VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In what ways does “Twelfth Night”…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Transformation is the change an individual experiences eventually leading to the renewal being the outcome of the…
Transformation is the change an individual experiences eventually leading to the renewal being the outcome of the change. Set amidst the backdrop of the late Elizabethan era, William Shakespeare's ‘Twelfth Night’, celebrates the interrelationship between these two concepts through love, disguise, and self-deception. Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ reveals that transformation must happen before renewal, where individuals must lose themselves in illusion before they can find truth and identity again.
Shakespeare emphasises that emotional transformation through love can lead to renewal of the heart. The emotional transformation is conveyed through an individual’s experience, particularly highlighted through Orsino in the opening line of the play, “If music be the food of love”. The metaphor compares love to appetite, where he wants to consume it endlessly. This reveals emotional self-absorption where Orsino is in love with the idea of love rather than loving someone. Shakespeare affirms Orsino’s relationship with love prior to the transformation, where he seeks to change his view of love to renew his view of the genuine emotion. Viola’s disguise as Cesario challenges Orsino’s inflated view of love. Orsino exaggerates through a hyperbole that “there is no woman’s sides that can bide the beating of so strong a passion as love doth give my heart.” This declares that women cannot love him deeply while Viola (a woman) is the one who truly understands him. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to expose Orsino’s blindness and set up his transformation. The honest conversations about emotion transform Orsino where he begins to value the sincerity and connection over love as an idea. The revealing of Viola’s disguise is what leads to Orsino’s renewal. This is reflected when Orsino asks to “Give me thy hand and let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.” This is clarified as “thy hands” and “woman weeds” symbolise trust and connection, where Orsino has moved from idealised love to genuine human connection. Shakespeare utilises Orsino as a character to unveil how love can transform one’s fantasies to authentic affection through understanding.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Jackson's novel examine the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Shirley Jackson's 1962 gothic novel We have always lived in the castle creates a world that replicates amarican…
Shirley Jackson's 1962 gothic novel We have always lived in the castle creates a world that replicates amarican societies nuclear family archetype, wherein woman are disenpowered and sujeted to domestic roles. Throughout her novel jackson exposes the difficulties woman have to endure in a world where power is distributed uneavenly. Through the gothic tope of insiders vs outsiders jackson denounces socities attempts the indoctrinate a patriarcal ideoplogy onto non conformists. Hence, jackon revelas how woman are marginalised in attemps to subvert convention. Ultimatly although jackson delenites that in a world where post war era Mcathystic Ideologies strip woman of thier autonamy. Through mericat and constance, she prompts her readership to understand there are means to subvert these dificulties and achive liberation from a world where power is distributed uneavenly.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: creative essay on prompt of protests,…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 92.5%: Dear America, You have always spoken of freedom, yet I have learned that freedom often hides behind silence.…
Dear America,
You have always spoken of freedom, yet I have learned that freedom often hides behind silence.
It is the silence that follows every promise unkept, every march ignored, every plea for justice met with delay.
This silence is heavy. It fills our streets and courtrooms, presses upon our lungs, and muffles the cries of the weary.
I know its weight.
I felt it in Montgomery, when a seamstress with tired feet sat down and refused to stand. Her name was Rosa. They called her disobedient; I called her brave. When she sat, an entire nation stirred. In that stillness, we discovered a new kind of movement one born not from anger, but from dignity.
For years, I have watched as this silence built itself into laws and customs, into polite conversations and whitewashed textbooks. It has dressed itself in respectability and patience, as though justice were something to be scheduled.
They tell me, “Wait, Martin. Not yet.”
But time is not a healer. Time is a mirror. It shows us what we refuse to see — that waiting changes nothing when those who hold power have no reason to move.
When I wrote from the Birmingham jail, the walls hummed with that same quiet. Outside, men of reason and faith good men, they said urged me to be patient. They feared noise more than injustice.
And so I wrote, not to them, but to history itself:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
They did not know what it meant to live as a problem. To wake each day knowing your existence is debated like a theory, your skin treated as evidence of guilt. Yet even in that darkness, I held a truth stronger than any chain: that love is not silent, and silence is not peace.
