VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Laveau-Harvie suggests that individuals…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Set in the backdrop of rural Canada, 'The Erratics' reflects the emotional isolation and hidden dysfunction…
Set in the backdrop of rural Canada, 'The Erratics' reflects the emotional isolation and hidden dysfunction concealed within family of that era. Vicki Laveau-Harvie's nonlinear memoir suggests that while understanding your past helps you reconcile with your past and others in order to move forward with their lives. However, it's not necessary to move forward, this is shown with Vicki who moves forward with her life by fleeing her past. Certainly understanding your past is important as Vicki's sister never understood her past that’s why she can't let go of her past trauma. Additionally this is contrasted with Vicki who understood her past and is able to move forward with her past. However Vicki doesn’t fully reconcile her past but she moves forward by fleeing her past. Ultimately this distancing both physically and mentally is what allows her to understand her past.
Vicki's sister is unable to move past with her life as she still holds a grudge from her childhood, which she can't understand. Vicki's sister is shaped by the 'bear trap' of her childhood trauma and is unable to 'extricate herself no matter how hard she pull'. The metaphor presents trauma as hard to escape and contrasts how both sisters reconcile with their pasts. By choosing this violent metaphor she expresses the effect of childhood trauma on adults. Indeed, the sister holds a shows anger from resentment from their childhood as interacting with the mother results in Vicki's sister shaking 'violently after every confrontation with our mother'. This physical response demonstrates how trauma becomes embodied, revealing the extent of the lasting emotional scars and the mother's ongoing power which prevents the sister with moving forward from her past childhood trauma. As a result of her complicated past she is burdened with suppressed emotions, where it's manifested as a 'geyser of rage' which threatens 'plumes up into the sky, black and viscous, coating everything as it falls to earth'. This metaphor describes the effects of the pent-up emotions as being harmful. These suppressed emotions impact her behavior, compelling her to seek closure through fraught attempts at connection, which are ultimately unsuccessful as she is 'beaten back when she has tried'. Consequently this means of connection stems from her inability to come to terms with her trauma, and tries to seek closure through other means.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title - listen , stimulus - mighty…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 80%: Section B - base piece Listen @stirring the pot 27 January 2025 Good afternoon everyone! Its Abby. I know I…
Section B - base piece
Listen
@stirring the pot
27 January 2025
Good afternoon everyone! Its Abby. I know I usually start these posts with butter, or maybe basil, on the rare occasion a story about my grandmothers famous pavlova. However, this week, I cant quite bring myself to whisk egg whites when the air outside feels so heavy. Today is not a recipe for peach cobbler, but instead a recipe for disaster.
Yesterday, whilst chopping onions for dinner, I was unable to disregard the roars from my balcony, chants echoing through the city like the sound of a boiling kettle about to spill over. Thousands marching, thousands watching, some angry, some yearning, some like me, unsure how to stir whats inside without it burning. But sounds like this, rising like dough, it was impossible not to listen. So today I shy away from cooking to express to my followers the youth of Australia and the next generations leaders about how solicitous I am.
[insert picture from stimulus]
Listening isnt always gentle, it can sting, the same way lemon juice does when it hits a small cut. For years, I have associated the day of Australia day, January 26th with sizzling sausages and backyard laughter, now it tastes different. Smokier, Bitter. I reflect on those whos hands first lit fires here long before the barbecues, whos stories were silenced under layers of tradition where nobody can listen to them. It is not a day of pride, but a day of pain. To listen means to sit with that truth, even if its unsettling.
and understanding, where small acorns of awareness start to grow.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Laveau-Harvie suggests that individuals…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: Set in the backdrop of rural Canada, 'The Erratics' reflects the emotional isolation and hidden dysfunction…
Set in the backdrop of rural Canada, 'The Erratics' reflects the emotional isolation and hidden dysfunction concealed within family of that era. Vicki Laveau-Harvie's nonlinear memoir suggests that while understanding your past helps you reconcile with your past and others in order to move forward with their lives. However, it's not necessary to move forward, this is shown with Vicki who moves forward with her life by fleeing her past. Certainly understanding your past is important as Vicki's sister never understood her past that’s why she can't let go of her past trauma. Additionally this is contrasted with Vicki who understood her past and is able to move forward with her past. However Vicki doesn’t fully reconcile her past but she moves forward by fleeing her past. Ultimately this distancing both physically and mentally is what allows her to understand her past.
