the golden age essay topics

The Golden Age

Table of contents, introduction, metalanguage and techniques, analysis for the themes, analysis of the characters, analysis of the quotes, essay 1 : discuss the role of art and poetry in the golden age..

• Essay 2 : How does The Golden Age explore the idea of change?
• Essay 3 : How much control over their lives do the characters in The Golden Age possess?
• Essay 4 : The Golden Age suggests that nothing can replace the loss of one’s home. Discuss.
• Essay 5 : ’In The Golden Age, the past is never far away from any of the characters.’ Discuss.
• Essay 6 : ’In migrating to Australia, the Golds gain more than they lose. Discuss.’
• Essay 7: ’The Golden Age uses a range of literary techniques to convey its themes of belonging and identity.’ Discuss.
• Essay 8 : How important is love and connection in The Golden Age?
• Essay 9 : “In recovery he felt a hunger to know why he was alive.” ‘In The Golden Age, recovery means much more than survival.’ Discuss.

The Golden Age is a prize-winning novel by Joan London, first published in 2014. It is set in 1954, in the Golden Age Children’s Polio Convalescent Home in Perth. The novel follows Frank Gold, a thirteen-year-old Hungarian immigrant who has bee struck down by polio and is now recovering at the Golden Age. The novel charts his physical recovery, and his emotional and intellectual coming-of-age; he falls in love with fellow-patient Elsa Briggs and develops a passion for poetry.

London creates a sensitive portrait of her adolescent characters and depicts their gradual withdrawal from their parents and increasing independence – a process symbolically mirrored in their physical recovery. The story is told from Frank’s perspective, but also from Elsa’s, Frank’s parents Meyer and Ida, and a nurse at the Golden Age, Olive Penny. All of the central characters are embarking on their own journeys. Meyer and Ida lost everything to the Second World War and must attempt to find their place in their new country. Olive Penny is estranged from her daughter and largely shunned by her family; she lives a forbidden life of casual sexual encounters. All of these characters find themselves in the same city, on the far west of Australia – an Australia which in 1954 is itself struggling to find its own identity.

In 1954, Australia is a deeply conservative country which sees itself as fundamentally British. Since Federation, the White Australian Policy (the Immigration Restriction Act 1901) has been in place, making it almost impossible for non-whites to enter the country permanently. Even central and eastern Europeans like the Golds are exotic by the standards of the time. The ‘New Australians’ from post-war Europe are essentially the first wave of immigrants in the 20 th Century to begin diversifying the Australian population. The Golds are very much outsiders.

London’s tale of two young people who fall in love and are forced apart is about the personal journeys of those characters, the maturation of Australia, but also, crucially, about the power of poetry. Frank’s “vocation” is tied to his love for Elsa and becomes “his way in,” his method for understanding himself and his place in the world. Frank’s poetry also embodies the changes soon to sweep Australia and the world. His style is modern, and Sullivan, the ill-fated patient who introduces Frank to poetry, speaks of exciting things happening in America – presumably referring to the outrageous Beat poets, and other mid-century groups. The 1960s will see immense and world-changing Civil Rights movements, anti-war movements, the birth of popular culture, student revolts, and a sexual revolution. The next two decades are characterised by significant challenges to social and political norms and a new emphasis on the individual. Youth culture, be it embodied in stoned hippies, rioting students, rock and roll and eventually punk culture, will be predicated on rebellion. In 1954, Frank Gold is, in his own, quiet way, a precursor to these seismic shifts, rubbing up against teachers in disputes about what poetry is meant to be, and focussing on verse as that which can liberate the self.

London writes in a highly evocative style, and goes to great lengths to capture Perth in the 1950s. The novel also includes flash-backs to the Golds’ experiences in Budapest, and leaps forward in the final chapter to when Frank is an old, acclaimed poet living in New York. Ultimately, it is a novel which affirms the nature of love, and the power of art.

The Golden Age is a highly stylised and poetic novel – which should be unsurprising, given its keen interest in the nature and purpose of poetry. It is written in what is known in literary studies as “free indirect discourse.” This is a form of third-person narration (he, she, they) which slips in and out of the perspectives of its characters. So when we read The Golden Age , even though the narrative voice positions their subject at a distance, saying “he” or “she,” it still presents the thoughts of that character, without necessarily saying “he thought” or “he said.” Essentially, the narration is in the third person, but it is a third person flavoured with the worldview of the person it describes. For example, when the narrative voice describes Meyer’s reflections on loss, it frequently dispenses with phrases like “he thought this,” and instead melds Meyer’s thoughts with the narrative voice: “He, Ida and Frank had left behind all their family and friends, those who had survived. But the dead came with you.” This style has many advantages. One is that it infuses the narrative with rich and evocative poetic description based on character perspectives. For example, the prose is laden with images of light whenever Frank, and to a lesser extent Myer, drive the narrative forward. The narrative description of Elsa as “the light which swirled around” Frank is another excellent example of imagery appearing in the text which is dependent on the narrative perspective being employed. Many of the metaphors and similes in the text are also good examples – such as Myer’s characterisation of Australians as a “lost tribe” or his description of Ida as “a bird who refused to sing.”

The Golden Age , although largely chronological, has a non-linear narrative structure . This means that the events in the novel do no occur in a strictly correct order. Rather, the novel is characterised by its use of flash-backs, effectively weaving characters’ memories and reflections into the storyline of the novel. This helps build the sense of a world lived in part through memory. This structure, combined with the free indirect discourse narration, makes The Golden Age a self-consciously modernist novel. The Modernist movement, which arguably reached its peak in the 1920s but can be traced long before and after then, was characterised by writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf using free-indirect discourse and displaying a keen interest in the nature of memory – a central theme in The Golden Age . The Golden Age is of course partially about these dramatic changes in literature, and Sullivan Backhouse stresses to Frank Gold that modern poetry is radically different to the poetry of Byron. Modernist literature is also highly allusive, characterised by at times oblique references to many other works. We see this in The Golden Age . Allusions are made to various important modernist and mid-century poets, such as Sassoon and what is possibly the Beat generation (referred to by Sullivan as the “exciting” developments in the United States). The defining work of Modernist poetry, The Waste Land , by T.S Eliot, is directly referenced. This extra layer of interpretative meaning brought to the novel by its allusions reflects its central contention, which is that art and a love of beauty is essential to navigating loss, change and suffering.

Poetry and Art

The Golden Age is in some respects a meditation on the role of art, and especially poetry, in life – particularly in regards to love, healing and survival. It is Sullivan Backhouse, an older boy being treated in an iron lung, who introduces Frank to poetry; or rather, who introduces him to the potential of poetry. Frank has already been exposed to his parents’ fondness for Hungarian poetry, but he always found something “theatrical, deliberate” in their reading, and he particularly disliked his mother’s “holy tone.” Sullivan, by contrast, introduces him to modern poetry, which could be written in “simple, everyday language.” Frank alights on poetry as his “vocation” and begins writing lines of free verse down in an old prescription pad. The use of a prescription pad to write poetry symbolises the healing potential of the act; indeed, after his separation from Elsa, Frank becomes convinced that “poetry had to save him.” Poetry becomes a sophisticated way of interpreting and responding to calamity. “Coming to terms with death,” Sullivan remarks, “is a necessary element in any great poem.”

Frank’s relationship with poetry is closely connected to his relationship with Elsa. He thinks of her as a poetic muse; he conceives her as the symbolic “light which swirled around him.” He finds that he struggles to even write poetry if she is not present, and years later, when he is an established poet, Frank still believes that all his poems in some way have been “messages” to Elsa. This poetic relationship with Elsa is potentially disadvantageous to their genuine, human connection, however. One of his first impressions of her, for example, depicts her as a piece of art: “She looked like a drawing done with a fine lead pencil.” Later, he finds that in his imagination she has stopped being a real person and become a sort of “radiant warrior” – in other words, a poetic creation. In this sense, their separation, and the fact that she is allowed to remain a largely poetic construction over the course of his life, is probably the key to her enduring influence on his poetry.

