VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In Jane Eyre, Brontes deepest quest is for…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In Jane Eyre, Brontë's deepest quest is for spiritual nourishment to what extent do you agree? Set in the…
In Jane Eyre, Brontë's deepest quest is for spiritual nourishment to what extent do you agree?
Set in the nineteenth century, during a time with harsh religious institutions and when women were marginalised, Charlotte Brontë's protofeminist novel Jane Eyre explores the journey towards spiritual fulfilment. Brontë contends that although the pursuit of religious enlightenment is profound, the journey towards female liberty and true love is often more complex. Ultimately, Brontë reveals to her Victorian audience that the deepest quest is for spiritual nourishment, female liberty and true devotion, in a world that sought to keep females submission and upheld a conventional marriage system.
Through revealing harsh, institutionalised religious dogmas, Brontë highlights the intense quest for spiritual nourishment. Brontë uses the visual contrast between the "top knots" to be "cut off" and the "elaborately curled" hair of Mr Brocklehurst's daughters to critique class based power. By demanding uniformity and removal of "vanity" from the poor girls while allowing his daughters to display wealth and status through their curls, he reveals that his "Master" is actually a tool for class oppression. Thus, Brontë exposes the hypocrisy of evangelical religion, uncovering the complex journey towards authentic spiritual fulfilment. Additionally, through Helen's didactic tone, Brontë establishes a rigid stoic framework that prioritises institutional duty over individual agency. Helen's insistence that one must "endure patiently" reflects a form of Christian stoicism that demands the total stifling of emotional expression to avoid "evil consequence." However, Brontë critisises this philosophy, by showing how it strips Helen of the capacity to defend her own identity, when she is condemned by the alliterative insult of being a "dirty, disagreeable girl." Brontë underscores how Helen's refusal to resist leads to a passive acceptance of injustice, ultimately resulting in the annihilation of selfhood, therefore displaying the deep journey towards spiritual self determination. To contrast, Jane's declaration that she "prayed in [her] own way" signifies the climax of her spiritual maturation. By bypassing the institutionalised, restrictive religiosity of both St. John and Brocklehurst, Jane instead communes with the sublime forces of nature. Through this spiritual self determination, Brontë reveals how this moment serves as a rejection of external conformity, suggesting that true growth is not found in the blind following of societal expectation, but an authentic morality that empowers the individual to act with agency. overall, by displaying the difficulty of escaping institutionalised religiosity and finding an authentic morality, Brontë uncovers the deep quest for spiritual nourishment.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “I am not bird, and no net ensnares me …”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Emerging from the rigid class structure of mid-nineteenth-century England, Charlotte Brontë's 1847 Bildungsroman…
Emerging from the rigid class structure of mid-nineteenth-century England, Charlotte Brontë's 1847 Bildungsroman Jane Eyre critiques a society shaped by patriarchal control, religious rigidity, and strict social convention. Brontë historic novel is centered around the pursuit of personal freedom, however Brontë challenges that personal freedom does not equivocate into isolation and loneliness but is forged upon enduring hardships and adversing societal conventions that grant personal freedom. Utilising a three-part volume structure within ‘Jane Eyre,’ Brontë uses a female retrospective narration along with a Fichtean curve, to explore the limited capabilities and divine intervention that it takes within the Victorian era to formulate growth and change within the rigid social settings.
Brontë uses Volume one to establishes that personal freedom and ones individual control over their own autonomy, is the most important possession a women can attain in Victorian England. Brontë utilises the pathetic fallacy of Gateshead to mirror Jane Eyre’s internal and external feelings of control and neglect. The gothic tableau of Gateshead holding “cold winter winds” with “cloud so somber” being surrounded by “leafless shrubbery.” Brontë adopts this gothic first-person retrospective narration to portray Jane’s own internal emotions of neglect and resentment within Gateshead. Brontë uses the pathetic fallacy to isolate Janes external environment to her internal emotions, showcasing Jane’s internal desires for personal freedom and autonomy away from the neglect and tourment of the Reeds. Furthermore, Brontë characterises John Reed as an abusive and torturous young man who is granted primogeniture power through the rigid class structure and evangelicalism of the mid-nine-tenth Victorian England. John Reed continuously diminishes and removes Janes personal freedom and autonomy in attempt to maintain his primogeniture labelling her a “dependent” with “no money” who often “ought to beg.” Through John Reed Brontë showcases how primogeniture power thrives upon stripping women of personal freedom as John Reed continuously locks and entraps Jane into the “Red Room.” Brontë symbolically uses the Red room to showcases how male authority thrives upon the abuse upon women’s attempts to hold personal freedom and autonomy. Brontë connotes through the use of “red” to connote blood, passion and sin, showcasing the abuse and tourment of the evangelicalism social structures that accept old testament retribution. Brontë uses the Red room to serve as a domestic space that holds “massive pillars” of “splendid solemn” to represent how Victorian Englands has granted the entrapment and abuse of women forcing them to surrender personal freedom. Showcasing how women of the time are abused within domestic spaces in order to maintain the social class that stripps them of their freedom and personal autonomy. Thus, Brontë structurally implores through volume one how women within Victorian England were stripped continuously of their own autonomy and personal freedom in order to adhere and maintain the societal conventions that granted and justified men’s misuse of power.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "I'm beginning to feel used up" How does…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In Regeneration, Pat Barker suggests that the impact of war on the individual is a culmination of multiple factors…
In Regeneration, Pat Barker suggests that the impact of war on the individual is a culmination of multiple factors that finally results in suffering. Barker explores the process of breakdown resulting from trauma, alluding to the idea that the toll on an individual is amplified through various means. The institutional repression of individuality through constructs of duty and honour, along with strict authoritative military leadership provided soldiers with no formal means to express their thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, societal ideals of masculinity and illusioned views about the war that were ingrained internally within soldiers lead to an internal resistance against expressing built up trauma. Barker delves into the combination of these two factors, which give no path to deal with the toll of war, ultimately leading to physiological and psychological breakdown.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Ogawa explore the gradual erosion…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Dreamlike and lyrical, Yoko Ogawa’s dystopian narrative The Memory Police (1994) dissects the desecration of the…
Dreamlike and lyrical, Yoko Ogawa’s dystopian narrative The Memory Police (1994) dissects the desecration of the human spirit at the hands of oppressive bureaucracies and societal conditioning. Indeed, Ogawa presents the human spirit as dependent upon emotional attachment, individuality and meaningful human connection, all of which are progressively weakened by the enforced dissipation of memories. Ultimately, Ogawa expresses these ideas through literary devices, presenting a gradual, yet sombre erosion of humanity which exposes readership to the insidious implications of acquiescence and totalitarianism.