Vicki's sister is unable to move past with her life as she still holds a grudge from her childhood, which she can't understand. Vicki's sister is shaped by the 'bear trap' of her childhood trauma and is unable to 'extricate herself no matter how hard she pull'. The metaphor presents trauma as hard to escape and contrasts how both sisters reconcile with their pasts. By choosing this violent metaphor she expresses the effect of childhood trauma on adults. Indeed, the sister holds a shows anger from resentment from their childhood as interacting with the mother results in Vicki's sister shaking 'violently after every confrontation with our mother'. This physical response demonstrates how trauma becomes embodied, revealing the extent of the lasting emotional scars and the mother's ongoing power which prevents the sister with moving forward from her past childhood trauma. As a result of her complicated past she is burdened with suppressed emotions, where it's manifested as a 'geyser of rage' which threatens 'plumes up into the sky, black and viscous, coating everything as it falls to earth'. This metaphor describes the effects of the pent-up emotions as being harmful. These suppressed emotions impact her behavior, compelling her to seek closure through fraught attempts at connection, which are ultimately unsuccessful as she is 'beaten back when she has tried'. Consequently this means of connection stems from her inability to come to terms with her trauma, and tries to seek closure through other means.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title; listen stimulus; image of a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Listen 'Published posthumously, in memory of Aleesha Grace Thomas, Aged 26' This is not how I wanted to be…
Listen
'Published posthumously, in memory of Aleesha Grace Thomas,
Aged 26'
This is not how I wanted to be remembered.
If you're reading this, I've already become a headline. Another name in your newsfeed, another statistic. Another girl killed by the man who promised to love her. You've heard this story before. You've scrolled past it many times. But you've never heard it like this, never from me.
I am not just a story anymore. I am no longer a victim; I am the storyteller. I have a voice, and I refuse to let it drown beneath the noise of indifference. I know how this world works. It will only start listening now that I am gone. But my words will rise like water, filling every silence you've allowed to grow.
I write this for those still out there - the girls who paint over bruises and brush off insults as jokes. The ones who whisper apologies for things they never did, and whose voices are buried deep. The world will hear you all now, even if they must first be forced to listen.
But perhaps you've already heard us. Perhaps our cries have been echoing inside you for a long time now, like waves crashing against immovable rocks. You tell yourself it's not your place. You look away, convincing yourself that silence is safety. I know that silence well; it seeps into rooms like a tide, slow and cold, until it drowns everyone in reach.
You are not innocent just because you did not raise your fist. You are not innocent because you claim not to have known. Each time you look away, you feed the tide. Each time you say nothing, the water rises.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: "There's nothing tragic about being 50…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: Set in the end of the silent era of Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s 1950 film Sunset Boulevard exposes the darker side…
Set in the end of the silent era of Hollywood, Billy Wilder’s 1950 film Sunset Boulevard exposes the darker side of Hollywood’s dream factory, where youth and beauty are worshipped and discarded in equal measure. Using the conventions of film noir; voice-over narration, stark chiaroscuro lighting, and fatalistic structure - Wilder critiques a culture that prizes youth over authenticity, through the use of delusional figures who prize vanity and superficiality above all else. Through the use of delusional figures, Wilder explores how the refusal to age will inevitably end in tragedy using the silent era’s stars as a prime example. However, the director also complicates this notion by suggesting that the film industry, not just the individual’s infatuation with youth, will lead to tragedy. Ultimately, Wilder portrays Hollywood’s obsession with youth as both a societal sickness and an individual tragedy, demonstrating that the refusal to age never works out.
Through the use of narcissistic character’s who value superficialty above all, viewing outside vanity above character, Wilder portray’s how tragedy emerges not from age but from the desperate attempt to deny it. Once a silent film superstar, Norma is now a relic of a bygone era, unable to accept that her fame has faded. Her declaration, “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small,” encapsulates her refusal to confront reality, she blames the changing world rather than accepting her own ageing. Wilder uses the flickering light of the projector as a symbolic reminder of Norma’s delusion and old age. In the scene where she watches her old films, her face is illuminated by the glow of her youthful self, a haunting contrast that underscores her obsession with the past. The noir lighting and claustrophobic setting of her decaying mansion further enlarge the fall from grace, once beloved now forgotten. Thus, Wilder portrays Norma’s tragedy as a direct consequence of her futile attempt to cling to youth, showing that the refusal to accept time’s passage leads to madness and isolation.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: ‘There’s no point in keeping those…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 65%: ‘There’s no point in keeping those memories alive.’ We Have Always Lived in the Castle suggests that some…
‘There’s no point in keeping those memories alive.’
We Have Always Lived in the Castle suggests that some things are best forgotten.
Do you agree?
Shirley Jackson’s 1962 gothic fiction novel, We Have Always Lived in The Castle, follows the secluded lives of the Blackwood Sisters in rural Mid-Century America. Through her novel, Jackson contends that, while some memories can be valuable, ultimately there are some things that are best forgotten. Throughout the piece, the author reinforces that forgetting certain events enables some to emancipate themselves in the form of isolation. Furthermore, Jackson highlights how forgetting memories may allow one to mentally remove themselves from the flaws of society and heighten their mental fortitude. However, the author indicates that while some things are better to be remembered and there are certain memories that may hold value to one’s being.
