetically moulds her society into “living dolls” to mirror her frustration with her society’s mindless desire to “make new stock from the salt”. The continuation of the sales motif and utilitarian usage of tears disregard human existence, ultimately demeaning the capitalist regime that prioritises stability over human relations. As Takahata’s biographical work later elucidates, the difficulties of keeping one’s humanity is a concern for all ages, with Grave of the Fireflies representing the loss of morality in the incendiary bombings. The potent montage of child corpses establishes through the narrative voiceover “[this is] the night I died”. Juxtaposed with the irritated tone of a passing comment on the “disgraceful[ness] of having these bums here in front of [the Americans]”, Takahata’s brutally honest depiction of Japanese society suggests their inner kindness was lost amid self-preservation. He discomforts the audience into asking whether the political anxiety was worth the loss of human connections, questioning “why must fireflies die so young?” The closeup and high angle of 4-year-old Setsuko’s rhetorical question accentuate the failed attempts of keeping one’s innocence before the prioritisation of the capitalist world eradicated our humanity. The motif of fireflies, the Japanese symbol of the human soul, is paralleled with the corruption of the human condition, enlightening the responders with the emotional degradation of texts just as evocatively as Plath before him. Both composers centralise their concerns of Cold War ideals, their works painting timeless scenarios where political issues defeated humanity’s own morality.
 
Challenging notions of the past in political and private spheres, Cold War era texts struggle to make sense of a dynamic world.  Ensuing from World War Two’s atrocious crimes, the post-modernist style of the texts depicts the devaluing of life in their 1950s zeitgeist, demeaning the previous generation’s religious and governmental faith. Lucky’s speech represents both the play and the outside world, lacking structure and coherency with senseless accounts of “divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia”. The lengthy monologue deconstructs all notions of metalanguage, the lack of punctuation accentuating the believed apathy of the Christian God in a postmodern “incredulity towards metanarratives” (Jean-Francois Lyotard). Suggesting “all of mankind is us” in the existentialist experience, Beckett’s inclusive pronouns universalise the search for external answers to humanity’s purpose, finding none in God. Likewise, Ginsberg parodies the masses’ unconditional belief in government propaganda, sardonically commanding “America free Tom Mooney” and “America save the Spanish loyalists” through declarative verbs and anaphora. A contrast to Beckett’s nihilism, the poet exemplifies the citizens’ lack of agency and absolute trust in authority to attack the meaning of life across the times, focusing on the past rather than one’s self-agency. Stemming from a post-War disillusionment with geopolitics and a political landscape of indoctrination., Ginsberg demeans the importance placed on ‘nations’ over individuals, before “it occurs to [him] that [he is] America” and is “talking to [himself] again”. Nihilistic overtones and the personification position the reader to critique the capitalist world’s attempt to play god, profiting from the decline of its people. As first-person pronouns eradicate the justification of human existence and self-worth for an ideological war, the poet embodies the Beat Generation’s shared disillusionment with political dogmas after the war. Like Ginsberg, Beckett also positions audiences from all times to question perceived truths and the fundamental basis of human existence, his protagonists exemplifying humanity’s condemned pursuit to find a greater purpose. Vladimir’s trust in pre-war religious conservatism is juxtaposed with Estragon’s adjective-infused imagery of God as “very pretty” and “pale blue”, creating an incongruous perspective on existential nihilism brought by the declining religiosity after the war. An absurdist representation of the Second Coming of Christ, Estragon’s perpetual attempts to end their waiting game and “go” are steadily met with Vladimir’s stichomythic reply they must “[wait] for Godot”. Godot’s failure to arrive validates strengthening nihilistic and existentialistic views, influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd. A post-war theatre style focusing on the metaphysical anguish of the era, Estragon’s repetition demotes the dependency on a God-like figure with Vladimir’s resulting clipped tone mirroring theocentric Western nations, disillusioned by a God who never arrives. Both Ginsberg and Beckett question the basis of human existence amongst reliance on aloof, external factors, the underlying absurdity struggling to make sense of their world.
 
Composers often urge their responders to accept their identity in times of coercion, despite no apparent solution to the mystery of being. Amidst a humanist context with a focus on the value of personal connections, both composers grapple with the human condition, developing approval of their own self-worth and identity. Painting his world as an absurdist extrapolation of his times, Beckett parallels the evasive attitude to the conceptual Cold War and the circumvention that began the Second World War. His Pozzo “laughs” out that his “generation…is not any unhappier than its predecessors” before desiring they “not speak of it at all”. Mirroring the populace’s ambivalence to their own self, the formal language and tone indicates a sense of emotional stunting, acknowledging one’s past to develop insight for the future. Like Beckett’s promotion of one’s identity, Plath’s confessional poem ‘Morning Song’ contrasts the titular wordplay between the hopeful connotations of ‘morning’ and a fresh start to motherhood, with the hopeless implications of ‘mourning’ as having ended her life as a successful poet. By admitting “[she’s] no more [a] mother/ than the cloud that…reflects its own effacement”, her evocative imagery analogises giving birth to the demise of clouds; through birth, women subsume their identity into overwhelming maternal pressures, thinking and softening. The personal tone of her enjambment joins the extended motif of motherhood to suggest familial relationships have been disrupted and corrupted by the Cold War. Removed from the stereotypical illusion of a 1950s family from her single-parent upbringing, Plath’s form empowers her own struggles to connect to her child’s innate humanity and the “clear vowels rising like balloons”. The freeverse creates a surreal, stream of consciousness style, synaesthesia and similes stimulating a sense of the instinctual love a mother feels as Plath accepts her child. Realising her identity is more than socially-enforced gender roles, Plath reaffirms a reconnection to individuals and embraces herself to create self-worth, vital for mankind to function. Likewise, ‘Waiting For Godot’s nihilistic attitudes are defied by the symbiotic friendship between Vladimir and Estragon. Scenes where Vladimir “lays [his coat] across Estragon's shoulders” before “swinging his arms to keep himself warm” are deliberately included to demonstrate the foundation of human existence as our connections with others. Drawn from Beckett’s experience in the French resistance, where loyal friends were betrayed and murdered by the Gestapo, the stage directions prove there is more to being human than a pessimistic outlook, with personal relations developing one’s sense of self and life experience. Through their mutual address of intimate connections, both Beckett and Plath shape their work to represent the vitality of the human condition and life.
 
Cold War era texts explore what it means to be human in a tense or existentialist world, with their composers’ perceptions of the era intrinsically influencing the works. Through the nihilistic consequences of losing aspects of oneself, Beckett and Ginsberg subvert the past to find a meaning to our existence, while Plath and Takahata elucidate the necessity of morality in a world that prioritises stability amid prevalent social constructs. Reflecting the composers’ beliefs, the texts allow the audience to discover renewed insights and explore the concerns of an uncertain world.

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bananna on October 26, 2017, 10:23:49 am

Hey Elise!


Do you think you could take a look at my generic Ext1 essay?

Spoiler

The post-WWII era was characterised by an intense questioning of humanity and laced with a sense of insecurity and futility in response to shifting societal values. After the Bomb texts demonstrate an intensified questioning of both the political and personal spheres as well as the values that permeate them as a result of an ideological standstill between Western and Eastern values. It is this questioning that underpins the enduring relevance of these texts. Sylvia Plath’s 1965 poetic anthology, Ariel, in particular, poems Arrival of the Bee Box and Morning Song, as well as John Hersey’s non-fiction memoir Hiroshima (1946), examine the relationship between the personal and political; Plath’s focus lies in the convergence of these spheres, while Hiroshima focuses on the divergence of these spheres. Composers Samuel Beckett and George Tooker both draw attention to shifting societal values by highlighting the nexus between powerlessness and confinement in their respective texts—play Waiting for Godot (1953) and painting The Subway (1950). All four texts highlight the predominantly negative ways of thinking when viewed from a powerless perspective.  In this way of drawing on the challenges of post WWII life, composers seek to capture a variety of individual struggles.

Exhibiting a desire to both conform to and rebel against society’s standards, Plath’s Arrival of the Bee Box embodies the style of confessional poetry, expounding the intensity of the nexus between the personal and political. Plath’s attempt to take control over her identity is alluded to in “I ordered,” depicting the dichotomous relationship between power and subjugation. Plath however, depicts her nurturing side as she wonders “how hungry they are,” alluding to a conformity to societal standards of maternal instincts. Plath’s onomatopoeic reference to the feeling of “African hands,” is a phenomenological approach to race and gender that symbolises a rebel against society’s standards, simultaneously bringing to light the decolonization of African countries following WWII. Plath is hence “privileged in her whiteness,” (Ellen Miller) but victimized and powerless in her femininity. The persona, does not consider herself a mother to the bees; rather emphasising her role a ‘protector;’ diction free from gender bias.
                           