Poetry also plays an important contextual role in The Golden Age . Frank and Sullivan emphasise that modern poetry should be free-form and experimental. Sullivan looks to the great war poets for inspiration – this is no coincidence, as the First World War is often seen as the defining event in the creation of 20 th Century modernist literature. Later in the novel, Frank is shown to be reading The Waste Land by T.S Eliot (1922), which is arguably the defining text of modernism. It is long, fragmented, disorienting, and full of allusions and mysterious references. Poetry in The Golden Age is essentially depicted as a force for change. Sullivan points to “exciting things” happening in the United States, referring to mid-century poets and, potentially, to the notorious and ground-breaking Beat Generation. This is perhaps why Ida can connect to her new country through music, but does not seem to embrace her new lifestyle to the same extent as Frank or Meyer – she has her music, but her music is old, written by long-dead men who lived on the continent she has fled.

The Golden Age depicts the practicalities of survival; whether it be through the food parcels Ida sends through to her husband as he starves in a labour camp, or the safehouse where she deposits Frank in the hope that the Nazis won’t find him, or in the survival of children with polio, a recovery characterised in a practical sense by exercises, iron lungs and splints. However, the novel is more concerned with the emotional traits necessary for survival – and its emotional toll.

In war-torn Budapest, the survival of both Meyer and Frank depend on Ida. It is through her old piano teacher that she finds shelter for Frank whilst she scavenges for food to send her husband. Survival under such conditions requires some astonishingly difficult calculations – for example, she is quite aware that in the event of a bombing raid, Julia’s house would probably not survive, but she would prefer that fate for her son than for the Nazis to find him. She reflects: “That was the choice she’d made. Its awfulness made her dizzy for a moment.” Ida must draw on her “little fighting core of survival.” This siege-mentality, so necessary amidst the devastation of Europe, is translated into resentment and bitterness in Australia. Although Ida and Meyer had drawn on their own, significant inner resources to survive, they are acutely aware of the sheer chance of the matter – that it is only by “frail threads of chance or luck” that Meyer had stayed alive after most of his family and all of Ida’s were killed, that it is only luck which stopped a shell landing on Julia’s house. For Ida, their survival barely looks like a blessing upon arrival in Australia; particularly when her son, who had “survived cellars, ceilings, bombing, near starvation,” is struck down by polio. For much of the novel, this sense of resentment paralyses Ida: “Now she was a bird who refused to sing.”

Like survival in warfare, survival against polio is to a large extent a matter of chance. Sullivan Backhouse, for example, despite being healthy, athletic and strong-willed, is killed by the disease, whilst many seemingly more vulnerable children survive. Also like warfare, however, there are individual traits and qualities which improve chances of survival, or at least of recovery. For the recovering children, one of the most dangerous elements of their condition is the sense of helplessness it creates. The patients must learn to will themselves well: “in the end, their success or failure in overcoming polio was up to them.” The novel explores the individual impetuses behind each child’s recovery. Young Ann Lee, for example, recalls being unable to give water to desperately thirsty brumbies on her drought-stricken property, and resolves never to be so helpless again. The older children often land on slightly more profound resolutions. Frank’s brush with mortality has him searching for a reason for living: “In recovery he felt a hunger to know why he was alive.” His effort to survive and to carve out a purpose is part of the new-found sense of individuality burning within him; he determines to become “his own reason for living.”

Europe and Australia

The Golds have a complex relationship with Europe. Compared with the seemingly barren city they have arrived in, they can at times not help but be nostalgic. They reflect on long holidays on Lake Belaton, their city of “archways, courtyards, boulevards, cafes and concerts, twinkling bridges,” and Frank finds it astonishing that most people his age do not know the word “nostalgia.” Yet at the same time the Golds must accept that this city which they had loved so much had also proven treacherous. Budapest turned into a “hunting ground,” and suddenly the young Jewish family found themselves unable to trust the very people they had been living alongside for decades. They lose their homes, in this sense, twice – in the literal sense that they must leave Hungary, but also in the sense that the city they thought they knew has proven to be an illusion. This painful history informs the Golds’ reaction to insular, conservative 1950s Australia. Meyer watches the Australians prepare to celebrate the royal visit with bemusement; he considers them a “tiny lost tribe” stranded from the “motherland.” But he is also alarmed by the way the Australians cling to old nationalistic attachments to Britain and their status in the Empire: “Didn’t they understand what had happened to the old countries of Europe?” The air of belonging and civility which Australians attach to Britain, was Meyer understands, a fiction. The people of Perth see themselves as the inheritors of a northern European civilisation – a civilisation which Meyer is painfully aware can break down at any minute.

It thus becomes essential for Ida and Meyer to find a way to belong in Australia. For the first decade of their time in Perth Meyer finds it difficult to relate to this “city with no past.” Worse, the Golds are unable to entirely escape the sort of prejudice which nearly led to their extermination in Europe. Nance, Elsa’s grandmother, expresses disgust at her having “that migrant boy hanging around her,” and Rodney Bennet is surprised that Ida expects to be treated as well as her talent warrants, not like some desperate immigrant happy for whatever scraps the locals throw her. Bennet assumes that any migrant, “especially members of her race,” would be happy to play for anything. Australia is found by the Golds, overwhelmingly, to be dull, insular, conservative and backwards, culturally and intellectually.

However, these binaries are broken down by the end of the novel. Both Ida and Meyer eventually find their place in the new country. For Meyer, it is his attraction to Olive Penny which eventually shifts his perspective on Perth, and allows him to see its “mythic” potential. Ida is almost overwhelmed by the gratitude of her Australian audience for a performance which she suspects would have been considered an embarrassment in Perth, and realises that Australia is the place “in which her music must grow.” Australia itself is on the cusp of change; in a few years it will experience the cultural assault of the 1960s – and the enthusiasm for the royal visit depicted in The Golden Age won’t hold a candle to what happens when the Beatles visit in the next decade. However, Frank still feels compelled to move to New York to pursue his poetry. Whilst this is no doubt partly for personal reasons, it is also the case that up until the present day a great many Australian artists, thinkers and musicians have long felt compelled to move to Britain or America in order to thrive. In that sense, perhaps contemporary Australia is not too far removed from the Australia depicted by London.

Love is central to The Golden Age , although it comes in several forms. Most obviously is the fledgling relationship between Elsa and Frank. Frank falls for Elsa immediately; and she is immediately associated with light: “Her face, in profile, was outlined by light.” Elsa takes a little longer to warm to Frank, but not too long. The two adolescents soon begin to depend on one another emotionally: “Being together made them stronger.” Characteristically, Elsa’s observations about their relationship are slightly less gushing than the young poet’s. Frank describes love variously as “a promise made to all human beings” and “the big thing, maybe the best thing, that happened in lives.” Elsa, whilst taken by this boy she describes as being like no other boy she has ever met, is still slightly reserved. In her view that Frank acted like he had just “elected” her into a “two-person club,” there is perhaps a tacit recognition that his need for her is less as a human being, and more as a concept which he employs for his own, artistic requirements. Certainly he always perceives her in connection to light imagery, and, as discussed above, she soon becomes a more symbolic than literal figure: a “radiant warrior.” Nonetheless, their love is understood to be real, and powerful. Sister Olive Penny recognises it, and argues that having spent much of her career caring for children, knows that they “can surprise you by how much they feel and understand.” The importance of love in the lives of characters in The Golden Age is closely connected to memory. For Frank, “polio is like love… Years later, when you think you have recovered, it comes back.”