Jackson illustrates that forgetting can bring forth one's emancipation and ability to live as they wish through isolation from society. Towards the end of the novel, the Blackwood home is lit ablaze as the sisters watch the gothic trope of a mob mentality strike their home “as a wave”. In reaction to this event, Merricat is portrayed to wonder when they would be finished with their destruction so that they could “start to clean the house again”. Through this, Jackson fortifies the sisters’ ability to forget the devastation they face in order to seek freedom and liberation from through their isolation. This reaction of only seeking to clean after the fire, is further used by Jackson to indicate that Merricat isn’t concerned with events which may pose a threat to her, rather her character symbolises one's ability to live through forgetting unfavourable events in order to live with contentment. Moreover, Jackson reinforces this notion through her depiction of the sisters refusal to address the cause of their families deaths. After being aggravated by the actions of others, Merricat asserts that she will “put death in all their food and watch them die” to which Constance replies “like the way you did before”. This reveal of the cause of their families death is utilised by Jackson in an attempt to alert the audience that, as the sisters have not discussed the poisoning much, one trying to forget about disempowering information may in turn allow for emancipation. Thus, Jackson ultimately highlights how forgetting may reveal one's ability to live as they please and be liberated in the form of isolation.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: title; listen stimulus; image of a…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 90%: Listen 'Published posthumously, in memory of Aleesha Grace Thomas, Aged 26' This is not how I wanted to be…
Listen
'Published posthumously, in memory of Aleesha Grace Thomas,
Aged 26'
This is not how I wanted to be remembered.
If you're reading this, I've already become a headline. Another name in your newsfeed, another statistic. Another girl killed by the man who promised to love her. You've heard this story before. You've scrolled past it many times. But you've never heard it like this, never from me.
I am not just a story anymore. I am no longer a victim; I am the storyteller. I have a voice, and I refuse to let it drown beneath the noise of indifference. I know how this world works. It will only start listening now that I am gone. But my words will rise like water, filling every silence you've allowed to grow.
I write this for those still out there - the girls who paint over bruises and brush off insults as jokes. The ones who whisper apologies for things they never did, and whose voices are buried deep. The world will hear you all now, even if they must first be forced to listen.
But perhaps you've already heard us. Perhaps our cries have been echoing inside you for a long time now, like waves crashing against immovable rocks. You tell yourself it's not your place. You look away, convincing yourself that silence is safety. I know that silence well; it seeps into rooms like a tide, slow and cold, until it drowns everyone in reach.
You are not innocent just because you did not raise your fist. You are not innocent because you claim not to have known. Each time you look away, you feed the tide. Each time you say nothing, the water rises.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: It’s difficult for audiences to accept the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: Love is depicted in William Shakespeare's “Twelfth Night” as an irrational emotion that presents itself…
Love is depicted in William Shakespeare's “Twelfth Night” as an irrational emotion that presents itself unexpectedly and without reason. In this way, Shakespeare challenges traditional interpretations of love, ultimately insinuating that love is a mysterious force that motivates change on both a personal and societal level. While the play’s declarations of love are, on the surface, difficult to accept because they come about so rapidly, occur in face of cross-gender disguises and bloom between lovers from differing social strata, Shakespeare ultimately endorses love’s irrational tendencies and its power to transform lives.
One of the reasons that “Twelfth Night” audiences struggle with the play’s depiction of love is because of the seeming speed with which its characters fall for one another. This is made particularly clear with Olivia’s abrupt infatuation with Cesario upon their first meeting. While Orsino’s off-putting Petrarchan idolisation provides some explanation of Olivia’s preference of Viola’s alter ego, it can still be difficult for viewers to accept the rapidity and intensity of Olivia’s emotions. Olivia’s comparison between love and the plague after her first meeting of Cesario, however, provides some insight into Shakespeare’s attitude about love and its mysterious tendencies; and w hen modern audiences consider the Elizabethans’ ignorance of a germ theory of disease, this comparison takes on even greater significance. Astonished by her sudden romantic attraction, Olivia rhetorically asks “How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?”. With this, Shakespeare strongly insinuates that love is not an emotional state that one enters rationally and advisedly. Rather, Shakespeare depicts love as a phenomenon that materialises inexplicably, one that people contract against their will. This notion is reinforced when Olivia personifies her emotions for Cesario despite knowing little about him, commenting that her feelings “creep in at mine eyes”. This intruder imagery characterises love as a sort of stealthy prowler that has the power to infiltrate one’s heart despite one’s best defences. In this way, Shakespeare addresses the legitimacy of love as an irrational sudden force that people are powerless to resist, ultimately suggesting that Olivia’s declarations of love, while rapid, are authentic.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Belonging
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 70%: It’s been a decade since I left my country of Greece, yet some mornings I wake up to the scent of Yiayia’s…
It’s been a decade since I left my country of Greece, yet some mornings I wake up to the scent of Yiayia’s pasta sauce drifting through the foggy Australian dawn as the magpies caw. I know it’s impossible, because our kitchen here only smells of instant coffee, but the air carries the scent I can’t forget. In that moment, Greece is not the place I left behind, it is the place that cradles my soul and carries me forward in times of sorrow.
