VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Sophocles suggests that pride can blind…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: Pride will destroy anyone who clings to it, no matter how strong. In Oedipus the King, nobody - not even the most…
Pride will destroy anyone who clings to it, no matter how strong. In Oedipus the King, nobody - not even the most intelligent and honourable - may protect their virtues from the all-consuming nature of pride. In an effort to maintain pride, people reject their intellectual strength, while the conflict of self-perception and morals will result in a defeat for honour. Yet, the characteristics lost to pride may indeed be regained, through the painful process of decoupling from one’s perceptions.
Sophocles expresses that pride is often detrimental to one’s intellectual abilities, suggesting that when one attempts to maintain their self-assured status, the use of their mind is often constricted. The playwright uses dramatic irony to demonstrate the foolishness of Oedipus driven by his prideful nature. In the false claim that ‘if he was present there would be no long hunt’, Oedipus allows his pride to subvert his initial framing as the ‘first of men’ intellectually. Further uses of dramatic irony contrast Oedipus’ foolishness with Tiresias’ restraint, with the king accusing the seer of being a ‘scheming quack’, in an effort to maintain his self-perception. Yet Oedipus is rendered completely ‘unaware of the [truth] [he] live[s] with’, refusing to contemplate Tiresias’ riddle. Sophocles introduces the motif of sight and blindness to highlight the lack of thought placed by Oedipus, with the king reasoning the seers’ sight leaves him ‘useless’. Yet Sophocles questions the true sight of Oedipus, suggesting that through his assuredness in his own eyes, Oedipus is blind to the truth he is explicitly presented by the man he perceives as blind. In an effort to protect Oedipus’ self-perception, Jocasta suggests ‘chance rules our lives’ and discards ‘dreadful prophecy’. Her immediate confrontation with determinist truths are ironically used by Sophocles to insinuate her philosophical misunderstanding, and suggest that through trying to protect her husband’s pride, she refuses to contemplate the basis of her beliefs. Sophocles ultimately suggests that, in the act of maintaining perception, for both oneself and others, one will abandon their intellectual foundations, with the mind weak in the face of pride.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title: Small Acts, Big Wins Stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 95%: Small Acts, Big Wins On October 7th, 2023, missiles were fired once again. Throughout history, meaningful…
Small Acts, Big Wins
On October 7th, 2023, missiles were fired once again.
Throughout history, meaningful change has rarely begun with silence and capacity. It has begun with protest. With making those small acts to achieve those big wins. Protest emerges when injustice is no longer tolerable. When silence becomes complicity. On December 16th, 2023, I learned that protest is not simply an act of opposition, but a moral response to injustice. It is not just about demanding that others listen. It is about refusing to let someone's suffering go unseen because it is difficult to look at. Changing the world starts with helping the next person who comes in need of it.
The Israel-Palestine war is an all-standing geopolitical conflict involving governments disputing over rightful land ownership. Both parties have deep religious and historical ties to the same piece of land ; the result of this deep desire for control has resulted in great suffering and destruction for all. As Emmeline Pankhurst once said “When you have warfare, things happen;people suffer; the noncombatants as well as the combatants". Civilian lives are lost because people in power choose to oppress. When human suffering is reduced to numbers, it becomes easy to forget that behind each statistic is a person enduring those barbaric conditions. I implore you, do not choose the path of ignorance.
As civilian death tolls began to rise, news of the conflict naturally made headlines worldwide. However, coverage was often inconsistent, politically cautious, selective and muted the scale of human suffering. Media narratives have the power to teach us what to believe, but also, what to overlook. At this point in the war, Gaza was deteriorating, marches became a weekly occurrence, reflecting the growing public outrage. Palestinians were statistics. Protesters were seen as a threat. A “take over of the immigrants”. Collective voice transformed public grief into public resistance, refusing to be silent became a moral obligation. People had no choice but to make those small acts fighting against oppression.
On December 16th, 2023 my family and I gathered along Queen street amongst thousands to march for the freedom of Palestine. The atmosphere was heavy with grief yet energized by collective purpose, to speak out. We were going to be the voices of those who no longer possessed the freedom to speak for themselves. For those whose bodies and voices were buried under rubble. We decided to take the small acts for those who couldn't achieve the big win for themselves.
Our flags were dancing in the wind. Placards reading ‘Free Palestine’ rising above the crowds. Our keffiyehs on our heads. We were going to be heard.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Love is irraitonal and unpredicablwe,…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: In the play, Shakespeare utilises irrational love to criticise courtly love traditions and uses unpredictability to…
In the play, Shakespeare utilises irrational love to criticise courtly love traditions and uses unpredictability to reveal genuine emotions. Through reversing gender and cultural conventions, Shakespeare explores Orsino's irrationality towards the idea of love, Olivia's pursuit of a servant, and Viola's desire for Orsino to acknowledge authentic love .