Protest, I have learned, is love refusing to be quiet.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: WRite ana analysis of the ways which…
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 80%: A collective of musicians published an open letter towards the Narrow Valley region, proposing an additional…
A collective of musicians published an open letter towards the Narrow Valley region, proposing an additional music festival alongside their iconic garden festival to expand their performing opportunities. Aware that the community is reluctant to embrace change despite a steep decline in tourism, they write in a passionate and hopeful tone, framing the proposal as a community-wide initiative. Through repeated appeals to inclusivity, they not only build rapport with locals but also frame the music festival as a chance to revitalise the local economy. By addressing older generations, workers and other young musicians, they prompt them to perceive the creation of the music festival as mutually beneficial and economically necessary. The accompanying image reinforces the team’s vision by casting the music festival as a communal event that encourages diversity and renews the region.
The team opens their letter by revealing their passion in reshaping the community, characterising themselves as “inclusive, youth-driven and energetic”, hoping to “seize opportunities” and “changing the region (and the future)” already framing themselves as future leaders to the locals. Similarly, they confidently assert that the proposed festival “celebrates diversity” and “provides a space for budding musicians”, aiming to stimulate the music festival as a supportive and growing environment that rejuvenates the community. Despite acknowledging the potential disagreement with the proposal, the authors display the naysayers’ argument “What? We hear you say…” as a series of trivial, almost flippant comments to make it seem invalid, prompting the locals to support the addition of the festival. Furthermore, the use of uncited statistics — that “visitors have dropped 50% percent over the past 5 years…” creates a credible impression to the uninformed while urging Narrow Valley locals to recognise that the festival is no longer sustainable, thus legitimising the need for change. Additionally, while claiming the need for a “change in tempo and style”, the team of musicians deliberately place a photograph of a set of hands with varying skin colours holding instruments, CDs and even spoons. Not only does this prompt readers to see the music festival as a break from the outdated garden festival but also primes them to visualise the
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Jane Eyre challenges the moral codes of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In a society where external appearances and class are conflated within inner morality, Bronte argues that…
In a society where external appearances and class are conflated within inner morality, Bronte argues that character and worth are not defined social hierarchies. In the exposition of the novel, Bronte elucidates the hierarchical disparity between Jane and her aunt. Denouncing that Jane is but a “servant to [her]”, Bronte establishes how Mrs Reed possesses superiority over Jane. This tension is further developed, as Jane exacerbates that Mrs Reed is “bad, heard-hearted [and] deceitful”, reflecting her resentment towards her aunt's cruelty and social superiority. However, through moral guidance of her surrounding peers, Jane’s integrity deepens, fostering a “strong yearning to forget and forgive” Mrs Reeds’s actions and extinguish “[her] flame of resentment”. This moral growth is evident when Jane declares that she is “not vindictive”, acknowledging her desire for Mrs Reed’s forgiveness. Despite Mrs Reed's continued bitterness, Jane’s capacity for self-reflection illustrates that moral worth is not dictated by class or status. Though this development, Bronte challenges the Victorian amalgamation of social rank with virtue, asserting that true character arises from compassion rather than social class. Continually, Bronte contrasts Jane and Blanche Ingram’s outwardly appearance and moral attitudes, underscoring the disparity between superficial beauty and inner virtue. Blanche’s very name, meaning white, connotes elegance and aristocratic superiority, reflecting her elevated social standing. Jane’s association with the word plain suggests simplicity and ordinariness, reinforcing her lower position in the social hierarchy. This contrast mirrors the stark disparity between the two women’s class identities, whilst exemplifying how superior classes are viewed through a lens of purity and righteousness. Blanche’s remark describing governesses as “detestable and the rest ridiculous” and “all incubi” reveals her contempt for those of lower status. The hyperbolic language of “incubi”, evoking demonic imagery, reflects the aristocratic mindset that views them as "dependants". Brontë uses this disdain to expose the hypocrisy of the landed gentry, who pride themselves on refinement yet display cruelty, suggesting that high social standing does not equate to virtue. Therefore, Bronte reveals that social superiority masks moral ambiguity, challenging the Victorian assumption that higher class means higher virtue.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Personal Journeys First steps
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: It's been sitting there for a while. In my drawer, an empty journal gifted to me by my grandma. She must have…
It's been sitting there for a while. In my drawer, an empty journal gifted to me by my grandma. She must have thought I was going to start using it as a diary, keeping track of my life so I could look back on it one day. But it is quite useless to me, perhaps because unlike her, I don't have anything worthwhile to write about. My memories still vivid, and none are significant enough to write about, in fear of forgetting. My grandma knows this, so why a journal? I don't do a lot. At the moment, I can only go forward, and there may be something of interest, something I must write. I would like to fill the pages out of pure respect for my grandma, and give her gift meaning, but so far it has gathered more dust than ink. I took the journal and a black pen, blowing the dust off. I open the cover, inhaling slowly and coughing from the dust I just blew in the air, before promptly closing the cover and putting everything right back to where they were. It is too difficult to simply... start. Especially when the end cannot be seen. I just don't know what to write.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Demand Progress. Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: Demand Progress Dear Andrew Dillon, Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this letter. I am…
Demand Progress
Dear Andrew Dillon,
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this letter.