The persistence of love and memory is even more pertinent for Frank’s parents. They lost the city they loved, the lives they loved and the families they loved to the Second World War. Their experiences in Australia mirror Frank’s late-life reflections on the nature of love. Even after both Ida and Meyer, through their music and appreciation of beauty respectively, learn to love their new country, Meyer still has flashbacks to his life in Budapest, yearning for Australia to forgo “these terrible tea-parties” and embrace a more European lifestyle (as any brief stroll through Melbourne’s inner city will demonstrate, many Australians did well and truly embrace the life Meyer longs for). More poignantly, he is reminded by Elsa’s parents of the rape and murder of his little sister. Despite Meyer’s attraction to Olive Penny, he never acts on it; both players understand the consequences would be disastrous, and Meyer recognises that he is actually exhausted beyond mere “intimacy,” and that the life he has with Ida, whom he loves in his own deep and lasting way, must be his priority. Although the relationship between Ida and Meyer is frequently strained, the final description of them dying within weeks of each other and then being buried together creates an impression of lasting love.

One form of love which is tested in The Golden Age is that between parents and children. Both Elsa and Frank feel increasingly distant from their parents over the course of the novel. Elsa finds her parents looking “smaller,” even “shrunken” from grief, and Frank finds his mother cloying. This is owing to their natural transition into adulthood, alongside the enforced independence which comes from being removed from home and having to recover from polio. However, Frank and Meyer still get on well, and after the concert Frank and Ida exchange glances which demonstrate that “all is forgiven.” Ida recognises the grief her son undergoes upon separation from Elsie and she promptly organises a meeting between the two families. Frank himself will come to understand the depth of love between parent and child through his brief time caring for the young Edie.

All of the major themes in The Golden Age are intimately connected, and one idea in particular which binds them together is the concept of loss. All of the characters in the novel have encountered one form of loss or another. An obvious example are the Golds, who, as discussed above, have lost their former European lives, and most of their extended family. This loss follows the Golds into their new lives, inescapably; “The dead came with you,” Meyer reflects. Ida and Meyer must learn to navigate their future, even with the past dogging their footsteps.

There are other forms of loss in The Golden Age , however. All of the children in the convalescence hospital have lost their physical capability. They also lose their childhood. This is emphasised through the sharp contrasts London draws between Elsa’s highly athletic, physical childhood and her current state, of being barely capable of walking. Elsa and Frank, however, are losing their childhood in another sense: they are moving from childhood to adolescence. The Golden Age can in this sense be read as a coming-of-age novel. Elsa feels the distance growing between herself and her parents, who appear, with every visit, to be weaker and more diminished – as if they are “shrunken” from the grief they have suffered. By contrast, her physical development is an upward trajectory, growing from strength to strength. Similarly, Frank begins to feel a cloying sense of restriction as a result of his parents’ emotional dependence on his own recovery, and he vows with something approaching resentment to be “his own reason for living.” In this sense, the loss of childhood is essentially positive; at times distressing and confusing, but ultimately necessary for Frank’s and Elsa’s development.

A similar process is evident in the character of Olive Penny. She lost her husband, and was forced to move, with her young daughter, into her mother-in-law’s house. Her mother-in-law resented her, however, and on dying left them with no provisions. After seeing her daughter married off, Olive was left with virtually no family, no place. However, like the children she cares for, this loss actually provides her with an opportunity for personal development. Olive takes her lack of family obligations as a blessing and lives an unusually independent and fulfilling life for an Australian woman of the 1950s – she is employed in work she finds meaningful, is self-sufficient and, most scandalously, has an active and fulfilling sex life. In one sense, then, Olive Penny is an example of the end-product of the process that the children and the Golds are undergoing; someone who has lost one way of life but embraced and affirmed another.

Ferenc (Frank) Gold

Although the novel moves between a number of characters’ perspectives, The Golden Age is overwhelmingly a tale about its central characters, Frank. Born in Hungary and miraculously surviving both Nazi occupation and Soviet “liberation” (which was frequently equally murderous) as a young child, Frank adapted quickly to his new country, learning English fast and thriving at school, before polio saw him crippled and hospitalised. He is described by Elsa, the girl whom he falls in love with, as a “funny boy – sharp, watchful, purposeful, not like a boy at all really, or any boy she’d ever known.”

Frank is on the cusp of adulthood, a crisis in identity which is made all the more prominent by its association with physical growth and recovery as he gradually learns to walk again. He is characterised by a fierce sense of independence. He is disturbed by how much his parents depend emotionally on his recovery, and defiantly “refuse[s] to be their only light.” He determined to find his own “reason for living,” and that reason is poetry – an art revealed to him by Sullivan Backhouse. Frank’s sense of self, loneliness, and love of Elsa all become tied up with his ability to interpret the world through poetry. The Golden Age charts his development as a poet, his separation from Elsa, and his eventual emergence as a successful poet living in New York. He carries the memories of his time at the Golden Age, and particularly of the “beauty” which he found there, all his life.

Elsa Briggs

If Frank’s early childhood was defined by fear and trauma, Elsa’s by contrast was defined by “freedom,” of long bike rides, summer holidays and trips to the beach. Elsa, like Frank, is one of the older children at the Golden Age, and is introduced comforting a sick infant. Her thought process at this moment is the first indication that she, like Frank, is outgrowing her family and the sense of security they provide: “Without your mother, you had to think. It was like letting go of a hand, jumping off the high board, walking by yourself to school.” Frank identifies this steely resolution in her – he terms it her “pride” – and her son Jack describes her as notoriously strong-willed when he meets Frank at the end of the novel. There is a tension between Elsa’s parents, and this is reflected in her growing sense of detachment from them; she sees them “shrunken” by their grief for her, even as she recovers. She also bears a resentment for her sister, who failed to recognise Elsa’s polio onset.

Most of the description of Elsa in The Golden Age come from Frank, and is consequently more poetic than literal – he describes her mostly in terms of light, and as a “radiant warrior.” She is, however, definitely tall and blonde. With her active childhood and memories of summer spent at the beach, she, along with Olive Penny, represent a sort of quintessentially Australian vision of girl- and womanhood. Her fierce sense of independence is possibly reflected in what we learn of her later life. She becomes a doctor and marries, and Frank flees to New York. Although she seems to retain fond memories of Frank, she has firmly closed that chapter of her life and moved on, a fact evidenced by the fact that she does not answer his letters.

Meyer suffered deeply during the war, losing all his family but for two brothers, and barely surviving internment in a labour camp. Even after the war has finished, his father and sister are brutally killed by Russian soldiers who believe they had some connection to the Nazi regime. He arrives in Australia with little to no interest in the new country, which seems to him to be the “end of the world.” It his only through his connection with Olive Penny, and then his acquirement of a job as a deliveryman, that he realises he can indeed learn to love Australia.

It is obvious, reading from Meyer’s perspective, where his son Frank gets his penchant for poetry. Meyer, like his son, frequently thinks in poetic phrases. He describes the Australians of the 50s as a “lost tribe” in awe of its British heritage, and frequently thinks in metaphors – personifying cities, or describing characters like Olive in terms of light. The character of Meyer is an intensely reflective one, frequently musing on the nature of memory and the relationship between past and present. His relationship with Ida is a complex one; it is full of tension and exhaustion for much of the novel, but there are signs that it may be reigniting towards the end, as both characters find their feet in their new country.