Shakespeare introduces Orsino's idealised love as irrational. Orsino is shown to be deluded, stating how “if music be the food of love”, then the servants should play on. Shakespeare presents the idea that music can metaphorically feed love. Shakespeare begins with the disruption of gender norms by portraying Orsino as emotionally volatile to compel the audience to realise how authentic emotion is more valuable than social conformity, as well as to foreshadow the romantic confusion that follows. This is continued when Orsino compares how he is “like fell and cruel hounds”. The imagery of “hounds” connotes love as aggressive and relentless. Shakespeare satirises the extremes of courtly love, showing how self-indulgent obsession only harms an individual's ability to think logically. He also calls her a “marble-breasted tyrant”. The lexical choice of “tyrant” implies that Olivia has power over Orsino. Shakespeare exposes the self-serving nature of stereotypical courtly love through Orsino. Thus, Shakespeare highlights the importance of valuing authentic feeling over social conventions through Orsino's exaggerated expression of love.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: base piece
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: A simple question breaks the silence of the room. “Mum, why don’t we ever go back to Iran?” my daughter asks, her…
A simple question breaks the silence of the room.
“Mum, why don’t we ever go back to Iran?” my daughter asks, her voice bright with curiosity.
The silence that follows is heavy. It carries memories I have tried to bury. Answering her should be easy. But I can’t. How do I tell her that the home she dreams of is not the home I remember, that the streets I grew up on, the city that raised me, changed into something I no longer recognise, that it is not distance that keeps us away, but the ache of watching protest reshape my hometown into a wound I do not know how to describe to her.
I could say “It’s not safe.” I could tell her we are not welcome there anymore. But the truth is not simple. The truth is that I cannot speak about Iran without speaking about the protest that changed it, and some days that cost is more than I can carry into a conversation. A silence I have carried for years, one that has grown inside me like a shadow. But even silence has an end. And when this small act of finally speaking becomes its own protest, there lies the biggest win of all.
I look at my daughter, her eyes waiting for an answer I don’t have. I close my eyes, outside, a chant drifts past in the night air, the ghost of a protest that never really ended. For a moment, I am not here. I am there, where the streets burned with anger, leaving behind only the cold of a September night.
September 16th, 2022.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "in Requiem for a beast, reconciliation is…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: “We need to heal ourselves; we will heal you too.” A pivotal aspect of healing begins with accepting our wounds. In…
“We need to heal ourselves; we will heal you too.” A pivotal aspect of healing begins with accepting our wounds. In the multimodal novella ‘Requiem for a Beast’, Matt Ottley amalgamates various storytelling modes and literary devices to elucidate the admission that reconciliation is painful but essential. Set within Australia's historical context, the novella explores this process through the Aboriginal Elder's encapsulating speech, which recounts reconciliation as essential to growth. Through the Elder's perspective, the young protagonist’s understanding of reconciliation is transformed, prompting him to confront the historical injustice from which he had previously strayed. This shift in perspective parallels the boy's own confrontation with his personal trauma, specifically his feelings of betrayal towards his father. Furthermore, the protagonist’s confrontation of the Brahman bull signifies a more physical aspect of reconciliation, placing the boy on the path towards essential healing. Ultimately, Ottley highlights reconciliation as a painful but essential process for humankind.
Throughout the novella, reconciliation is depicted as the possibility of breaking free from the violence and trauma carried from the past, suggesting that healing becomes possible when individuals refuse to perpetuate the ills of previous generations. The boy's recognition that “something extraordinary, something profound lodged inside of [him]” signifies the emergence of an internal desire to confront, rather than inherit, the atrocities of the past. Unlike his father, whose indifference towards the killing of the young Aboriginal boy reflects the consequences of unresolved trauma, the boy begins to recognise his capacity to choose an alternative future and reconcile with the mother of the young Aboriginal boy. In the museum scene, Ottley reinforces this possibility through the comparison of father and son contemplating the Minotaur. As the boy looks over his shoulder towards the looming shadow, the brooding image evokes the persistent presence of the past while simultaneously positioning the boy as capable of turning away from it. In tandem with this, the oil painting’s low exposure signifies a silent tension between father and son, positing the concept of reconciliation as painful. Reconciliation, therefore, becomes a means of breaking free from past traumas, suggesting that it is essential to escape historical pain rather than perpetuate its repetition.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Shaped by play
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: From childhood all the way to adulthood, the concept of play or playing, is perceived in many different ways.…
From childhood all the way to adulthood, the concept of play or playing, is perceived in many different ways. Seeing young children play is viewed as a form of learning and engagement into the beginning chapters of their life. However, as we grow older in age and take on more responsibilities, the view of play in adult life is often criticised. When we are young life is simple. We lack any responsibilities and social pressures from others and rather encouraged to play. In later years it is the opposite and frequently play is misunderstood for adults despite its benefits of learning and connecting.