                            This notion of flouting societal expectation of identity is heightened in the persona’s disregard of the socially promoted identity of a mother in Morning Song. The title possesses homophones: ‘morning’ and ‘mourning’ which allude to a sense of the persona’s grief and post-natal depression. Furthermore, the enjambment within, “I am no more your mother than the cloud that distils a mirror” elucidates the persona’s ironic lack of recognition of an undeniable bond. As De Beauvoir colloquially states, a woman may feel detached from her child as “she has no past in common with this little stranger”, reason enough for the persona of ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ to not identify with the term ‘mother’. Thus, Plath’s identification of incomprehensible societal expectations, and her subsequent call to action against the political sphere exhibits her conformity and rebellion against social values in the Cold War period.

While Plath politicizes her identity containment, Hersey’s text elevates the personal above the political. This is highlighted in the personalization and dependence on religion. When civilians learned it was nuclear fission that caused the explosion, they named it “genshi bakudan,” original child bomb. Japanese vernacular alludes to scientific paradigms subverted for human gain, while the verisimiltudinous of the memoir highlights the pure amazement the civilians felt. Further, the apoliticisation of the bomb is epitomized in the genuine heartfelt belief to pray for them with no resentment. Virginia’s Senator A. Willis Robertson declared himself “dumfounded yet inspired” that a man they attempted to kill “asked God to bless every member of the Senate.” America’s cruel treatment of Japan is contrasted with the actions of a Japanese reverend, echoing the Biblical teaching in an allusion to Luke 6: “Love your enemies… pray for those who mistreat you”. This moment between former political enemies, illuminates the quintessence of existentialism—the freedom of choice—to agree with political powers or to stay true to individual and religious morals. The apolitical response to the bomb-drop is allusive of ‘Japanese stoicism,’ an exclusively Eastern morale. Therefore, Hersey’s Hiroshima elevates the personal over political through religious values.

The nexus between powerlessness and confinement in Waiting for Godot reveals the effect of the Cold War on the common man. As a result of political instability following WW2, the common man had not the ability to run or hide. Imprisoned by the ambit of the stage, Vladimir and Estragon rely on an external source to empower them; Godot, likening itself to man’s search for power in politics. Vladimir and Estragon do not have purpose; their powerless state emphasises the pointlessness of actions, so the need for a complication is futile. While Americans initially viewed their position in the post-war world with optimism, (following their success against Germany and Japan in 1945) a new form of international tension; the Cold War emerged, causing a sense of powerlessness in the common man. The clever manipulation of Theatre of the Absurd highlights, yet subverts this ideology with sardonic and comedic undertones. The exclamation “We’re surrounded!” is humourous yet insightful, highlighting Beckett’s attitudes to his changing world. The irony of this statement lies in the sparse play setting and staging. Passage of time between Act 1 and 2 is clear due to the growth of “four or five leaves,” on the tree; an ambiguous stage direction portraying a level of uncertainty. Authorial intrusion shows even props growing and sprouting more progress than the characters—emphasising Vladimir and Estragon’s incapacity to take control of their own lives, similar to common man’s futility. Thus, the powerlessness of the characters of Beckett’s play is reflective of the common mans’ in post-WW2 society.

 Like Waiting for Godot, The Subway emphasises the impact of Cold War ideologies and attitudes on the common man. This specifically translates into the confinement and powerlessness felt by individuals as a result of existing attitudes and political beliefs. Often seen as a Social Realist, Tooker says of his works, “I am after reality,” drawing on the political turmoil of the ‘40s and ‘50s as inspiration. His generalised female figures, with similar mask-like features emphasise post-WWII ways of thinking; anyone who acted differently, was subverting ideals. Tooker’s use of hand-made egg tempera is evident in his piece through cross-hatching the subway floor, creating coarse texture. The harsh, utilitarian setting is thus made clear, reflecting the fears of Communist subversion which gripped domestic politics. The Cold War was a period that hindered rationality, which Sartre called a form of “bad faith,” preventing humanity’s search for freedom. The salient figure with an unnerving, concerned mien, suggests her psychological estrangement from the crowd, despite their physical proximity. Tooker’s tempera on composition board medium form causes the woman to stay frozen in time. Composers of the Cold War period depict figures whose actions are completely reactionary; stemming from their complete and utter powerlessness which is paralleled by the utter powerlessness and confinement the common man felt in the era.


Attitudes, reactions and consequences of power play a key role in shaping people’s attitudes and thinking. Texts that use a variety of means to critique the scope, role and implications of power have a far-reaching impact on the way people think. The relationship between personal and political power separates Hiroshima and Ariel from the powerlessness faced by the common man in Waiting for Godot, and the woman in The Subway. However, all four texts showcase victims. What fundamentally separates the personas, are their attitudes—Plath and the Japanese refuse to act and think like victims—they are survivors. Whereas, individuals who think of themselves as powerless are the ones who remain powerless. Whether it is something as simple as waiting for Godot or being frozen in place, a shift in thinking occurs.
                          Even readers are at the mercy of the patriarchy and government… yet it is their thinking, and reading texts that depict the effects and dynamics of thought that allows us to either empower themselves, or to flounder in powerlessness.

Through the comparison of five texts rooted in the post-war period, an understanding of the perils of war is understood. Plath’s ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ and Morning Song depicts need for the nexus between the individual and politics, while characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima refuse to become political in fear of hatred. Waiting for Godot and The Subway explore themes of powerlessness and isolation highlighted in the freedom and confinement of the characters. Hence, Cold War literature articulates the growing fear and existential concerns of period to a great extent, and the study of it in modern times explicates its relevance

I feel my Waiting for Godot paragraph is inferior, and pulling down my essay. How could I improve it?

Also, if you could please give it a mark out of 25 ?


THANK YOU SO MUCH and kind regards,

Annabel :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 02:14:35 pm

Hi all! The exam is on Monday, eeeeeep. I'm going to get to the above three responses by tomorrow 11am so they're out of the park. I don't typically like marking the day before an exam because it stresses people out a lot, but also in this instance I've got a 60% assignment due on Monday 9am so I cannot even guarantee that on Sunday afternoon I'll be able to commit to providing feedback. So I'll be here to answer questions, but in terms of marking - just know that the weekend might have a bit of a blockade.

To the three above - you'll receive feedback in the next 24 hours :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 08:55:12 pm

Quote from: paigek3 on October 24, 2017, 11:28:46 am

Okay perfect I will head over and work on it now!

Here is my creative writing, now I warn you, creatives have always been something I have struggled with. I honestly love the setting/idea/event I am exploring in it because I find it so interesting, and little bits I do like. But overall I feel as though it isn't at the standard of an E4 at all, and I am just stuck on how to fix it. Hopefully you think different, or know some ways to make it a whole lot better, as I am sure you do :) Would appreciate your help so much! Thanks again :)

Hi Ella :) Thanks for your patience! I'll have a read now and get to your PM shortly :)

Spoiler

I sat down at the dinner table and reached out anxiously, grabbing my wife Elke’s hand, “I can’t do this anymore,” I exclaimed pointing down to the crossword I was doing. Her eyes fell to where my finger landed on the newspaper, as it read ‘EAST’. It was all bugged – the apartment, the car – everything. The Stasi surveilled every aspect of our daily lives, to make sure no one was disloyal. Anytime we needed to express our displeasure with the East we would have to talk in code to limit the risk of getting caught.  New line for a new speaker :) “Honey, you just have to keep doing the crossword, you can’t stop,” she replied metaphorically.
“We need to,” I whispered.
“We can’t Frank,”
“We can try.”
I like the way you've formatted this dialogue, back and forth, no verb. Really simple, really reflective of the angst and tight control.
***************************************************************************

I stepped off the plane in Australia for the 1956 Summer Olympic games with the United Team of Germany as the scorching sun joined hues of honeycomb yellow with a fierce orange. It glistened and warmed my skin, as I heard voices of friendly tones that spoke replacing ‘er’s with ‘ah’s. It was beautiful – a land of friendly people, and most admirably, freedom. It was the last time I had any contact with the West.

These people weren’t trapped by an iron curtain, they could live their lives free of surveillance. The Australians treated us strangers with kindness, a trait that we forgot existed back where we had come from.

Back in my motherland, Olympic athletes were pampered. We were treated much better than everyone else because the government did not want any talent leaving to the West. Though even with this status, threats of nuclear weaponry and mass destruction across the world was enough to destroy any sense of safety. Uncertainty in the world was frightening enough, but we were more afraid of the powers within our nation.

I opened the door to what we hollowly called home, because our habitation was at the very most a shelter. We lived on the second floor, the paint of the apartment building peeled, revealing the muck that lay trapped from neglect. We were fortunate to live in a place that had windows that were attached to their frames. It was the first time I had been home since leaving for the Games.

Elke sat on the couch with our four-year-old son Wolfgang in her arms. Her blonde hair was pinned back, with the strands that lay loose placed behind her ear. Her cobalt eyes sparkled as they fixed on me walking through the door. Wolfgang’s eyes as blue as the ocean were following a toy plane he had in his hand, and his hair was the same colour as the snow white sand I saw in Australia.

They were the only reason I had any pull to come back to East Berlin. Elke gave me a gentle hug resting her head on my shoulder as our blonde hair faded into one another’s, whilst Wolfgang wrapped his short arms around my leg.

