2012
Interesting views on society are conveyed by the distinctively visual.
Explore how this is achieved in your prescribed text and one other text of your own choosing.
Sample Response: Poetry
Prescribed text: Selected Poems, Douglas Stewart
Related Text: The Dream of the Thylacine, Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, 2011 (picture
book)
Directly
addressing
the question
and
developing a
thesis that
includes the
two texts
The distinctively visual provides an avenue of social comment with composers
manipulating words and images to convey interesting views on society. Douglas
Stewart’s poetry and Ron Brook’s drawings in the picture book The Dream of the
Thylacine by Margaret Wild have the power to connect the responder to social
issues through the visual. With carefully chosen language, and the juxtaposition of
the commonplace against the spectacular, the composers create a sense of the
force of nature and show that the most ordinary things in life are extraordinary
and deserve our respect.
Begins with
overview of
poems in
prescribed
text focusing
on setting
and the
responder
Douglas Stewart’s poetry is quintessentially Australian in its choice of subject
matter and location. Stewart focuses on nature and mans’ relationship to the
natural. He goes from urban to coastal to rural settings with the same sensitivity.
The lady who feeds cats, the fisherman, the wombat and the moth are given the
same acknowledgement, all seen as part of a natural world. We can immediately
see the world around the characters and animals in the poems.
Close reading
of the Lady
who feeds
cats, looking
at how the
visual
conveys a
message
The lady comes “from the slums” but walks “uphill past the Moreton Bays and
the smoky gums”, nature forming her pathway. Her poverty is revealed through
the descriptions of her clothes: “broken shoes”, “long dress green and black like a
pine in the rain, “bonnet much bedraggled’ and her “shuffling” movements
declare her age. The outer visual garments and appearance are at odds with the
inner person with a “song in her brain” and “trembling with love and power”. The
paradox of “love and power” is due to her relationship with the cats in the
neighbourhood. The dependence of the natural world on humans is evident as the
cats “rub at her legs” for food and treat her like a “princess out of a tower”. The
poem also demonstrates that the relationship is reciprocal indicated in the
balanced verse “If she has fed their bodies, they have fed/ More than the body in
her”. It is through the cats that the lady achieves satisfaction. The lady’s poverty is
obvious and yet she is able to feel as if she is a fairytale figure. Stewart is
conveying a message about society and the importance of giving, through the lady
but he is also demonstrating that it is animals and nature that give us contentment.
The evidence
from
different
parts of the
poem is
explained
and linked to
the question
Human relationships with animals are not always positive as we can see in The
Dream of the Thylacine. Humans do not appear in the picture book but their
Link to the
related text
made in the
topics
sentence
Both visual
and verbal
techniques
are discussed
Conscious of
the audience
Ends with a
return to the
thesis about
social
message
Second
poem from
prescribed
text is linked
to the related
text
Techniques
are
embedded in
the
discussion
with their
examples
Final
comment to
link both
texts to the
set question
.
actions are obvious in the black and white historical photographic image of the
thylacine in a cage. Wooden rails frame the image on the right hand side of the
double page spread where the words appear as if in the thylacine’s mind:
“Trapped am I in a twisty wire, cold concrete. The thylacine’s despair is further
conveyed by the capitalised verbs in big font that follow, as if floating on the page:
“PROWL, RAGE, HOWL”. Image and words work together to capture the
degradation and despair of the once powerful animal. The next double page is a
sharp contrast with full colour in a stylised representation of the thylacine running
freely in the Australian bush, part of nature. The tragedy of the loss of the
thylacine is captured even more poignantly in the image that appears on the cover
in shades of nostalgic sepia with the arched back of the thylacine tracing an arc for
the responder’s eye to follow to the open mouth, howling its desperate appeal.
While this may be a picture book, the violence of some of the images suggests an
older audience may be more appropriate as the social message is confronting.
Wild and Brooks use the visual to promote their message about nature by
depicting the animal in such humanistic terms. They are declaring the view that
man has intervened too much in the lives of animals with devastating results.
The beauty of Stewart’s words in the poem “The Moths” is just as effective as
Wild’s words and Brooks’ images in the thylacine book. He starts with the
anaphora “such a …” drawing our attention to the wonder of nature. He
addresses the responder directly with the colloquial expression “You’d think” but
follows this with the exquisite phrasing of the metaphor appealing to the sense of
touch: “a wind of the dusk” which leaves us to imagine the delicacy of the air in
the lowering light and yet that same wind sweeps bare the blossoming tea-trees.
There is a sense of violence in the beauty of nature “where the dark streams cut
the granite”. Sight, touch and sound come together in the “whirring hush of
wings” also acting as an oxymoron, making us aware of the contrast in nature – of
power inherent in the gentleness. This poem keeps building up the images using
lists of participles,“Bursting and foaming, spinning and gushing” to reveal the
energy of the age-old moths. The poem delicately ends as it starts with a reference
to “snow”, an image of white innocence but also age. Moths are regarded as such
commonplace insects but Stewart has dispelled this idea convincing the responder
that they have a beauty and that they are an important part of nature.
Both Stewart and the picture book creators (Wild and Brooks) have harnessed the
power of the visual to influence the responder to a point of view about society.
They remind us that nature has beauty and that it is a part of our world that needs
to be respected. Through positive interactions with nature we become more
human.