In childhood play is seen as productive, even encouraged by adults even if it is unstructured. In kindergarten most of learning it is made up primarily of play besides occasional ‘traditional’ learning such as writing or reading. This is because young kids learn by doing before being told what to do. Through games and activities such as make-believe, dress-ups and the playground, young kids instantly figure out how to interact with other kids, be experimental and creative and learn that actions can create consequences. Play creates a space where understanding is built through actions and not instructions which significantly differs with age.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: The stimulus is "Peace means…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: Peace begins with us Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I just want to begin with extending my gratitude to you…
Peace begins with us
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I just want to begin with extending my gratitude to you all for coming. I know it's not easy for you hard working parents in the school board to be able to come meet at such short notice. I know it may seem strange to see a teenager in your board meeting but believe me when I say, the matter we will discuss is of utmost importance to all demographics.
For those that don't know me, my name is Arsene Lecomb and I am your school captain for our once esteemed Louisiana State Luther Secondary College. As being a captain of a school, it is my duty to ensure that students feel stable in their education and that students and teachers alike are able to coexist in peaceful harmony in an environment that doesn't discriminate. Unfortunately, parents, drawing from the recent school shooting done by some group of our African-American students in this passing month, it seems as though I haven't been able to fulfill my job requirements to its highest standards. And after conversing with the violent perpetrators, it appears as though I am not the only one who hasn't been able to display characteristics of love and protection for these students. These young children have repeatedly claimed they had experienced injustice within the school, whether that be through a fellow student excluding them from games due to their skin colour, or teacher repeatedly ignoring this student whilst engaging with students of non-African descent. These harsh actions have been occurring to dozens of our students, and now, as we can see from their actions last week, they finally down to do something about it. These hurt young oppressed individuals relised that they have gone through enough and now the world was going to face the consequences of their actions. Someone had to know how it felt to be the underdog.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: protest frameworks
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: The Echo of the Drum A small blue paper star sits on the passenger seat of my car. I walk the same street…
The Echo of the Drum
A small blue paper star sits on the passenger seat of my car.
I walk the same street every evening now. Minneapolis looks calmer these days. Storefronts repaired. Windows replaced. Pavements scrubbed clean. From a distance, it is almost possible to believe nothing happened here. But cities remember. That is why I slow down when I reach the statue near the corner, a raised bronze fist darkened by weather and time. I have walked past it countless times, usually a little quicker than necessary. Tonight, I stop.
The fist reminds me of a drum. That is what the protests sounded like. A steady beat travelling through the streets, beginning quietly before growing louder, impossible to ignore. I stare at the statue, and suddenly, I am back there again.
The noise came before the crowd. “No justice! No peace!” The chants echoed between buildings as people gathered, carrying signs above their heads. Mothers stood beside children, students linked arms, and elderly protesters held cardboard messages asking for justice. Some shouted. Others simply watched. All had come because they believed something needed to change. I stood opposite them in uniform, helmet secured, shield raised. My orders were clear. Maintain the line. Prevent disorder. Restore control. I told myself that my job was to keep everyone safe. It was easier to believe that when I saw a crowd instead of the individuals standing within it.
Then a bottle struck the pavement near the front. A man pushed through the crowd, shouting angrily, while others turned and called for him to stop. My colleagues tightened their formation. A voice crackled through my radio. “Move forward. Push them back.” The crowd had not acted as one. Some were angry; others were frightened. Many simply held their signs. Yet we advanced as though every person before us posed the same threat.
A woman near the front raised her cardboard sign above her head. “Am I next?” it read. Her arms trembled, but she refused to lower it. I stepped forward with the others. My shield struck her, hard enough to knock her off balance. I had not intended to hurt her. But intention does not erase consequence. Her sign fell to the ground, and for a moment, I saw her clearly: not an enemy, but someone who had come to ask a question and had been answered with force. The chants fractured into shouting. People pushed back as officers advanced. The rhythm broke.
Later, the headlines would say violence had erupted across Minneapolis, as though it had appeared from nowhere. The bottle mattered. Those who deliberately endangered others were responsible for their actions. But the bottle was not the whole story. Neither was the line of officers advancing towards people demanding justice. I had believed that following orders meant preventing harm. That day, I began to understand that obedience could also allow it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘Let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds’…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: William Shakespeare comedic play twelfth night, depicting the folly of love, proffers that the festivity in…
William Shakespeare comedic play twelfth night, depicting the folly of love, proffers that the festivity in Illyria exposes societal structures although the plays resolution restore society. Set in the Elizabethan-era inspired Illyria, the playwright illuminates disguises challenge social hierarchy but eventually reinforces it. Shakespeare exposes gender and class as social performances in Illyria, class boundaries are tested but punishes those who try to move above them. Finally as the festive season comes to an end order is restored and disruptions proves as temporary. As such Shakespeare provides a fundamental message to his Elizabethan audience that society can be questioned far more than it is changed.
