How does ransom explore what it means to be human

Each and everyone is just a man in the end, such as Priam and Achilles, and being a human means showing empathy, which must not be lost even in times of grief or great power. The seemingly insignificant acts of kindness by Hesione and Peleus are what enable two men to be who they are, one being saved from a road to slavery the other finding his great love. The commoner Somax gently persuades Priam of the interest in the small things in life, and the nature of humanity itself, which is an enduring force.

Its too wordy, and took too long, and I didnt really get the prompt, but its my first Ransom essay. Criticize it any way you want, anything is helpful. THanks Also my first post.

Quote from: taqi on April 19, , pm. Try and keep it on topic guys. Quote from: taqi on April 20, , pm. Quote from: burbs on April 19, , pm. I'm by no means an English expert so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Sometimes sentences get extremely long winded. PS - I was in your class in Year 7 and 8, spooky huh? Malouf and Eastwood, therefore, are unanimous in stressing the importance of leading by example to induce meaningful change. Hence, although both Malouf and Eastwood emphasise the necessity of leaders to display forgiveness to help shape the beliefs of their followers, it is notable that in Invictus, leaders are presented as being more conventional in positions of authority, while Ransom reminds the audience that leadership is able to materialise even in ordinary people.

Often, fulfilling objectives for the benefit of all can take a heavy toll on individuals, leading to familial sacrifices. Just like Priam had to sacrifice his involvement with his children, Mandela too forgoes his relationship with his family to pursue his wider agenda of unifying South Africa. Thus, both Malouf and Eastwood each highlight the personal toll that leadership entails, signifying that while their actions for the greater good at the loss of family may be admirable, time is something which can never be recovered.

Yet, both Malouf and Eastwood unequivocally reject the perverse emphasis on such traditional ideals of masculinity, suggesting that our propensity to battle opposition through stoicism is reductive. Therefore, he is left in a position of imbalance, plagued by guilt and sorrow as he is unable to look beyond the trite narrative of a soldier.

Likewise, the Springbok rugby team is presented in similar psychological predicament, with dark, ominous lighting amidst their locker room accentuating the inescapable pessimism and despair at their seemingly endless losses. Hence, both texts indicate this restrictive philosophy typical of traditional heroism to be particularly destructive, as the would-be heroes are portrayed to be engulfed and suffocated by their narrow-minded, physical way of dealing with obstacles.

Theme: The Effects of War Ransom is a powerful anti-war statement, as it prompts readers to a serious contemplation of the dehumanising impact of war, and to question individual culpability. Themes [cont'd] Fate, Chance, and Change In much of Greek mythology and literature, fate appears as an ultimate and inescapable force. As a retelling of a single episode from the Iliad, Ransom largely works within this same tradition, depicting the final destinies of its characters as fixed and unalterable, at least by the time the story opens.

Identity, Humanity, and Mortality Ransom focuses tightly on the inner worlds of two characters: Priam and Achilles. As the novel opens, however, neither of these characters has a particularly stable or unified sense of identity.

Each is instead pulled in different directions on account of factors like their social roles as a king and a warrior and their interpersonal relationships. Language, Storytelling, and Empathy In the Afterword to Ransom, Malouf says that he considers the novel to be, at heart, about storytelling. Given that the novel is a reworking of a preexisting story—told most famously in The Iliad—this is not surprising.

Still, it is striking just how often Malouf interrupts the main narrative to tell a story-within-a-story. These interludes serve different purposes over the course of the novel, from offering necessary backstory to providing entertainment. With that said, the novel does draw a clear distinction between the spiritual and the physical, and it uses the elements of water and earth to illuminate that distinction.

It makes me want these people to steer clear of my space. Not only is there rubbish in their plot of land, but if anything, the drone has added to the destruction. This is actually a really good point. Sometimes you can get so absorbed in the analysis that you only think about what's there in front of you, but a great way to create contrast and to understand what's there when it's so obvious is by considering what things would be like if it were otherwise.

Basically, what I'm saying is, think about why it is black and white. Why is it not in colour? If it was in colour, how would that change your perception of what's happening here? We've talked a little bit about the photograph, which by the way, we could keep finding more and more, but I think it gets to a certain point where you kind of have to figure out what's valuable for you to talk about and what's not so much.

Once you get good enough at Analysing Argument, you should have an excess of language techniques to choose from and then it's just a matter of deciding which ones are going to give you that advantage and which ones are going to help you stand out from the rest of the cohort. What I'm thinking about here is, he's saying 'our council', but he's using inclusive language - 'our'.