I sat with Elke on the couch and told her stories of Australia and the Games – the water polo bloodbath that was Hungary against the USSR, the way my delayed start caused me to finish fourth in my race, and the land of the free that was the incredible country I had set foot on. I told her that we needed to go. We needed to escape. We began to bicker, Elke demanded taking the risk was too great, I agreed – indeed, the risk would be ‘great’. Elke pulled at her hair shouting that it is too selfish for us to do, I argued back saying it was selfish of us not to escape, whilst Wolfgang remained in a deep sleep through his afternoon nap. “We are lucky enough, Frank,” she quietly said, caressing my chin after calming down.  I'd put this on it's own line so it really stands out as a calm movement after the chaos.

Slowly I stood up out of the chair that was withering away, looking out through window that sat tilted noticeably too far to its left. The streets were dreary, buildings stood wrecked from negligence and soldiers were on almost every corner, especially the closer to the Wall you got. They walked side by side in uniforms that could not be described using any colour but ‘dull’. East Berlin had not changed much since I was a child, except for the fact that smoke clouds from the projection of nuclear weapons being tested had been exchanged for flashing from the projection of bullets across the Wall - it was in ruins in every meaning of the word possible.

Elke joined a line that formed in front of the store, only a block away from the apartment. Just like the Wall, forming lines had become a part of daily life. We weren’t always sure of what exactly we were lining up for, but we knew we would probably need it. Elke cradled the treasure in her hands like it was our own child, ensuring she would not drop it.

Its colour flashed vividly, almost as if the sun was reflecting golden rays off it. It was the only colour other than red that I had seen in a while. It was a banana. These last three sentences aren't clear - the "it" that begins each of the second two sentences seems to refer to different things? Is the first one the banana "it", the second is the sun being the only colour? and then the banana again? The succession of "its' is confusing :) They were sparse, and getting your hands on one was as about as exciting as daily life would get in Mitte.

Elke went to sleep that night staring out at the sky where the moon beamed brightly through the curtains of the bedroom. It was almost as if it was sitting in the West, too afraid to venture into the East. I drifted off, but awoke turbulently as Elke sprung up from where she lay as the clock struck three. Gasping for air, she cried “I can’t do the crossword anymore, Frank”. I stared into her eyes in shock from hearing her say those words, as well as being dazed. I never found out whether she had been dreaming of soft fields of green grass meeting with radiant shades of yellow, red and blue, or if instead it was a nightmare full of red, but she knew we had to be with the moon. We had to go.

We spent the next week talking in puzzle by using the newspaper to point out words of ‘Monday’, ‘car’ and ‘Charlie’, to make plans of the escape ensuring we would not get caught. We decided it would be too hard for the three of us to go together – I was escaping first. We lived in Tieckstraße, only 800m from the Wall and just under 3km from Checkpoint Charlie. (Side note: I went to Checkpoint Charlie a few months ago and it's stupidly Americanised for tourists) I knocked on an old Austrian man named Martin’s door, who lived in our building. After an hour of asking him about his car and his family on the other side, he finally understood on what I was attempting to communicate, and agreed to smuggle me over in his car when he was heading to see one of his brothers in the West.

On the day of escape my wife and son walked out the front of the apartment block with me where Martin was going to pick me up. I gave Wolfgang a kiss on the cheek and ensuring I remembered his smiling, innocent face. I then turned to Elke and lightly pressed my lips onto her forehead and shakily told her I loved her before it was time to go.

Martin had a compartment at the bottom of the back seat of his car which he would use to store anything his brother’s in the West gave him that he knew he would not be allowed in the East. I was going to hide in there, with a blanket on top in case the guards had any suspicion of the compartment. As the car rolled closer to Checkpoint Charlie I hid, curling up every inch of my body to avoid being seen. Its wheels made a cracking noise as they slowly went over the gravel that lay underneath. My heart began to race and palms became sweaty as I heard Martin talking to the guard, but there was only one word on my mind – freedom. The car began to move again, but this time it was much faster than before. I couldn’t see anything but I presumed we had made it to the West. The corners of my mouth went up, as did the butterflies that had laid at the pit of my stomach, dormant for years – I had not smiled like this since the day Wolfgang was born, or the day I stepped off the plane into Australia.

My eyes would soon be filled with vibrant colour of blue, pink, red, orange, green, yellow and purples. I rose from my hiding place, full of excitement, faith and – everything turned black. Where was the colour? There was no flashing of a burning gun anymore, no dull soldier uniforms, no shades of Communism red. Freedom was only an illusion. There was nothing.

I made almost no comments throughout but I want to offer some things down here instead because it's more about plot structure than anything else. The ending doesn't make sense to me, I've thought of a few different metaphors about the "nothing" and what it could be or what it means. I don't understand why everything turned black when he sat up?

With the writing style, it's quite declarative, recounting, and non-emotional. I thought this could be a reflection of the regime, but because the character seems to have seen and longed for such a vibrancy in Australia and in the imagination of the West, I'd find it more suitable for the writing style to be more embellished. Everything is being recounted, and I can't offer a lot of sympathy because there is that lack of emotion, so I can't gel with the character. I also think the sporting star thing is a great idea, being an athlete and understanding that more privileged treatment is wonderful, a really unique avenue I haven't seen before. But the Australia memory feels random because it's at the beginning, and then not a feature until the end again when I remembered that once he stepped off the plane to Aus. So for this reason I'm left wishing there was more significance to Australia.

In terms of ways of thinking, it explores that East Vs West, longing for freedom, style of thought. But in terms of gender, economy, religion, spirituality, sense of self - there's not a lot there, and I think this is an area you could surely gain some extra marks in. By adding extra references (embedded, of course) you're showing a more wholesome way that they interact to create the ways of thinking of the period. I remember you shied from the ways of thinking a little bit in your essay too, so don't be afraid to really grapple with them because this is what the module requires of you.

The names, experiences, and setting of this story is all very believable and well supported - so major points for that!

I hope this makes sense and you won't be upset that you can improve on over the weekend. Be in touch Ella :)

Edit: Just showered and came back with another idea. You could also quite easily turn this into a speech, so you do a lot of recounting and then at the end you could slice some pieces out so that they are in front of a lectern explaining their story? Maybe bring in a metaphor about athleticism and competitions?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 27, 2017, 09:14:49 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 08:55:12 pm

Hi Ella :) Thanks for your patience! I'll have a read now and get to your PM shortly :)

Spoiler

I sat down at the dinner table and reached out anxiously, grabbing my wife Elke’s hand, “I can’t do this anymore,” I exclaimed pointing down to the crossword I was doing. Her eyes fell to where my finger landed on the newspaper, as it read ‘EAST’. It was all bugged – the apartment, the car – everything. The Stasi surveilled every aspect of our daily lives, to make sure no one was disloyal. Anytime we needed to express our displeasure with the East we would have to talk in code to limit the risk of getting caught.  New line for a new speaker :) “Honey, you just have to keep doing the crossword, you can’t stop,” she replied metaphorically.
“We need to,” I whispered.
“We can’t Frank,”
“We can try.”
I like the way you've formatted this dialogue, back and forth, no verb. Really simple, really reflective of the angst and tight control.
***************************************************************************

I stepped off the plane in Australia for the 1956 Summer Olympic games with the United Team of Germany as the scorching sun joined hues of honeycomb yellow with a fierce orange. It glistened and warmed my skin, as I heard voices of friendly tones that spoke replacing ‘er’s with ‘ah’s. It was beautiful – a land of friendly people, and most admirably, freedom. It was the last time I had any contact with the West.

These people weren’t trapped by an iron curtain, they could live their lives free of surveillance. The Australians treated us strangers with kindness, a trait that we forgot existed back where we had come from.

Back in my motherland, Olympic athletes were pampered. We were treated much better than everyone else because the government did not want any talent leaving to the West. Though even with this status, threats of nuclear weaponry and mass destruction across the world was enough to destroy any sense of safety. Uncertainty in the world was frightening enough, but we were more afraid of the powers within our nation.

I opened the door to what we hollowly called home, because our habitation was at the very most a shelter. We lived on the second floor, the paint of the apartment building peeled, revealing the muck that lay trapped from neglect. We were fortunate to live in a place that had windows that were attached to their frames. It was the first time I had been home since leaving for the Games.

Elke sat on the couch with our four-year-old son Wolfgang in her arms. Her blonde hair was pinned back, with the strands that lay loose placed behind her ear. Her cobalt eyes sparkled as they fixed on me walking through the door. Wolfgang’s eyes as blue as the ocean were following a toy plane he had in his hand, and his hair was the same colour as the snow white sand I saw in Australia.

They were the only reason I had any pull to come back to East Berlin. Elke gave me a gentle hug resting her head on my shoulder as our blonde hair faded into one another’s, whilst Wolfgang wrapped his short arms around my leg.

I sat with Elke on the couch and told her stories of Australia and the Games – the water polo bloodbath that was Hungary against the USSR, the way my delayed start caused me to finish fourth in my race, and the land of the free that was the incredible country I had set foot on. I told her that we needed to go. We needed to escape. We began to bicker, Elke demanded taking the risk was too great, I agreed – indeed, the risk would be ‘great’. Elke pulled at her hair shouting that it is too selfish for us to do, I argued back saying it was selfish of us not to escape, whilst Wolfgang remained in a deep sleep through his afternoon nap. “We are lucky enough, Frank,” she quietly said, caressing my chin after calming down.  I'd put this on it's own line so it really stands out as a calm movement after the chaos.