I am speaking out about an ongoing issue present in the sport of AFL.
As the CEO, I am asking you to listen to what I have to say and implement boundaries to protect the mental health of players in your league.
Being a past player in the AFL, I have experienced the effects of social media on my football ability and my external life. During my time playing, I was scared to speak out. Men and being mentally strong are supposed to go hand in hand with each other. Showing weakness is heavily stigmatized around the league and the last thing I needed was feeling more shame. You hold the greatest power and this issue can only improve in the right direction if you make a change.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title was "First Steps" Stimulus was…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: First Steps. "Are we there yet" "Are we nearly there" "My legs hurt can I go back down" Was what I used to…
First Steps.
"Are we there yet"
"Are we nearly there"
"My legs hurt can I go back down"
Was what I used to say to my brother. If you couldn't tell, I never used to be the biggest fan of going hiking. I hated the faint buzz of flies swarming my body. I hated the stickiness of sweaty skin trying to fight off the unbearable heat from the blaring sun. I hated the burning sensation in my legs from the steep rocky incline. I hated it.
"No! You're not allowed to give up, you don't even know what could be waiting for you at the end."
It felt endless.
What could possibly be grand enough to equate this kind of torture?
One foot in front of the other. I just had to keep going. Mum used to say hiking built character. I thought it just built blisters.
My skin began to turn a different shade, a crimson hue slowly spreading. Itches from the scratchy, dry blades beneath me and the pesky blood sucking insects that were driving me insane. I'd gone too far. Not even my favourite beats blasting from my headphones could cure me.
Looking ahead my brother had become a tiny figure in the distance. A speck. If you were to even blink you would lose him. He was so far ahead he could almost reach the setting sun.
One. Two.
One. Two.
Nearly there.
My body moved on autopilot. Somewhere in my brain it was like cruise control was switched on.
I was so close.
closing my eyes, I let my legs take me up that final stage.
The last incline.
The last left turn.
The final step.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Jane Eyre challenges the moral codes of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Jane Eyre challenges the moral codes of the Victorian era. Discuss.
Jane Eyre challenges the moral codes of the Victorian era. Discuss.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: One goal many ways Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: ✨ Captain Planet – “One Goal, Many Ways” (Exam Version) Put your hand up if you like to play outside in the…
✨ Captain Planet – “One Goal, Many Ways” (Exam Version)
Put your hand up if you like to play outside in the sun!
Or go to the beach and splash in the waves?
How about animals — hands up if you love them too?
Well, guess what? So do I!
Hi, I’m Captain Planet, and I’ve just flown in from Earth’s secret headquarters. I’m here because our planet needs heroes — and I’ve heard this school is full of them! You don’t need super speed or laser eyes, just a big heart and a little care for the world around you.
People have made too much smoke, cut down too many trees, and dumped rubbish where it doesn’t belong. The Earth’s getting hotter — it’s like when we get sick. That’s called climate change. So here’s your first mission: help the Earth feel better.
When someone you care about is sick, do you ignore them?
Of course not — you help!
So if Earth gives us food and water, should we ignore its pain, or speak up to help?
Exactly — we speak up!
That’s what protest is — when people come together to say, “This needs to change.” Maybe you’ve told your brother it’s not fair when he takes your toys — that’s you using your voice. And the best thing about protest? Everyone can do it in their own way.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: analyse key ideas from yoko ogawas the…
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 80%: Essay – The Memory Police Introduction Set on an unnamed island where everyday objects and the memories tied to…
Essay – The Memory Police
Introduction
Set on an unnamed island where everyday objects and the memories tied to them slowly disappear, Yōko Ogawa’s dystopian novel The Memory Police (1994) explores how fragile memory is and how it shapes who we are. Written in Japan after the country’s experience of wartime censorship and postwar trauma, the novel reflects fears about the loss of identity and truth under authoritarian power. Through her simple yet symbolic style and allegorical storytelling, Ogawa shows that when memory is taken away, individuality and humanity collapse. At the same time, she shows that language, relationships, and storytelling are fragile but powerful forms of resistance. By letting readers experience the narrator’s gradual loss of memory and hope, Ogawa reveals that to remember is to stay human.