Shakespeare conveys that through disguise in the carnivalesque Illyria gender and romantic connections can be exposed. Through his presentation of viola as the plays comedic centre, Shakespeare explores the ways in which her disguise hinders social normality in Illyria. Forced to disguise herself as Cesario in order to ensure her survival, she sacrifices her personal identity and implores the sea captain to “conceal me what I am” Thus the dramatic irony begins here where the audience knows her secret but the characters do not, exposing the restrictive nature of gender in Illyria as Violas assumed masculine identity grants her opportunities and agency that otherwise would be inaccessible to her as a woman. Her disguise also destabilises the assumptions supporting attraction as Olivia becomes enamoured with Cesario, unaware that the person she desires is a woman. After Olivia offers a ring to Cesario bringing viola to realisation that Olivia is in love with her in the line “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness” where Shakespeare displays the unintended consequences of her disguise she only adopted out of survival however it disrupts the usual order of courtship in Illyrian society. Caught in a love triangle of her own making, Viola loves Orsino but is pursued by Olivia, so when Olivia declares her love for “Cesario”, Viola can only answer with the paradox “I am not what I am exposing the identity as performed rather than fixed, suggesting that if gender can be put on like a costume, then the social rules that are built on it can ne challenged.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest Piece
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: Investigative Essay intended for Academic audiences. Scholarly Piece for online upload. On April 26, 1986,…
Investigative Essay intended for Academic audiences.
Scholarly Piece for online upload.
On April 26, 1986, reactor four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during a routine safety test that had been conducted. The explosion released radioactive material across Europe, contaminating millions of acres, rendering an exclusion zone of over 4,000 square kilometres uninhabitable, and precipitating the evacuation of approximately 350,000 people. Twenty-eight workers died from acute radiation syndrome within weeks. Thousands of thyroid cancers would follow in subsequent years, predominantly in children. The Soviet government, tethered to a culture of institutional secrecy antithetical to what Glasnost Gorbachev had so recently promised, initially dismissed international reporting on the disaster as, in Gorbachev's own words, a "highly immoral campaign." Official acknowledgement arrived only after radiation alarms activated at a nuclear plant in Sweden, more than 1,000 kilometres away. That distance, the undeniable reach of what had been concealed, became the disaster's most politically destabilising quality. Chernobyl did not stay within the Soviet borders, and this leak stripped institutional authority of its most relied-upon instrument, the capacity to control the narrative. The accident, as Gorbachev later reflected, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It exposed the detrimental interchange of secrecy and failure, and in doing so, empowered the global anti-nuclear movement with an image of institutional incompetence that no amount of reassurance could resolve.
The political consequences were immediate and subsequent in the months following, April 1986, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched through Rome against Italy's nuclear program, one that would be dismantled entirely in the years following. Austria, which had already rejected the activation of its sole nuclear plant in a 1978 referendum, now found that rejection vindicated through its civilians. Switzerland imposed a ten-year halt on new reactor construction. The International Atomic Energy Agency had projected, as recently as 1975, that global nuclear capacity would reach between 3,600 and 5,300 gigawatts by the turn of the millennium. By 2017, actual worldwide capacity stood at 392 gigawatts, a minute number of the anticipated figure, the deficit a monument to accumulated public opposition through the protests. Chernobyl demonstrated that protest against nuclear energy was not merely ideological but visceral, grounded in a reality of dangerous widespread contamination, the reality of governments that lied, in the ecological reality of forests that are poisoned for decades. The movement it galvanised was one in which fear had become realised, its own form of evidence. Twenty-five years later, the world had forgotten somewhat. Nuclear power had undergone a quiet rehabilitation in the early 2000s, reframed as a low emissions alternative in the age of climate change. New plants were under consideration met with public opposition, while persistent, had softened into the darkness, the risk was imaginary at this point. The reactors modern, and the Soviet Union long dissolved and plans of nuclear energy refurbished.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King reveals that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: A tale set in a time of war and plague, Sophocles’s 5th century tragedy Oedipus the King explores the tension…
A tale set in a time of war and plague, Sophocles’s 5th century tragedy Oedipus the King explores the tension between sight and blindness, through Oedipus’s search for knowledge and struggle against fate. Sophocles prompts his audience to question the extent to which human knowledge is limited. Ultimately, through the use of characters such as Oedipus, Tiresias, and Jocasta, Sophocles demonstrates that human knowledge is limited, but not merely so.