My parents crossed oceans with nothing but an empty suitcase and one shoe, as if they had left one foot behind to anchor them to their homeland to make a better life for our family and to ensure we carry our culture with us. When they arrived, they found that Australia was a vast island of scorching heat and pouring rain. They planted their dreams like olive seeds in foreign soil, hoping that one day it would grow. The land seemed unwilling at first. It rejected our accents, our prayers and our way of life. Yet slowly it softened, as I rested my head on my pillow and as every warm night went past, the rejection softened more as the sound of the humid wind humming old Greek lullabies would grow louder through the just as old gum trees. Reminding me of home.
Now I am eighteen, and though I have lived here most of my life, my heart still beats in two languages. I have learnt to appreciate the taste of barbecues and lamingtons and experience the roughness of footy and the endurance of cricket, It was the roughness of footy that gave me my tough skin and the endurance of cricket that taught me resilience when I’d start to miss home. It was these experiences in Australia that molded my mind like gold from Ballarat.
As barbecues would smoke laughter would fill the air, but when I would laugh the sound would only echo down the marble corridors of memory. Where I’d find myself yearning for the sweetness of Galaktoboureko and the bitterness of sketo coffee. The friends I’ve made here are kind, but none of them understand how a soul could ache for a country the body no longer inhabits. From my birth Greece molded my heart like sculptures from the Acropolis.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Title: Engage Stimulus 1: ‘There needs…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 87.5%: Engage: An anthropological study into Australian education An independent case study conducted by The…
Engage: An anthropological study into Australian education
An independent case study conducted by The Australian Anthropological society into the lives of public-school students and the circumstances that inform their cultural behaviours in response to inequity.
1- Systems of oppression
2- Techniques of domination
3- Addressing the issue
4- Need to change
5- Diagnostic of the cycle
Systems of oppression
Systemic separations between class structures have been enabled by the inconsistent policies of state and federal government, unjustly persecuting groups cemented in poverty. The need to engage in an education system that traps students in poverty, beats down the value of their learning, forces them to continue in a state of unrest, and subdues the desire to improve their circumstances by degrading their worth has become evident throughout this study.
When observing the combative behaviour of public-school students, the notion of resistance replicates the historical observations of oppressed communities. Class inequality in Australia has been a persistent factor towards protests, with the stonemasons in 1856 engaging in the fight against the injustice of exploitation of their work with little reward, or the Freedom Rides persisting for a change in the Australian sentiment of acceptance of discrimination. Throughout the history of Australia there has always been a distinction between the those who have and those who have not. It can be seen now in the treatment of primarily public-school teachers who have been forced to participate in strikes in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, to make clear that the established mistreatment in classrooms and the poor conditions of public-education will not continue to be disregarded.
The historical mistreatment of those living in poverty has always manifested its way into the education system. The policies of the federal government have always been a cornerstone of revolts this is no more evident than the introduction of fees to Australian university in 1988. This shift in education structure made the goal of higher education increasingly inaccessible to those in public school; the Monash University protests throughout 1988 demonstrates the unrest felt at the time, that can be seen throughout our study and the combative nature of this monumental shift in access. It has always been those living in socio-economic positions of destitution, those in public education, those who are the minority that have historically suffered under the weight of inequality perpetrated by an injustice in public policy.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Johnson use the motif of…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 62.5%: High Ground is a revisionist western directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson. The entire film is set in Arnhem land…
High Ground is a revisionist western directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson. The entire film is set in Arnhem land located in the Northern Territory of Australia. 1919 is the starting point for the film and a time of great violence towards First Nations people know as the Frontier Wars. The opening scene reflects this racial violence with a massacre draws strong parallels with the Gan Gan massacre. The film then time jumps 12 years into its predominant time setting where the protagonist Gutjuk, a young Yolngu boy is navigating his life after his family was massacred, and he was forced to grow up in the colonialist in the East Alligator River Mission, causing cultural conflict within Gutjuk. During this process Gutjuk is along side two very distinct mentor figures that represent both the Indigenous and British culture. Both play a part in aiding the Protagonist form his own identity and sense of morality.