Ida Gold is a proud and, for much of the novel, distinctly resentful woman. She was a promising pianist on the make in Budapest before the war. As a Jew, she quickly became a target for the Nazi regime. She was tipped off mid-performance in a café and managed to escape; the next few years were essentially spent on the run, as her husband was taken from her and she was compelled to hide her son during the shelling of Budapest. It is because of Ida that Frank and Meyer – for she smuggles food parcels to him whilst he is captive – are able to survive. It costs her every ounce of strength, but her remarkable courage and determination eventually sees them all through. In Australia, she feels she is robbed yet again – she loses her family but manages to get to Australia with her husband and son, settle down, even have her son win a prestigious scholarship, and then have him struck down by polio. She stops playing the piano – or, as Meyer describes it, becomes “a bird who refused to sing.” For all her remarkable ability to save her husband and son from the war, she cannot protect Frank against the ravages of polio.

Ida’s relationship with Frank is strained, yet understanding. He prefers his father’s company to his mother’s, and finds her archness and evident disdain for Australia trying. However, when he is sick with loss after his separation from Elsa it is Ida who instinctively sees what must be done to heal her son, and reunites the children. It is largely through her music that she eventually finds a niche in Australia, the country in which she and Meyer eventually spend all their lives. Whilst Meyer “came to love” Australia, Ida’s attitude is left ambiguous.

Sister Olive Penny

Olive Penny is an unconventional woman for her time and place. Her husband was killed in the war, and her adult daughter has her own life. Olive is thus independent, with few binding connections to other people. She is the nurse in charge of the Golden Age, and in her late thirties/early forties. She finds nursing suits her – she develops an instinctive “professionalism” for it. She is “adored’ by all the children except, interestingly, for Frank. She is unconventional in professional independence but also in her sexual freedom – a freedom “like a man’s.”

Olive Penny finds herself sharing a mutual attraction with Meyer Gold. He sees a “light” inside her, and along with Elsa she embodies the traditional image of Australian health and naturalness, fit and rosy. Although Frank is less in thrall to her than the other children are, she is able to perceive that the feelings between him and Elsa are very real, and she warns Meyer that it would be very damaging to the health of both children to keep them forcibly separated. This is a good indication of her generosity of spirit, in that it is Frank and Elsa’s illicit escapade which, in part, sees her lose her job at the Golden Age.

Sullivan Backhouse

Sullivan is an eighteen-year-old Frank encounters at the IBD. Sullivan is encased in an iron lung, and eventually succumbs to the polio which has already robbed him of his youth. After a successful secondary education, he intended to study English at university and potentially become a poet. His role in the text is to introduce Frank to poetry, and in particular provide a few important maxims for understanding the novel, one of which is that “coming to terms with death is a necessary element in any great poem.” He also serves to temper the sweeter elements of the novel. Rather than relying on clichés about determination being the only factor necessary for survival, Sullivan’s death allows London to concede that life is fundamentally unfair, and that sometimes people die for no good or just reason at all.

• He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals. (2) Frank’s evocative description the Golden Age captures his sense of isolation, geographically but particularly in terms of age, compared to his “little maimed” companions. It is a mindset echoed by his father, Meyer, who envisages Australia as a lost tribe on an island.

• …they looked smaller to her, aged by the terror they had suffered, old, shrunken, ill-at-ease. (11) Elsa’s perspective on her parents is a reflection of her growing maturity. The line dichotomises hers and her parents’ experience of polio; for Elsa it is one characterised by growing strength and self-discovery, whist for her parents the ordeal is characterised by horror, stress and the sense that their daughter is undergoing a formative experience away from them.

• Coming to terms with death is a necessary element in any great poem, Sullivan once said. (19) Through poetry Frank must come to terms with the death of Sullivan, and Frank and Elsa must come to terms with their loss of innocence and separation from each other.

• I refuse to be their only light. (27) Frank initially wants to be his own light, and his own “reason for living,” rather than his parents’. However, the text shows that while this feeling is important to growing up, it is ultimately naïve, and that people do need others to live for, as Frank himself learns through his relationship with Elsa, who becomes the “light which swirled around him.”

• Deep in her sad, tight heart, she searched for that little fighting core of survival, of self-love, which she’s always had, and must not now lose. (40-41) The siege mentality built around the “little fighting core of survival” in Ida is essential to surviving war-torn Hungary. In Australia however it takes Ida much of the novel to leave that mentality, which translates into pride, disdain, and a gnawing sense of isolation.

• He felt it as the weak spot, the broken part, the gap that had let the polio in . (51) Frank feels the horror of the war as a lingering “gap” or open wound which allows harm to reach him. This sense of incompleteness is found in several moments in the novel, between Frank and Elsa, for example, and Meyer and Olive Penny. It symbolises the fact that people need other people in order to be whole.

• She’d had to get used to, and now she loved, this freedom of choice. Like a man’s. (67) Olive Penny’s love of a “man’s” freedom positions her as a symbol of a changing Australia in which women will, gradually, achieve greater freedom.

• People kept away from the families of polio victims . (82) Elsa identifies the alienation at the heart of The Golden Age . For Frank and the Golds, the isolating effects of polio are a reflection of their own cultural alienation.

• Budapest was the glamorous love of his life who had betrayed him . Perth was a flat-faced, wide-hipped country girl whom he’d been forced to take as a wife. (86) Meyer, like his son, interprets the world through symbol and metaphor. His understanding of cities as lovers informs his later appreciation of Perth derived from his flirtation with Olive Penny.

• For him this was a city with no past . (89). Meyer identifies the lack of familiar people in Perth as a stark contrast between that city and Budapest, illustrating the importance of human relationships in creaeting a sense of home or belonging.

• There was a call between them, clear as a bird’s . (97) The instant connection felt between Olive and Meyer follows his description of Perth suddenly developing a sense of mystery, depth and complexity, starkly illustrating the relationship between people and place in Meyer’s mind.

• Frank knew Elsa’s pride and determination, but her family knew only pity . (112) Frank’s distaste at Elsa’s family’s inability to see further than her disease reflects his own growing sense of personal identity, brought about in no small part by the ordeal of polio. In The Golden Age , it is a lesson that all characters must learn – that suffering is not the be all and end all but rather an opportunity for growth and rebirth.

• The children who celebrated Christmas at the Golden Age seemed much happier than those who returned at bedtime, exhausted, silent, distant and alone . (116) Frank views his time at the Golden Age not as a separation or isolation from the real world but as an opportunity to nurture and develop his own internal world. While the children exposed to the outside world come back “exhausted” and “alone,” those who choose to find happiness in difficult circumstances are much “happier.”

• She was his homing point, the place he returned to . (119) Frank’s view of Elsa as “the place he returned to” is evidenced at the end of the novel also, when as an old man he still finds himself returning to Elsa and the Golden Age as poetic subjects.

• This funny boy – sharp, watchful, personal, not like a boy really, or any boy she’d ever known. (136) Frank is described by Elsa as unique, and set apart from the other boys she’d known, reflecting his complex history and intellectual brilliance which marks him as a poet.

• There was a light inside her. (141) Like his son, Meyer associates connection and warmth with light. Just as Frank finds his thoughts gathering around the “light” of Elsa, so too does Meyer find a sense of purpose and belonging through his connection to Olive.

• A tiny lost tribe on the coast of a huge island, faithfully waiting for a ship from the motherland. (149) Meyer identifies a certain lack of maturity in Australia, seeing it not as a fully-fledged nation-state but rather as a “tiny lost tribe” on a “huge island.” The country, like the characters of The Golden Age , must find a new identity.

• What had been temporary had become settled. What seemed like the end of the world had become the centre. (152) Meyer finds himself connecting to the city of Perth. What this requires is an entire reorientation of his mind, in which his past in Europe becomes the periphery to his new “centre,” Australia.

• This was her audience. The emigres, the petit bourgeois, the nouveau riche . (168) Perhaps the closes Ida gets to the intense feeling of connection to Australia which Meyer develops is after her performance, when her initial disdain for the people congratulating her for her performance changes into an acceptance that “She must do her very best” for them.