From the outset, the omnipotence of the gods can be felt through the plague, a deadly disease which the people of Thebes are powerless to stop. Initially Oedipus believes that no man is “as sick as [him]”, revealing his inflated sense of self-importance. Oedipus believes that he is the only person capable of stopping the plague. As a result of this, he believes that the burden of saving Thebes is his to bare which is why he believes himself to be “sick”. Ironically, the 5th century Athenian audience is already aware that Oedipus is the source of the very sickness he wishes to expel. Through this construction of dramatic irony, Sophocles exposes the limits of human knowledge. Sophocles positions his audience in a perspective similar to the divine to reinforce the belief that all humans are blind to some degree, regardless of a person’s accomplishments or status. In an effort to seek the truth, Oedipus calls for Tiresias only to be presented with the warning: “What will come will come, even if I shroud it all in silence.” This demonstrates Tiresias’s confidence in the prophecy. Sophocles utilises this moment to highlight the limits of Oedipus’s knowledge and reinforce the idea that knowledge of one’s fate does not alter destiny. Furthermore, the stichomythic dialogue between Tiresias and his calm riddling, contrasted by Oedipus’s growing agitation, reveals that divine knowledge exists outside of human reason or control. Through this Sophocles establishes that humans can never know the full extent of the truth of their realities.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The characters are destroyed by their own…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: While mortals can harm themselves through their own flaws, they inevitably are destroyed by the predetermined fate…
While mortals can harm themselves through their own flaws, they inevitably are destroyed by the predetermined fate imposed by the gods. Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Oedipus the King, performed at the Dionysia festival, for an Athenian audience around 400 BC, explores the tensions arising from a broader shift in society between emerging philosophical thought and traditional beliefs in ancient Greek gods. Sophocles contends that one can be destroyed of their own flaws, however, it is fate that is the main destruction as it is predetermined. Through displaying the ability of one's flaws to diminish their personality, Sophocles critiques those that act irrationally. Further, Sophocles reinforces the cosmic rule through demonstrating the punishment endured when denying the gods as it leads to annihilation of one's understanding. Finally, Sophocles lesson is that fate holds power and cannot be outrun and thus leads to destruction of morality.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ignore spelling for now;In Sunset…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In Sunset Boulevard, isolation is a consequence of refusing to confront reality. Discuss. Billy Wilder's 1950s…
In Sunset Boulevard, isolation is a consequence of refusing to confront reality. Discuss.
Billy Wilder's 1950s film noir sunset boulevard explores how individuals' refusal to confront reality ultimately renders them isolated from society. While Wilder examines isolation and the complications associated with identity and autonomy as natural consequences of rejecting reality, he ultimately condemns the Hollywood film industry as the real perpetrator in the film.Wilder illustrates that individuals who refuse to confront reality are subjected to isolation, psychologically and physically, in particular those who have a nostalgic fixation on former glory.In addition to the consequences of isolation, implications arising from a refusal to confront reality can be a loss of identity moral righteousness and autonomy.Yet wilder complicates this, though revealing that individuals who do confront reality still face emotional trauma and lose their identity in conforming to Hollywood's superficial standards.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “The rewards of assuming leadership are…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: Sophocles' Oedipus the King interrogates the precarious relationship between leadership, human agency and divine…
Sophocles' Oedipus the King interrogates the precarious relationship between leadership, human agency and divine authority, challenging the assumption that power necessarily enables individuals to control their circumstances. Although Oedipus initially embodies the rewards of leadership through his reputation as Thebes' saviour, Sophocles gradually exposes the burdens of public responsibility, the destructive consequences of excessive pride and the limitations of human knowledge. Through Oedipus' tragic reversal, Sophocles ultimately cautions that leadership becomes perilous when individuals mistake their authority and intellectual prowess for an ability to transcend the forces governing human existence.
Sophocles initially establishes leadership as a position of considerable prestige and responsibility, revealing how the expectation that rulers protect their people can become an overwhelming burden. Having previously liberated Thebes from the Sphinx, Oedipus has earned the admiration of his citizens and secured his position as king, demonstrating how leadership offers individuals the opportunity to exercise their capabilities for the collective good. However, the outbreak of plague in Thebes transforms Oedipus' authority into an obligation to restore order and protect his suffering subjects. The priest's appeal to Oedipus as the city's saviour establishes the dependence of the community upon its ruler, positioning leadership as a responsibility that extends beyond personal ambition. In response, Oedipus declares that he has already sent Creon to consult the oracle at Delphi, presenting himself as a proactive and compassionate leader determined to alleviate his people's suffering. Nevertheless, Sophocles complicates this apparent virtue through Oedipus' subsequent commitment to uncovering Laius' murderer. His declaration that he will pursue the truth binds him to an investigation whose consequences he cannot anticipate, as the audience understands that the king himself is implicated in the crime. Through dramatic irony, Sophocles transforms Oedipus' determination from a demonstration of admirable leadership into the mechanism of his eventual destruction. The very qualities that make him an effective ruler — his sense of duty and willingness to act — expose him to consequences beyond his control. Thus, Sophocles suggests that although leadership offers the opportunity to protect others, the weight of responsibility can become inseparable from personal suffering.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Journey ends I chose Stimulus 2 iwhich…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 97.5%: Journey’s end “If the finish line was already bought and paid for before a single breath was drawn, is this…
Journey’s end
“If the finish line was already bought and paid for before a single breath was drawn, is this journey’s end truly theirs to write?” Staring at the gift-horse in the mouth feels ungrateful, crushed by the burden of prizes unsought and unearned. The boy wonders, in the hollow hours of the morning, if it is normal to be irritated by the very walls stenciled with the parody of an achieving young man. To find the air you breathe is expensive, like the sterile, recycled oxygen of a high-end hotel – crisp, cool and smelling vaguely of someone else’s paycheck.
Beneath the blue-white glow of the LED downlight, a lone figure sits hunched over an IKEA desk , the price tag, roughly removed leaving behind the clinging piece of paper – a vulture picking on the marrow of a dream he wasn't even a part of. To him the room, the house, was a testament to doing “better”, a hollowed-out structure designed to keep the world from screaming.