In The Memory police the gradual deterioration of the islander’s emotional capacity is signified through the motif of the heart. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator’s mother recounts a time where “people gathered in little groups to talk about their memories,” demonstrating a capacity to mourn and process loss. Yet, as the disappearances permeate the novel, Ogawa examines the gradual deterioration of this mourning, as the residents become “reliev[ed]” after their loss, elucidating how the islanders are not just tethered from their objects, but unmoored from the realisation that something meaningful has been taken from them. The habitual, almost mundane nature of the residents’ loss leaves them emotionally numb, underscored through the Old Man’s assertion that the island used to be “a lot fuller,” symbolic of the emotional resonance that has been eroded from the residents' livelihoods. Moreover, the notion that “[the islanders]” hearts got thinner, too, diluted” signifies how the constant disappearances did not just diminish their ability to process their emotions, but rather curb the extent to which they can engage and sustain emotional connection. More profoundly, through the description of the heart becoming “thin,” Ogawa suggests the islanders lose their humanity by having their ability to sustain emotional attachment weakened. Indeed, this is foregrounded in the narrator’s lament that “[her and R’s] hearts are being pulled apart to such distant, different places,” divulging how her emotional numbness and unprocessed trauma leaves the narrator unable to sustain her relationship with R. Moreover, through the present- progressive lexical choice “being” Ogawa implies that their relationship is continuing to weaken, exploring the gradual erosion of R and the narrator’s relationship through the mechanism of their distant hearts. Thus, Ogawa suggests that when an individual's capacity for emotional connection is weakened, compassion and empathy becomes exhaustive, preventing the consolidation of relationships that are integral to their humanity.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Section A - Text response of sunset…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Billy Wilder's 1950s film Sunset Boulevard explores the mystifying allure of Hollywood's golden era. Yet Wilder…
Billy Wilder's 1950s film Sunset Boulevard explores the mystifying allure of Hollywood's golden era. Yet Wilder enhances his warning against falling into the illusory lure of film through innovative directional and writing choices that are essential to the message of the movie. Wilder presents the allure of fame within Sunset Boulevard as fatal, but he also depicts the fantasy that exists before one is consumed by it. Wilder's mystery-oriented film noir imparts continuous contention into the narrative, emphasizing each moment that allure drags characters closer to their fate. He uses metacasting to present the fickleity to fame, the reality past the allure, as consistent with real life, and ultimately depicts the eponymous Hollywood machine that is both unbothered and thriving off of the tragic conclusion of the film.
Wilder's use of dark lighting and ominous score accentuates the fatality created by a circular narrative, signposting each moment that allure brings the story closer to tragedy. The opening of the film features a low angle from within the silent film star Norma Desmond's pool. The camera focuses on film writer Joe Gillis's limp floating body, overshadowed by clamoring police officers with indiscernible expressions. This powerful shot establishes the unsympathetic image of the media, and by extension Hollywood, enjoying the benefits of Joe's death. Aside from that, by showing Joe's death first, the circular narrative allows the sordid humor of the film to be perceived for the danger that it entails. As Joe wakes from his dream, he describes an image of a "chimp dancing for pennies". This ridiculous scene illustrates Joe's desire for wealth, the allure of it, placing him under Norma's control. Yet the recent burial of Norma's monkey, as well as the knowledge of Joe's eventual death in Norma's pool, send a different message: the allure of wealth has brought Joe to his death. The typical film noir genre emphasizes the mystery of Joe's death, imploring the audience to decipher these moments themselves to find clues to Joe's death, thus allowing Wilder to emphasize the danger of allure. Furthermore, the organ playing of Bach's Toccata underpins the morbidity of Joe's situation in Norma's house, as it is known to be used in haunted houses. Yet in contrast, Wilder depicts the reader Betty Schaefer in a completely different light, her character at the creatives' New Year's party portrayed in warm, bright lighting and jazzy music accompanying. These lighting and sound choices highlight a safer atmosphere to Betty, her brightness conveying a literal lack of the underlying darkness of the film's promised tragedy. Furthermore, Betty is characterized with artistic integrity, unlike Joe, who wants to "make a living". Betty thinks pictures "should say little something". Wilder presents her as unencumbered by the allure of wealth and Hollywood, and also distances her from morbidity. Thereby Wilder suggests to his audience that without moderation, the allure of Hollywood and wealth is fatal.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "When I saw him safe and sound, I thought…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a non-linear narrative that follows the impact of…
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a non-linear narrative that follows the impact of rigid social codes, Marquez explores how despite major external influences, the events of the novel proceed due to individual choices. Marquez provides insight into the true pressures of society, however, highlights how decisions made to act or not act are responsible for how fate unfolds.