• Poetry was his way into the world . Poetry had to save him . (197) Frank’s intense isolation after his separation from Elsa can only be alleviated by poetry, “his way into the world.” Elsa from this point in his life can only exist to him through memory and poetry.

• Elsa was not a girl exactly . More like a spirit, a sort of radiant warrior . (202) As soon as Frank cannot physically be with Elsa, he sees her more and more as a poetic being, a divine figure of the imagination who will guide his poetry. In this sense their separation was inevitable because Frank never really saw her as an ordinary, flawed human.

• It flashed through his mind that whatever this force was, it would never release him, it would take all of him . He would always be alone. (231) Frank sees that the poetic nature of his relationship with Elsa means that upon separation he will not be able to have the same connection with anyone else without destroying the purity of his artistic vision.

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Golden Age Essay Questions

By joan london, essay questions.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Elizabeth Shaw

How does London present isolation in the novel?

Isolation is a key theme of the novel and is experienced in some degree by all of the characters. Predominantly, London depicts the loneliness of the patients of the Golden Age hospital, who have all been diagnosed with polio. As a result, many of the children must stay in the isolation ward, cut off from family and friends, and forced to endure their suffering alone. This is an experience the children don't forget easily, and an experience which changes them.

Why is the novel titled "The Golden Age?"

The novel is named after a children's hospital called "The Golden Age, which existed from 1949 to 1959 in Australia. The hospital was known for its housing of polio-infected children during a polio outbreak in 1950s and is where London chose to set her novel. The title is also somewhat ironic, as it wasn't a "Golden Age," at the time due to the tragedy of the polio outbreak, and the many children who were afflicted.

How does Frank feel about the isolation ward?

When Frank is diagnosed with polio, he is sent to the isolation ward of the Golden Age hospital. Here, he is unable to see his family and experiences terrible pain without the support of his loved ones. The nurses have to wear masks and gloves, which further increases the feelings of isolation and loneliness. Elsa describes this experience as being "like a terrible dream, you couldn't remember much about it. But you were not the same."

Update this section!

You can help us out by revising, improving and updating this section.

After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editor will review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.

The Golden Age Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Golden Age is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Golden Age Chapter Question

Frank's experience is a positive one. Both Julia and Hedwiga treat frank well, and most of all, they treat him with dignity and don't treat him like a baby... something he craves.

Who is the intended audience and what is the purpose?

It looks like you have answered your own question. Did you have another question about The Golden Age?

There are different contexts for this term. Golden Age , in Latin literature, the period, from approximately 70 bc to ad 18. It is also referred to the long reign of Elizabeth I, 1558–1603.

Study Guide for The Golden Age

The Golden Age study guide contains a biography of Joan London, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Golden Age
• The Golden Age Summary
• Character List

VCE Study Tips

English Language

Private Tutoring

Only one more step to getting your FREE text response mini-guide!

Simply fill in the form below, and the download will start straight away

English & EAL

Dissecting an A+ Essay using ‘The Golden Age’ by Joan London

February 1, 2019

Want insider tips? Sign up here!

Go ahead and tilt your mobile the right way (portrait). the kool kids don't use landscape....

Picture this: you’re sitting down at your desk, fumbling your fingers, inspecting the new stationary that you convinced yourself you needed for year 12, resisting the urge to check your phone. Your text response SAC is in two weeks. You’re freaking out because you want, no, need an A+. You decide to write a practice essay for your English teacher. Practice makes perfect, right? You stay up for hours, pouring your heart and soul into this essay. The result? B+. Where did I go wrong?

That’s where I come in! Writing an A+ essay can be really tough without examples and specific advice. Before reading on, make sure you've read our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response and Golden Age blog so you are up to scratch.

In this article I will be explaining some basic dos and don’ts of writing an essay on The Golden Age , providing a model essay as an example. At the end of this blog is also a video based on another essay prompt to help you prepare for your Golden Age studies!

The following prompt will be referenced throughout the post;

‘The Golden Age’ shows that everyone needs love and recognition. Discuss.

Planning: the silent killer of A+ essays

I’m sure your teachers have emphasised the importance of planning. In case they haven’t, allow me to reiterate that great planning is compulsory for a great essay . However, flimsy arguments aren’t going to get you an A+. The examiners are looking for complex arguments , providing a variety of perspectives of the themes at hand. From the above prompt, the key word is, ‘discuss’. This means that you should be discussing the prompt, not blindly agreeing with it . Make sure you don’t write anything that wouldn’t sit right with London. ‍

Don’t plan out basic arguments that are one-dimensional. This may give you a pass in English, but won’t distinguish you as a top-scoring student.

For example:

• Paragraph 1: The children at TGA need love and recognition.
• Paragraph 2: Ida and Meyer need love and recognition
• Paragraph 3: Sister Penny needs love and recognition.

The above paragraphs merely agree with the statement, but don’t delve into the many aspects of the novel that could contribute to a sophisticated essay.

Do create complex arguments, or paragraphs with a twist! If you can justify your argument and it makes sense, include it in your essay. There are many ways that you could answer this question, but my plan looks like this:

• Paragraph 1: Frank Gold yearns for mature, adult love, not recognition from onlookers or outsiders
• Paragraph 2: Ida Gold does not seek recognition from Australia, but love and validation from herself
• Paragraph 3: Albert requires love from a specific kind of relationship – family, and Sullivan may view love from his father as pity which he rebukes

See the difference?

The introduction:

How to start your essay off with a bang.

Personally, I always struggled with starting an introduction. The examiners will be reading and marking thousands of essays, so if possible, starting your introduction with something other than Joan London’s ‘The Golden Age’… is a great way to make you stand out from the crowd. Having a strong start is essential to pave the way for a clear and concise essay. You could start with a quote/scene from the text! This is not essential, but it’s a great way to mix things up. This is my start:

Perhaps nothing exemplifies the power of love and recognition more than the bond between Albert Sutton and his older sister, Lizzie, in Joan London’s ‘The Golden Age’. Many of London’s characters exhibit suffering that requires compassion and support to heal and grow, to distinguish present from past. However, London explores the perspectives of such characters from different aspects of trauma, and emphasise that love and recognition do not always work to heal and mature. Frank Gold, the novel’s resident “sneaky” boy who adjusts to newfound life in the Golden Age Convalescent Home seeks love as an adult, rather than eliciting sympathy as a supposed victim. Here love and recognition are unsuccessful in amending Frank’s troubles when given from the perspective of an outsider, a judgemental onlooker. In a similar sense, Ida Gold seeks recognition not from Australia, who she views as a ‘backwater’, but validation in herself after having been ousted from her Hungarian identity. London, however, makes sure to emphasise the impact that Sullivan has on Frank Gold’s life. Sullivan, a boy only a few years older than Frank, seems content with his future, with his fate, despite his sacrifice of rugby and conventional life.  There is a lacking sense of urgency for love and recognition in Sullivan’s life, rather, it appears that Sullivan accepts his fate, regardless of his father’s sympathy or support. Thus, London explores a myriad of ways in which love and recognition may or may not heal wounds inflicted upon individuals.

Remember, there are many other ways you could start your essay.

The body paragraphs: To TEEL or not to TEEL?

I’m sure you’ve heard of TEEL countless times since year 7. Topic sentence, evidence, explanation, link. The truth is that these elements are all very important in a body paragraph. However, following a rigid structure will render your essay bland and repetitive. It is also extremely important to note that you should be using evidence from multiple points in the text , and you should be making sure that your paragraphs are directly answering the question . Write what feels natural to you, and most importantly, don’t abuse a thesaurus . If you can’t read your essay without rummaging for a dictionary every second sentence, you should rewrite it.  If vocabulary isn’t your strong point (it definitely isn’t mine!), focus on clean sentence structure and solid arguments. There’s nothing worse than you using a fancy word incorrectly.