There's this sense of ownership, this is our space, this is our community. Now he's creating a dichotomy between farmers and tourists. I love the word dichotomy; essentially, it just means a true opposition - farmers versus tourists. The way that I remember the word is di as a prefix usually means divide or division, to split things in half.

So it's creating this dichotomy of us versus them. So maybe he's going to build upon that here. He is building upon it. This paragraph seems like it's more about the farmers and building the 'us'. I actually don't know what wayward means, so if this happens, and this stuff happens all the time, what I do is actually look it up in the dictionary and understand it because I know that if I don't know what this word means, it probably means that the majority of other people also don't know what this word means.

It, therefore, gives me a potential advantage, because if I'm able to analyse it, there's something that not as many people would have analysed. In my own interpretation, I guess it's unpredictable.

If I build upon this idea more, I guess there's a sense of loss of control and this builds upon that idea that farmers are losing control of their plot of land and their privacy. You can kind of see this is how my mind works and I just try to sync everything back up to the contention and to what he's saying essentially.

That's actually quite a bit that we went through in that little bit there. A viewer says 'dichotomy simplifies a debate for an audience to make it seem a neutral position is not possible and consequently one must pick a side. Oh, quickly. I just want to go back while we understand the importance of our town, of visitors supporting businesses, I think there's this acknowledging the opposition, acknowledging that there are benefits in having visitors.

He's not completely tunnel-visioned. He is being fairer, or at least that's how he's portraying himself, and that makes me at least more inclined to side with him because I'm seeing that he's a little bit more rational and he's not just saying, oh, screw them.

It's not just his way or the highway, there is some give or take, so that kind of makes him more credible in a sense. I'm just going to say acknowledging the opposition. There, you can finesse that by replacing the word opposition with something else. That's fine. He's kind of anticipating people's reactions to what he's saying and he's going no, no, no, I'm not like that. It's all good, not just another person complaining about technology.

I just find that hilarious. He's young guys, okay?! I think everyone's getting on board with technology these days. But, he's kind of reaffirming, I'm young guys, I'm a cool guy, I'm not anti-tech at all.

He literally says it 'I'm introducing new tech'. I think this is a really interesting way he's structuring his argument. He's kind of started off going, drones, they're so bad for you. Then he's showing this picture, which is kind of like drones, they suck.

I think there's this analysis there for you and I'd actually love for you guys to write down in the comments section what you think is going on? Why is he structuring his argument like this? Here's a tip for you guys.

A shift in tone usually means that there's a new argument coming. They usually tie in together pretty well, so if you see a shift in tone, you can kind of hedge the bet that it's a new argument. This is particularly helpful if it's an article that's really hard. Usually for SACs, teachers will choose articles from newspapers and we all know that newspaper articles are way tougher than VCAA articles. If you don't know, it's true.

A viewer asks 'will these annotations be provided for our personal use at the end? So, they will be accessible there. Otherwise, it's just access through the live stream video linked at top of page , which will be posted up afterwards as well.

A viewer says 'By stating he's young and uses drones, it showcases his argument isn't based on personal bias towards young people or drones, but is a legitimate problem.

With your analysis, I'm not a hundred percent sure what you're saying. I think it could be a little bit clearer. Give that a go. Just try rewriting it, see if you can make it even more concise.

So we've managed to annotate the background information, paragraph one, the photograph, paragraph two and paragraph three. We still have one more paragraph left and this next page with the image.

Unfortunately, I have to wrap it up there, but if you want to see me annotate and analyse the rest of this article, head over to Part 2 on Youtube where I finish this off. Bombshells is a collection of six monologues written by Joanna Murray-Smith, each featuring one female character who is symbolic of a specific stage in life and role. Together, they are a telling account of the struggles of being a woman in a modern world, and the monologue format allows the author to emphasise how they are simultaneously unique and universally relatable.

The story is narrated first-person by Penelope who resides in the underworld, but is also peppered with spoken, sung or chanted testimonies from the twelve dead maids of the story who act as a Chorus, a traditional part of ancient Greek theatre. Prompt: How do Bombshells and The Penelopiad emphasise the subtleties of the male-female relationship dynamic?