Slowly I stood up out of the chair that was withering away, looking out through window that sat tilted noticeably too far to its left. The streets were dreary, buildings stood wrecked from negligence and soldiers were on almost every corner, especially the closer to the Wall you got. They walked side by side in uniforms that could not be described using any colour but ‘dull’. East Berlin had not changed much since I was a child, except for the fact that smoke clouds from the projection of nuclear weapons being tested had been exchanged for flashing from the projection of bullets across the Wall - it was in ruins in every meaning of the word possible.

Elke joined a line that formed in front of the store, only a block away from the apartment. Just like the Wall, forming lines had become a part of daily life. We weren’t always sure of what exactly we were lining up for, but we knew we would probably need it. Elke cradled the treasure in her hands like it was our own child, ensuring she would not drop it.

Its colour flashed vividly, almost as if the sun was reflecting golden rays off it. It was the only colour other than red that I had seen in a while. It was a banana. These last three sentences aren't clear - the "it" that begins each of the second two sentences seems to refer to different things? Is the first one the banana "it", the second is the sun being the only colour? and then the banana again? The succession of "its' is confusing :) They were sparse, and getting your hands on one was as about as exciting as daily life would get in Mitte.

Elke went to sleep that night staring out at the sky where the moon beamed brightly through the curtains of the bedroom. It was almost as if it was sitting in the West, too afraid to venture into the East. I drifted off, but awoke turbulently as Elke sprung up from where she lay as the clock struck three. Gasping for air, she cried “I can’t do the crossword anymore, Frank”. I stared into her eyes in shock from hearing her say those words, as well as being dazed. I never found out whether she had been dreaming of soft fields of green grass meeting with radiant shades of yellow, red and blue, or if instead it was a nightmare full of red, but she knew we had to be with the moon. We had to go.

We spent the next week talking in puzzle by using the newspaper to point out words of ‘Monday’, ‘car’ and ‘Charlie’, to make plans of the escape ensuring we would not get caught. We decided it would be too hard for the three of us to go together – I was escaping first. We lived in Tieckstraße, only 800m from the Wall and just under 3km from Checkpoint Charlie. (Side note: I went to Checkpoint Charlie a few months ago and it's stupidly Americanised for tourists) I knocked on an old Austrian man named Martin’s door, who lived in our building. After an hour of asking him about his car and his family on the other side, he finally understood on what I was attempting to communicate, and agreed to smuggle me over in his car when he was heading to see one of his brothers in the West.

On the day of escape my wife and son walked out the front of the apartment block with me where Martin was going to pick me up. I gave Wolfgang a kiss on the cheek and ensuring I remembered his smiling, innocent face. I then turned to Elke and lightly pressed my lips onto her forehead and shakily told her I loved her before it was time to go.

Martin had a compartment at the bottom of the back seat of his car which he would use to store anything his brother’s in the West gave him that he knew he would not be allowed in the East. I was going to hide in there, with a blanket on top in case the guards had any suspicion of the compartment. As the car rolled closer to Checkpoint Charlie I hid, curling up every inch of my body to avoid being seen. Its wheels made a cracking noise as they slowly went over the gravel that lay underneath. My heart began to race and palms became sweaty as I heard Martin talking to the guard, but there was only one word on my mind – freedom. The car began to move again, but this time it was much faster than before. I couldn’t see anything but I presumed we had made it to the West. The corners of my mouth went up, as did the butterflies that had laid at the pit of my stomach, dormant for years – I had not smiled like this since the day Wolfgang was born, or the day I stepped off the plane into Australia.

My eyes would soon be filled with vibrant colour of blue, pink, red, orange, green, yellow and purples. I rose from my hiding place, full of excitement, faith and – everything turned black. Where was the colour? There was no flashing of a burning gun anymore, no dull soldier uniforms, no shades of Communism red. Freedom was only an illusion. There was nothing.

I made almost no comments throughout but I want to offer some things down here instead because it's more about plot structure than anything else. The ending doesn't make sense to me, I've thought of a few different metaphors about the "nothing" and what it could be or what it means. I don't understand why everything turned black when he sat up?

With the writing style, it's quite declarative, recounting, and non-emotional. I thought this could be a reflection of the regime, but because the character seems to have seen and longed for such a vibrancy in Australia and in the imagination of the West, I'd find it more suitable for the writing style to be more embellished. Everything is being recounted, and I can't offer a lot of sympathy because there is that lack of emotion, so I can't gel with the character. I also think the sporting star thing is a great idea, being an athlete and understanding that more privileged treatment is wonderful, a really unique avenue I haven't seen before. But the Australia memory feels random because it's at the beginning, and then not a feature until the end again when I remembered that once he stepped off the plane to Aus. So for this reason I'm left wishing there was more significance to Australia.

In terms of ways of thinking, it explores that East Vs West, longing for freedom, style of thought. But in terms of gender, economy, religion, spirituality, sense of self - there's not a lot there, and I think this is an area you could surely gain some extra marks in. By adding extra references (embedded, of course) you're showing a more wholesome way that they interact to create the ways of thinking of the period. I remember you shied from the ways of thinking a little bit in your essay too, so don't be afraid to really grapple with them because this is what the module requires of you.

The names, experiences, and setting of this story is all very believable and well supported - so major points for that!

I hope this makes sense and you won't be upset that you can improve on over the weekend. Be in touch Ella :)

Edit: Just showered and came back with another idea. You could also quite easily turn this into a speech, so you do a lot of recounting and then at the end you could slice some pieces out so that they are in front of a lectern explaining their story? Maybe bring in a metaphor about athleticism and competitions?

Thank you sooo much Elyse! Your guidance will help me so so much! Any tips on how exactly to include the gender, religion etc. ways of thinking in?? And is a speech risky or is it completely fine?

EDIT: Which would you say my weakest/most uneccessary section was? Just worried about how much I can write bc my essay is so long, and wanna be able to fit the speech sections in!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 09:24:07 pm

Quote from: paigek3 on October 27, 2017, 09:14:49 pm

Thank you sooo much Elyse! Your guidance will help me so so much! Any tips on how exactly to include the gender, religion etc. ways of thinking in?? And is a speech risky or is it completely fine?

EDIT: Which would you say my weakest/most uneccessary section was? Just worried about how much I can write bc my essay is so long, and wanna be able to fit the speech sections in!

I did a speech and I think it helped me to incorporate ways of thinking in a far more direct manner. And your writing style at present isn't very embellished, so it's not a far leap into a speech anyway. It is personally how I would go about it, but I understand it's a big and daunting call!

I think the weakest part is the way the story is told for the most part in a declarative, recounting, non-emotional manner. Even if I thought the ending was whizzbangingly spectacular, I think I'd still resent the length of time spent just explaining events, rather than throwing me into them, leaving me shocked, teasing me with little snippets of info, etc. Then, the ending. Can you tell me what you hoped for the ending with the nothingness? Maybe I can help you with that part if I know your vision?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 27, 2017, 09:29:13 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 09:24:07 pm

I did a speech and I think it helped me to incorporate ways of thinking in a far more direct manner. And your writing style at present isn't very embellished, so it's not a far leap into a speech anyway. It is personally how I would go about it, but I understand it's a big and daunting call!

I think the weakest part is the way the story is told for the most part in a declarative, recounting, non-emotional manner. Even if I thought the ending was whizzbangingly spectacular, I think I'd still resent the length of time spent just explaining events, rather than throwing me into them, leaving me shocked, teasing me with little snippets of info, etc. Then, the ending. Can you tell me what you hoped for the ending with the nothingness? Maybe I can help you with that part if I know your vision?

Was trying to express that he was shot as he went through Checkpoint charlie ahaha

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 09:51:23 pm

Quote from: paigek3 on October 27, 2017, 09:29:13 pm

Was trying to express that he was shot as he went through Checkpoint charlie ahaha

Right! This did cross my mind but the thing that threw me mostly was the “illusion” bit, about how he could make a judgement from death, but even that aside, how could he make a judgement about the West and what freedom is when he hasn’t yet been there. It’s implying that freedom doesn’t exist - which is not true, he just didn’t make it there. It did prompt some great (non-intentional) ideas about freedom being an illusion, though. It’s a strong piece that could work throughout the piece.

But I think if you ended the story with a severe change of narration and something almost like a plaque for the deceased, like a historian is speaker about a casualty, it could work. But this doesn’t really tie in best.

I’d work on the body first and decide on the ending accordingly! Leave the ending for now.

Are you unsure of where to go next or do you have a few ideas to explore?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 27, 2017, 10:23:21 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 27, 2017, 09:51:23 pm

Right! This did cross my mind but the thing that threw me mostly was the “illusion” bit, about how he could make a judgement from death, but even that aside, how could he make a judgement about the West and what freedom is when he hasn’t yet been there. It’s implying that freedom doesn’t exist - which is not true, he just didn’t make it there. It did prompt some great (non-intentional) ideas about freedom being an illusion, though. It’s a strong piece that could work throughout the piece.