Within the silence, a hill of mirrors, an endless, shimmering expanse of polished tiles, wrought in the burning heat of caustic lye and industrial cleaner. A mother who'd wake before the hums of the bird to prepare lunch, a mother who'd anxiously stand at the doorstep with a towel in her hand waiting on a rainy day. A woman who did not follow the tragic migrant folklore, someone who didn't have to experience the callouses on her knees scouring the earth until her reflection was bright enough to cover her labor. And yet she remained humble, remained smart, too smart, she knew at that time what the people needed the most and used it to build her business. She helped students who wanted to escape with Visa paperworks and formalities. Wherever you go, everyone seems to know her, or at least be familiar with what she’s accomplished. Even so, her biggest struggle wasn't sending students with opportunity, it was putting herself face to face with that same chance she gives others. Balancing the leaden weight of a foreign textbook on one hand and the unborn pulse of new life on the other. The difference is; she fought for it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The Memory Police is as much about gain as…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 90%: In The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa presents loss as the governing condition of the island: disappearances erode not…
In The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa presents loss as the governing condition of the island: disappearances erode not only its objects but also its people’s identities, relationships and capacity to imagine. Yet the novel is not simply bleak. Through shared memories, intimacy and storytelling, Ogawa shows that gains remain possible within this system. They do not compensate for what is taken or defeat the Memory Police; instead, they preserve moments of connection and meaning. The novel is therefore “as much” about gain as loss only in the significance it gives these fragile gains, not in the scale of what the islanders recover.
The disappearances first appear to remove ordinary objects, but Ogawa steadily reveals their emotional and cultural cost. The Old Man remembers that, in childhood, the island felt “a lot fuller, a lot more real”; as its spaces develop gaps, “our hearts got thinner”. The movement from a physical landscape to the collective heart makes loss inseparable from the inner lives of the islanders. This contrast suggests that memory gives experience depth: without it, life continues, but becomes emotionally diluted. Ogawa’s first-person narration makes this erosion intimate, while the recurring gaps in the island’s landscape give it a visible form. The townspeople’s quick adjustment after each disappearance may look like resilience, but it also reveals how thoroughly the regime has normalised loss. Ogawa’s understated, matter-of-fact narrative tone mirrors this acceptance, presenting the disappearances without dramatic flourish, which reinforces how ordinary these profound losses have become. When people cannot remember what has vanished, they lose the shared history needed to mourn it or imagine a different future. Thus, loss remains dominant at the level of society: the Memory Police’s power depends on forgetting becoming ordinary.
VCE · Language Analysis
Language Analysis: Prompt-Screen time amongst adults
VCE Language Analysis essay scoring 82.5%: The arising issue of screen time amongst parents has left an everlasting impact on future generations. With…
The arising issue of screen time amongst parents has left an everlasting impact on future generations. With parents often working long hours behind a screen and then coming home and being behind a screen again, it portrays an image within their children that being on technology for hours on end is a normal thing. Technology has become a normality within society as it’s seen to be vital for everyday life, however the general community has seen an alarming rise of how much parents are using screen time and how it not only affects them but it also affects others around, additionally creating a cultural norm that using your phone for long hours is normal. This issue has become so impactful that authors centralized around a university speak up about this, these people include Michael Wheeler, David Dunstan, Lauren Arundell, Mats Hallgren and Paddy Dempsey, all these people have collectively shared their thoughts about this issue and their standpoint as people involved with the younger generation.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: The Memory Police is as much about gain as…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: In The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa presents loss as the governing condition of the island: disappearances erode not…
In The Memory Police, Yōko Ogawa presents loss as the governing condition of the island: disappearances erode not only its objects but also its people’s identities, relationships and capacity to imagine. Yet the novel is not simply bleak. Through shared memories, intimacy and storytelling, Ogawa shows that gains remain possible within this system. They do not compensate for what is taken or defeat the Memory Police; instead, they preserve moments of connection and meaning. The novel is therefore “as much” about gain as loss only in the significance it gives these fragile gains, not in the scale of what the islanders recover.
The disappearances first appear to remove ordinary objects, but Ogawa steadily reveals their emotional and cultural cost. The Old Man remembers that, in childhood, the island felt “a lot fuller, a lot more real”; as its spaces develop gaps, “our hearts got thinner”. The movement from a physical landscape to the collective heart makes loss inseparable from the inner lives of the islanders. This contrast suggests that memory gives experience depth: without it, life continues, but becomes emotionally diluted. Ogawa’s first-person narration makes this erosion intimate, while the recurring gaps in the island’s landscape give it a visible form. The townspeople’s quick adjustment after each disappearance may look like resilience, but it also reveals how thoroughly the regime has normalised loss. When people cannot remember what has vanished, they lose the shared history needed to mourn it or imagine a different future. Thus, loss remains dominant at the level of society: the Memory Police’s power depends on forgetting becoming ordinary.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Langston Hughes Selected Poems "Not my…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Within Langston's Hughes's Selected Poems, published in 1959, Hughes emphasises the importance of solidarity for…
Within Langston's Hughes's Selected Poems, published in 1959, Hughes emphasises the importance of solidarity for African Americans through the incorporation of blues music within his poetry as an expression of resistance, affirmation of identity for individual's with African ancestral roots, and the demand for political recognition and unity. Ultimately, he calls for confidence in identity for Black Americans as a whole to embrace change.