While the narratives of both Bombshells and The Penelopiad are firmly focused on the female perspective of issues relevant to them, the texts also address the male perspective and role in such issues. Like the women, the men created by the authors have instrumental roles in the way the stories play out, which interestingly are sometimes disproportionate to their actual involvement in the plot. One of the main differences between the texts, other than the literary format, is the level of dialogue and active participation afforded to the male characters.

Even without forming the male characters into rich, detailed personas, she still manages to fully showcase the chaos visited upon Theresa by her ill-considered marriage.

She draws greater attention to her inner panic and desperation than we see in Penelope, whose voice retains a sense of shocked detachment even when crying or suffering.

The approaches of Atwood and Murray-Smith towards the level of engagement of their male characters differ significantly, yet both show the full impact of their actions on the lives of their female counterparts. Even when the men are given only cursory mentions, their presence as an agent of change within the story is sufficient for them to dramatically alter the courses of the characters they consort with.

Maybe expand your view to more general ideas about human beings, how we live our lives and the ways we react to situations of duress. Also consider that these texts are in two different formats; how does the live performance of Bombshells change the way it is perceived? What can a monologue do better than a book in terms of transmitting an idea and vice versa?

Summary 2. What Is Magical Realism? Themes 4. Symbols and Analysis 5. Quotes 6. Sample Essay Topics 7. Essay Topic Breakdown. Flames is a bit of an out-there story right from the beginning: Levi is attempting to build a coffin for his sister Charlotte because the women in their family come back to life after dying. Neither of them is that close to dying - both are young adults. Some of these perspectives are surprising and unexpected, ranging from a hardcore private investigator to a river god in the form of a water rat, but each of them earns their place in the story.

Our job when studying this text is to follow these shifts in perspectives and make sense of how they contribute to the overall text. Before we get stuck into the text itself, it might be useful to first discuss its genre. The most important element of magical realism is that it blends the real world with fantastical elements. Less obvious examples of fantastical elements include the wombat farm at Melaleuca fortunately nobody actually skins wombats as well as the Oneblood tuna and unfortunately!

The fact that these examples are narrated as perfectly normal is another element of magical realism: the author usually operates as if the fantastical elements are perfectly real. We, as readers, enter a world where the existence of these magical things is taken for granted by the characters. All we know is that in many respects, it looks like our own. Within this familiar setting, Arnott lets his own imagination run wild and leaves the reader to figure out the rest.

This helps to create a sense of wonder , as if these elements could be real and as magical as described. These elements also contribute to the story in other ways: in particular, they open up new possibilities for commentary. A prominent Australian example is Carpentaria by Alexis Wright. Between the three of them, there are three very different expressions of grief. But Edith McAllister is not the only death of significance in the novel.

Arnott is thus exploring many processes of grieving, from solitude and callousness to physical and emotional labour. Outside of these moments of grieving, Arnott explores the background relationships between family members as well. Again, Levi and Charlotte are central to this. Consider what difference it makes when Arnott writes in first person from within these relationships as he does with Charlotte versus when he writes in third person , observing from outside.

We also see interesting relationships between Karl and his daughter Nicola. Nicola crops up again under this theme, as she begins to navigate a relationship with Charlotte. In a book review for The Guardian , Sam Jordison argues that this is a bit trite, but we can think of it as one perspective on how relationships begin : organically and sincerely, and out of a desire to protect someone else.

With these various beginnings and endings, Arnott shows how it can be natural - or supernatural - to fall in and out of love. Finally, this novel touches on the impacts of colonisation. Arnott also explores colonisation through the eyes of Jack, who experiences racism when taking on the human form of an Aboriginal person.

As immortal outside observers, their perspectives are the only ones in the novel that can really trace this history. Although nature is already alive, these figures help it feel even more so. The one natural element worth discussing as its own symbol is water. There are many bodies of water identified in the novel, from rivers and lakes to the ocean , and they each have their own significance.

For example, rivers connect parts of the natural landscape while lakes particularly Crater Lake represent a getaway, solace, solitude and peace.

Arnott canvasses all of these different relationships to nature through the different manifestations of water. The question here is about how magical realism enriches or contributes to the story, so it might be worth breaking down the elements of magical realism and thinking through each of them one-by-one. One magical realism element Arnott adopts is the gods, who play a few roles symbolically in the novel, but there are other elements too: the seals, the flames, the cormorants and so on.