But I think if you ended the story with a severe change of narration and something almost like a plaque for the deceased, like a historian is speaker about a casualty, it could work. But this doesn’t really tie in best.

I’d work on the body first and decide on the ending accordingly! Leave the ending for now.

Are you unsure of where to go next or do you have a few ideas to explore?

I’ll have a proper think about it all in the morning and get back to you. Thanks so much so far!

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 28, 2017, 08:12:05 am

Quote from: justwannawish on October 25, 2017, 06:46:00 pm

Hey, I was hoping you could look over a generic essay I wrote for extension! I have so many doubts about it (and whether it properly addresses ways of thinking) so any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Somehow the italics around the titles have been destroyed bc of my phone, but don't worry I'll remember them in the exam!

Hey there :) I certainly can check it out!

Spoiler

Responding to the intensifying paranoia around nuclear warfare, composers of the Cold War era distinctly manipulate their works to confront the essence of humanity in the times. Love allllll of this until "in the times" where it seems ambiguous, you could take "in the times" off the end and the sentence would sit great. As authors contemplate the rising political tensions between capitalism and communism, they ultimately enable audiences from all milieu to redefine the value of life amid domestic containment and the growing philosophy of existentialism, a belief based on individual agents defining the meaning of existence. After being exposed to a climate of paranoia, Samuel Beckett’s 1949 play, Waiting for Godot, and Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 poem, America, both share a post-modernist style to critique their salient disillusionment with the War and how it demeans self-agency for external factors. Likewise, Sylvia Plath’s 1965 poetry oeuvre Ariel and Isao Takahata’s 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies capture the absence of self-identity and human morality, reflecting their composers’ attitude to their conservative societies. All four texts encourage their responders to share the need for humanity within the competing discourses of their zeitgeist. Great introduction! Really, really, good!
 
Stemming from their composers’ disenchantment with Cold War politics, texts often mirror the dichotomy between social stability and the resulting paralysis of human ethics. A sceptical outlook of an irrational Western world, Plath and Takahata both construct microcosms of 1950s America and post-Hiroshima Japan, emulating how fears of an atomic holocaust facilitated a culture of domestic containment. Plath’s The Applicant entwines promises of societal stability with the second wave feminist movement, giving her “naked” applicant a “suit” to protect him against “fire and bombs”. Her enjambment rejects traditional verse to challenge her Western society’s retreat to conservative gender roles to control an uncontrollable war. The poet marries the wordplay of “suit”, a metonym for marriage and a symbol for a radiation suit, with the vulnerable connotations of “naked”, extending beyond her personal plights to encompass the impact of social constraints on individuals. Plath’s unsuccessful struggle to adjust to the enforced gender roles emerges in her rigid form, asking “will you marry it, marry it, marry it”. The triple utterance of third-person pronouns and declarative syntax engineer a critique of the coercive social pressures of Cold War family unit that is irrationally adopted by mechanised women and weak men. Love your use of language in this one! Facilitating social discourse through the objectification and dehumanising language, Plath mimetically moulds her society into “living dolls” to mirror her frustration with her society’s mindless desire to “make new stock from the salt”. The continuation of the sales motif and utilitarian usage of tears disregard human existence, ultimately demeaning the capitalist regime that prioritises stability over human relations. As Takahata’s biographical work later elucidates, the difficulties of keeping one’s humanity is a concern for all ages, with Grave of the Fireflies representing the loss of morality in the incendiary bombings. The potent montage of child corpses establishes through the narrative voiceover “[this is] the night I died”. Juxtaposed with the irritated tone of a passing comment on the “disgraceful[ness] of having these bums here in front of [the Americans]”, Takahata’s brutally honest depiction of Japanese society suggests their inner kindness was lost amid self-preservation. He discomforts the audience into asking whether the political anxiety was worth the loss of human connections, questioning “why must fireflies die so young?” The closeup and high angle of 4-year-old Setsuko’s rhetorical question accentuate the failed attempts of keeping one’s innocence before the prioritisation of the capitalist world eradicated our humanity. The motif of fireflies, the Japanese symbol of the human soul, is paralleled with the corruption of the human condition, enlightening the responders with the emotional degradation of texts just as evocatively as Plath before him. Both composers centralise their concerns of Cold War ideals, their works painting timeless scenarios where political issues defeated humanity’s own morality. This is a very tightly structured paragraph, it's densely carved with so many references and ideas, which is great. What lacks a little bit for me is the ways of thinking. I see the gendered way of thinking explored in Plath even though it's not explicitly stated, but with your related a way of thinking isn't so easily identified. I could try and squeeze one out if I twist the way I'm reading it, but best practice is to be able to identify the way of thinking and then show how it is engineered in the text.
 
Challenging notions of the past in political and private spheres, Cold War era texts struggle to make sense of a dynamic world.  Ensuing from World War Two’s atrocious crimes, the post-modernist style of the texts depicts the devaluing of life in their 1950s zeitgeist, demeaning the previous generation’s religious and governmental faith. Lucky’s speech represents both the play and the outside world, lacking structure and coherency with senseless accounts of “divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia”. The lengthy monologue deconstructs all notions of metalanguage, the lack of punctuation accentuating the believed apathy of the Christian God in a postmodern “incredulity towards metanarratives” (Jean-Francois Lyotard). Suggesting “all of mankind is us” in the existentialist experience, Beckett’s inclusive pronouns universalise the search for external answers to humanity’s purpose, finding none in God. Likewise, Ginsberg parodies the masses’ unconditional belief in government propaganda, sardonically commanding “America free Tom Mooney” and “America save the Spanish loyalists” through declarative verbs and anaphora. A contrast to Beckett’s nihilism, the poet exemplifies the citizens’ lack of agency and absolute trust in authority to attack the meaning of life across the times, focusing on the past rather than one’s self-agency. Stemming from a post-War disillusionment with geopolitics and a political landscape of indoctrination., Ginsberg demeans the importance placed on ‘nations’ over individuals, before “it occurs to [him] that [he is] America” and is “talking to [himself] again”. Nihilistic overtones and the personification position the reader to critique the capitalist world’s attempt to play god, profiting from the decline of its people. As first-person pronouns eradicate the justification of human existence and self-worth for an ideological war, the poet embodies the Beat Generation’s shared disillusionment with political dogmas after the war. Like Ginsberg, Beckett also positions audiences from all times to question perceived truths and the fundamental basis of human existence, his protagonists exemplifying humanity’s condemned pursuit to find a greater purpose. Vladimir’s trust in pre-war religious conservatism is juxtaposed with Estragon’s adjective-infused imagery of God as “very pretty” and “pale blue”, creating an incongruous perspective on existential nihilism brought by the declining religiosity after the war. An absurdist representation of the Second Coming of Christ, Estragon’s perpetual attempts to end their waiting game and “go” are steadily met with Vladimir’s stichomythic reply they must “[wait] for Godot”. Godot’s failure to arrive validates strengthening nihilistic and existentialistic views, influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd. A post-war theatre style focusing on the metaphysical anguish of the era, Estragon’s repetition demotes the dependency on a God-like figure with Vladimir’s resulting clipped tone mirroring theocentric Western nations, disillusioned by a God who never arrives. Both Ginsberg and Beckett question the basis of human existence amongst reliance on aloof, external factors, the underlying absurdity struggling to make sense of their world. The ways of thinking are far stronger in this paragraph and I have next to no suggestions about how to make it any better. Obviously, adjusting to the question in the exam is a huge deal, and with a very dense paragraph I hope you can squeeze it in there in all of the right places! :)
 
Composers often urge their responders to accept their identity in times of coercion, despite no apparent solution to the mystery of being. Amidst a humanist context with a focus on the value of personal connections, both composers grapple with the human condition, The Human Condition is referred to a lot by Extension students and it doesn't really mean anything. developing approval of their own self-worth and identity. Painting his world as an absurdist extrapolation of his times, Beckett parallels the evasive attitude to the conceptual Cold War and the circumvention that began the Second World War. His Pozzo “laughs” out that his “generation…is not any unhappier than its predecessors” before desiring they “not speak of it at all”. Mirroring the populace’s ambivalence to their own self, the formal language and tone indicates a sense of emotional stunting, acknowledging one’s past to develop insight for the future. Like Beckett’s promotion of one’s identity, Plath’s confessional poem ‘Morning Song’ contrasts the titular wordplay between the hopeful connotations of ‘morning’ and a fresh start to motherhood, with the hopeless implications of ‘mourning’ as having ended her life as a successful poet. By admitting “[she’s] no more [a] mother/ than the cloud that…reflects its own effacement”, her evocative imagery analogises giving birth to the demise of clouds; through birth, women subsume their identity into overwhelming maternal pressures, thinking and softening. The personal tone of her enjambment joins the extended motif of motherhood to suggest familial relationships have been disrupted and corrupted by the Cold War. Removed from the stereotypical illusion of a 1950s family from her single-parent upbringing, Plath’s form empowers her own struggles to connect to her child’s innate humanity and the “clear vowels rising like balloons”. The freeverse creates a surreal, stream of consciousness style, synaesthesia and similes stimulating a sense of the instinctual love a mother feels as Plath accepts her child. Realising her identity is more than socially-enforced gender roles, Plath reaffirms a reconnection to individuals and embraces herself to create self-worth, vital for mankind to function. Likewise, ‘Waiting For Godot’s nihilistic attitudes are defied by the symbiotic friendship between Vladimir and Estragon. Scenes where Vladimir “lays [his coat] across Estragon's shoulders” before “swinging his arms to keep himself warm” are deliberately included to demonstrate the foundation of human existence as our connections with others. Drawn from Beckett’s experience in the French resistance, where loyal friends were betrayed and murdered by the Gestapo, the stage directions prove there is more to being human than a pessimistic outlook, with personal relations developing one’s sense of self and life experience. Through their mutual address of intimate connections, both Beckett and Plath shape their work to represent the vitality of the human condition and life. ANother great paragraph and I like the exploration of identity. I question you: what is identity's place in ways of thinking? Does identity provide a bastion of safety in an uncertain time? Does it prompt people into other ways of thinking?
 