In his novel, Marquez the author outlines the pressure implemented in society’s expectations, demonstrating how external influences can dictate someone’s choices. The events of the novel are majorly initiated by the dishonouring of Angela Vicario in her "lost possessions." Marquez repeatedly uses specific language to refer to her deflowered of something of great concern, calling it "the stain of honour." In doing this Marquez suggests just how important a woman's virginity is to her reputation and image. Angela was then labelled by the towns people as "the returned bride" which indicates how her loss of identity in marriage ended in condemnation. This allows Marquez to contrast the expectations of a different gender in a society where girls are reared to get married "and boys are 'brought up to be men," reinforcing the toxic culture of machismo and Marianismo. The murder itself presents the Vicario brothers as subjects of rigid social codes, placing them with a 'duty'. The wording of the murder makes it an obligation by society for the Vicario's to claim their status as men and restore their family's honour. Marquez strongly criticises the extent of pressure held upon individuals of society, infiltrating their actions. When Angela Vicario prays to God to give her the 'courage to kill [herself]," Marquez is adding weight to the extent to which strict social expectations overpower the will of life, whether by murder or by suicide. Throughout his novel, Marquez demonstrates how strong social codes can be coercive and destructive, initiating the storyline.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Prompt: “I learned that even though I…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, Noah explores what it was like to grow up as a “mixed-race” child during the final…
In Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, Noah explores what it was like to grow up as a “mixed-race” child during the final years of apartheid. Noah argues that although the government’s systemic objective was to strip away individuals' privileges and rights by enforcing racial categories, individuals would utilise "humour" as a tool of resistance to find a sense of belonging in South Africa.
Through his humorous stories of his childhood, Noah demonstrates his desperate need for belonging in a brutal environment in the eyes of the law that refuses to accept him because he was “born a crime”. Ultimately, Noah reveals that humour and communication are effective to rebel against an "illogical racist system” that prevents individuals of any race from coming together in unity.
Throughout the text, Noah’s “tools for survival” were his sense of humour, even though the law refused to let him feel that he belonged anywhere. Because he was born to a Black mother and a White-Swiss father, he was “proof of their criminality", as it is illegal to have interracial marriages and have mixed-race children in South Africa. Through this law, he didn’t have a specific group to call his own. Throughout his schooling, he sought a way to navigate through distinct groups. Noah explains that he “didn’t belong to one group”; however, he realised he could be “a part of any group that was laughing”. Noah demonstrates that laughter is a “language” that allows you to connect to people from any kind of community. For instance, when navigating the schoolyard, he would often mimic the mannerisms of different groups or make light of his own ambiguous appearance, turning his 'otherness' into a source of shared amusement. Through his self-deprecating and observational tone, Noah applies humour to “humanise” himself, strategically disarming social tensions and making other kids from different racial groups see him as a friend rather than a threat. Therefore, Noah proves that his character was his best “tool” to navigate apartheid, allowing him to find a home in any group despite the racist laws of the time.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Refusal to relinquish dreams is at the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir, 'Sunset Boulevard; uproots the toxic disempowerment of the working machine of…
Billy Wilder's 1950 film noir, 'Sunset Boulevard; uproots the toxic disempowerment of the working machine of Hollywood. Throughout the film, Wilder condemns the selfish manipulation of oneself and others in order to achieve hollow satisfaction and inevitable suffering. Contrasting such self-absorbed decline, Wilder celebrates the affinity for beacons of hope and optimism within Hollywood. However, Wilder ultimately posits that the brutal corporate machine of Hollywood stardom entraps the idealists, capturing its subjects in a society of hardship without means for escape. Ultimately, Wilder criticses the exploitative and disillusioning system of Hollywood, juxtaposing the dreamscape with the truly oppressive machine.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Yoko Ogawa's dystopian novel The Memory…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Yoko Ogawa's dystopian novel The Memory Police explores the consequences of living within a society where memory,…
Yoko Ogawa's dystopian novel The Memory Police explores the consequences of living within a society where memory, identity and individual expression are progressively erased by an authoritarian regime. Through the unnamed narrator's experiences on the isolated island, Ogawa demonstrates that oppression does not merely operate through physical force, but through the gradual destruction of the memories and connections that allow individuals to understand themselves and their world. However, although the Memory Police repeatedly succeed in suppressing physical forms of resistance, Ogawa suggests that resistance remains possible through the preservation of objects and memories, the development of human connection, and ultimately the creation of stories and art. In doing so, Ogawa reveals that attempts to control human memory may destroy what people possess, but cannot completely eliminate the human desire to preserve meaning.
Ogawa initially presents resistance through the preservation of physical objects, demonstrating that individuals can challenge authoritarian control by refusing to completely surrender their memories. From the beginning of the novel, the narrator's mother secretly preserves objects that have been “disappeared” from the island, transforming her basement into an alternative archive of the past. The narrator recalls how the objects in her mother's collection seem to her “like the names of little girls from distant countries or new species of plants,” employing simile to emphasise her fascination with a world that official society has attempted to erase. The comparison to unfamiliar living things suggests that these objects retain a sense of vitality despite the island's attempts to remove their meaning. More importantly, the mother's secret collection demonstrates that remembering itself can constitute resistance. Although the islanders collectively accept each disappearance, her preservation of the objects refuses this imposed forgetting. This resistance is later developed through the narrator's hidden room, where R and the disappeared objects are protected from the Memory Police. The room consequently becomes a symbol of resistance, physically separating memory from the authority that seeks to destroy it. R reinforces the importance of preservation when he observes that “no matter how wonderful the memory, it vanishes if you leave it alone, if no one pays attention to it.” The conditional statement emphasises that memory requires active human participation to survive. Through these hidden spaces and preserved objects, Ogawa therefore suggests that resistance begins when individuals refuse to allow authorities to determine what deserves to be remembered.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Trevor’s outsider status both limits and…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, explores the draconian, oppressive rules present in South Africa and how…
Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, explores the draconian, oppressive rules present in South Africa and how these segregated and influenced the identities of marginalised individuals, like himself, during and post-apartheid. Through his anecdotal childhood experiences, Noah suggests that although being classified as “coloured” caused him to feel excluded, attributing to limiting opportunities and creating worry, his outsider status ultimately played a significant role in momentously/deeply enabling his success throughout the memoir. Noah evidences this through his mother, Patricia's, resilience positively influencing him to condemn reinforcing stereotypical values of minorities, as well as Noah’s ability to utilise languages as a way to adapt to different racial and social groups as a survival mechanism.
