VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Barker suggests that societal expectations…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: The values and beliefs of society often pressure people into behaving a certain way, intensifying any underlying or…
The values and beliefs of society often pressure people into behaving a certain way, intensifying any underlying or pre-existing issues. Pat Barker’s 1991 historical fiction novel ‘Regeneration’ explores this issue through the intricacies of the lives of various shell-shocked soldiers receiving psychiatric treatment during World War One. By weaving together elements of fiction and reality, Barker explores how societal expectation of duty and service can reinforce the trauma of war through reshaping one’s identity. Additionally, Barker expresses how the societal expectation of emotional repression fortifies the traumatic experiences of war-scarred men, fundamentally injuring an entire generation of men and by consequence, society as a whole. However, Barker demonstrates how the expectations of society may not always negatively solidify the effects of war but can momentarily provide liberation and joy for some. Ultimately, Barker exposes how trauma catalysed by war is intensified by societal expectations, however Barker additionally reveals how those who have a strong sense of humanity are able to find joys in life that would have otherwise been impossible.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Orbital shows that nature always has more…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital, nature exerts a power far greater than that of humanity, primarily through its…
In Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital, nature exerts a power far greater than that of humanity, primarily through its reminder of mortal fragility and space’s absolute control over time. While nature is portrayed as authoritative and all-encompassing, Harvey complicates this view by suggesting that humans, despite their perceived insignificance, still exert a grave and lasting impact on the planet. Ultimately, the novel illustrates that although humanity is dwarfed by the vastness of the natural world, our collective actions remain consequential and deeply destructive.
Harvey displays the power of the natural world to remind humans of their mortality. While the astronauts orbit the Earth to observe the existence of life, they bear witness to the catastrophic formation of a typhoon. Harvey uses this storm as a symbol to illustrate the immense scale of nature. Throughout each orbit, the astronauts face a constant reminder of the typhoon’s “destructive” capacity; though it is described as beautiful, it is also cataclysmic. They are forced to observe the damage, unable to do anything but watch as the “typhoon will roll out of sight and their vigil will end.” The idea that the storm will simply “roll out of sight” reiterates that humans cannot prevent the repercussions that threaten the planet. By admitting that “their vigil will end,” the astronauts acknowledge that they remain inferior to nature's power. This inability to intervene underscores their helplessness, proving that the storm's consequences are entirely beyond their control. Amidst this journey, Nell observes the storm with the detached precision of a scientist, yet her conversation with Pietro shifts the moment away from pure analysis. When Pietro recalls his time in the Philippines, noting, “I made friends with a fisherman, my wife and I had dinner with his family,” he transforms the storm from a meteorological event into something deeply personal. Their discussion of diving and marine life contrasts the destructive force of the typhoon with the delicate beauty of the ocean below, reflecting how climate disasters disproportionately affect the vulnerable. Through this, Harvey demonstrates that humans remain fragile against the scale and unpredictability of the natural world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In his novella, the characters’ inaction…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s crime fiction novella “chronicle of a death foretold” pivots on the brutal murder of…
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s crime fiction novella “chronicle of a death foretold” pivots on the brutal murder of Santiago Nasar, raising questions around collective responsibility and moral inaction. The author emphasises that the lack of moral action taken by the villagers was tied to the belief that the death was bound to happen. However, the author complicates this idea by also suggesting that the moral inaction was linked to the protagonist’s outsider status and the need for women to protect their honour.
Marquez highlights that the lack of moral choices made by the townspeople was due to the perception that the death was inevitable. Through the use of symbolism, Marquez demonstrates that the villagers moral inaction was tied to this belief. For instance, pura vicario, had a “good reputation” of interpreting dreams. However, her misinterpretation of her son’s dream of being a “good sign of health” and ignoring the “drizzle of rain” and the “grove of timber trees’ creates an illusion that his death was bound to happen. Marquez uses the misinterpretation to highlight the dramatic irony as the protagonist’s own mother failed to understand his dream and it foreshadowed the circumstances surrounding Santiago's death as “many agreed” that there was a “drizzle” of rain at the time of the misfortune. Through this, Marquez suggests that the missed warning created an illusion of the inevitable nature of the tragedy. Marquez ties this missed warning to the town’s belief that “no one could understand such fatal coincidences” to highlight the way villagers excused themselves from taking accountability and moral action by justifying that the tragedy was “assigned to us by fate.” Through this, Marquez illustrates the way the townspeople used “fate” as an excuse to avoid responsibility although they had many opportunities to intervene. Marquez leaves readers questioning whether the death was actually inevitable as he highlights the way the town believed it was “Fate” that led to the tragedy but also questions their lack of attempts to prevent the crime. Thus, marquez reinforces the notion that the characters’ inaction was tied to the belief the tragedy was bound to happen.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Sunset Boulevard explore the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 97.5%: Set amidst the Golden Age of Hollywood and the studio system, Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950)…
Set amidst the Golden Age of Hollywood and the studio system, Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950) exposes the deep underbelly of Tinseltown, where the promise of success conceals a culture built upon exploitation and obsolescence. Wilder presents decline and decay as both personal and institutional, revealing how Hollywood’s relentless pursuit of success corrupts individuals, conceals profound emptiness beneath glamour, and ultimately discards those who lose their commercial value. Through Joe Gillis’s moral deterioration, Norma Desmond’s delusional attachment to her former fame, and Hollywood’s abandonment of its ageing stars, Wilder demonstrates that decline is not merely an inevitable consequence of time, but is intensified by an industry that commodifies identity and replaces people when they cease to be profitable. Ultimately, Wilder warns that when ambition, appearance and commercial value become measures of human worth, the pursuit of success becomes inherently destructive, transforming the very people who seek recognition into casualties of the industry that promises to elevate them.