Cold War era texts explore what it means to be human in a tense or existentialist world, with their composers’ perceptions of the era intrinsically influencing the works. Through the nihilistic consequences of losing aspects of oneself, Beckett and Ginsberg subvert the past to find a meaning to our existence, while Plath and Takahata elucidate the necessity of morality in a world that prioritises stability amid prevalent social constructs. Reflecting the composers’ beliefs, the texts allow the audience to discover renewed insights and explore the concerns of an uncertain world.

You've written a wonderful piece of work! It's dense and clear at the same time and I never read a sentence thinking "this whole sentence has no use, it just sounds nice" - everything was full of purpose. I've written a few comments throughout but ultimately it's a really great essay! :) I'd be very happy with this! Are you memorising it?

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: elysepopplewell on October 28, 2017, 09:39:56 am

Quote from: bananna on October 26, 2017, 10:23:49 am

Hey Elise!


Do you think you could take a look at my generic Ext1 essay?

I feel my Waiting for Godot paragraph is inferior, and pulling down my essay. How could I improve it?

Also, if you could please give it a mark out of 25 ?


THANK YOU SO MUCH and kind regards,

Annabel :)

Hello Annabel! You've been dedicated to E1 allllll year! The end is near for you :)

Spoiler

The post-WWII era was characterised by an intense questioning of humanity and laced with a sense of insecurity and futility in response to shifting societal values. After the Bomb texts demonstrate an intensified questioning of both the political and personal spheres as well as the values that permeate them as a result of an ideological standstill between Western and Eastern values. It is this questioning that underpins the enduring relevance of these texts. Sylvia Plath’s 1965 poetic anthology, Ariel, in particular, poems Arrival of the Bee Box and Morning Song, as well as John Hersey’s non-fiction memoir Hiroshima (1946), examine the relationship between the personal and political; Plath’s focus lies in the convergence of these spheres, oooh nice!
 while Hiroshima focuses on the divergence of these spheres. Composers Samuel Beckett and George Tooker both draw attention to shifting societal values by highlighting the nexus between powerlessness and confinement in their respective texts—play Waiting for Godot (1953) and painting The Subway (1950). All four texts highlight the predominantly negative ways of thinking when viewed from a powerless perspective.  In this way of drawing on the challenges of post WWII life, composers seek to capture a variety of individual struggles. Really great - you've incorporated the ways of thinking really well and have used awesome vocabulary in a sophisticated way.

Exhibiting a desire to both conform to and rebel against society’s standards, Plath’s Arrival of the Bee Box embodies the style of confessional poetry, expounding the intensity of the nexus between the personal and political. Plath’s attempt to take control over her identity is alluded to in “I ordered,” I know you're saying, "in the quote, "I ordered"" but using "quote" doesn't sound so sophisticated, but as it stands now it reads a bit awkwardly.
 depicting the dichotomous relationship between power and subjugation. Plath however, depicts her nurturing side as she wonders “how hungry they are,” alluding to a conformity to societal standards of maternal instincts. Plath’s onomatopoeic How is it onomatopoeic? reference to the feeling of “African hands,” is a phenomenological approach to race and gender that symbolises a rebel against society’s standards, simultaneously bringing to light the decolonization decolonisation* of African countries following WWII. Plath is hence “privileged in her whiteness,” (Ellen Miller) but victimized and powerless in her femininity.  Great analysis here! The persona, does not consider herself a mother to the bees; rather emphasising her role a ‘protector;’ diction free from gender bias. I've hardly seen racial discussion of this poem so this is great!
                           
                            This notion of flouting societal expectation of identity is heightened in the persona’s disregard of the socially promoted identity of a mother in Morning Song. The title possesses titular homophones: ‘morning’ and ‘mourning’ which allude to a sense of the persona’s grief and post-natal depression. Furthermore, the enjambment within, “I am no more your mother than the cloud that distils a mirror” elucidates the persona’s ironic lack of recognition of an undeniable bond. As De Beauvoir colloquially states, a woman may feel detached from her child as “she has no past in common with this little stranger”, reason enough for the persona of ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ to not identify with the term ‘mother’. Thus, Plath’s identification of incomprehensible societal expectations, and her subsequent call to action against the political sphere exhibits her conformity and rebellion against social values in the Cold War period.

While Plath politicises her identity containment, Hersey’s text elevates the personal above the political. This is highlighted in the personalization and dependence on religion. When civilians learned it was nuclear fission that caused the explosion, they named it “genshi bakudan,” original child bomb. Japanese vernacular alludes to scientific paradigms subverted for human gain, while the verisimiltudinous verisimilitudinous* of the memoir highlights the pure amazement the civilians felt. Further, the apoliticisation of the bomb is epitomized in the genuine heartfelt belief to pray for them with no resentment. Virginia’s Senator A. Willis Robertson declared himself “dumfounded yet inspired” that a man they attempted to kill “asked God to bless every member of the Senate.” America’s cruel treatment of Japan is contrasted with the actions of a Japanese reverend, echoing the Biblical teaching in an allusion to Luke 6: “Love your enemies… pray for those who mistreat you”. This moment between former political enemies, illuminates the quintessence of existentialism—the freedom of choice—to agree with political powers or to stay true to individual and religious morals. The apolitical response to the bomb-drop is allusive of ‘Japanese stoicism,’ an exclusively Eastern morale. Therefore, Hersey’s Hiroshima elevates the personal over political through religious values.

The nexus between powerlessness and confinement in Waiting for Godot reveals the effect of the Cold War on the common man. As a result of political instability following WW2, the common man had not the ability to run or hide. Imprisoned by the ambit of the stage, Vladimir and Estragon rely on an external source to empower them; Godot, likening itself to man’s search for power in politics. Vladimir and Estragon do not have purpose; their powerless state emphasises the pointlessness of actions, so the need for a complication is futile. While Americans initially viewed their position in the post-war world with optimism, (following their success against Germany and Japan in 1945) a new form of international tension; the Cold War emerged, causing a sense of powerlessness in the common man. The clever manipulation of Theatre of the Absurd highlights, yet subverts this ideology with sardonic and comedic undertones. The exclamation “We’re surrounded!” is humourous yet insightful, highlighting Beckett’s attitudes to his changing world. The irony of this statement lies in the sparse play setting and staging. Passage of time between Act 1 and 2 is clear due to the growth of “four or five leaves,” on the tree; an ambiguous stage direction portraying a level of uncertainty. Authorial intrusion shows even props growing and sprouting more progress than the characters—emphasising Vladimir and Estragon’s incapacity to take control of their own lives, similar to common man’s futility. Thus, the powerlessness of the characters of Beckett’s play is reflective of the common mans’ in post-WW2 society.  Again, really, really good. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading this essay because I can just sit back and absorb everything. There are a few American spellings but other than that it's an extremely smooth essay. Your incorporation of texts, ways of thinking, and scholars, is great. I don't at all think this is inferior.

 Like Waiting for Godot, The Subway emphasises the impact of Cold War ideologies and attitudes on the common man. This specifically translates into the confinement and powerlessness felt by individuals as a result of existing attitudes and political beliefs. Often seen as a Social Realist, Tooker says of his works, “I am after reality,” drawing on the political turmoil of the ‘40s and ‘50s as inspiration. His generalised female figures, with similar mask-like features emphasise post-WWII ways of thinking; anyone who acted differently, was subverting ideals. Tooker’s use of hand-made egg tempera is evident in his piece through cross-hatching the subway floor, creating coarse texture. The harsh, utilitarian setting is thus made clear, reflecting the fears of Communist subversion which gripped domestic politics. The Cold War was a period that hindered rationality, which Sartre called a form of “bad faith,” As much as I like this quote, it's relevance here is questionable. preventing humanity’s search for freedom. The salient figure with an unnerving, concerned mien, suggests her psychological estrangement from the crowd, despite their physical proximity. Tooker’s tempera on composition board medium form causes the woman to stay frozen in time. Composers of the Cold War period depict figures whose actions are completely reactionary; stemming from their complete and utter powerlessness which is paralleled by the utter powerlessness and confinement the common man felt in the era.