Through Noah’s portrayal of the violence and systemic racism embedded in South Africa, Noah presents restricted opportunities and fear experienced by coloured people like himself. Noah recounts his childhood under the apartheid rationale by likening himself to an illicit substance, being ‘dropped like a bag of weed’ when him and his black mother, Patricia were seen by white people during their walks at the park. This metaphorically underscores the limitations that being ‘born a crime’ in South Africa had on ‘mixed’ race Trevor Noah, and how this negatively impacts family dynamics that traditional single race families possess. In addition, this comparison depicts the dehumanising impact that the ‘atrocities’ of apartheid instilled on citizens and why being an ‘anomaly’ disables his succession. Furthermore, Noah portrays his life in Soweto, a ‘99.9%’ black populated township that was ‘designed to be bombed’ as highly segregated, with himself being ‘refused’ to ‘leave the house’ by his own family due to the illegality of his mixed race. This in turn isolated Noah, yearning to be outside ‘where the rest of the boys and girls were playing’, nonetheless he was forced to remain inside. Noah connotes in seriousness that him being ‘coloured’ increased the risk of him being taken from his family unbeknownst to them, as ‘children were taken’ during this time. Noahs shift from his frequent humorous tone throughout the memoir to urgency in this moment emphasises the importance in Noah remaining hidden from South Africa’s ‘militarized’ police. Thus, whilst necessary to be secluded, this emphasises how being different for Noah led to a lack of freedom and evidently disables the fulfillment of opportunities in ‘Born a Crime’. Ultimately, Noah exemplifies that his outsider status limited himself from opportunities, as well as engrained fear in minority groups in South Africa.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Sunset Boulevard explore the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s 1950’s film noir ‘Sunset Boulevard’ presents Hollywood as…
Set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s 1950’s film noir ‘Sunset Boulevard’ presents Hollywood as alluring yet unforgiving, where the pursuit of recognition and success often comes at a profound personal cost. Through his cynical deception of the industry, Wilder examines the detriments that can arise through individuals’ narcissistic self-interests. Wilder demonstrates this through individuals’ pursuit of fame tainting their wellbeing, amplified by the fickle nature of Hollywood. Moreover, Wilder alludes to the idea that striving for material success and stability often leads oneself to bend their morals, and in turn, generate their ultimate downfall. However, Wilder combats this by highlighting that achievements towards genuine creative ambitions are deserving of success by juxtaposing this with others selfish desires and their tendency to harm others in the process.
Wilder exposes the psychological consequences of an obsessive quest for stardom, suggesting that dependence on the industries recognition can skew one’s perception of reality and entrap them in delusion. From the exposition of the tragic narrative, Wilder accentuates Normas insanity, characterising her as delusional given her belief that her fame in Hollywood still prevails, despite ‘all [her] fans leaving twenty years ago.’ Wilder attributes Normas deluded state to the brutal film industry, and its tendency to dispose of people as though they are single-use commodities after they no longer fit the harsh reality of western beauty standards that infiltrate the system. Through this, Wilder immediately presents Norma as a victim of Hollywood, and condemns the system for leaving her with a corrupted state of mind. To exemplify this idea further, Wilder reveals Joe’s beliefs of her mansion and its macabre essence. When arriving at Normas mansion at the onset of the destructive tale, Joe compares its dilapidated appearance to that of ‘Miss Havisham’ in her ‘torn veil and wedding dress’ from ‘Great Expectations’. Through employing allusion, Wilder draws a parallel between Norma’s gothic horror-esque mansion and her compounding insanity throughout ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ Thus, Wilder further criticises the ability of Hollywood to make aging ‘stars’ fall into deep states of delusion and emphasises the difficulty of breaking this cycle. Moreover, Wilder reveals how those surrounding Norma reinforce the delusions upon which her psychological stability depends. Despite recognising Salome as a “hodgepodge of melodramatic plots”, Joe refuses to challenge her delusions, while former director Cecil B. DeMille similarly admits that he “didn’t have the heart” to reveal Paramount’s disinterest in her screenplay. Wilder suggests that Norma’s destruction is not solely self-inflicted; rather, Hollywood and those within it sustain the illusions that ultimately consume her. Yet, Wilder emphasises that condoning such delusion only fosters a greater deal of insanity through the ending of the tale. Following Joe’s rejection of her manufactured stardom, Wilder transforms the mansion’s spiral staircase into a visual metaphor for Norma’s final descent into madness. Ironically, while Norma perceives herself to be making a triumphant ‘return’ to the screen, her downward movement physically embodies her psychological deterioration, as the attention she has pursued is finally granted only once she is consumed by delusion. Thus, her declaration that she is “ready for [her] close-up”, accompanied by Wilder’s close-up, ultimately exposes her toxic dependence on fame. Thus, Wilder presents the pursuit of fame as a debilitating cycle resulting in total delusion and condemns the system for facilitating this.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘The new American society was molded by…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: The newly formed society of America was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to…
The newly formed society of America was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to which said ideals actually materialized equitably for all, remained questionable. Whilst the radical pursuit of liberty was integral in overthrowing monarchial tyranny, collective inability to function as a nation due to self-destructive freedom, prompted the creation of a compromised constitution that prioritized security and the interests of the propertied elite, in lieu of a liberal utopia.