By implementing musical themes of jazz and blues within his collection of Selected Poems, Hughes empowers African Americans through the historical origins of blues music, which emerged in the late 19th century as a form of resilience and community. In Afro-American Fragment, the couplet "beat out of blood with words sad-sung/In strange un-Negro tongue," creates a distinct sound to the poem as it is read aloud, mimicking the tempo of a musical beat. Through the emphasis of this line, Langston Hughes underscores the unfamiliarity of those who with African heritage in a Caucasian-dominated society, referring to the words of non-Africans as "strange," while asking of African-American readers to embrace their connection to African despite physical distance through the poem's circular structure, which continually returns to the repetition of the lines, "So long/So far away/Is Africa." Continuing his incorporation of music, Hughes structures poems in song-like stanzas, such as "Song for a Dark Girl," which follows a typical AABA structure in the first and last stanzas coupled with the use of rhyme, creating rhythm that highlights Hughes's inspiration from blues music. Considering the entrenched history of music for Black Americas, Hughes's distinct allusions towards it construct a unique style unlike Western poetry, inviting recognition of the African American way of life.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: War strips men of the identity, but…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: David Malouf's Fly Away Peter explores how individuals navigate change, beauty and destruction in a world shaped…
David Malouf's Fly Away Peter explores how individuals navigate change, beauty and destruction in a world shaped by both nature and war. Through demonstrating how war strips men of their identity, Malouf reveals how authenticity can exist under the guise of masculinity. By initially presenting it as a positive, endeared quality, Malouf exposes the illusion in which is masculinity, revealing the true beauty in human emotion and connection.
Initially, the concept of masculinity is framed as being a crucial quality in men. The reason that Jim enlisted in the war was because if he was a 'man', he'd 'want to be in it', suggesting the inhumane expectation society holds on men having to seem tough and brave. Through the use of Wizzer, Jim's foil, Jim's quiet, gentle nature is juxtaposed with Wizzer's big, egocentric manner - Jim is portrayed as being helpless, whilst Wizzer as envied. Through this, stark dichotomy, Malouf reveals how society ultimately favours masculinity.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "on the moon we have everything. lettuce,…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 85%: Shirley Jackson's 1962 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' explores a constructed Gothic world where differences…
Shirley Jackson's 1962 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' explores a constructed Gothic world where differences threaten normality. Through the unreliable, subjective narrations of Merricat, Jackson exposes the patriarchal control that threatens to disintegrate the sister's independence, yet illuminates on the pursuit of power through self-exile in seek of refuge and the constructions of a fantasia world.
The depiction of Cousin Charles' arrival becoming a threat to the sister's autonomy allows Jackson to condemn the destructive nature of control. Constance's immediate realisation that Charles "looks just like father" reflects a physical metaphor and foreshadows the resemblance both Charles and the late Blackwood father have in both appearance and patriarchal authority. This is further reinforced through Charles appropriating the father's "gold chain watch", manifesting both his selfish greed for power, and attempt to embody the lingering control the Blackwood father left after his death. The adjective of "gold" enables Jackson to illuminate the mercenary greed that overpowers Charles' entitlement, symbolising his insatiable drive of avarice for the Blackwood fortune. Ultimately, Charles' arrival constructs the reduction of both power and agency from the Blackwood sisters on the grounds of his sex.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In Oedipus the King, grief is not just…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 77.5%: Grief is an intensely human emotion, and will never be felt by just one as it inhabits the many. In Oedipus the…
Grief is an intensely human emotion, and will never be felt by just one as it inhabits the many. In Oedipus the King, the pain of sorrow torments Thebes’ Royal House, yet spreads beyond its borders to drive the city to profound suffering. While the House of Cadmus suffers significantly due to loss within the family, the loss of their ruler leaves Thebes reeling. The rulers indeed feel pain due to the punishment for their sins, yet divine retribution ensures Thebes must also weep due to the misgivings of their rulers. And despite the attainment of unsavoury truths a product of the royal search, everyone shares in the painful implications.