From the outset, Wilder explores decline as a consequence of individuals becoming consumed by the pursuit of Hollywood success, as ambition gradually erodes morality, relationships and independence. This is demonstrated through Gillis’s retrospective first-person narration, “I was always a writer” which establishes Joe’s original artistic identity before contrasting it with the compromises that follow. His aspiration to become a writer initially represents independence and creative integrity; however, his financial desperation makes him susceptible to Hollywood’s promise of material security. This deterioration is visualised through mise-en-scene as Joe exchanges his “lousy apartment” for Norma’s extravagant mansion, with the decadent tuxedo and luxurious interiors symbolising his increasing dependence upon her wealth. Crucially, Joe’s physical movement from modest independence into Norma’s opulence mirrors his moral movement towards complicity. Although he initially recognises Norma’s delusions, he willingly accepts her money, clothing and lifestyle because they offer the success he cannot achieve independently. Wilder therefore establishes a paradox at the heart of Hollywood ambition: the pursuit of success that promises freedom instead produces dependence. Joe’s retrospective narration further intensifies this irony, as his cynical posthumous narration transforms his pursuit of material security into a bitter reflection on his own downfall, allowing the audience to view his compromises through the fatal knowledge of their consequences. Thus, personal decline emerges not simply from failure, but from the compromises individuals make when success becomes more valuable than integrity.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'while I lay on the rocks, reaching into…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 67.5%: Analytical response: Shade the box of the question that you are responding to: 1. How does Mary Oliver define…
Analytical response:
Shade the box of the question that you are responding to:
1. How does Mary Oliver define what it means to live a meaningful life?
OR
2. 'while I lay on the rocks, reaching into the darkness, learning little by little to love our only world.'
In New and Selected Poems, the struggle of living is overcome with inner strength. To what extent do you agree?
Mary Oliver's "New and Selected Poems: Volume 1" is an exposition of nature's comforts, life's hardships, and internal determination. While her poetry dissects the struggles of life, and the inner strength needed to endure them, Oliver suggests that it is not only ourselves but also the natural world that supports and comforts us through tribulations. Alongside this, Oliver further expands that hardship is not an obstacle to be overcome, but rather a lesson to be lived through.
Oliver exposes that internal fortitude is necessary in order to endure struggle. In 'The Journey', the speaker tells the reader that when they leave the voices of
Analytical response:
Shade the box of the question that you are responding to:
1. How does Mary Oliver define what it means to live a meaningful life?
OR
2. 'while I lay on the rocks, reaching into the darkness, learning little by little to love our only world.'
In New and Selected Poems, the struggle of living is overcome with inner strength. To what extent do you agree?
Mary Oliver's "New and Selected Poems: volume 1" is an exposition of nature's comforts, life's hardships, and internal determination. While her poetry dissects the struggles of life, and the inner strength needed to endure them, Oliver suggests that it is not only ourselves but also the natural world that supports and comforts us through tribulations. Alongside this, Oliver further expands that hardship is not an obstacle to be overcome, but rather a lesson to be lived through.
Oliver exposes that internal fortitude is necessary in order to endure struggle. In 'The Journey', the speaker tells the reader that when they leave the voices of
society behind, there will be a voice which they recognise "as [their] own" to guide them. This is supported by imagery of the 'stars [burning] through the sheets of clouds', indicating a spiritual and heavenly presence. This alludes to religious ideas of some greater power providing strength and guidance through periods of challenge, however, Oliver instead frames by this voice as the reader's own. This positions the reader to understand that the greatest strength to endure hardship will come from within oneself. This value is furthered through the anaphoric "you knew what you had to do". Oliver's specific use of second person throughout this poem causes the reader to understand that only they know what they must do. In the context of the hardships Oliver's speaker outlines, the reader is able to comprehend that in order to look past struggle, they must turn inward, as only they know what they must do. This concept is supported in 'Dogfish' where the speaker reflects that the little fish must dash "themselves"
away from the difficult situation they are in. The particular use of "themselves" indicates that only the fish can take action and find strength to swim away. The overall motif throughout this poem of the fish as humanity and the dogfish as difficulties of life supports this, suggesting that Oliver is asking the reader to look within "themselves" for strength in times of struggle. The reader is able to conclude that they must look for internal fortitude in order to live through inevitable struggles. Oliver thus portrays that inner strength is used to overcome life's hardships.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The characters in Rainbow’s End are driven…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 67.5%: Indigenous Australians have witnessed the devastating ramifications of colonial dominance that disrupted…
Indigenous Australians have witnessed the devastating ramifications of colonial dominance that disrupted families, opportunity and rendered their vast inequalities. Depriving First Nations people of dignity, independence and power, lasting impacts of intergenerational trauma remains a barrier for growth and improvements. The play Rainbow’s End, written by playwright Jane Harrison, set in the Yorta Yorta lands, serves as a critique of the corruption embedded in the systemic practices of the 1950s Australia. Despite white hegemony and dominance of Eurocentric views, Harrison applauds profound connection to Indigenous identity as a form of resistance against colonial views. Empowerment from the will to rectify corruptions encourages First Nations Australians to fight for aspiration and not succumb to the will of authoritative power. However, Harrison exposes the lasting impacts of intergenerational trauma as a barrier for reform, prompting continuation of impoverished lifestyles.