Body Paragraph 1 – Memory and Identity
The text highlights that memory defines identity, and its loss leaves people empty and disconnected. Ogawa positions the audience inside the narrator’s mind, allowing us to feel the slow acceptance of forgetting. The narrator’s memory of her mother’s secret cabinet of forbidden objects — “Ribbon, bell, emerald, stamp. The words that came from my mother’s mouth thrilled me … like new species of plants” — shows how alive memories can be, even when the objects are gone. Yet as disappearances increase, she begins to adapt “without much fuss,” showing how easily people get used to control. This mirrors Japan’s wartime censorship, where the loss of language and art led to silence and obedience. When the narrator says her books are now “just lumps of paper,” Ogawa symbolises how power removes meaning from culture and identity. Even though the narrator eventually disappears, she finishes her manuscript first, proving that storytelling is one of the last ways to fight back. This links to Japan’s postwar writers, who used literature to recover suppressed voices and rebuild identity after years of propaganda. Through this, Ogawa shows that art and memory can keep humanity alive, even when everything else fades.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: And he is the only family I have left, I…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 67.5%: Flames ii) And he is the only family I have left; I wasn't ready to give up what my mother had built. Family…
Flames
ii) And he is the only family I have left; I wasn't ready to give up what my mother had built. Family Bonds do not necessarily produce positive outcomes in flames, Discuss.
In Flames a novel by Robbie Arnott explores the magical realism in the story through characters such as Charlotte who is one of the main characters alongside Levi who is Charlottes brother, Jack who is a fire Spirit and Levi and charlotte's father and Karl who is a seal hunter. Flames adequatley portrays how bonds between people do not necessarily produce positive outcomes. To support this Robbie Arnott highlights how Charlotte and Levi's relationship brings negative outcomes toward the family dynamic they have, Arnott also shows how the closest bond can become a fading memory, And how family bonds can create distance and isolation.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: What is the significance of blindness in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is a classic Greek tragedy about the downfall of Oedipus, a heroic yet ill-fated…
Sophocles’s Oedipus the King is a classic Greek tragedy about the downfall of Oedipus, a heroic yet ill-fated character who was prophesied to marry his mother and kill his father. Oedipus’ journey is a pursuit of knowledge and the truth, and in finding his true identity, which he was blind to, he became physically blind. Combining physical blindness through the character of the blind seer, Tiresias, with figurative language used relating to vision, Sophocles uses this as a motif to highlight the play’s central argument: that vision, especially relating to knowledge and the truth, is valuable but detrimental.
Oedipus’s search for his own identity and Laius’s murderer eventually reveals the truth, bringing about his own downfall and blindness. He is not destroyed by his destiny, but rather by his realisation of the truth, suggesting that reality is the most necessary yet devastating thing in life. His high-stakes goal to find out the truth was set early on, with a message from Apollo urging Thebes to “Drive the corruption from the land”, encouraging Oedipus to carry out his investigation; “I’ll bring it all to light myself!”. His persistence in revealing the truth led to him disregarding Tiresias, who warns him, “if the truth has any power”. Instead, Oedipus’s hubris led to him criticising Tiresias; “You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf - senses, eyes blind as stone!”, yet in such he was only “flinging at me (Tiresias) the very insults each man here will fling at you soon”. His mockery of Tiresias, the blind prophet, is seen as a ridicule of himself, as not only is he oblivious to his own crimes and actions, Oedipus even accuses him and Creon of “this conspiracy”. His eventual realisation of the truth results in his blindness; although he is no longer metaphorically blind to the truth, he finds this newly acquired wisdom unbearable: “What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring joy.” As Oedipus is forced into self-exile, Sophocles shows how Oedipus’s journey to knowledge resulted in blindness, that wisdom is simultaneously valuable and detrimental.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The city or the bush. Stimulus 1: 'The…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: The long, spikey grass tickled my pasty, exposed legs as I trekked through a familiar path. The sound of my…
The long, spikey grass tickled my pasty, exposed legs as I trekked through a familiar path. The sound of my own laughter echoes in the vast land around me. Bare feet delicately grazing the long untouched, overgrown path; heart full, content.
The wet soil of my grandparents' farm left my feet stained brown, but I didn’t care. Heavy footsteps follow behind me as an alluring and soft, almost ethereal laughter follows me. My Nanna runs after me, exhausted but persevering. A long weed tangled in the grass fastened around my foot like a vine, throwing me to the ground. Swallowed by the weeds I giggle, my Nanna towering over me pulling me out of the maze of leaves and grass.