The aggressive struggle for liberty was the essential ideological force that not only toppled British imperialism but also laid the framework on which future American society was believed to operate upon. Composed primarily of local farmers and tradesmen united under the "Continental Army" banner, the force's ability to "fight, get beaten, rise, and fight again" (Greene) symbolized perseverance in the light of preserving Liberty. The "indispensable man" (Flexner) and leader of the movement, George Washington himself viewed the war as a decision between "bloodshed or slavery", a stark choice, which echoed the Lockean principle that a government which operated without consent, effectively reduced its subjects to slaves. Such steadfast commitment to the cause of civic virtue within the leadership and core of the Continental army enabled it to triumph during instances like the Battle of Trenton (1776), where Fabian tactics successfully aided in the defeat of 1800 Hessian mercenaries. During more despondent periods like the winter of 1777 at Valley Forge when 1/3rd of soldiers had no shoes and Washington believed that the "Army [would] dissolve" (Washington), it was words like "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph", (Thomas Paine's American Crisis 1776) which transformed the grim reality of war within the infantryman's conflicting mind. Constantly reminded that their suffering was not loss, but rather an investment in a progressive future, the force developed further into a seasoned military that would ultimately conquer the British at Yorktown (1781). Thus confirming that liberal ideas drove America towards revolutionary victory.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Marsden explores how morals are altered in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: John Marsden’s coming of age novel Tomorrow When The War Began published in 1993, set at the beginning of war,…
John Marsden’s coming of age novel Tomorrow When The War Began published in 1993, set at the beginning of war, suggests that though difficult circumstances can alter people’s perspectives and principles surrounding the world around them, their morals are equally as important when going through those challenging situations. To begin, Marsden believes that morals play an important role in how people view the world. Furthermore, he communicates how one’s morals can affect their actions in difficult situations. Finally, he portrays challenges as a key influence in one’s inner ideals and principles.
John Marsden suggests that morals play a vital role in determining how people view the world and the actions of others around them. Robyn, being Christian has certain morals that she follows every single day. These morals allow her to understand the actions of the people invading their country, “We’ve got all this land and resources, and yet there’s a country a crow’s spit away with people packed like battery hens.” These metaphors demonstrate Robyn’s understanding of the invader’s perspective, revealing her understanding nature and how her Christianity has influenced the way she views others’ actions. However, when Kevin criticizes her for ‘siding with the enemy’, Robyn pushes back by stating how “Understanding isn’t the same as supporting.” By clearly differentiating the concepts of understanding and supporting, she demonstrates that she is defined not just by the teachings of her religion, but also by the morals she had formed throughout her own personal experiences. Through Robyn’s personality and character, Marsden communicates the importance of following one’s own morals and inner beliefs to build understanding of the world around them.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘The new American society was molded by…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: The newly formed American society was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to…
The newly formed American society was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to which the ideals that pioneered the struggle for independence actually materialized equitably in the new society, remained questionable. Whilst the radical pursuit of liberty was integral towards the overthrow of monarchial tyranny, the collective inability to function as a nation due to self-destructive freedom, prompted the creation of a new constitutional order that prioritized national stability and the interests of the propertied elite, in lieu of an idealist world.
The radical pursuit of liberty was the essential ideological force that not only enabled the overthrow of British imperialism but also laid the framework on which the future American society would operate upon. The "shot heard round the world" in Lexington (1775) marked the beginning of a fight that would shape the colonial identity into one that was distinctly American. Composed primarily of local farmers and tradesmen united under the "Continental Army" banner, the force's ability to "fight, get beaten, rise, and fight again" (Greene) symbolized perseverance in the light of preserving Liberty. The "indispensable man" (Flexner) and leader of the movement, George Washington himself viewed the war as a decision between "bloodshed or slavery", a stark choice, which echoed the Lockean principle that a government which operated without consent, effectively reduced its subjects to slaves. Such steadfast commitment to the cause of freedom within the leadership and core of the Continental army enabled it to prosper during instances like the Battle of Trenton (1776), where Fabian tactics were successfully deployed to defeat nearly 2000 Hessian mercenaries. More despondent periods like the winter of 1777 in Valley Forge where 1/3rd of soldiers had no shoes and Washington believed that the "Army [would] dissolve" (Washington), only pushed the force to develop further into a seasoned military that would ultimately defeat the British at Yorktown (1781). Words like "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph", (Thomas Paine's American Crisis 1776) transformed the grim reality of war within the infantryman's conflicting mind, constantly reminding that their suffering was not loss, but rather an investment in a progressive future. Thus confirming that liberal ideas drove America towards revolutionary victory.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘The new American society was molded by…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: The newly formed American society was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to which…
The newly formed American society was fundamentally underpinned by liberal philosophy; however, the extent to which the ideals that pioneered the struggle for independence actually materialized equitably in the new society, remained questionable. Whilst the radical pursuit of liberty was integral towards the overthrow of monarchial tyranny, the collective inability to function as a nation due to self-destructive freedom, prompted the creation of a new constitutional order that prioritized national stability and the interests of the propertied elite, in lieu of an idealist world.
The radical pursuit of liberty was the essential ideological force that not only enabled the overthrow of British imperialism but also laid the framework on which the future American society would operate upon. The "shot heard round the world" in Lexington (1775) marked the beginning of a fight that would shape the colonial identity into one that was distinctly American. Comprising primarily of local farmers and tradesmen united under the "Continental Army" banner, the force's ability to "fight, get beaten, rise, and fight again" (Greene) symbolized perseverance in the light of preserving Liberty. The "indispensable man" (Flexner) and leader of the movement, George Washington himself viewed the war as a decision between "bloodshed or slavery", a stark choice, which echoed the Lockean principle that a government which operated without consent, effectively reduced its subjects to slaves. Such steadfast commitment to the cause of freedom within the leadership and core of the Continental army enabled it to prosper during instances like the Battle of Trenton (1776), where Fabian tactics were successfully deployed to defeat nearly 2000 Hessian mercenaries. More despondent periods like the winter of 1777 in Valley Forge where 1/3rd of soldiers had no shoes and Washington believed that the "Army [would] dissolve" (Washington), only pushed the force to develop further into a seasoned military that would ultimately defeat the British at Yorktown (1781). Words like "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph", (Thomas Paine's American Crisis 1776) transformed the grim reality of war within the infantryman's conflicting mind, constantly reminding that their suffering was not loss, but rather an investment in a progressive future. Thus confirming that liberal ideas drove America towards revolutionary victory.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The greatest threats the Blackwood sisters…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In her 1950s proto-feminist novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson illuminates the interplay…
In her 1950s proto-feminist novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson illuminates the interplay between psychological fragility and social hostility within the insular world of the Blackwood sisters. The suggestion that their greatest threats emerge from within invites an examination of how internalised fear and guilt function as forces of self-destruction. Through Merricat’s violent imagination and Constance’s paralysing compliance, Jackson highlights how self-imposed isolation evolves into a mechanism of entrapment. Yet the sisters’ inward collapse is inseparable from the cruelty of the outside world, who persecution reinforces their withdrawal. Ultimately, Jackson blurs the boundary between internal and external danger, revealing fear itself as the novels most destructive agent.