The first case of mentorship that Johnson includes in the film is between Baywara and Gutjuk, which serves as a base for Gutjuk’s knowledge of his own cultural identity. In the opening scene of the film Johnson crafts an intimate scene between Gutjuk and his mentor when he was a young boy. Baywara teaches Gutjuk about the cultural significance of “[his] name… [meaning] hawk” and “[his] totem [being] the crocodile” and how these traditions are sacred parts of the First Nations identity that are based down through generations. Johnson includes this in his opening scene to first expose the audience to some of the tradition customs of the First Nations people while providing context on the protagonist. Within the same scene Baywara teaches Gutjuk the customary dance that accompanies his totem and the meaning of his name through a close up shot that Johnson employs to show the audience the intricacy of such a cultural dance and the emotion that goes into its performance. The relationship between these two First Nation males provides an environment for Gutjuk to learn about his heritage and the customs of his people, the Yolngu people which acts as mode for Gutjuk to form his connection to his culture and identity.
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: Framework: Protest Title: It's Time
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 60%: [Whispers] My children. My children. They want to inject them with this vile poison. Well... I will not let…
[Whispers]
My children. My children. They want to inject them with this vile poison. Well... I will not let them.
[Shouts].
Here the government is, mandating me to harm my children. How could I be expected to do so? This should not be a law - it should be a choice. My choice.
[Return to normal volume, pace hastens. Beat.]
Except all I hear is the ticking time bomb of my children's safety. How soon will it be until their safety - their bodies - are compromised? Why is this not their choice?
[Whispers].
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
[Return to normal volume.]
I see it everywhere. I hear it everywhere. I feel it everywhere. There has been a shift. We are not being pushed underground anymore, breaking through to the light of day. These other mothers try to stop me, but they cannot.
They fear me. Or... do they just fear what they do not know?
[Mocking tone].
You should just get the jab. The hubby and the kids all have it. It didn't hurt at all! Try it! You should really just try it.
[Chest heaving, return to normal voice and pace].
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: At what cost!
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 72.5%: At what cost! Today is January 4th 2025. On January 4th 1925 my great great grandmother was fighting for her…
At what cost!
Today is January 4th 2025. On January 4th 1925 my great great grandmother was fighting for her rights as a woman. It's January 4th. I am still fighting. It has been centuries of loss, disappointment and pain, yet nothing has changed. Anthony Albanese, you as Prime Minister have the authority to create a better future for more than half of the population of Australia. Multiple women within parliament are paid less than the males. This system is completely outdated and you have the power to change it. What cost is it to you? What do you lose? Enlighten us.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: “In Sunset Boulevard, Wilder suggests that…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In Billy Wilders 1950 film noir Sunset Boulevard, Wilder presents a world where illusion has taken over reality,…
In Billy Wilders 1950 film noir Sunset Boulevard, Wilder presents a world where illusion has taken over reality, particularly through Norma Desmond's desperate denial of her fading fame and Joe's decaying mental state, exposing just how Hollywood destroys truth to create a spectacle. Wilder invites the audience into a dark, fantasy world, but throughout the film, slowly exposes us, the audience to how this inner world within the walls of Hollywood is not a fantasy world, but the truth. He uses Norma Desmond, an aging, has-been silent movie star to represent her actor, Gloria Swanson, someone thrown away by Hollywood, but unable to accept this, and stuck living in her fantasy world. Wilder contrasts this through the character of Joe Gillis, and his desent into illusion, through his acceptance of what is required to be a part of the reality manufactured by Hollywood.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Revenge and hatred are driving forces in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 60%: Revenge and hatred are driving forces in this text. Discuss. Stephen Maxwell Johnson's 2020 film 'High Ground' set…
Revenge and hatred are driving forces in this text. Discuss.
Stephen Maxwell Johnson's 2020 film 'High Ground' set in 1930's Arnhem Land explores the devastating consequences of British colonisation on Indigenous Australians' sense of identity and their actions. They are faced with numerous unresolved historical injustices arising from the brutal conflict between the two communities during the frontier wars. The film is centred around the protagonist, Gutjuk, a young Yolngu man who witnesses the massacre of his family by the European settlers and is assimilated into their white culture. Johnson demonstrates how individuals' actions are motivated by the desire for revenge and an intense hatred towards an opposing community. However, the film suggests that individuals with a strong moral code are able to transcend the feelings of resentment or the need for revenge and enable meaningful progression in society with an absence of violence.
Johnson reveals how an obsession for revenge drives individuals to act violently and ultimately leads to their demise. Johnson characterises Baywarra as an angry and aggressive Aboriginal man as he forms a "mob" who's sole purpose is to harm the Britishers and get revenge for the initial massacre of an entire Yolngu family. Depicting the influence of a desire for revenge, Johnson reveals Baywarra and his mob "hitting stations" and damaging the white settlements in colonial Australia. Implementing a low angle shot of Baywarra atop a hill with a spear in his hand and surrounded by flames, Johnson highlights the power Baywarra had gained. his position also implies that he is gratified by his actions and will continue to cause harm to the settlers in an effort to avenge his family who the settlers brutally murdered. The spear itself becomes a recurring symbol of violence and anger as its sharpness cuts through moral restraint, leaving only a sense of revenge in place. The low angle shot positions Baywarra on the "high ground", symbolising superiority.