Airbourne. Up into the air I go, flying higher than the willow’s reach.. She catches me, she always catches me. I squeal with excitement as the leaves of the willow tree sway in the soft wind.
Such a small moment, so memorable and simultaneously so insignificant. The city was never like this, only my home was like this. Forever in the country, not always physically but mentally. My heart belongs in the simple memories like that.
This is my country, my home. It was never my city, it was the people’s city. The echo of trains screeching against tracks, the “tick tick tick” of pedestrian crossings and the occasional squeak of poorly maintained brakes on a car; was never mine to keep. Here only stood the willow tree, tall and majestic, illuminated in the otherwise onyx night. Everything else was silent. An usual silence. Emptiness.
“The city never sleeps”, my Nanna used to say, “always busy, always lively.”
We sat on the porch hand in hand. Her soft wrinkly hand in mine. Hearts beating in sync with the sway of the leaves of our old willow tree. The long maze of weeds stands before us, swaying in the soft breeze. Earthy scents mould the world around me, the sound of a distant magpie cawing attracts my attention.
The feeling of her hand in mine. The way we made one with the farm. Moments I will treasure with a fear of losing them. Although they are over now, I will replay them in my mind like a radio never turned off.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: the city or the bush Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 77.5%: To mama and papa. Do you remember those times when we’d all go out into the fields? Collecting endless…
To mama and papa.
Do you remember those times when we’d all go out into the fields? Collecting endless tomatoes to make salads, sauce and soup. Those times, I’d sneak out at five, bright and early in the morning to go for a bike ride with little John? The times we’d spend laughing in the kitchen during dinner, while I quizzed John on his math (we all know he wasn't very good at it)?. I miss those times. I miss the country. I miss my family. I miss Cativo, my real home.
I vividly remember the day before I left I woke up as usual and carried on with my usual duties. Milked the cows, fed the animals, collected the eggs and composted any scraps. Then it was over to the garden. Acres and acres of green plants lined up perfectly linear with a variety of vegetables, most of which I picked, especially the tomatoes for the best homemade sauce in the town. Your sauce. It was as hot as being in the sun that day. I felt like I was constantly being burnt with sweat dripping from any gland it possibly could. It may sound like torture but you both know I love the summer weather especially when I had time for a swim. Whether it be too sunny, snowy or rainy. No matter what the weather was I would never stop the work I was required to do.
I then went on a ride with John. How is John? I hope it's still riding up that steep hill- he could never beat me. That hill had such a gorgeous view and it was the last place we rode. That day the sky was the purest of blues with not a single cloud inside. If it wasn't for the shimmer in the ocean water the colors would be pretty identical and blend into each other. I sat on my bike at the top of the hill staring into the horizon. All the worry of entering that Horizon and going through it vanished as my thoughts quietened. I sat reflecting for… I'm not even sure how long but I eventually headed home.
I'm sure you're both aware of the peaceful swim which occurred afterwards. I’d constantly catch you both glimpsing at me with nothing but sadness. At that moment I felt guilty for leaving you both. I hope that now you understand my true reason. I love Italy, it's provided so much for me and has been the place I called home for nineteen years but I could never go to war…my thoughts subsided the second I stared into the Horizon and it was then that I hoped Australia could also provide the simplicity and quietness which the country lifestyle of Italy had.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 60%: Shirley Jackson's gothic novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' explores the dynamics of Blackwood sisters…
Shirley Jackson's gothic novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' explores the dynamics of Blackwood sisters Merricat and Constance, after the tragic poisoning of their family, showcasing a quiet and intimate kind of horror, where gentleness and terror intertwine. Through Merricat's lyrical narration, the isolation of the Blackwood household, and the sisters' peaceful descent into delusion, Jackson transforms the conventions of horror into something strangely beautiful rather than relying on violence and terror. Jackson's novel invites readers to find unease in tranquility and beauty in decay.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The city or the bush. Stimulus 1: 'The…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The long, spikey grass tickled my pasty, exposed legs as I trekked through a familiar path. The sound of my…
The long, spikey grass tickled my pasty, exposed legs as I trekked through a familiar path. The sound of my own laughter echoes in the vast land around me. Bare feet delicately grazing the long untouched, overgrown path; heart full, content.