Don’t overuse your thesaurus in an attempt to sound sophisticated, and don’t use the same structure for every sentence. For example:

Prematurely in the paperback London makes an allusion to Norm White, the denizen horticulturalist of The Golden Age Convalescent Home…

That was an exaggerated example generated by searching for synonyms. As you can see, it sounds silly, and some of the words don’t even make sense. I mean, “denizen horticulturalist”…really?

Do mix up your paragraph structure! If vocabulary is your weak point, focus on clean language.

Here’s mine:

Early in the novel, London makes reference to Norm White, the resident groundskeeper of The Golden Age Convalescent Home. Norm White hands Frank Gold a cigarette, “as if to say a man has the right to smoke in peace”. Here, there is a complete disregard for rule and convention, an idea that London emphasises throughout the text. This feature provides a counter-cultural experience for Frank, pushing him to realise that he is a strong human being rather than a mere victim. This is a clear contrast to the “babyishness” of the home, and is used as evidence of true humanity in an era where society judged upon the unconventional. Frank yearns for a traditional Australian life after his trauma in Hungary; “his own memory…lodged like an attic in the front part of his brain”. Hedwiga and Julia Marai’s caring of him pushed him towards fear and reluctance to trust, yet also pressured him to seek acceptance in a world that ostracises him for his Jewish heritage and polio diagnosis. This here is why Frank desires a mature, adult connection – love that regards him as an equal human being. Frank seeks Elsa’s love and company as she too loathes being reduced to a victim, an object of pity. Frank thereafter uses humour to joke of his wounds; “we Jews have to be on the lookout”. Elsa sees “a look in his eyes that she recognised”, thus their bond enables both characters to heal. London alludes that Frank requires love and recognition not from the perspective of a sorrowful onlooker, rather he longs to be recognised as a mature adult.

To learn more about using the right vocabulary, read 'Why using big words in VCE essays can make you look dumber'.

The conclusion: closing the deal

I firmly believe in short and sharp conclusions. Your body paragraphs should be thoroughly explaining your paragraphs, so don’t include any new information here. A few sentences is enough. Once again, write what feels natural, and what flows well.

Don’t drag out your conclusion. Short and concise is the key to finishing well.

Do write a sharp finish! Sentence starters such as, “Ultimately…” or “Thus, London…” are great.

Although trauma is often treated with love and compassion, London details different perspectives on this idea. Whilst Frank Gold requires a specific kind of recognition, Ida and Meyer seek validation in themselves and their relationship, whilst Sullivan is at ease with his fate and does not yearn sympathy from his father.

‍ To learn more about A+ essays, you should also have a read of 10 easy English points you're missing out on .

I'll finish off by giving you an exercise: brainstorm and write up a plan for the essay topic shown in the video below. I'd recommend you do this before watching Lisa's brainstorm and plan. That way, you can see which of your ideas overlapped, but also potentially see which ideas you may have missed out on. Good luck!

Get our FREE VCE English Text Response mini-guide

Now quite sure how to nail your text response essays? Then download our free mini-guide, where we break down the art of writing the perfect text-response essay into three comprehensive steps. Click below to get your own copy today!

Struggling to answer the essay topic?

Has your teacher ever told you:

"You're not answering the prompt"

"You're going off topic"

Then you're not alone! If you struggle to understand and stay on topic, learn how to answer the prompt every time with our How To Write A Killer Text Response study guide.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Margo Channing played by Bette Davis

As the protagonist of the movie, Margo Channing is a genuine and real actress raised by the theatre since the age of three. She is a vulnerable character who openly displays her strengths and weaknesses; Mankiewicz showcasing the life of a true actress through her. Initially, we see Margo as mercurial and witty, an actress with passion and desire (not motivated by fame but the true art of performing). She is the lead in successful plays and with friends like Karen and Lloyd to rely on and a loving partner, Bill, it seems that she has everything.

However, Margo’s insecurities haunt her; with growing concerns towards her identity, longevity in the theatre and most importantly her relationship with Bill. Eventually, in a pivotal monologue, Margo discusses the problems that have been plaguing her. She battles with the idea of reaching the end of her trajectory, the thought that ‘in ten years from now – Margo Channing will have ceased to exist. And what’s left will be… what?’ By the end of the movie, Margo accepts the conclusion of her time in the theatre and understands that family and friends are what matters most, not the fame and success that come with being an acclaimed actress.

Eve Harrington played by Anne Baxter

Antagonist of All About Eve , Eve Harrington (later known as Gertrude Slojinski) is an egotistical and ambitious theatre rookie. With a ‘do-whatever-it-takes’ attitude, Eve is first introduced to the audience as a timid and mousy fan (one with utmost dedication and devotion to Margo). However, as the plot unfolds, Eve’s motive becomes increasingly clear and her actions can be labelled as amoral and cynical, as she uses the people around her to climb the ladder to fame.

Margo is her idealised object of desire and from the subtle imitations of her actions to infiltrating and betraying her close circle of friends, Eve ultimately comes out from the darkness that she was found in and takes Margo’s place in the theatre. Mankiewicz uses Eve’s character to portray the shallow and back-stabbing nature of celebrity culture; Eve’s betrayal extending beyond people as she eventually turns her back on the world of theatre, leaving Broadway for the flashing lights of Hollywood.

Addison DeWitt played by George Sanders

The voice that first introduces the audience to the theatre, Addison DeWitt is a cynical and manipulative theatre critic. Despite being ambitious and acid-tongued, forming a controlling alliance with Eve, Addison is not the villain.

The critic is the mediator and forms a bridge between the audience, the theatre world, and us; he explains cultural codes and conventions whilst also being explicitly in charge of what we see. Ultimately, Addison is ‘essential to the theatre’ and a commentator who makes or breaks careers.

Bill Simpson played by Gary Merill

Bill Simpson is the director All About Eve does not focus on Bill’s professional work but rather places emphasis on his relationship with Margo. He is completely and utterly devoted to her and this is evident when he rejects Eve during an intimate encounter. Despite having a tumultuous relationship with Margo, Bill proves to be the rock; always remaining unchanged in how he feels towards her.

Karen Richards played by Celeste Holmes

Wife of Lloyd Richards and best friend and confidante to Margo Channing, Karen Richards is a character who supports those around her. During conversations she listens and shares her genuine advice, acting as a conciliator for her egocentric friends. Unfortunately, Karen is also betrayed by Eve, used as a stepping stone in her devious journey to fame.

Lloyd Richards played by Hugh Marlowe

Successful playwright and husband to Karen Richards, Lloyd Richards writes the plays that Margo makes so successful. However, as Margo grows older in age, she begins to become irrelevant to the plays that Lloyd writes. Subsequently, this causes friction between the two characters and Mankiewicz uses this to show the audience the struggles of being an actress in the theatre; whilst also adding to the Margo’s growing concern towards her age.

Lloyd is unwilling to change the part for Margo and thus Eve becomes a more attractive match for the part. An unconfirmed romance between the budding actress and Lloyd also adds to the drama within All About Eve .

MINOR CHARACTERS

Birdie played by Thelma Ritter

A former vaudeville actress (which means that she acted in comic stage play which included song and dance), Margo’s dresser and close friend, Birdie is not afraid to speak the truth. Initially she sees right through Eve’s story and she warns Margo to watch her back. Despite not being in much of the movie, Birdie’s critical eye is a foreshadowing for the audience towards what is to come.

Max Fabian played by Gregory Ratoff

Producer in the theatre, Max Fabian is involved in theatre just to ‘make a buck’. He is a hearty character who adds comic relief to a dramatic plot.

Miss Claudia Caswell played by Marilyn Monroe

Aspiring actress, Miss Caswell is seen briefly throughout the movie to show the audience the shallow nature of the world of show business. Unlike Eve, she relies on her appearance to ‘make’ it rather than talent; as seen during her encounter with Max and the unsuccessful audition that followed.   