Harrison applauds identity as a source of empowerment that overcomes the indoc[trinated] influence of Western hegemony. Nan’s characterisation recognises her grit and profound connection to home through her adamant claim to go back to “Murray River” and “die there”. Exhibiting her resistance amid the corruption of Western policies promoting cultural erosion, Harrison reveals the importance of remaining grounded to culture and traditions. Moreover, through her scepticism and reluctance to accept Western practices and society, portrayed as she cynically labels Errol a “gubba fella” and critiques Gladys’ “obsession” with British monarchy, Harrison exposes the deeply rooted consequence of intergenerational trauma that shaped views and perceptions. Emphasising Nan’s disapproval as not solely fulfilled by anger but rather an act of defiance to remain in control of her own life, Harrison demonstrates the need for Indigenous society to not abandon connection to home or identity. Harrison suggests that Indigenous Australians [need to] adopt immense connection to culture to ensure culture is preserved and passed along generations, resisting cultural genocide.Similarly, through the love interest of Errol and Polly, Harrison reveals the need for acknowledgement and acceptance of cultures and traditions. Despite Errol’s innocent yet ignorant aspiration to provide Polly a “better life”, he ironically disrupts their relationship through his inability to account for the values and traditions of First Nations Australians. His goal to provide Polly “the world” becomes futile by failing to respect Indigenous lifestyles and their significance in fighting oppression. Polly’s strong characterisation reinforces her as a hopeful and admirable figure for Indigenous women by not succumbing to temptations of comfort and convenience to remain grounded to her identity. Depicting Indigenous women’s strength and power as stemming from the negligence to be consumed by Eurocentric views, Harrison emphasises control and autonomy as empowerment in a prejudiced society.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does We Have Always Lived in the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 92.5%: In the 1962 Gothic novella, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson constructs an unsettling world in…
In the 1962 Gothic novella, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson constructs an unsettling world in which boundaries between sanctuary and confinement, innocence and violence, and normality and deviance are persistently destabilised. Through Merricat’s unreliable and deeply subjective narration, Jackson positions the reader within the isolated Blackwood estate, where the sisters’ withdrawal from society appears simultaneously protective and destructive. Against the hostility of the village and the lingering influence of social conventions and past trauma, Jackson exposes how prolonged isolation distorts characters’ perceptions of themselves, others and reality. Ultimately, Jackson suggests that isolation offers refuge from a hostile environment, yet increasingly confines the Blackwood sisters within their own constructed sanctuary.
Initially, Jackson presents prolonged ostracism as a psychological refuge, allowing the Blackwood sisters to seek security from the hostility and judgement of outside society. The villagers’ treatment of Merricat and Constance demonstrates how social hostility drives alienated individuals towards isolation. The townspeople’s depiction of the Blackwoods as monstrous culminates in the taunt, “Merricat, said Constance, would you like a cup of tea”, rendering their hostility as a nursery rhyme and transforming their belittlement into communal entertainment derived from a traumatic experience. Jackson’s use of a childish verse form exposes how the townspeople’s cruelty has become normalised rather than recognised as shameful. Their treatment of Merricat develops into a form of communal surveillance, intensifying her anxiety during her weekly shopping trips. Merricat’s confession that she “was afraid of going past that house” depicts the village as a space of observation and hostility, where the unseen judgement of others threatens her autonomy. In response, Merricat’s rituals and imaginative projections replace conventional social norms, allowing the sisters to construct security within their isolated reality. Her “new magical safeguards” reinforce her child-like mentality, enabling her to impose a sense of control over the external world she perceives as destructive. Likewise, Merricat’s fractured imagination fuels her fantasies of self-exile, revealing how sustained cruelty has conditioned her to equate security with detachment from reality. Her belief that “everything’s safe on the moon” transforms the moon’s remoteness into a symbol of psychological refuge, illustrating her child-like conviction that extreme separation from society offers ultimate safety. Jackson therefore suggests that when conventional society becomes threatening, isolation can appear to be the only means of preserving security and autonomy.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: explore the significance of honour in the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1981 novella "Chronicle of a death foretold" is set within the 1950s Colombian society…
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 1981 novella "Chronicle of a death foretold" is set within the 1950s Colombian society paralysed by patriarchal-honour codes, illuminating the institutional failure and moral hypocrisy. Marquez exposes how rigid patriarchal-honour codes relied on by the community, ultimately legitimising sanctioned violence due to the obsession of purity. Marquez illustrates transgression is possible, and the murder is a result of institutional failure and individual choice, highlighting the community's complicity. Marquez presents the novella through a past friend of Santiago Nasar, returning to understand the murder. Marquez elucidates how institutional failure role model morality, results in distorted mores that rationalise violence as gender expectations, consequently highlighting complicity through other's ability to subverse.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “This year i’m trying to make a living”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to…
Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to compromise their authenticity in order to maintain professional survival. He makes a self-reflexive critique of the industry, uncovering the ways in which those within it are forced into moral erosion as a result of an exploitative corporate hierachy that is the studio system. Wilder depicts how writers like Joe, are reduced to a tool of film creation, exemplified by Sheldrake's dismissive opening address "OK Gillis you have 5 minutes". In Sheldrake, who is representative of higher-up authorities in Hollywood, even going so far as to alter Joe's work entirely and "make it a musical", Joe realises that "to make a living", he must abandon the writer he wants to be and instead become the utility that Hollywood demands. In knowing "just a story won't do", Joe becomes willing to forgo his honest character, reflected in his "bases loaded"
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “This year i’m trying to make a living”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to…
Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to compromise their authenticity in order to maintain professional survival. He makes a self-reflexive critique of the industry, uncovering the ways in which those within it are forced into moral erosion as a result of an exploitative corporate hierachy that is the studio system. Wilded depicts how, writers like Joe, are reduced to a tool of film creation, exemplified by Sheldrake's dismissive opening address "OK Gillis you have 5 minutes". In Sheldrake, who is representative of higher-up authorities in Hollywood, even going so far as to alter Joe's work entirely and "make it a musical", Joe realises that "to make a living", he must abandon the writer he wants to be and instead become the utility that Hollywood demands. In knowing "just a story won't do", Joe becomes willing to forgo his honest character, reflected in his "bases
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “This year i’m trying to make a living”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to…
Wilder presents a Hollywood culture of utility-based valuation, commodifying individuals and compelling them to compromise their authenticity in order to maintain professional survival. He makes a self-reflexive critique at the industry, uncovering the ways in which those within it are forced into moral erosion as a result of a demanding authoritative studio system. Wilded depicts how, writers like Joe, are reduced to a tool of film creation, shown by Sheldrake's opening address being "OK Gillis you have 5 minutes". In Sheldrake, who is representative of higher-up authorities in Hollywood, even going so far as to alter Joe's work entirely and "make it a musical", Joe realises that "to make a living", he must abandon the writer he wants to be and instead become the utility that Hollywood demands. In knowing "just a story won't do", Joe becomes willing to forgo his honest character, reflected in his "bases loaded" pitch
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Oedipus the King evoke the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 75%: Sophocles presents politics as a cycle of evil in which leaders cannot escape, compelling his audience to empathise…
Sophocles presents politics as a cycle of evil in which leaders cannot escape, compelling his audience to empathise with Thebes while also questioning Athens’ political foundations. Throughout the play, Thebes is embroiled in a constant cycle of tyranny. Laius is the city’s despotic past, supposedly ‘destroy[ing]’ his son to prevent his downfall from power. Oedipus is the city’s present, initially appearing to break from the cycle through claiming ‘read[iness] to help’ and a willingness to ‘do anything’ for his city. However, Oedipus ultimately falls victim to his system, allowing ‘crude, mindless stubbornness’ to nearly destroy Creon on a belief he ‘must rule’. The king descends into tyranny through forcing the shepherd to ‘talk with pain’, creating a stark contrast between compassion and cruelty which allows the character to embody terrifying unpredictability. Creon, the future of Thebes, is superficially presented as a ‘man of sense’; a ‘calm’
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The dangers of solitude are prevalent…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” (2023) explores a one-day snapshot of six astronauts orbiting space and serves as an…
Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” (2023) explores a one-day snapshot of six astronauts orbiting space and serves as an exploration into the nature of human existence and the prevalence of isolation. Harvey demonstrates the prevalence of solitude through both its dangers to humankind as well as its opportunity to reflect and change perspective. She explores how the solitude in space is a hostile environment where the astronauts are in a vulnerable position. Moreover, Harvey conveys how physical distance will ultimately lead to emotional neglect, harming human connections. Conversely, the writer suggests that the isolation from earth provides astronauts with a deeper gratitude for the planet.
Harvey explores the dangerous vulnerability of the astronauts whilst isolated in space. The write draws upon the mice and how “none of [them] get out of this alive… [they’re] all toast”, emphasising how they are not built to withstand space. Harvey symbolises the mice as the astronauts in the space station, highlighting how their isolation from earth puts them in a dangerous position as they cannot rely on the space environment to survive. Moreover, Harvey uncovers this fragility through Nell’s recount of the Challenger disaster, where “they were there and then they were gone, in seventy seconds. Gone.” By repeating the word gone, the writer emphasises the ultimate threat that the astronauts face amid their solitude from earth and how they are at the mercy of space. Furthermore, Harvey characterises the astronauts as “sailors on a… deep dark unswimmable sea”, employing a metaphor to suggest that they are ultimately powerless in the face of the menacing atmosphere of the infinite void. By exploring these ideas, Harvey underscores the dominance of solitude and how it poses as a threat to the astronauts.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah shows that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In Trevor Noah’s ‘Born a Crime’, Noah experiences the difficult upbringing of being a “mixed-race individual” under…
In Trevor Noah’s ‘Born a Crime’, Noah experiences the difficult upbringing of being a “mixed-race individual” under a strict, grim legal system that was built to enforce segregation between individuals based on their appearance. Noah utilises his journey to illustrate that one’s upbringing allows individuals to navigate environments that weren’t meant for them. By exploring Patricia’s influence, the power of multilingualism and his criticism of the legal system, Noah demonstrates that the lessons from his mother allowed him to subvert the very limitations of his environment by providing him with the ‘tools’ to transcend systemic oppression and cope with complex scenarios.