The wet soil of my grandparents' farm left my feet stained brown, but I didn’t care. Heavy footsteps follow behind me as an alluring and soft, almost ethereal laughter follows me. My Nanna runs after me, exhausted but persevering. A long weed tangled in the grass fastened around my foot like a vine, throwing me to the ground. Swallowed by the weeds I giggle, my Nanna towering over me pulling me out of the maze of leaves and grass.
Airbourne. Up into the air I go, flying higher than all the skies. She catches me, she always catches me. I squeal with excitement as the leaves of the willow tree sway in the soft wind.
Such a small moment, so memorable and simultaneously so insignificant. The city was never like this, only my home was like this. Forever in the country, not always physically but mentally. My heart belongs in the simple memories like that.
This is my country, my home. It was never my city, it was the people’s city. The echo of trains screeching against tracks, the “tick tick tick” of pedestrian crossings and the occasional squeak of poorly maintained brakes on a car; was never mine to keep. Here only stood the willow tree, tall and majestic, illuminated in the otherwise onyx night. Everything else was silent. An usual silence. Emptiness.
“The city never sleeps”, my Nanna used to say, “always busy, always lively.”
We sat on the porch hand in hand. Her soft wrinkly hand in mine. Hearts beating in sync with the sway of the leaves of our old willow tree. The long maze of weeds stands before us, swaying in the soft breeze. Earthy scents mould the world around me, the sound of a distant magpie cawing attracts my attention.
The feeling of her hand in mine. The way we made one with the farm. Moments I will treasure with a fear of losing them. Although they are over now, I will replay them in my mind like a radio never turned off.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “We demand the right to control our own…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Jane Harrison's Rainbows End explores the story of three generations of aboriginal women living in 1950s rural…
Jane Harrison's Rainbows End explores the story of three generations of aboriginal women living in 1950s rural Australia.Through dialogue, symbolism, and tonal contrast, Harrison positions Nan Dear, Gladys, and Dolly as figures whose quiet persistence and humour dismantle stereotypes of victimhood. Through the quote “we demand the right to control our own destiny" Harrison implies that vulnerable people are able to control their own destinies by using their family bonds as a shield to be able overcome adversities, this helps the characters to gain a sense of self determination to push for change. Through these actions however the oppression and discrimination that the indigenous people face does not truly minimise it
Rainbows End conveys the message that subjugated people should also have the right to control their own futures. Harrison does this by portraying family bonds as a means to build strength and have that sense of knowing for the characters that they have support in any matter. Family sits at the heart of rainbows end serving both as a source of strength and a space of tension. Nan dears declaration “my birth certificate says murray river….. born there and by crikey im gonna go back and die there” demonstrates deep connection to country and her family history grounding their identity in place. Yet the family was also burdened with secrets as shown when Nan hides the truth about her own assault, telling Dolly only when she too becomes pregnant after violence: “I was your age once, too. And I even became a mother too when I was your age.”Harrison shows how silence, passed down through generations, becomes a method of survival but also a heavy weight. Despite this, the women’s solidarity emerges as their strongest weapon, as when Gladys fiercely insists during the flood, “They’re only possessions. People is what matters.” In presenting family as both fractured and resilient, Harrison illustrates how love allows the women to endure even in the harshest circumstances.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: No justice, No peace
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 67.5%: No Justice, No peace June 28th 2023 The sound of justice rises before the sun. At first, it’s only a whisper,…
No Justice, No peace
June 28th 2023
The sound of justice rises before the sun. At first, it’s only a whisper, the scrape of a pot lid, a voice calling out in the half-light. In this city, where militants decide who eats and who breathes, there is no peace, there is no justice. Once, our market hummed with merchants and music, bright fabrics rippling above stalls of fruit and spice. Now, the streets lie hollow, the stalls split open like empty shells. Checkpoints choke every road, soldiers sift through what’s left of people’s pockets. Even the hospital has become a fortress. People die waiting for permission to be saved.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “Here, every man has to fight for himself…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 65%: Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir published in 1960, recounting the author’s first-hand experiences with the…
Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir published in 1960, recounting the author’s first-hand experiences with the Holocaust and the attempted systematic extermination of Jews by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In the text, Wiesel delineates the inversion of human values and the systematic acts of dehumanisation of Jews. Through recounting his experiences, Wiesel highlights the tendency of humans to prioritise survival over morality in dire situations, suggesting that complete desperation strips individuals of compassion and reveals the human capacity for inhumanity.