Jackson initially positions the sisters' internal pathologies as the primary threat, suggesting their self-imposed entrapment is more potent than any external force. Merricat’s obsessive thoughts and actions not only reveal her psychological instability but also actively shape the sisters’ environment, transforming their home into a space governed by fear and control. Jackson immediately establishes Merricat's detachment from reality when she confesses her wish to have been “born a werewolf,” a metaphor that establishes Merricat as psychologically unstable and obsessed with control, hinting at her detachment from reality. The werewolf metaphor symbolises her potential for destructive power, through this Jackson intends to show how internal fantasises amplify the threat she poses to herself and the household. Furthermore, Jackson employs the poisoning of her family to literalise self-destruction; her attempt to preserve the family paradoxically destroys it. It positions her internal obsession and fear as the origin of trauma, rather than societal pressure, aligning with the idea that the greatest threats are internal. Moreover, subsequent to the fire and destruction of their home, Constance chooses to remain inside the Blackwood home; stating “this is our home, we cannot leave it”, Jackson reveals how her domestic attachment prevents change or growth for either of the sisters, reinforcing isolation and psychological vulnerability. However, Jackson explores the paradoxical effect of the sisters’ actions; while it is Merricat’s superstition and Constance’s domesticity that ostracise them from society it is these same effects which act as a tool to discover female agency and autonomy. While Merricat’s violent imagination intitiates the household’s instability, it is Constance’s internalised fear and obsessive domesticity that sustain their fragile world, highlighting how Jackson portrays the sisters’ internal threats as both active and during forces that set the stage for the challenged posed by the outside world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Ogawa explore the ways that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: Ogawa contends that individuals inevitably dissociate from their identity in order to cope with loss. Through the…
Ogawa contends that individuals inevitably dissociate from their identity in order to cope with loss. Through the defining moment of the narrator and the old man casually discussing the insidious “speeding up” of the disappearances, Ogawa contrasts the old man’s usual considerate persona with his resigned acceptance of the “gaps in the island”. Hence, the writer reveals the internal dissociation between the “caring” old man and his incongruent passivity towards the disappearances. Moreover, his apathetic observation that the authoritarian Memory Police are “only after people who aren’t able to forget” illustrates Ogawa’s argument that systematic loss inevitably undermines individuals’ very selfhood. By revealing the intrinsic disparity between the old man’s established characterisation and subservient acceptance, Ogawa argues that systematic loss can fragment the essence of an individual's identity. Ogawa similarly
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent is violence a form of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: When oppression and injustice remain unresolved, violence can become perceived as a form of justice, perpetuating a…
When oppression and injustice remain unresolved, violence can become perceived as a form of justice, perpetuating a devastating cycle of revenge and suffering. Directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson and released in 2020, High Ground explores the fractured relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians during the frontier conflicts of 1919 and 1931. Set during a time when indigenous Australians were oppressed, massacred and stripped of their identity, right and culture to the land, the film reflects enduring consequences of colonial violence, exposing how unresolved injustice can perpetuate cycles of revenge and conflict across generations. Johnson establishes how violence is perceived as an act of justice through revenge, fuelled by perpetual injustice. However, Johnson complicates this notion by arguing that violence ultimately perpetuates the very injustice it seeks to overcome. Johnson foregrounds the lasting consequences of the Gan Gan massacre through the characterization of key figures, illustrating how unresolved injustice can distort perceptions of justice, compelling individuals to pursue violent retaliation . Exposing how colonial authorities use violence under the guise of law and justice, revealing how violence can become a tool to maintain oppression rather than justice. However, Johnson challenges the idea that violence can deliver genuine justice, suggesting that true justice stems from acknowledging both sides' wrongdoing not through revenge and retaliation
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does born a crime demonstrate the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: 'Born a Crime' is a memoir written by South Trevor Noah, on the challenges endured during and post apartheid…
'Born a Crime' is a memoir written by South Trevor Noah, on the challenges endured during and post apartheid South Africa. The author explores laments how apartheid was designed to strip opportunities from individuals. However, the Comedian champions how individuals are able to gain opportunities through hustle culture. The Noah also emphasizes the importance of language in South Africa. Ultimately, many individuals seek opportunities through the use of language and social 'hustling', despite apartheid restrictions on marginalised communities.