Grief at the loss of another is not just personal, yet is experienced by the collective when trust is placed into one man. Personal grief is indeed experienced by the royal family, with Oedipus’ ‘low wrenching sob’ and slow embrace of his dead wife, and the ‘fill of tears’ shared by Oedipus and his children upon their parting, serving as Sophocles’ recognition that grief is a deeply personal experience. Yet Sophocles expands the sorrow shared by the House of Cadmus into that of the city, which he suggests is through their misplaced faith in the ruler. Their initial perception of their ruler – marked by superlatives of ‘first of men’ and ‘best of men’ – is one of veneration. The destruction of their beliefs in Oedipus as ‘the land’s avenger’ and ‘Apollo’s champion’ incites a profound release of horror, with the ‘joy of [Oedipus’] life ground down to nothing’ driving the chorus to ‘weep like a man who wails the dead’. Sophocles reinforces their suffering through the novel’s tragic structure, which gradually yet completely destroys the notion of their leader’s heroism. Simultaneously, the chorus’ faith in their leader’s heroic ‘power’ is violently subverted, triggering a cathartic emotional reaction. Sophocles implies Thebes’ grief is due to their idolatry, revealed through questioning ‘why join the sacred dance’ and refusing to ‘convict [their] king…in [their] heart’. Ultimately, Sophocles suggests that though one’s ‘breath leap[ing] up in’ man, they become liable to his human flaws, and when his flaws are revealed, so too will a shared ‘bring[ing] down of night upon [the collective’s] eyes’. The playwright combines Thebes’ collective grief with the grief of the House of Cadmus to emphasise that human loss affects both one’s intimate circle and the community around them.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Protest title: "Its time"
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Title: “Its time” Good morning everyone, My name is Amanda Smith and I am one of the student representatives…
Title: “Its time”
Good morning everyone,
My name is Amanda Smith and I am one of the student representatives for my school, Heartleigh High. Today I stand in front of you all in this debate to discuss the daily struggles of sexism against women in our society. While society prides itself on progressive values, sexism remains an insidious presence, deeply embedded within our institutional structures and social hierarchies. Women are continuously being discounted, underappreciated and criticised on the basis of gender rather than ability and knowledge. The effects are ongoing till this day, and it is incredibly tragic to first hand witness the impact of this issue. Such outdated ideology is sometimes hidden behind tradition,culture and professionalism, but it has one purpose, to keep women fro achieving the same power and respect as men. History plays a significant role such as the women’s suffrage movement. Power is at the bottom of this. When men occupy positions such as business men or political leaders, they make the rules whereas women don’t receive the same respect, constantly belittles and unseen like the black sheep form all the white. Such power imbalance structures are unethical, they keep the effects of sexism invisible, making it harder to destroy. I stand before you to step up for women and demand change, it’s time to put a stop to this issue now.
Perhaps the finest illustrations of sexism can be seen in the double standards that continue to exist in everyday life. We see a persistent gender dichotomy in how leadership is perceived. A man’s assertiveness is celebrated as initiative, yet when a woman mirrors that same confidence, she is marginalised with labels such as “bossy” or “hysterical”. These double standards reflect in schools too, girls are repeatedly told to cover up because their clothing is distracting. Distracting to who? Rather than teaching boys to value girls, we are consistently shamed for being in our own bodies. These rules are not to ensure learning, they teach girls to be silent, obedient and to take up less space whilst apologise for simply being. In this day and age, its ridiculous how past historical rules are still alive today.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “In Twelfth Night, love is both delightful…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 87.5%: Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Twelfth Night presents the idea of love as an unstable force that both enables…
Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Twelfth Night presents the idea of love as an unstable force that both enables personal fulfilment as well as cause detrimental consequences within the play. While the delightfulness of love is shown towards the end of the play through Viola, Shakespeare demonstrates that love can also be destructive through the characters such as Orsino, Olivia, Malvolio, and Antonio. In the denouement of the play, Shakespeare’s restoration of social equilibrium, contrasted with Feste’s final commentary, reinforces the notion that love is powerful yet frequently irrational and capable of producing destructive consequences.
Shakespeare initially presents love as a destructive force that overpowers reason through Orsino and Antonio. Orsino’s metaphorical declaration at the beginning of the play “If music be the food of love, play on!” demonstrate how he is infatuated with the idea of being in love rather than loving Olivia herself. Additionally, the imagery of consumption presents love as something that must be continuously satisfied, foreshadowing the excess and social instability that characterise the chaotic and unstable world of Illyria. Orsino’s continues by further confessing his excessive approach to love through his demand for the “excess of it”, revealing his desire to indulge in love until he reaches emotional saturation. Shakespeare also reveals complexities of love through Antonio’s unwavering adoration of Sebastian. He demonstrates his love for Sebastian as he pleads “If you will not murder me of my love, let me be your servant”, revealing to the extent to which he is willing to sacrifice his identity for an opportunity to serve Sebastian. The extreme language of “murder” and willingness to be Sebastian’s “servant” illustrate how his excessive love erodes his perception of self-worth and equality. Furthermore, Antonio’s attachment to Sebastian is highlighted when Antonio reflects that his desire is “more sharp that a filed steel” presenting his love as forceful, painful, and difficult to restrain. Antonio’s devotion becomes increasingly excessive as he insists that “danger shall seem sport” reinforcing how his courtly love causes him to overlook danger and act irrationally. Through both Antonio and Orsino, Shakespeare demonstrates that excessive love can overpower reason, whether through self-indulgence or self-sacrifice, ultimately presenting love as a destructive force.