Wiesel highlights how survival instinct overrides morality in a cruel, harsh environment. Prisoners who were once ordinary human beings have been subjected to cruel torment, reduced to animals fighting over crumbs of bread. Wiesel recalls how men were “ready to kill for a crust of bread”, illustrating how the Holocaust caused brutal conditions where starvation stripped away compassion, leaving an animalistic husk of their former selves. In this way, Wiesel confronts how survival becomes a form of moral erosion leaving individuals to act in ways they would have never thought about outside the concentration camps. Furthermore, Wiesel recounts how sons would “abandon their father without a tear”, portraying how the Nazis engineered moral collapse among the prisoners in these camps. Through this, Wiesel demonstrates how the brutal conditions of the Holocaust transformed prisoners into egoistic beings who have been stripped of empathy and morality. The prioritization of survival over morality creates an inhumane environment where empathy is stripped and morality is lost.
Wiesel emphasises how the harsh conditions of the Holocaust systematically strips prisoners of their identity and autonomy, leaving them as a shell of
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Dracula endorse challenge marginalise
VCE Text Response essay scoring 60%: Bram Stoker’s Dracula reveals Victorian anxiety surrounding England’s waning geopolitical power and shifts in…
Bram Stoker’s Dracula reveals Victorian anxiety surrounding England’s waning geopolitical power and shifts in societal morals amidst the Fin de Siècle. Stoker warns of a knowledgeable obsession with the West from foreign powers, yet endorses the scientific and spiritual dedication harnessed to combat these same powers.
Stoker characterises Van Helsing as knowledgeable and focussed, yet differentiates him from the English protagonists through slightly erratic and emotive behaviour. His research of vampirism and how to combat it is instrumental in the defeat of Dracula, particularly through the use of scientific knowledge and spiritual tokens such as ‘communion wafers’. This unwavering pursuit of Dracula and fight to save ‘pure’ English women such as Lucy and Mina from his predation illustrates Van Helsing to be morally righteous in the quest against ‘evil’. Stoker therefore endorses this notion of obsession in the pursuit of good prevailing, through his descriptions of Van Helsing’s toil by other English characters also portrayed as ‘good’.
However, this endorsement is not absolute as Stoker challenges obsession as a force for temptation. Van Helsing’s admission that he has a ‘sweet fascination’ and ‘was moved’ by the vampire women in the passage undermines the notion of obsession having scope for dangerous desire. The somnambulant description of ‘lapsing into sleep’ as he is ‘transfixed’ by the women speaks to a moral lapse in judgement, as Van Helsing nearly loses consciousness of what is right. The ‘voice of dear Madam Mina’ being the vehicle to disrupt this obsessive temptation illustrates morality as a driving force in combatting ‘instinct[ual] desire’, Mina, being portrayed as the idea, pious Victorian woman. Here, Stoker challenges obsession through the notion of it being a dangerous subconscious entity.
Stoker additionally challenges obsession by utilising it as a hallmark of
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: An image of hands holding soil with a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 100%: Take me Home **February 4th, 1984** The humid air at home was always thick but never heavy. It felt alive and…
Take me Home
**February 4th, 1984**
The humid air at home was always thick but never heavy. It felt alive and warm, clinging to me like a second layer of skin. The smoke of Grandma’s cooking fires travelled through our yard, carrying the sweetness of freshly roasted sweet potatoes. I’d always imagine the smell reaching everyone in Dili, bringing them together, as if the whole world was holding us close.
In the evening, Father showed me how to climb a mango tree. First he used his hands to grab a branch, then he pulled himself up using his legs to support himself. Once he was relatively high, he started to pick the fruit one by one before tossing them down to me. The juices ran down my wrists while Mother scolded us for making a mess. Even then, she had a smile on her face.
At night before falling asleep, Mother would sit on my bed telling stories, but this time was different. Clothes were shoved into my backpack, and I was wearing my red boots. Grandma folded slips of sweet potatoes into my palm that were wrapped carefully in tissues. I didn’t understand what they were for, but the look in her eyes made me hold them tighter.
The air was alive with the sound of birds, the smell of rain, and the comfort of everything I knew. Today we were leaving. Father said it was for the better, that there were greater opportunities for me out there, but he didn’t say anything else. He just stood by the gate with his mother, watching the road as we left.
That night I looked at him, and for the very first time I saw my father as a little boy.
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**February 5th, 1984**
We’ve arrived. The sky was not the colour I was used to, neither was the smell of the fresh air. The atmosphere felt sharp and thin, like it was stabbing at me. I stepped off the plane, tightly squeezing my mother’s hand in the very same boots that carried the dirt of my home. They squeaked on the airport tiles with each step I took, like they knew they weren’t made for this country.