Although the apartheid system was engineered to hold Noah in a state of endless ‘servitude’, Patricia’s rebellious spirit provided him with the mental autonomy that prevented him from adopting a victim mentality. Patricia taught Noah that critical thinking was the ultimate way to achieve freedom. For example, when they lived in Eden Park, which was a predominantly coloured neighbourhood, Noah felt like an “outsider”; considering that he is mixed-race, Noah didn’t feel he belonged in an environment that he couldn’t resonate with. Rather than allowing him to conform to the “neighbourhood’s rules” to feel like he belonged, Patricia utilised this “coloured” environment to prove that his identity was his own to ‘embrace’, rather than a label dictated by the absurd legal system. Consequently, through Patricia’s guidance, Noah learned to view his surroundings not as a cage, but as a landscape that he could use to his advantage through his strategic perception of the very environment that was not for him.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: i made her a star and i cannot let her be…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Through Billy Wilder's film noir piece, Sunset Boulevard functions as a symbol for the disposable and immoral…
Through Billy Wilder's film noir piece, Sunset Boulevard functions as a symbol for the disposable and immoral system of Hollywood. He explores the psychological decline of the characters in sunset boulevard as a side effect of many collective forces. He exposes the ways in which this detachment from reality can be manifested through both the immoral actions of others, as well as individual deceit. Furthermore, Wilder highlights Hollywood's deceptive system as a key factor leading to an inescapable psychological erosion. Ultimately presenting this decline as a side effect of a plethora of factors.
Sunset Boulevard conveys the ways in which relationships with others can instigate consciousness of their reality. Wilder uses Joe's narration to reveal the role hemplayed in Norma's loss of reality. Joe narrates his experiences with norma claiming she was “waving to a parade that had long passed her by, revealing how he was aware of her failing career. Despite this Joe continued to feed into her delusions, symbolised by his continued work on her “salome” script. By pandering to normas delusions, Joe becomes an instigator to normas reality revealing the responsibility he holds for Norma's ultimate demise. Complementing this Wilder draws on the relationship between Norma and Max, to explore how the actions of those close to you can become detrimental when shaping someone's consciousness. Max is often depicted in the shadows and backgrounds of mise-en-scenes within sunset boulevard. This encapsulates how Max is constantly supervising Norma, controlling the reality she sees. Wilder further implies Max’s responsibility through his conversations with Joe. These reveal that Max feels as if he “cannot let her [norma] be destroyed” and that it is him that writes the “fan mail”. As a result of Max’s compliance in distorting and controlling Norma's reality to protect her from a world that has forgotten her, Max is shown to be liable for Norma's dissociative state. Ultimately Wilder parallels the relationships Norma holds with those closest to her to reveal the responsibility they hold over her ultimate psychological decline, revealing those closest to use as being a key factor that plays a responsibility in one's realities.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Change is unwelcome in We Have Always…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Shirley Jackson's Gothic novel presents change as a threat to be repelled, but its deeper interest lies in what…
Shirley Jackson's Gothic novel presents change as a threat to be repelled, but its deeper interest lies in what such resistance costs. The Blackwoods, and Merricat above all, fear change because their safety depends on sameness; the village hates change because the Blackwoods' difference unsettles its own order. Yet Jackson suggests that a life protected from all change is also a life without growth, and that unwelcome change may be the only thing that ever tests it. The novel's ending, in which the sisters achieve the stasis they wanted, leaves the reader uneasy about whether they have been saved or entombed.
Merricat's world is built from ritual precisely because ritual holds time still. Her days are arranged as a series of protective acts: burying objects, nailing a book to a tree, and walking 'safe' routes through the grounds. These rites are Jackson's way of showing that, for Merricat, change is always a form of danger. Her magic is a defence against the return of the arsenic poisoning that destroyed her family, and its logic is that if nothing moves, nothing can be lost again. The house itself reinforces this. Constance's domestic routines, the preserved rooms and the untouched dead parents' belongings suggest a household embalmed in the moment of catastrophe. Even the first-person narration is static: Merricat's flat, childlike declarative voice, with its cheerful obsession with 'werewolf' fantasies and killing, refuses development, so that the reader is confined to her perspective just as the sisters are confined to the property. Jackson thus makes the unwelcomeness of change not merely a theme but a feature of the novel's form.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent is revenge a form of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: In his 2020 revisionist Western High Ground, director Stephen Maxwell Johnson elucidates the missed opportunity…
In his 2020 revisionist Western High Ground, director Stephen Maxwell Johnson elucidates the missed opportunity for understanding between two cultures, challenging accepted notions of Australia’s settlement and its devastating consequences for Indigenous Australians. Set in 1919 Northern Australia, the film follows the violent collision between Yolngu communities and colonial authorities. Johnson examines the extent to which revenge can function as a form of justice, revealing that this distinction is ultimately dictated by an individual’s experiences and perception of morality. Cultural superiority can legitimise vengeance as a justified response to perceived wrongdoing, while profound suffering can similarly provoke individuals to seek retribution against those responsible for their injustice. However, Johnson ultimately suggests that justice can be achieved without exacting violent revenge, through acknowledging wrongdoing, reconciliation and the restoration of cultural balance.