Do these elements add as much as the gods, and if so, what are they adding? Consider also not just the elements as they appear, but also how Arnott is treating them. The fact that a lot of them are taken for granted as perfectly normal is in itself another genre element. Instead of talking about the elements too disparately or separately, I think a lot of them revolve around this central question of how humans relate to the earth and to one another. This will help connect my ideas to one another.

Paragraph 1 : Elements of magical realism show how humans adversely impact nature. Paragraph 2 : At the same time, not all humans contribute equally to this pollution, and magical elements also facilitate commentary on this perspective.

I am Malala and Made in Dagenham is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Comparative also known as Reading and Comparing.

When you think about post-apocalyptic science fiction stories, what kind of thing comes to mind first? Maybe an alien invasion, Pacific Rim style monsters perhaps, and almost always the mad scramble of a protagonist to stockpile resources and protect their loved ones from the imminent chaos and destruction—these are tropes which are tried and tested in this genre.

She interrogates central questions about human society, inviting readers to consider what human qualities can endure even an apocalypse, what qualities are timeless. Tracing his origins from obscurity to fame, Mandel juxtaposes his philandering and untrustworthy behaviour with repeated attempts to be a better person, or perhaps just be more true to himself, before his death.

Arguably equally important in legacy is his first wife, Miranda Carroll , whose comics lend the novel its title. Her comics survive her in the years following the Flu, and are a source of escape and purpose for others just as they had been for herself. Both of these characters come into contact with Jeevan Chaudhary , a paparazzo and journalist who regularly follows Arthur though his career, photographing Miranda in a vulnerable moment before her divorce, and booking an interview with Arthur years later as he plans to leave his second wife Elizabeth Colton.

We see Jeevan struggle with his purpose in life throughout the novel, though it can be said that he ultimately finds it after the Flu, when he is working as a medic.

As the Flu first arrives in America, Clark is just leaving for Toronto, but a Flu outbreak there causes his flight to be redirected to Severn City Airport, where he and others miraculously survive in what will become a key setting of the novel.

We experience the present mostly through the perspective of Kirsten Raymonde , a performer who survived the Flu as a young child. Because she was so young when it happened, many of the traumas she experienced have been erased by her mind, and she struggles to piece together what she lost in a quest for identity and meaning, largely driven by her vague memories of Arthur.

Through the story, they are pursued by the prophet , later revealed to be Tyler Leander , the child of Arthur and Elizabeth who survived and grew up in the decades following the Flu outbreak. A religious extremist, he becomes the leader of a cult of fanatics who amass weapons and conquer towns by force. Both Kirsten and Tyler pursue the Station Eleven comics, quoted above—they each possess a copy, and resonate strongly with the struggles of the characters created by Miranda.

These characters already speak to some of the major themes that formulate the novel. On one hand, Mandel explores various meanings of contemporary or modern civilisation. We live in a technology-driven age where constraints of time and space mean less than ever before. For example, people are mobile through space thanks to airplanes and telephones, and the internet means that any and all information is available to anyone, all the time.

This lack of purpose, this ennui, is something that tints much of society through the eyes of Mandel. Another major theme which the lives of these characters start to explore is the value of art as a source of purpose. While civilisation is portrayed as fragile and meaningless, art—in all its forms, including creating, reproducing, performing and consuming—is a way for people such as Miranda to understand, process and escape their lives. This theme is arguably the most important, as it tethers different parts of the novel together; even after the apocalypse, people turn to art as a way of understanding and connecting to others as well as to themselves.

Inevitably with this genre, survival and mortality are major themes, as massive populations of people have died and continue to die due to the impacts of the Georgia Flu.

Maybe this is what it means to be human. On the other hand, the Flu also turns others to religious extremity , as is the case with Elizabeth, Tyler and the rest of their cult. This speaks to broader ideas about faith , fate and spirituality —are there greater forces out there who manipulate events in our world?

Certainly, there are enough coincidences in the novel for this theory to be valid; even just Kirsten and Tyler both having copies of Station Eleven and both acting under the influence of Arthur is so coincidental. However, perhaps the most important theme here is memory.

Mandel ultimately puts this as the central question to readers: is memory more of a blessing or a burden? Various symbols—and even the constantly shifting narrative perspective—evoke the epic sense of loss in the apocalypse, and yet encountering characters like Alexandra, who never really knew what the internet was, makes you rethink that loss; perhaps it is better to have experienced the internet at all.

Consider the discarded phones and credit cards in the Museum of Civilisations, all mementos of what the world lost. It is airplanes , however, that serve as the greatest reminder.