In 'Born a Crime' Noah condems aparthied and it's ability to subjugate individuals in to poverty, thus stripping their opportunities. Through the use of juxtaposition, Noah highlights the subhurbs comfortable lifestyle as "lavish and green" whilst emphasizing the townships poverty as "overgrazed and eroding." Through this juxtaposition Noah highlights how the difficulty for people in poverty to gain opportunities as they are forced to rely on "on survival, risks, whilst people suburbians are able to explore their opportunities as they live comfortably. Furthermore, Noah laments how that despite knowledge and experience, individuals still aren't able to get opportunities. Through an analogy the other author emphasises that "[individuals] have been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod." Through this analogy Noah demonstrates how even if a marginalised individual has deep knowledge and experience in something, they wont get the opportunities to use that knowledge, thus leaves individuals in a cycle of poverty. Additionally, Noah asserts a nuanced perc through the use of symbolism, Noah asserts a nuanced perspective on poverty and what it brings gives melindivuals. Driveways symbolize hope amongst the society in Soweto. This is because even if they don't have cars, they have driveways, as they some day hope to park a car on it. However, despite the hope it gives, it allows Noah to show the hardships of poverty. despite the beggining of new South Africa, individuals still weren't able to get cars. In fact, Noah also highlights how society in povert opress themselves. Noah uses symbolism to demonstrate how values have been ingrained into peoples belefs, this prevents people from achieving opportunities. The "Black Tax" symbolises how Society black traditions shape their opportunities. This is because the "Black Tax" is like a tax where you give back to your family as a sign to assert control, thus prevents people from escaping poverty. Ultimately, Noah's critiques from individuals how Apartheid strips communities opportunities by forcing Black South Africans in a cycle of poverty.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The novel Frankenstein demonstrates that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: The novel Frankenstein demonstrates that one must have compassion to be human. Do you agree? Mary Shelley’s 1818…
The novel Frankenstein demonstrates that one must have compassion to be human.
Do you agree?
Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein demonstrates the importance of compassion by contrasting its human protagonist with his inhuman creation. Shelley invites readers to question whether Victor or the Creature is more capable of compassion, and what this says about each character’s claim to be considered human. In her characterisation of Victor, Shelley presents a man whose ego and ambition override his natural humanity and suppress his capacity to feel compassion for his own creation. By contrast, while the Creature is capable of great cruelty, Shelley also presents him sympathetically by demonstrating his capacity to feel compassion. Ultimately, it is the reader’s humanity which is tested, as we are invited to feel compassion for both characters, despite their wicked and destructive actions.
Victor Frankenstein is an egotistical protagonist whose over-reaching ambitions cloud his ability to feel compassion. Frankenstein introduces himself to Walton as having been the “plaything and… idol” of his parents, implying that he was spoiled as a child and therefore lacks a strong model for how to parent well. This foreshadows the tensions which will exist in his relationship with the Creature, who is symbolically his child, but whom he immediately disowns. It is clear from his account that Victor constructs the Creature not out of love but from a desire to prove his scientific theories, meaning that he shows little compassion for how the Creature will experience a life he did not ask for. When he describes his scientific studies, Frankenstein exclaims, “what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!” The choice of the word “glory” connotes his self-serving motives, and the desire to be “invulnerable” echoes the implications of the novel’s subtitle – “The modern Prometheus” – in suggesting that Frankenstein sees himself as more than human, wanting to elevate himself to a godlike status by his power to give and sustain life. Shelley thus makes it clear that his motives are not born of compassion but of ambition. This characterisation is reinforced when he sources dead bodies from which to construct the Creature, stating, “a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life”. The coldly scientific tone demonstrates Frankenstein’s lack of compassion for the families of those whose graves he is robbing and whose bodies he is defiling. Recalling the Creature’s first moments of life, Frankenstein poses the rhetorical question, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?” Notably, his focus here is entirely on his own feelings, using possessive pronouns (“my emotions”) and derogatory language about the Creature (“the wretch”). Again, his sense of having accomplished something superhuman, by taking “infinite pains and care” contrasts with his failure to display the characteristic human quality of compassion for this new life he has brought into the world. Like his own parents, Frankenstein fails to rise to the responsibility of a parent by acting in the Creature’s best interests rather than his own. Thus, while Frankenstein is technically human, he fails to manifest the compassion which readers expect of him.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Rainbow's End explores the challenges of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Jane Harrison’s Rainbow’s End explores the challenges Indigenous Australians face when dealing with oppressive…
Jane Harrison’s Rainbow’s End explores the challenges Indigenous Australians face when dealing with oppressive forces. Set in 1950s Australia, the play shows how colonialism continues to affect Indigenous people through poor living conditions, racism and pressure to fit into white Australian society. These forces affect both the community and individual identity, making it difficult for characters to feel accepted and in control of their lives. However, Harrison also shows that oppression can be challenged through cultural pride, family, community and resistance. Ultimately, the play suggests that although the effects of colonialism are difficult to overcome, maintaining connections to culture and others can help people resist oppression.
Harrison shows that oppressive forces can create poor living conditions and make it difficult for Indigenous communities to improve their lives. The Flats is repeatedly affected by flooding, with Dolly saying they are “fighting nature all the time.” The phrase “all the time” shows that the community’s problems are ongoing. The flooding makes it difficult for the characters to live safely and comfortably, showing that Indigenous communities have been left in poor conditions because of social and economic inequality. This makes their struggle more than an individual problem, as the whole community is affected. The government’s poor response is further shown through the hessian placed around The Flats, described as a “band-aid over a sore.” The “band-aid” suggests that the government is only covering up the problem instead of fixing it. The hessian is put up so that the poverty of The Flats is hidden from Queen Elizabeth II, showing that the government cares more about Australia’s image than improving the lives of Indigenous people. Harrison therefore shows how government neglect makes dealing with oppression difficult. Nan Dear also remembers being “forced” to leave Cummeragunja. The word “forced” shows that Indigenous people had little control over their own lives. This connects the characters’ current struggles with the injustices experienced by earlier generations, showing that colonial oppression does not simply disappear with time because its effects continue to affect later generations. Therefore, Harrison demonstrates that structural oppression creates ongoing problems that make it difficult for Indigenous communities to escape inequality.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "Rainbow's End explores the challenges of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 92.5%: Jane Harrison's Rainbow's End (2007) is set on the flood-prone fringe of a rural Victorian town in the early…
Jane Harrison's Rainbow's End (2007) is set on the flood-prone fringe of a rural Victorian town in the early 1950s, a period in which Indigenous Australians were denied full citizenship and remained subject to sweeping government control over where they could live, work and raise their children. Through this setting, Harrison dramatises oppression as a structure that operates on multiple levels: as official government policy that severs people from land and family, and as an everyday prejudice that restricts opportunity and dignity within the community itself. Yet the play does not present its characters as passive casualties of this system; rather, it insists that resilience, education and an enduring connection to Country provide the means by which these oppressive forces can be confronted and, to some extent, overcome. Harrison therefore constructs a narrative in which institutional control and social discrimination inflict profound and lasting damage, while ultimately suggesting that collective action and self-determination offer a pathway through which her characters can begin to reclaim agency over their own lives.