Johnson demonstrates that cultural superiority can distort an individual’s perception of justice, allowing acts of vengeance to be justified as legitimate punishment. Through a Eurocentric outlook, colonial authorities perceive European law and morality as inherently superior, granting themselves the supposed authority to determine both wrongdoing and its appropriate punishment. This ideology is personified through Moran’s insistence , “That is the law that I am duty bound to uphold.” visually reinforced through the props of Moran’s official badges, which he proudly declares ,symbolising the British institutional values through which he legitimises his authority over Indigenous Country. The absolutist reference to “the law” characterises European law as an unquestionable moral authority, while “duty bound” reveals Moran’s belief that enforcing colonial values is an obligation rather than a choice, and will contonue to achieve justice if it eqautes to tupholding his ideological beliefs.. Johnson therefore exposes how cultural superiority enables vengeance to be morally reframed as the legitimate enforcement of justice. Johnson immediately destabilises this supposed moral authority through the opening massacre, where rapid-paced editing and confronting diegetic sounds of gunfire, and the horrifying screams of the Yolngu peoples ,construct a chaotic soundscape surrounding the indiscriminate killing of the Yolngu community. Drawing upon the historical 1911 Gan Gan massacre, Johnson confronts audiences with the brutality concealed beneath colonial practices of reprisal, challenging romanticised understandings of Australia’s settlement by exposing the violence that could be legitimised as the enforcement of Western order. Moran’s campfire narration further exposes the subjectivity of this supposed justice as he claims the Yolngu “crossed a line” and “killed a white woman.” Moran’s voice accompanies the unfolding events, granting him narrative control over where the conflict seemingly begins and constructing subsequent colonial vengeance as justified punishment. Yet Johnson destabilises his account through the audience’s prior knowledge that “seventeen” Indigenous people were killed by the station men, and Moran later orders in Act 3 to “Kill them all” The disparity exposes a racialised perception of justice whereby white suffering warrants vengeance, while Indigenous suffering is denied equivalent moral significance.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Oliver's poems capture the universe within…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: Oliver's poems capture the universe within ordinary objects and experiences. Discuss Written during a period of…
Oliver's poems capture the universe within ordinary objects and experiences. Discuss
Written during a period of extreme social and political upheaval, Mary Oliver's “New and Selected Poems, Volume One” (1986) repeatedly suggests that the universe is not an abstract concept, but one that is enclosed in daily ordinary moments. Through multiple scenarios, Oliver uncovers cosmic ideologies of the universe’s nature, and spiritual renewal in the most familiar moments. Yet whilst many poems reveal eternity in the small and domestic, others turn towards the violence and historical experiences, demonstrating that her vision of the universe exceeds what may be considered as ordinary.
Oliver often begins with recognisable and comfortable experiences surrounding nature and utilises them to branch into a vast sense of the universe and the human role within it. In her poem “August,” the speaker describes an individual’s experience eating from a blackberry bush “nobody owns.” Throughout the poem, Oliver threads soft “o” assonance into images of the “swollen” berries, the surrounding “woods,” and the sense that the bush is something “nobody owns.” This repeated succession of the sounds emphasises the speaker's transition as they exit the realms of human ownership into a purer, divine space within nature by sonically enacting the speaker’s slow movement away from human concepts of ownership and into a more open, sacred natural realm. By doing so, Oliver demonstrates that within the mundane and seemingly ordinary experience of eating the blackberries, the deeper relationship with the universe was able to be uncovered. Oliver extends this exploration in her poem “Wild Geese” as she illustrates the “blue air” and how the geese migrate. The speaker describes the normal weather with the cyclical migratory patterns of the birds to delve into not only the cyclical nature of the natural world but also the underlying cosmic order of the world. This order includes the reader and invites them to take their “place in the family of things.” Oliver thereby uses the vivid and accessible scenes in order to be able to capture the universe, without the use of abstract philosophy.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Harvey explore the idea that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Samantha Harvey's award winning space pastoral novel ‘Orbital’ follows a crew of six astronauts on a space station…
Samantha Harvey's award winning space pastoral novel ‘Orbital’ follows a crew of six astronauts on a space station and explores the cost of human endeavor. `Harvey depicts how human endeavour results in the devastation of the earth and reveals humanity's superficial mindset but also provides mankind with opportunity to benefit. This is highlighted through how human endeavour has resulted in the degradation of the natural environment and how it reveals humanity's myopic perspective. She additionally underscores this through how human endeavor comes at a high cost but provides mankind with opportunity to benefit.
Human endeavour has caused the destruction of the natural environment. Harvey illustrates how mankind's desire to progress and its achievements has damaged the earth. Harvey questions whether humanity “cannot find peace with one another?” or with “the earth?” as they continue to “tyrannise” and “ransack” the one thing on which they depend upon for survival. Harvey uses a third person omniscient perspective to adopt a god-like perspective and directly critique humanity's inability to maintain peace amongst each other and the earth. Using this, Harvey displays how humanity's journey to advancement and the milestones it has achieved has jeopardized mankind's future survival through the degradation of the natural world. Additionally, Harvey underscores the irony in humanity's actions as they continue to destroy the earth in their quest for evolution, as without the earth “they are all finished" and would be sailors on a “deep, dark unswimmable sea”. Harvey employs the use of a metaphor to emphasize the reliance humans have on the earth, as without it they are vulnerable to the deep dark neverending void of the expanding universe. Harevy communicates her morals of how instead of constantly trying to advance, mankind's only true priority should be taking better care of the environment as it is the sole reason for their survival. Through this, ‘Orbital’ demonstrates how human endeavour has resulted in the ruin of the natural world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent do people find power in a…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In his memoir Born A Crime Trevor Noah, a comedian and political commentator, explores the intricacies of the lack…
In his memoir Born A Crime Trevor Noah, a comedian and political commentator, explores the intricacies of the lack of human agency in everyday life, set out by an oppressive and segregatory, Apartheid Regime. Set in the late 1980s and early 90s, Noah depicts the lack of autonomy all individuals experience within a regime, separating people based on their racial classification. While Noah expresses the ability of individuals to organically find power, subverting Apartheid’s control, through Language, Noah ultimately asserts that the stark divisions set out by Apartheid, limit the power of victims of the regime. Writing to a global audience, Noah seeks to reveal the fatalism and inevitability of oppression within an hate-fuelled society to educate readers with little knowledge of the brutality. In doing so, Noah constructs his self-mythology, also, to educate a more specific American readership, on his cultural background, which created a survival instinct for Noah.