My backpack hung heavily on my back. It wasn’t just filled with clothes messily shoved away, but with things I refused to leave behind. But some things couldn’t be carried. Grandma’s sweet potatoes and Father’s laughter all stayed behind. Their absence weighed on me, heavier than anything in my bag.
Still holding my mother’s hand, we stepped outside of the airport. The sun was bright, but its warmth felt hollow. Above us, birds were staring. One was perched on a wire looking down at me. I wondered if it knew that it took 13 hours and 28 minutes for us to get here. I stared at it until it decided to fly away, except it didn’t. Maybe it was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand.
Not yet, anyway.
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**May 1st, 1984**
I started school today. It’s a lot different here than I expected. Teachers try to pronounce my name but it always gets stuck in their throat. I’d hear different pronunciations, but none of them were me. Every wrong syllable chipped at my name until it no longer felt like mine.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: To what extent does Born A Crime show that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In the memoir ‘Born A Crime’ set in the context of 1980s apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, Trevor Noah…
In the memoir ‘Born A Crime’ set in the context of 1980s apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, Trevor Noah challenges the superficial notion that hope and determination can help one overcome all obstacles to reveal the harsh reality faced by the majority who remain trapped in the cycle of poverty, abuse, and discrimination. While he does demonstrate that strong-willed and resilient individuals are capable of defeating obstacles, he also contradicts it by uncovering the limitations imposed by systematic oppression and fear. In addition, he explores a different purpose that goals and motivations play for disadvantaged groups living in adversity. Through Born A Crime, Noah intends to debunk the illusion that sheer willpower will help individuals get out of their struggles and educate his readers about the cruel reality under South Africa’s apartheid control system.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Sophocles anticipates that its audience…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Sophocles anticipates that its audience will feel sympathetic towards Oedipus.Do you agree? The true human…
Sophocles anticipates that its audience will feel sympathetic towards Oedipus.Do you agree?
The true human experience is to visualise ourselves within others so that we may evolve and strive for the better. In Sophocles play “Oedipus the King”, he invites the audience to spectate the lives of the characters within the play and form a sense of sympathy from their outcomes, but ultimately invoke other emotions from the characters experience. Sophocles argues a perspective in which the lives of the characters is one to feel sorry for, as their experiences could be perceived as out of their reach to avoid. However, Sophocles manipulation of the characters true human nature and actions, invites how the characters demise is ultimately deserving and not rewarding of any sympathy. Despite these arguments, Sophocles overall intention and message towards the audience is invoke fear, as the audience may resemble with the actions of the characters within the play. It is often highlighted within the play that we must learn from not only our own experiences, but the experiences of others that live around us to understand life to the fullest.
Sophocles play can most definitely invite his audience to gain a perspective that allows them to feel sympathetic towards the character Oedipus. Sophocles portrays many personas of Oedipus, with one of them being a a problem solver/hunter. While Oedipus does display a sense of hubris in searching for the truth, with episode one saying how he will “bring it to light myself”, he ultimately displays the characteristics of a civic leader who prioritizes the safety of his people with the Athenians. Sophocles demonstrates Oedipus determination as a characteristic that invites the audience to be empathetic towards Oedipus, as he demonstrates Oedipus as a selfless leader. Sophocles also utilises the parameters of fate in invoking sympathy to Oedipus. Sophocles demonstrates towards his audience how it was from birth that Oedipus was written within fate, and discussing how its inevitability will prevail any force of mortal choices. Within the second episode, we see Tiresias describe Oedipus as “no man will be ever rooted from this earth as badly as you”, demonstrating that it was from his “roots” that was intrenched with fate, and despite Oedipus's efforts to avoid such, he had no control over his destiny. Sophocles utilities this fate as a way for the audience to feel sorry for Oedipus, as the ability for him to be treated fairly was denied. Sophocles then links both the determination of Oedipus and the inescapabilities of fate that are then emphasised to his suffering. The main driver to feel sympathy towards Oedipus is his ultimate demise. Oedipus suffering in which he “gouges” his eyes out and along with losing his mother/wife, along with being rid of his city in which he ruled, highlight a opportunity in which the audience my feel pity for Oedipus. Within the fourth episode, Oedipus describes himself in guilt as “i am an abomination…i am agony” highlighting how the tragedy is of the highest form of human destruction. Sophocles ultimately suggest through Oedipus downfall, the positive selfless determination and the inescapability of fate, a reasonable stance for the audience to feel sorry for Oedipus.