Attitudes, reactions and consequences of power play a key role in shaping people’s attitudes and thinking. Texts that use a variety of means to critique the scope, role and implications of power have a far-reaching impact on the way people think. The relationship between personal and political power separates Hiroshima and Ariel from the powerlessness faced by the common man in Waiting for Godot, and the woman in The Subway. However, all four texts showcase victims. What fundamentally separates the personas, are their attitudes—Plath and the Japanese refuse to act and think like victims—they are survivors. Whereas, individuals who think of themselves as powerless are the ones who remain powerless. Whether it is something as simple as waiting for Godot or being frozen in place, a shift in thinking occurs.
                          Even readers are at the mercy of the patriarchy and government… yet it is their thinking, and reading texts that depict the effects and dynamics of thought that allows us to either empower themselves, or to flounder in powerlessness.

Through the comparison of five texts rooted in the post-war period, an understanding of the perils of war is understood. Plath’s ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ and Morning Song depicts need for the nexus between the individual and politics, while characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima refuse to become political in fear of hatred. Waiting for Godot and The Subway explore themes of powerlessness and isolation highlighted in the freedom and confinement of the characters. Hence, Cold War literature articulates the growing fear and existential concerns of period to a great extent, and the study of it in modern times explicates its relevance

This is an INCREDIBLE essay and you should feel so so so chuffed with this! I am especially intrigued by the part towards the end talking about the powerful and the powerless. Depending on what your essay question is, I'd try run that through the essay as a far stronger vein because it presents some really interesting ideas! You're being thoroughly analytical when you are talking about the power involved there and individuals and I hope that can feature more throughout the body of your response because it's a very critical statement you're making, but well backed up. So aside from the few American spellings, this last part is ultimately my only advice. I've sprinkled a few things throughout but I cannot fault this essay in terms of structure or language. It's strong, sophisticated, tight, and you should be proud :)

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: paigek3 on October 28, 2017, 11:15:05 am

Hi Elyse, hopefully it isn't too late to upload my updated one! Just was wondering if you could have a look at the improvements because hopefully it is much better! Understand if you are too busy though! Thanks ;D

Spoiler

Citius, Altius, Fortius

Looking around at the audience before me, I saw faces that beamed with gratitude, but I knew there was despair behind each and every one of them. The ten admirable individuals sat eagerly, leaning forward with eyes wide open, ready to capture every word that fell out of my mouth. I peered down to a young woman in front of me of African decent, whose fists clenched tightly, but her smile that lit up the whole room distracted myself from thinking that she was nervous. Tomorrow was going to be her big day that would change her forever, as it did to me 60 years ago. I limped up to the podium leaning on my walking stick for support, looked around one more time at the epitome of hope and perseverance that sat in front of me, and begun by addressing the inaugural Refugee Olympic team.

“I hesitantly stepped onto the plane after the 1956 Summer Olympic games in Australia, stretching out each leg and placing it on the shaky metal step as slowly as I could to savour the sight of the scorching sun, as it joined hues of honeycomb yellow with a fierce orange. It glistened and warmed my skin, as I heard voices of friendly tones wishing us well, that spoke replacing ‘er’s with ‘ah’s. It was beautiful – a land of friendly people, and most admirably, freedom. I glanced down where my eyes met the pocket of my shirt that had bars of black, red and yellow, as well as five interlocked rings. The United Team of Germany we were, but the only united aspect about the team was those rings, though their hollowed middles revealed our true state.

Back in my motherland, Olympic athletes were given the best accommodation, our children were promised the finest education, and we were promised safety. But it was not the mass destruction occurring outside our jail cell that we were most afraid of, it was the prison guards within.

I opened the door to what we hollowly called home, because our habitation was at the very most a shelter. We lived on the second floor, the paint of the apartment building peeled, revealing the muck that lay trapped from neglect. We were fortunate to live in a place that had windows that were attached to their frames. It was the first time I had been home since leaving for the Games.

My wife Elke sat on the couch with our four-year-old son Wolfgang in her arms. Her blonde hair was pinned back, with the strands that lay loose placed behind her ear. Her cobalt eyes sparkled as they fixed on me walking through the door. Wolfgang’s eyes as blue as the ocean were following a toy plane he had in his hand, and his hair was the same colour as the snow white sand I saw in Australia.

I sat with Elke as Wolfgang napped, and told her stories of Australia and the Games – the water polo bloodbath that was Hungary against the USSR, the way my delayed start caused me to finish fourth in my race, and the land of the free that was the incredible country I had set foot on. I told her that we needed to go. We needed to escape. We began to bicker, Elke demanded taking the risk was too great, I agreed – indeed, the risk would be ‘great’. Elke pulled at her hair shouting that it is too selfish for us to do, I argued back saying it was selfish of us not to escape.

“We are lucky enough, Frank,” she quietly said, caressing my chin after calming down.

Slowly I stood up out of the chair that was withering away, looking out through window that sat tilted noticeably too far to its left. The streets were dreary, buildings stood wrecked from negligence and soldiers were on almost every corner. They walked side by side in uniforms that could not be described using any colour but ‘dull’. East Berlin had not changed much since I was a child, except for the fact that smoke clouds from the projection of nuclear weapons being tested had been exchanged for flashing from the projection of bullets across the two sides of the city - it was in ruins in every meaning of the word possible.

I sat down at the dinner table and reached out anxiously, grabbing Elke’s hand, “I can’t do this anymore,” I exclaimed pointing down to the crossword I was doing. Her eyes fell to where my finger landed on the newspaper, as it read ‘EAST’. It was all bugged – the apartment, the car – everything. The Stasi surveilled every aspect of our daily lives, to make sure no one was disloyal. Anytime we needed to express our displeasure with the East we would have to talk in code to limit the risk of getting caught.
“Honey, you just have to keep doing the crossword, you can’t stop, we have been through this before,” she replied metaphorically, and literally.
“We need to,” I whispered.
“We can’t Frank,”
“We can try.”

I went to sleep that night staring out at the sky where the moon beamed brightly through the curtains of the bedroom. It was almost as if it was sitting in the West, too afraid to venture into the East. I had to go. I had to escape. I had to rediscover that freedom that I had found in Australia.

I wanted a prosperous life for my son, and a comfortable one for my wife, and this was the only way I saw that I could achieve this.

I knocked on an old Austrian man named Martin’s door who lived in our building. He hobbled to the door as he watched his feet move to make sure he did not fall, scratching his bald head as he tried to remember who I was. After near an hour of asking him about what the make of his car was, and how often he went to visit his twin brother in the West, he finally caught on to what I was asking for through my bug proof way of communication. Martin nodded, twirling his grey moustache, and told me he would see me here at five o’clock in the morning to go and meet Charlie. My eyes lit up with hope, but I did not get too excited just yet, because in a race you only win when you have crossed the finish line, and we were only just taking our place on the starting blocks.

I crept out of the house in pitch black darkness, leaving a note for Elke that read “I love you both so much, I am doing this for you. The crossword is impossible to do, and I promise you that you two will be with me on the greater side of the crossword soon.” I kissed Elke on the head as softly as I could to make sure she did not wake up, and did the same to Wolfgang when I tiptoed into his room taking in his innocent, pure face for one last time.

We lived in Tieckstraße, just under 3km from Checkpoint Charlie. I was to hide in the well concealed compartment at the bottom of the back seat of Martin’s car which he would use to store anything his brother’s in the West gave him that he knew he would not be allowed in the East.

As the car rolled closer to Checkpoint Charlie I hid, curling up every inch of my body to avoid being seen. Its wheels made a cracking noise as they slowly went over the gravel that lay underneath. My heart began to race as I heard Martin talking to the guard, but there was only one word on my mind – freedom. The car began to move again, this time much faster than before. Martin calmly said “We’re here, Frank”. The corners of my mouth elevated, as did the butterflies that had laid at the pit of my stomach, dormant for years – I had not smiled like this since the day Wolfgang was born, or the day I stepped off the plane into Australia.

The risk came at a cost, where I never saw Elke or Wolfgang again for six years. Each and every day I would spend hours coming up with ways to get them over here, but none of them were full proof enough to keep them safe on the journey back to the West, and when the Wall was built, the task became even harder. That was until the week before Martin passed away, where he brought them over, and to my surprise, it was Elke’s idea. She was much stronger than I had thought, and I will forever admire her for being so brave. The first time I saw her and Wolfgang again, it was as though my heart stopped beating. My now ten-year-old son still had the ocean blue eyes and sandy white hair, and Elke’s gentle kiss felt as familiar as it did six years ago. Finally, this was freedom.

You have been through the hardships already, and now this is your time. This will be the moment that will inspire you, and ignite the flame inside of you to get across that finish line and live the life full of happiness, opportunity and safety that you deserve to live. Never stop fighting for freedom, and always aim to be Citius, Altius, Fortius. Thank you,” I concluded.