Noah expresses the lack of human agency through the state-fuelled, weaponized tribalism, turning racial groups against each other. Noah identifies the “genius of Apartheid” as their government's agenda to exploit the existing divisions within a post-colonial South Africa. In the prelude of his first chapter Run, Noah labels the system of Apartheid as “Aparthate”, employing a portmanteau effect where blending the word ‘hate’ with Apartheid cements the association in his readers mind. Later on in the chapter Run, Noah depicts the consequences of Apartheid’s inorganic development of the Zulu vs Xhosa rivalry. By assigning varying levels of privilege and authority to different groups, the Apartheid regime manufactured animosity between the Zulu and Xhosa tribes. Noah employs the illegal bus route tension as an example of this, exploring that the Xhosa bus driver was almost killed by the Zulu bus driver for interfering in his route. Noah depicts how Apartheid was able to polarize these two tribes, to deflect attention from their own discrimination. Noah then utilizes the Zulu driver’s hatred against Patricia, as he calls all Xhosa women “Sluts”, and his decision to capture Patricia and Trevor as a symbol of individuals' lack of autonomy. Despite not having done anything to upset the bus driver, Noah reveals their very identity as Xhosa, a rival club was enough to warrant the bus driver's violence. Thus Noah depicts how an individual's ability to bond and connect with an other, is controlled by Apartheid’s grasp. The regime leaves no room for individuals of different groups, to combine as their integration would expose the illegitimacy of Apartheid. In exploring this, Noah seeks to foster a deep sense of tragedy and frustration against the regime, in a global audience.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "They're humans with a godly view and…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 100%: Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital (2023) follows six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the…
Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital (2023) follows six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station over a single orbital day. Written amid the isolation of Covid-19 lockdowns, accelerating environmental degradation, and resurgent nationalism, Harvey positions readers with a godlike vantage over Earth, one that destabilises the frames of reference — time, space, value — through which the crew, and by extension the reader, ordinarily understand their place in the world. Across individual, geopolitical, and cosmic scales, Harvey traces a single arc: the disintegration of human significance is never left as simple diminishment, but is repeatedly recovered as a fiercer, more urgent form of belonging.
At the individual scale, Harvey explores how identity depends on our anchoring to Earth's rhythms, and what is lost when that anchor slips. Roman clings to sequential markers — "days, sunrises, orbits and moonrises" — which he "carefully marks" to stay synchronised with the world below; stripped of them, he wakes to the disoriented refrain "where are we, where are we." This anxiety reflects a broader instruction given to the crew, to "look often at your watch to anchor your mind," yet space resists this discipline, "shred[ding] time to pieces" until even the narration seems to ask, "what's a day?" Harvey's use of free indirect discourse here blurs Roman's private disorientation into the novel's collective voice, suggesting that the "day-less freak zone" the mind drifts into is not his alone but a shared condition of the station itself. Chie's grief offers a counterpoint: receiving news of her mother's death in orbit, she cannot process its finality, admitting "everything that's left of my mother is there, and soon it will be burned and gone." The station becomes a pause rather than an escape. Yet this same distance recasts her relationship to Earth as protective rather than passive — the "spinning globe" becomes something she must guard as a daughter guards a parent, an identification Harvey makes explicit through the recurring metaphor of Earth as mother, "strong and full of joy," fragile and mortal like Chie's own. Through Roman and Chie, Harvey suggests that selfhood in isolation is not abandoned but re-anchored — to number, to memory, to a planet reimagined as kin.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: we have always lived in the castle is a…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In Shirely Jackson’s gothic novel ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ the sense of control is established as a…
In Shirely Jackson’s gothic novel ‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’ the sense of control is established as a highly desirable and sought out power to have. Jackson’s novella depicts the intense desire for status and reflects the struggle between social classes in an era of change. Moreover, Jackson condemns the patriarchal structure that controls women’s lives, and finally, Jackson emphasizes the need for societal change and diminishes the drive to control. Therefore, Jackson’s novel is a reflection of disastrous battles for power in which she critiques as a terrible motivator in the world, exposing its obsessive nature and harmful effects, thereby she seeks to illuminate the much needed change in 1960’s American society.