and a position of power which ultimately becomes a false position of power as Johnson highlights violence arised even from revenge elevates nobody and eventually only perpetuates suffering. Later in 'High Ground', Johnson uses Baywarra's death to represent the idea that sacrificing moral mentality in order to obtain revenge leads to an individual's downfall. Furthermore, as revenge drives majority of Baywarra's actions, his own father, Dharrpa is ultimately against him as Baywarra values the Indigenous Australian values of peace and non-violence which Baywarra has rejected. Baywarra tells Gutjuk that Baywarra has brought this on himself, emphasising how he does not condone his actions which are driven by a need for revenge, ultimately leaving Baywarra disconnected from his father too. Johnson indicates that revenge is a false driving force in 'High Ground' which can often lead to the one's demise.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Tradition is inescapable. To what extent…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, tradition is something that controls everyone and…
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, tradition is something that controls everyone and everything in the story. The town is full of people who just do what they think they have to do because it’s always been that way. Nobody really questions why they do things, and because of that, Santiago Nasar ends up dead. García Márquez shows that tradition is something that’s really hard, maybe even impossible, to escape from.
The murder of Santiago Nasar happens because of the old idea of honour. When Angela Vicario is returned to her family by Bayardo San Román, her brothers feel that they have to kill Santiago to get back their family’s honour. They don’t even seem to want to do it, but they say they “had the moral obligation to kill him.” This shows that they are just following what society expects from them. Everyone in town knows the twins are planning to kill Santiago, but nobody does anything about it. They all think that “someone else would stop them,” which shows that everyone is part of the same tradition and they’re too scared or lazy to go against it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Tradition is inescapable. To what extent…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 80%: In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez portrays a society trapped within the rigid expectations…
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez portrays a society trapped within the rigid expectations of honour, religion, and gender. Every character acts according to what tradition demands, even when those traditions cause harm or conflict with personal morality. Through the death of Santiago Nasar and the community’s collective inaction, García Márquez shows that tradition shapes the town’s identity so completely that it becomes impossible to escape. However, through moments of quiet resistance, he also suggests that awareness of these destructive customs may be the first step toward change.
The Vicario brothers’ decision to kill Santiago Nasar demonstrates how deeply the town is controlled by traditional codes of honour. When Angela Vicario is returned to her family after her husband discovers she is not a virgin, her brothers immediately feel “the moral obligation to kill him.” They are driven not by hatred but by the expectation that “a man must stand up for his sister’s honour.” García Márquez presents honour as a public performance, where reputation is valued more than human life. The twins repeatedly announce their plan in the hope that “someone would stop them,” but the community’s shared belief in the honour code prevents intervention. The narrator later reflects that “no one even wondered whether Santiago Nasar was guilty,” exposing how the force of tradition overrides truth and justice. In this way, García Márquez reveals honour as an inescapable cultural demand — one that traps both the killers and the victims within a destructive cycle of obedience.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: Rainbow’s End is about the experience and…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 75%: Set amidst the oppressive environment of a 1950’s Australia, Rainbow’s End reveals the harsh experiences and…
Set amidst the oppressive environment of a 1950’s Australia, Rainbow’s End reveals the harsh experiences and conflicts that arise from living between cultures. Through her characters and their maltreatment, Harrison highlights the cultural conflict that First Nations peoples endure in the face of systemic racism. Additionally, divides in generational perspectives reveal the differing experiences that individuals have when living between cultures. Despite the conflict and harsh experiences that propagate from cultural conflicts, Harrison highlights its necessity in bringing cultures together. Thus, Rainbow’s End tells a story rife with the experience and conflict of a life amongst separated cultures.
The oppression that characters are subjugated to reveal the cultural conflicts that Aboriginal people have had to endure within a white society. These cultural strifes arise as a result of systemic racism and alienation; a core theme in the play that is exemplified through its characters. Gladys is forced to disregard Dolly’s chance to work a “cash register” in Trevaks as she is faced with the realisation that “her address stop[s] her” from attaining “a good job”. Thus, their Aboriginal home and background is eluded to be a sole reason for Dolly being unable to adjust to Western culture. This systemic racism is additionally highlighted through the Bank manager’s unjustified worry of Dolly “fit[ting] in” at the job that Gladys is applying her for. He continues his attempt at denying Dolly a job, and it is only through Gladys’ constant outlining of Dolly as a “hard worker” that’s “top of her class”. This fictitious scenario, that grounds itself in the reality of 1950’s Australia, showcases the hardships that Aboriginal peoples have to suffer through to sustain themselves in white Australia. Harrison thus reveals the systemic racism forced upon First Nations peoples which forces them to navigate between their indigenous heritage - pre-colonialism - and the imposed values of white society.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: ‘Isolation plays a significant role in…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 75%: ‘Isolation plays a significant role in shaping a character’s identity.’ Discuss. Written in 1962, Shirley Jackson’s…
‘Isolation plays a significant role in shaping a character’s identity.’ Discuss.