Harrison first establishes oppression as an institutional force, exercised through government policy that treats Indigenous families as subjects to be relocated, assimilated and controlled rather than as citizens with rights of their own. This is voiced through Nan Dear's memory of a real historical dispossession: "They forced us to leave. Forced us to leave Cummeragunja. Our home." The blunt repetition of "forced" strips the sentence of any agency on the speaker's part, syntactically enacting the very powerlessness the line describes, while the truncated final clause, "Our home," asserts a possessive claim to Country that policy itself refused to recognise. By referencing the actual 1939 walk-off from the Cummeragunja Mission, Harrison grounds her drama in documented history, transforming personal testimony into a form of political record that indicts the Aborigines Protection Board's authority over Indigenous life. This institutional control is reinforced through the play's own stagecraft: the settlement is physically divided from the township by a railway line, a piece of staging that renders segregation not as background information but as a visible boundary the audience watches characters cross and recross, compounded by the era's assimilationist expectation that the family simply "learn to live like" the white community surrounding them. The device transforms an abstract policy into spatial reality, reminding the audience that exclusion in this period was enforced architecturally as much as legally. Harrison extends this critique of colonial authority into the play's historical framing, staging Nan Dear's ambivalence toward the 1953 coronation celebrations through the terse rejection, "She's not my Queen." The clipped, declarative syntax refuses the pageantry of imperial celebration surrounding it, exposing the irony of a nation celebrating unity and loyalty to the Crown while denying its Indigenous population the full rights of citizenship. Together, these moments position government policy and colonial authority as the foundational oppressive force in the play, one that precedes and enables the more immediate discrimination the family encounters in daily life.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “High Ground suggests that truth and…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Stephen Johnsons 2020 film ‘High Ground’ exposes the devastating consequences of colonial invasion in Arnhem land…
Stephen Johnsons 2020 film ‘High Ground’ exposes the devastating consequences of colonial invasion in Arnhem land during the early 20th century, revealing how incompatible values surrounding land, law and justice shape the lives of the Yolnu people and British colonisers. Johnson challenges that a society built on revenge cannot fully achieve justice and the ability for colonisers to manipulate history further silences the Yolnu people. Whilst truth and justice is implied to be very difficult to uphold, an embracement of identity and land may preserve community and values.
A society that is built on a cycle of revenge and violence results in an inability to achieve justice. Both the Europeans and Indigenous people engage in acts of violence This is driven through leaders Moran and Bawywara. Moran stating “They killed a what woman” with emphasis on “white” reveals a racial hierarchy of grief and revenge. One white death receives urgency and punishment, whereas the deaths of many Indigenous women and children and minimised or concealed. Gutjuk reverses Morans narrative stating that the conflict “didn’t start with {his} uncle, it started with {Moran}”, revealing Baywara’s violence is represented as a response to invasion and massacre, not its cause. Morans loaded labels “wild mob”, “killing livestock”, “burning stations”, construct Baywara’s resistance as savagery. The possessive colonisers value settler property, cattle and stations above indigenous lives, land and law demonstrating their values of authority. The ongoing rotation of violence means revenge will never gain justice for those wanting it which is symbolised through both Moran and Baywara dying at the end of the film.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Desire is the most powerful force in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Influenced by the social and cultural anxieties of post-war Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s noir film Sunset Boulevard…
Influenced by the social and cultural anxieties of post-war Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s noir film Sunset Boulevard exposes an industry in which individuals are driven by desires for fame, recognition, security and belonging. Wilder presents desire as a powerful force because it motivates individuals to pursue idealised versions of success, often causing them to compromise their authenticity and relationships. However, the film ultimately suggests that desire becomes most destructive when it is cultivated by Hollywood’s obsession with image, status and commercial value. Through the contrast between aspiration and disillusionment, Wilder reveals that while desire propels individuals towards their ambitions, the institutional values of Hollywood manipulate these desires and determine their consequences. Thus, Sunset Boulevard largely supports the view that desire is a powerful force, but suggests that its destructive potential originates from the culture that teaches individuals what they should desire.
Desire initially operates as a powerful motivator, compelling individuals to pursue success even when their ambitions conflict with reality. The film’s opening establishes this destructive pursuit through Joe’s cynical voice-over as his corpse floats in the swimming pool, revealing that the “poor dope” had always wanted a pool. The dramatic irony between Joe’s aspiration for material success and his death immediately subverts the glamorous associations of Hollywood, suggesting that the pursuit of wealth and status can become fatal. His desire for professional recognition is further expressed when he accepts Norma’s offer to revise her screenplay despite recognising its poor quality. Joe acknowledges that the script is “just so lousy” yet remains because his financial circumstances leave him desperate for security. Wilder’s use of first-person narration exposes the contradiction between Joe’s cynical awareness and his willingness to compromise his values, demonstrating how desire can overpower moral judgement. Similarly, Norma’s desire to return to the screen transforms her past fame into an obsession with reclaiming relevance. Her declaration that “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small” reveals her refusal to accept the changing film industry, while the antithesis between “big” and “small” exposes the distorted logic through which she measures her worth. Her desire is therefore not merely for employment, but for the restoration of an identity founded upon public admiration. Through these competing ambitions, Wilder demonstrates that desire can provide individuals with purpose while simultaneously encouraging them to deny uncomfortable realities.