Phoebe played by Barbara Bates

The next rising star to follow in Eve’s footsteps, Phoebe is featured at the end of the film. In this scene there is a foreshadowing of the future, which suggests a repeat of the past, thus, making Phoebe an interesting character to observe. She is a manufactured construction of an actress and illustrates how replaceable a character is in the world of theatre.

1. Summary 2. Historical Context 3. Character Analysis 4. Theme Analysis 5. Sample Essay Topics 6. Essay Topic Breakdown 

Year of Wonders is usually studied in the Australian curriculum Area of Study 1 - Reading and Comparing. For a detailed guide on Comparative, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative .  

However, Year of Wonders may also be studied in Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response . 

Year of Wonders is set in the small English village of Eyam in 1665, as the town struggles through a deadly outbreak of the bubonic plague. While the characters and events are fictional, author Geraldine Brooks based the novel on the true story of Eyam, whose inhabitants, at the urging of their vicar, courageously decided to quarantine themselves to restrict the spread of the contagion and protect other rural townships. 

The experience of the plague provides Brooks fertile ground to develop characters that illustrate the extremes of human nature ; displaying the dignity or depravity, self-sacrifice or self-interest that people are capable of when faced with terror, pain and the unknown . She explores the consequences of a catastrophe on an isolated, insular and deeply religious community and we see characters exhibit tireless dedication and heroism, or succumb to depression, exploitation and sometimes murderous depravity. 

The novel illustrates that adversity can bring out the best and worst of people and that faith can be challenged and eroded. The novel explores how crises affect human behaviour, beliefs and values and reveal the real character of a community under pressure. Our job while studying this text is to consider how all the different responses to an external crisis contribute to an analysis of human nature . 

2. Historical Context

Year of Wonders belongs to the genre of historical fiction (meaning it is fictional but based on historical events) and aims to capture and present the historical context accurately. The context of Year of Wonders is important to understand as it informs a lot of the division and instability in Eyam during the isolation and crisis of the plague (we explain in more detail why context is so important in Context and Authorial Intent in VCE English ). 

In 1658, only 7 years before the novel opens, Puritan statesmen Oliver Cromwell (who defeated King Charles I in the English Civil War and ruled as Lord Protector of the British Isles from 1653) died and Charles II, heir to the throne, returned from exile to rule England as King. Charles II replaced Cromwell’s rigid puritanism with the more relaxed Anglicanism and his reign began the dynamic period known as the Restoration. During the civil war and Cromwell’s rule, all the past certainties – the monarchy and the Church – had been repeatedly challenged and overturned. This all happened during the lifetime of the Eyam villagers presented in the novel and the recent religious upheaval in Britain was beginning to influence the conservative and puritan congregation of Eyam as the old puritan rector was replaced with Anglican vicar Michael Mompellion. The tension between the puritans and Anglicans is evident early in the novel and is exacerbated by the arrival of the plague, causing further internal fission.  

The 17th century also marked the beginning of modern medicine and the Age of Enlightenment. During the Enlightenment, people began to privilege reason and sensory evidence from the material world over biblical orthodoxy as the primary sources of knowledge. The Enlightenment advanced ideals such as progress, liberty, tolerance, egalitarianism and the scientific method. These values are reflected in the liberal characters of Anna, Elinor, Mem and Anys Gowdie, and to an extent, Michael Mompellion. However, we also see the limited reaches of the Enlightenment in characters who succumb to superstition or self-flagellation when the plague arrives. This was a time when religious faith was frequently challenged and redefined . 

3. Character Analysis

The novel is narrated in the first person by protagonist Anna Frith . Anna, a young widow, mother and housemaid, becomes the town’s nurse and midwife during the plague alongside her employer and friend Elinor Mompellion. Anna is a compelling protagonist and narrator because she is part of the ordinary, working-class life of the village, but also has access to the gentry in her work for the Mompellions, meaning readers can see how the plague affected all social groups. 

At the beginning of the novel, Anna is in many ways very conventional. Aside from her intelligence and desire to learn, evidenced by her interest and quick proficiency in learning to read, Anna married young, is a dedicated mother, had an incomplete education and never thought to question the town’s orthodox religious beliefs. However, it is revealed early that she has progressive views on class and morality and as the novel progresses, the extraordinary circumstances of the plague evoke in her heroism and courage. Brooks notes, Anna 'shrugs off the social and religious mores that would keep a weaker woman in her place'. During the plague, Anna becomes the village’s voice of reason and an indispensable figure due to her expanding medical knowledge, tenacity, resourcefulness and tireless generosity. 

Michael Mompellion

Michael Mompellion is Eyam’s Anglican preacher, having been appointed three years earlier after Charles II returned to England and replaced Puritan clergies. Generally, Mompellion is altruistic and open-minded : softening strict class divisions, combatting superstition and embracing a scientific approach to the plague. When the plague arrives, the local gentry (the Bradfords) flee and due to his charisma and position in the Church, he becomes the town’s unofficial leader. Mompellion persuades the townspeople to go into self-imposed quarantine to prevent the spread of the plague. His personal charisma, powerful rhetoric and indefatigable dedication to his work mean he can motivate and inspire his parishioners.  

Mompellion’s unwavering commitment to his beliefs makes him a good leader, but we also see that his single-minded religious zeal can lead to harsh irrationality and hypocrisy. While progressive on issues such as class divisions, Mompellion is conservative – bordering on fanatic – when it comes to female sexuality . When his beloved wife Elinor dies, it is revealed that Mompellion denied her sexual intimacy for their entire marriage to punish her for the premarital affair and abortion she had as a teenager. Mompellion realises upon Elinor’s death that he extended forgiveness and understanding to all but his wife and, recognising his own hypocrisy and cruelty , he suffers a breakdown and loses much of his religious faith . Through Anna’s eyes, we see Mompellion shift from a character of moral infallibility, to a flawed and inconsistent man of a more ambiguous character . 

Elinor Mompellion

Elinor is Mompellion’s wife and Anna’s employer and teacher. By the end of the novel, Anna and Elinor are confidantes and friends and their friendship arguably forms one of the strongest emotional cores of the novel, sustaining both women through enormous strain and hardship. Elinor teaches Anna to read and seems not to notice or care about their different social strata, treating everyone equally . Elinor came from a very wealthy family and initially had little practical knowledge of the hardships and necessities of life. During the plague, she confronts pain, suffering and true sacrifice. Because of her beauty, fragility and generosity, the whole town – and especially Anna – view her as a paragon of virtue and the embodiment of innocence. However, Elinor reveals that as a teenager she had a premarital relationship that resulted in an illegitimate pregnancy which she ended through abortion. Elinor considers herself to be permanently marked by sin and is plagued by the guilt of her adolescent mistakes, but her commitment to atone through service and working to help others is admirable. 

Anys and Mem Gowdie

Anys and her aunt Mem are the town’s healers and midwives. Both women live on the margins of society , as their knowledge of herbal medicines and power to heal certain ailments causes fear and suspicion . Additionally, Anys further alienates the villagers by having conspicuous affairs with married village men. Anna admires Anys’ herbal knowledge and healing skill and her autonomy and unashamed sexuality , which were rare for women at the time. When the plague breaks out, Anys and Mem are murdered by a mob of hysterical townspeople , who believe they are witches responsible for the plague. This episode shows the power and acute danger of superstition and hysteria . 