Written in 1962, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle is set in mid-twentieth-century America, plagued by the McCarthyism era and explores the limitations placed upon the aristocratic Blackwoods as a result of the patriarchal society they live in.
Narrated by the psychologically damaged mind of Merricat, Jackson explores in protofeminist tones how unrelenting gender roles and rigid social norms lead to a bleak society in which the identities of individuals are suppressed. Ultimately, Jackson works to not only condemn the harsh patriarchal norms that societies are based upon, but also demonstrates that liberation and freedom can be achieved through a rejection of these conventional societal values.
From the opening line, “My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood”, Jackson immediately situates Merricat’s identity within an isolated framework. Jackson’s narration traps the readers in Merricat's claustrophobic identity. The declarative statement of name and age reads like a ritual incantation rather than a simple introduction. Merricat’s world is small, bound by the walls of the Blackwood estate and by her routines of superstition and control. Her isolation from the villagers has intensified her inward gaze, turning her identity into something solipsistic and defensive. The villagers’ cruelty, mocking rhymes, stares, and the lingering accusation of murder have driven her to create a personal mythology in which her family’s ostracism becomes sacred. Merricat’s fantasies of the villagers “all dying” or the world “ending except for Constance and me” illustrate how isolation feeds her desire for absolute autonomy. She sees herself not as part of a community but as a guardian of a private realm. In this sense, Jackson shows that isolation can generate a warped form of empowerment: Merricat’s identity depends on her exclusion, and she fiercely defends it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does High Ground challenge the concept…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 67.5%: High Ground - Prompt 1 Stephen Johnson's 2020 film High Ground explores the impact of European Colonisation on…
High Ground - Prompt 1
Stephen Johnson's 2020 film High Ground explores the impact of European Colonisation on Aboriginal Australians through the life of Gutjuk - a young Aboriginal man who lost his family and was assimilated. The film grapples with Gutjuk's conflicting sense of morality and justice, living between the worlds of the colonisers and his remaining family. Johnson critiques and challenges the notion of British justice, highlighting that it is an unfair system that is a cover for colonial violence. Johnson demonstrates that the true justice for Aboriginal Australians is maintaining their connection to culture and country.
Johnson depicts that British justice is a concept that remains unfair to Aboriginal Australians, erasing their experience as victims of oppression. Despite being subject to colonisation, it is made evident in High Ground that Aboriginal Australians are denied of their justice from the colonial perspective as it is that their experiences as victims have no true voice. Johnson constructs the film through a cyclic nature, presenting series of recurring violence each time started by the colonisers then followed with the retaliation of the Aboriginal Australians. Through this Johnson makes it evident that throughout history, colonisers have continued to inflict violence on Aboriginal Australians, resulting in violence back as an attempt to gain their own justice. This is further solidified through the exposition of the film, which depicted the massacre of the Yolngu people. A gruesome scene implemented by Johnson, who based it off of real life massacres of Aboriginal Australians. The exposition of the film served as a microcosm of the continued violence colonisers put Aboriginal Australians through. In setting this as the foundation of the film, Johnson serves to present that the cyclic repetition of violence evident throughout is a result of colonisation "didn't start with [Baywara]", but rather started with [colonisers]" unlike what the soldiers tried pushing as Moran pushed for "justice", arguing that Baywara "crossed the line" as he "killed a white woman", chosen that while Baywara's violence was in response to the murder of his entire family, him killing a singular white woman is what truly demands justice in the eyes of the British. Johnson critiques this narrative through highlighting that the pretense of violence against Aboriginal Australians is what truly requires justice - however, it is made clear that British justice actively ignores the need to "give Aboriginal Australians their justice", rather only choosing "to honour fellow colonisers." This is further highlighted through Gulgub's character arc. Johnson constructs Gulgub's timeline to make it evident that though he pursues justice for himself, he never once kills anyone. However, in the climax of his arc, he is actively being hunted by Eddy, who believes "he is a murderer". The blatant lie used to justify the attempt at killing Gulgub is used by Johnson as a representation of coloniser's use of lies to justify their system of justice - further exacerbating the unfairness of British justice. As "officers of the law", their blatant disregard for justice for Indigenous Australians, through a lack of acknowledgement for the violence they suffered, is indicative of a broader sense of unfairness in the British means of justice. Through this, Johnson illustrates that to Aboriginal Australians, the British system of justice is unfair, thus critiquing it.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does Requiem for a Beast explore the…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 65%: Matt Ottley’s non-linear, multi-modal graphic novella Requiem for a beast (2007) explores the impact of…
Matt Ottley’s non-linear, multi-modal graphic novella Requiem for a beast (2007) explores the impact of generational trauma through symbols and relationships. Ottley suggests a lasting impact of racism and trauma exist, employing mythological symbols and visuals to do so.