Ok just realised the Berlin Wall wasn't even built in 1956... soo I have taken out a couple of bits of the wall and inserted it at the end lololol

Title: Re: English Extension 1 Essay Marking
Post by: bananna on October 29, 2017, 07:35:52 pm

Quote from: elysepopplewell on October 28, 2017, 09:39:56 am

Hello Annabel! You've been dedicated to E1 allllll year! The end is near for you :)

Spoiler

The post-WWII era was characterised by an intense questioning of humanity and laced with a sense of insecurity and futility in response to shifting societal values. After the Bomb texts demonstrate an intensified questioning of both the political and personal spheres as well as the values that permeate them as a result of an ideological standstill between Western and Eastern values. It is this questioning that underpins the enduring relevance of these texts. Sylvia Plath’s 1965 poetic anthology, Ariel, in particular, poems Arrival of the Bee Box and Morning Song, as well as John Hersey’s non-fiction memoir Hiroshima (1946), examine the relationship between the personal and political; Plath’s focus lies in the convergence of these spheres, oooh nice!
 while Hiroshima focuses on the divergence of these spheres. Composers Samuel Beckett and George Tooker both draw attention to shifting societal values by highlighting the nexus between powerlessness and confinement in their respective texts—play Waiting for Godot (1953) and painting The Subway (1950). All four texts highlight the predominantly negative ways of thinking when viewed from a powerless perspective.  In this way of drawing on the challenges of post WWII life, composers seek to capture a variety of individual struggles. Really great - you've incorporated the ways of thinking really well and have used awesome vocabulary in a sophisticated way.

Exhibiting a desire to both conform to and rebel against society’s standards, Plath’s Arrival of the Bee Box embodies the style of confessional poetry, expounding the intensity of the nexus between the personal and political. Plath’s attempt to take control over her identity is alluded to in “I ordered,” I know you're saying, "in the quote, "I ordered"" but using "quote" doesn't sound so sophisticated, but as it stands now it reads a bit awkwardly.
 depicting the dichotomous relationship between power and subjugation. Plath however, depicts her nurturing side as she wonders “how hungry they are,” alluding to a conformity to societal standards of maternal instincts. Plath’s onomatopoeic How is it onomatopoeic? reference to the feeling of “African hands,” is a phenomenological approach to race and gender that symbolises a rebel against society’s standards, simultaneously bringing to light the decolonization decolonisation* of African countries following WWII. Plath is hence “privileged in her whiteness,” (Ellen Miller) but victimized and powerless in her femininity.  Great analysis here! The persona, does not consider herself a mother to the bees; rather emphasising her role a ‘protector;’ diction free from gender bias. I've hardly seen racial discussion of this poem so this is great!
                           
                            This notion of flouting societal expectation of identity is heightened in the persona’s disregard of the socially promoted identity of a mother in Morning Song. The title possesses titular homophones: ‘morning’ and ‘mourning’ which allude to a sense of the persona’s grief and post-natal depression. Furthermore, the enjambment within, “I am no more your mother than the cloud that distils a mirror” elucidates the persona’s ironic lack of recognition of an undeniable bond. As De Beauvoir colloquially states, a woman may feel detached from her child as “she has no past in common with this little stranger”, reason enough for the persona of ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ to not identify with the term ‘mother’. Thus, Plath’s identification of incomprehensible societal expectations, and her subsequent call to action against the political sphere exhibits her conformity and rebellion against social values in the Cold War period.

While Plath politicises her identity containment, Hersey’s text elevates the personal above the political. This is highlighted in the personalization and dependence on religion. When civilians learned it was nuclear fission that caused the explosion, they named it “genshi bakudan,” original child bomb. Japanese vernacular alludes to scientific paradigms subverted for human gain, while the verisimiltudinous verisimilitudinous* of the memoir highlights the pure amazement the civilians felt. Further, the apoliticisation of the bomb is epitomized in the genuine heartfelt belief to pray for them with no resentment. Virginia’s Senator A. Willis Robertson declared himself “dumfounded yet inspired” that a man they attempted to kill “asked God to bless every member of the Senate.” America’s cruel treatment of Japan is contrasted with the actions of a Japanese reverend, echoing the Biblical teaching in an allusion to Luke 6: “Love your enemies… pray for those who mistreat you”. This moment between former political enemies, illuminates the quintessence of existentialism—the freedom of choice—to agree with political powers or to stay true to individual and religious morals. The apolitical response to the bomb-drop is allusive of ‘Japanese stoicism,’ an exclusively Eastern morale. Therefore, Hersey’s Hiroshima elevates the personal over political through religious values.

The nexus between powerlessness and confinement in Waiting for Godot reveals the effect of the Cold War on the common man. As a result of political instability following WW2, the common man had not the ability to run or hide. Imprisoned by the ambit of the stage, Vladimir and Estragon rely on an external source to empower them; Godot, likening itself to man’s search for power in politics. Vladimir and Estragon do not have purpose; their powerless state emphasises the pointlessness of actions, so the need for a complication is futile. While Americans initially viewed their position in the post-war world with optimism, (following their success against Germany and Japan in 1945) a new form of international tension; the Cold War emerged, causing a sense of powerlessness in the common man. The clever manipulation of Theatre of the Absurd highlights, yet subverts this ideology with sardonic and comedic undertones. The exclamation “We’re surrounded!” is humourous yet insightful, highlighting Beckett’s attitudes to his changing world. The irony of this statement lies in the sparse play setting and staging. Passage of time between Act 1 and 2 is clear due to the growth of “four or five leaves,” on the tree; an ambiguous stage direction portraying a level of uncertainty. Authorial intrusion shows even props growing and sprouting more progress than the characters—emphasising Vladimir and Estragon’s incapacity to take control of their own lives, similar to common man’s futility. Thus, the powerlessness of the characters of Beckett’s play is reflective of the common mans’ in post-WW2 society.  Again, really, really good. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading this essay because I can just sit back and absorb everything. There are a few American spellings but other than that it's an extremely smooth essay. Your incorporation of texts, ways of thinking, and scholars, is great. I don't at all think this is inferior.

 Like Waiting for Godot, The Subway emphasises the impact of Cold War ideologies and attitudes on the common man. This specifically translates into the confinement and powerlessness felt by individuals as a result of existing attitudes and political beliefs. Often seen as a Social Realist, Tooker says of his works, “I am after reality,” drawing on the political turmoil of the ‘40s and ‘50s as inspiration. His generalised female figures, with similar mask-like features emphasise post-WWII ways of thinking; anyone who acted differently, was subverting ideals. Tooker’s use of hand-made egg tempera is evident in his piece through cross-hatching the subway floor, creating coarse texture. The harsh, utilitarian setting is thus made clear, reflecting the fears of Communist subversion which gripped domestic politics. The Cold War was a period that hindered rationality, which Sartre called a form of “bad faith,” As much as I like this quote, it's relevance here is questionable. preventing humanity’s search for freedom. The salient figure with an unnerving, concerned mien, suggests her psychological estrangement from the crowd, despite their physical proximity. Tooker’s tempera on composition board medium form causes the woman to stay frozen in time. Composers of the Cold War period depict figures whose actions are completely reactionary; stemming from their complete and utter powerlessness which is paralleled by the utter powerlessness and confinement the common man felt in the era.


Attitudes, reactions and consequences of power play a key role in shaping people’s attitudes and thinking. Texts that use a variety of means to critique the scope, role and implications of power have a far-reaching impact on the way people think. The relationship between personal and political power separates Hiroshima and Ariel from the powerlessness faced by the common man in Waiting for Godot, and the woman in The Subway. However, all four texts showcase victims. What fundamentally separates the personas, are their attitudes—Plath and the Japanese refuse to act and think like victims—they are survivors. Whereas, individuals who think of themselves as powerless are the ones who remain powerless. Whether it is something as simple as waiting for Godot or being frozen in place, a shift in thinking occurs.
                          Even readers are at the mercy of the patriarchy and government… yet it is their thinking, and reading texts that depict the effects and dynamics of thought that allows us to either empower themselves, or to flounder in powerlessness.

Through the comparison of five texts rooted in the post-war period, an understanding of the perils of war is understood. Plath’s ‘Arrival of the Bee Box’ and Morning Song depicts need for the nexus between the individual and politics, while characters in Hersey’s Hiroshima refuse to become political in fear of hatred. Waiting for Godot and The Subway explore themes of powerlessness and isolation highlighted in the freedom and confinement of the characters. Hence, Cold War literature articulates the growing fear and existential concerns of period to a great extent, and the study of it in modern times explicates its relevance

This is an INCREDIBLE essay and you should feel so so so chuffed with this! I am especially intrigued by the part towards the end talking about the powerful and the powerless. Depending on what your essay question is, I'd try run that through the essay as a far stronger vein because it presents some really interesting ideas! You're being thoroughly analytical when you are talking about the power involved there and individuals and I hope that can feature more throughout the body of your response because it's a very critical statement you're making, but well backed up. So aside from the few American spellings, this last part is ultimately my only advice. I've sprinkled a few things throughout but I cannot fault this essay in terms of structure or language. It's strong, sophisticated, tight, and you should be proud :)

THANK YOU SO MUCH, ELYSE ! x