The novel represents the aspiration for status and reflects the class barriers as a struggle in an emerging society. In the 1950’s, tensions between dividing classes were high, specifically between old money and new money. Jackson includes this is her novel, highlighting the social barrier between the wealthy Blackwood family and the regular villagers. Jackson creates this clear divide in her opening chapters, through her symbolic inclusion of the fence which surrounds the “entire Blackwood property”, in order to keep the “common people” away from their status in the world. Jackson develops this fence as a way to physically represent the clear barriers between the two classes, in which the Blackwoods believe they are superior, as they want to claim their dominance in society. The villagers are aggrieved by the fence as it limits them from the “highway”, as well as reinforcing that the Blackwoods have an ideology of superiority. Jackson thereby uses the fence as a way to create tension in her novel, as the two classes fight to gain control in their small community. Furthermore, Jackson illustrates the clear split in society through her structuring of her novella. In the beginning of her text she establishes the divide, but it is in her narrative arc where she intensifies the tensions in driving for influence. After the climactic fire, the remanning Blackwoods venture back into their castle where they find their historic “silver wear” completely “smashed”, by the villagers. Jackson includes the silverware to not only hint the wealth of the Blackwood family, but also as a strong indicator of the villagers resentment of the power the Blackwood family have always had, which they had never been included in. Therefore, Jackson critiques the motivator to have status as it knowingly creates tension and conflict, and ultimately the novel reflects the struggle to gain power in a classist world.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel WHALITC, is set in post-war II America, where society's culture was rooted in strict…
Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel WHALITC, is set in post-war II America, where society's culture was rooted in strict mid-century gendered roles and the rise in fear of otherness was gradually accelerating. In the novel the Jackson explores the dynamics between society and its outcasts. Ultimately endorsing withdrawal from the world as the only path to the peace that achieve what she defines as peace.
In WHALITC Jackson presents her ideal version of peace. The idea that peace is a state of harmony where is characterised as the absence of hostility, violence or mental anxiety, Jackson also presents peace as a state of freedom and autonomy for women. Jackson does this through the contrast between the Blackwood home and the village. In the beginning of the novel Jackson presents the village through the lense of the eccentric protagonist Merricat Blackwood. As she walks through the village Jackson creates a sense of tension within the reader. through short, fragmented sentences. Creating a choppy, urgent rhythm that mimics panic. By doing this Jackson associates the village environment with anxiety, fear and hostility. Merricat also states that she only goes to the village for the "simple need for food and books" this highlights her lack of autonomy that she has. Through this Jackson positions society as a place of hostility and violence. In juxtaposition Jackson presents home as a place of safety, peace and comfort. Jackson shifts demenor with her use of descriptive language such as "safe" and "secure." Jackson's use of language that is generally associated with safety, presents the home as a space
that individuals are left to be free. Jackson further establishes the Blackwood home as a fortress that protects the family from the hostile environment of the village. Through the symbolism of the fence around the estate, it acts as a physical barrier that isolates them from the world. Showing that separation from the outside world is a path to peace. The Blackwood home is also presented as a place with order and routine with the Blackwood sisters living a relatively privileged lifestyle in the home waiting for something to grow, "adding to the food in the cellar," and eating the year away. This lifestyle is self-sufficient and quiet. The absense of the hostility and disorder highlights the lack of agency and freedom that the sisters have outside the estate. With Merricat's use of rituals and magic, a like playing a game that restricts where she can walk and fantasising "walking on the bodies" of the villagers, further revealing that separation from society can be a path to achieve peace, with the Blackwood home representing that withdrawal and the village as the world in which individuals escape from.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'In Twelfth Night, disguise is both…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 100%: While Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ is understood to be a romantic comedy, the story seeks to expose the…
While Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ is understood to be a romantic comedy, the story seeks to expose the duality of the use of disguise and concealment. Shakespeare suggests that disguise can allow for control over one’s life, yet also exemplifies the consequences of concealment regardless of intent. Ultimately, he highlights how disguise is complex and subtly counterintuitive.
Disguise liberates identity while providing a sense of protection. Olivia grieves the recent loss of her brother with “eye-offending brine” every night. While people seek to take advantage of her emotional state, she takes control of her own wishes by controlling her outward presentation. She walks “veiled” and “like a cloistress” to put a barrier between her and other people and control how they can see her. Disguise and concealment can be used to regain a sense of control when circumstances in life change and become uncontrollable, as portrayed through Olivia’s use of her veil. Disguise thus becomes a mechanism for retaining stability, framing concealment as a liberating force. Olivia also uses her veil to protect herself from the influences of others, especially suitors. She commands that she will not see a man “for seven years”, and so when Cesario appears at her door with the intention to woo her, she tells her servants, “fetch my veil, come throw it o’er my face”. Olivia’s veil conceals her appearance from Cesario, allowing her control and protection in the situation, and only when she feels comfortable to show herself does she tell Cesario “we shall draw the curtain and show you the picture”. Commanding a situation through disguise thus becomes a form of liberation. By safeguarding the vulnerable until they choose to relinquish it, disguise is portrayed as empowering and emancipating. Viola similarly employs a disguise to make a life for herself in the foreign land upon which she found herself shipwrecked. She landed on the shores of Illyria with the ship captain, and concluded that her brother may have died at sea. The captain tried to console her by saying that he saw her brother “like Arion on the dolphin’s back”, riding to shore, and so Viola decided that there was little point in grieving for long. She soon planned to join the court of Duke Orsino, but told the captain “conceal me what I am” for “my disguise shall haply become the form of my intent” so she could do so. Shakespeare constructs Viola’s steadfast planning to demonstrate how disguise facilitates survival and endurance. The mythological allusion to the Greek god Arion frames Sebastian’s survival as miraculous, thereby motivating Viola’s own strategic reinvention. The reference also illuminates the thematic focus on hope and freedom, liberating Viola from being trapped in sadness and uncertainty. Disguise is exemplified as an agent for self-control and freedom.