Ottley suggests that trauma is passed down and creates ones identity. The father utilises his authority over the Boy to manipulate his identity, as the father’s trauma influences him to prevent the Boy having the same experience. When the Boy is young, he hears his father participating in racist conversation bout Indigenous Australians, likening Indigenous peoples to animals, “the blackfellas out there were a bunch of monkeys”, positioning them as less-than-human. The impact of hearing such on the Boy’s identity is seen when the Boy questions his father on it, which the father dismisses, “don’t worry about that mate”, in an attempt to prevent the Boy from inheriting trauma from casual racism. The father takes further action by attempting to prevent the Boy from working on the station, insisting the Boy is “too smart” for such work and masculine community, due to the father’s trauma stemming from his time on the station. However, the father redirects harm that still falls upon the Boy as he has now inherited fragile masculinity as trauma from his father. This impact on the Boy’s identity is supported when on the station he compares himself to Johnno’s wife and separating himself from his fellow masculine stockmen, questioning his ability to “fit in” in such a “place” and community. Ottley reinforces this idea with the visual of the stockmen lined up during their profiles, in which the Boy is riding a white horse while the rest are riding darker horses. Thus, generational trauma impacts one’s identity by illustrating the direct relationship of it’s influence on paternal decisions to ones self-image.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: In Oedipus the king, all who deserve it…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 72.5%: In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King, justice is not straightforward. While Oedipus, Jocasta, and others suffer…
In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King, justice is not straightforward. While Oedipus, Jocasta, and others suffer terribly, their suffering is not always the result of deliberate wrongdoing. Instead, Sophocles shows that fate and divine will play a far greater role in shaping human lives than personal choice. The play challenges the idea that punishment always fits the crime and highlights the limits of human control. Through Oedipus’ downfall, Jocasta’s death, and the dominance of fate, Sophocles presents a tragic vision where suffering is often undeserved and inevitable.
Oedipus suffers terribly, even though he tries to do the right thing. Before he is born, the oracle predicts he will “kill his father and lie with his mother.” To avoid this, Oedipus flees Corinth, but unknowingly kills his real father, Laius, in self-defence and marries his mother, Jocasta. None of this is intentional, yet his punishment is extreme,he blinds himself, loses his throne, and lives in exile.Oedipus’ good qualities make his suffering seem even more unfair. He cares deeply for Thebes, saying, “I would be blind to misery not to pity my people.” He also seeks the truth to save the city, but his determination leads to his destruction. Oedipus himself blames the gods,expressing, “It was Apollo, friends. It was Apollo. He brought on these troubles, the awful things I suffer.” His tragedy shows that fate, not guilt, drives much of his suffering.
Jocasta also suffers despite acting with good intentions. She abandons her baby to avoid
VCE · Creative Response
Creative Response: protest title: at what cost stimulus:…
VCE Creative Response essay scoring 75%: To my dearest Angel, by the time you find this letter the banners will be shown away collecting dust and the…
To my dearest Angel,
by the time you find this letter the banners will be shown away collecting dust and the chants that once echoed throughout the full streets of London will have faded away. My daughter, I write this to you now to understand, to fight, to never give up. If things still haven't changed, if us as women are still looked down on, fight back.
Today I stood in the inner heart of London among the suffragettes, widows, mothers, even some elders. And together we marched. March for our future, marched for our family, marched for the generations upon us. As I looked around signs surrounded me ones that read “rights for women” ones that portrayed “let us vote” daunting on the watchers before us. I watched as people, women, got shoved, told to back down, ignored like we are a mockery standing before them but no, no one stopped. The marching continued in unity, together hand in hand we shouted, screamed, begged for a shot, begged to be noticed for once. However, for this the consequences we received were shocking. Suffragettes were locked up against their will; they refused to eat until they were heard which led to the punishment of feeding tubes. Women were being knocked down, their banners being torched before their eyes. It was like we had entered our own World War, except this time the men weren't protecting the women and children, they were against them.
VCE · Text Response
Text Response: How does High Ground depict the lasting…
VCE Text Response essay scoring 70%: In Highground, directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson, colonial violence starts and ends the film in post-war Arnhem…
In Highground, directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson, colonial violence starts and ends the film in post-war Arnhem Land, displaying the long-lasting impact of colonial violence. Johnson contends that colonial violence has a long-lasting impact, leaving trauma, fueling revenge from indigenous tribes and constant cycles of violence, with rare chances to gain peace due to the need for colonial dominance. Johnson constructs this with a cyclical narrative structure and several film techniques and devices.The opening massacre comes back 12 years later with Baywarra avenging his family. The struggle for trust and peace between the indigenous and colonial settlers is a result of the colonial violence at the start of the film. The ending pictures the cycle of violence as the past repeats itself and another massacre occurs.