Josiah and Aphra Bont

Josiah 'Joss' Bont is Anna’s estranged father and Aphra is Anna’s stepmother. Brooks depicts them as unsympathetic and unforgivable , if understandable, villains as they both seek to profit off the heavy misfortune of others. Joss abused Anna greatly throughout her childhood, and while she manages to forgive him due to the suffering of his own youth, when he cruelly exploits villagers in his position as gravedigger, Anna finds his actions irredeemable. As gravedigger, Joss charged exorbitant fees from desperate people to bury their dead, regularly stole from the beleaguered families and attempted to bury a wealthy plague sufferer alive to loot his home. 

Aphra is similarly amoral and greedy. Although her love for her children is shown to be strong, she capitalises on the fear and superstition of her neighbours by selling fake charms while pretending to be Anys Gowdie’s ghost. After the death of her husband and children, Aphra becomes completely deranged, dismembering and refusing to bury the rotting corpses of her children and eventually murdering Elinor. Aphra’s fate and actions show how prolonged catastrophe and suffering can totally erode an individual’s sanity . 

The Bradford Family

The Bradford family are arrogant and pretentious. When the plague arrived in Eyam they also proved themselves self-serving and opportunistic , exploiting their wealth and status as part of the gentry to flee Eyam instead of enduring the quarantine with the rest of the village. They provide a foil to the Mompellions , who are of similar status and are newcomers to Eyam with fewer historical ties and thus expectations of loyalty. The two upper-class families provide directly opposite responses to the crisis, with Brooks clearly condemning the cowardice and selfishness exhibited by the Bradfords.  

Social Convention and Human Nature in a Crisis

Perhaps the most significant theme or exploration of the novel is what happens to an individual’s character and community norms in a crisis . Year of Wonders depicts a small and isolated community that experiences intense adversity from the plague and, because of their self-imposed quarantine, are additionally isolated from the stabilising forces of broader society. These factors cause the people of Eyam to increasingly abandon their social conventions and descend into chaos and Brooks raises the question of whether people can live harmoniously without a strong social code. She suggests that societal cohesion is the result of social pressure rather than innate to our nature. The social norms and protocols of Eyam collapse under the pressure of the plague, allowing discerning observers like Anna to explore the validity and value of her society’s fundamental values . Eyam’s experience of the plague demonstrates that some norms, like the limited role of women and the strict class divisions , do not need to be so repressive, while other norms and social virtues, like the rule of law and justice , are proved even more essential for their absence as order and civility disintegrate. 

Brooks also explores the response of individuals to extreme and enduring adversity and questions whether crises reveal someone’s true nature or instead force them to act out of character . 

Anna and Elinor are examples of characters who respond to the crisis of the plague, amongst other real hardships, with a steadfast commitment to their principles. Their innate charity and work ethic are only strengthened and bolstered by the demands of the plague . However, not all residents of Eyam respond to the plague with courage and decency. Many descend into fear and hysteria, while others become malevolent and exploitative in their efforts to protect themselves. The Bonts and the Bradfords are examples of people who act with appalling selfishness, yet Brooks is careful to illustrate them as cruel and self-serving even before the plague . Thus, Brooks appears to argue that our actions under intense duress are intensifications of our true nature . 

Faith, Suffering and Science 

A major theme explored in the novel is the role of faith in people’s lives and throughout the novel faith, superstition and emerging science contend with each other . Before the plague, the townspeople believe whole-heartedly in God’s divine plan – that the good and bad things that happened to them were God’s rewards or punishments for their virtues or sins. However, the plague makes this worldview unsupportable as the unremitting suffering of plague victims, depicted through gory and vividly gruesome descriptions , demonstrates that their suffering is not commensurate with their sin and that no one can deserve this fate. In particular, it is the suffering of children that most intensely shakes Anna’s faith in a divine plan. Her two young sons are early victims of the plague and their youth and innocence mean it is impossible to justify their deaths as punishment for sin. The sheer tragedy of the plague causes Anna to realise that faith in God’s plan is inadequate to explain suffering and tragedy and she looks for another explanation. This leads her to use science and medicine to ameliorate pain. By focusing on discovering possible cures or pain relievers, Anna and Elinor are indirectly treating the plague as just a 'thing in nature', eschewing the prevailing religious view that the plague is the result of God’s wrath . Their emerging scientific worldview does not rely on God’s presence and intervention in the material world and Anna loses her religious faith. 

However, the scientific method and worldview were only in its very nascent form and most people held a firm belief in supernatural intervention, making the townspeople prone to superstition and, in their ignorance and fear, murderous mob hysteria . 

Women and Female Sexuality 

Women in Eyam had lived highly circumscribed and restricted lives until the crisis of the plague disrupted the social order. The behaviour and speech of women were heavily policed and punished . In a particularly horrifying episode, Joss puts his wife in a muzzle and parades her through the village after she publicly criticises him. While Joss is undeniably an all-round bad guy, his misogyny cannot be dismissed as singular to him. Even Mompellion, an altruistic and in some ways quite progressive man, takes a very harsh stance on female sexuality. Although he preached to adulterous male villagers such as Jakob Merrill that 'as God made us lustful so he understands and forgives', he denied Elinor forgiveness for her teenage sexual relationship and was unfathomably rageful when he discovers Jane Martin having sex outside of marriage. However, Brooks criticises the taboo on female sexuality and shows that sexual desire is an awakening and liberating force for Anna, twice helping her to come out of deep depressions and reminding her that life has joy and meaning.  

There are strong feminist undertones throughout the novel as each female character exhibits strengths that the male characters do not and challenges the limitations of her role, expressing desire for more personal autonomy and agency . From the beginning of the novel, Anna admires the sexual freedom of Anys Gowdie and the ability of Elinor to unreservedly pursue her intellectual interests. During the plague, Anna finds herself eschewing her old role and social position and assuming many challenging and indispensable responsibilities that would have been unthinkable for any woman – especially a young single working-class woman – before the plague. 

Leadership and Judgement in Times of Crisis

The text explores both the power of religious leaders to influence public opinion and the ability of strong and courageous individuals to rise to positions of respect and authority in a crisis. Mompellion’s natural leadership and rhetorical skill keep the community calm and bring out the spirit of self-sacrifice in them. His clear dedication to his work and parishioners inspires trust in the community, and although Mompellion comes to doubt his judgement, it is undeniable that his strong leadership and assumption of huge responsibility saved countless lives. Anna also emerges as an unofficial leader; she becomes an essential figure and the voice of reason in Eyam. The community’s newfound respect for Anna is evident in the way she is listened to and adhered to and her confidence in firmly and decisively addressing and directing men and those of a higher social class.  

We see examples of powerful leadership in the novel, but we also see how an overwhelming crisis can lead to a shortage of clear leadership and expose flaws in existing governing systems. Eyam relied on its gentry (Colonel Bradford) and vicar (Michael Mompellion) to adjudicate and administer justice. However, on the advent of the plague, the Bradfords fled from Eyam and Mompellion became overwhelmed by work, leaving the townspeople to frequently administer their own justice through group tribunals or vigilante action. Additionally, the extreme circumstances of the plague mean the town must deal with crimes it has never faced before and is unsure how to punish. Brooks explores what it means to achieve justice when the only means available are faulty. There are many examples of miscarriages of justice which forces readers to think about the necessity of a strong, fair and prompt judicial system and the weaknesses inherent in these institutions. 

5. Sample Essay Topics

• How does Year of Wonders explore the concept of social responsibility?
• ‘In stressful times, we often doubt what we most strongly believe.’ How is this idea explored in Year of Wonders ?
• ‘Year of Wonders suggests that, in a time of crisis, it is more important than ever to hold on to traditional values.’ Discuss. 
• ‘How little we know, I thought, of the people we live amongst.’ What does the text say about community and one’s understanding of reality?
• ‘Year of Wonders explores human failings in a time of crisis.’ Discuss

Now it’s your turn! Give these essay topics a go using the analysis you’ve learnt in this blog. 

6. Essay Topic Breakdown

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy , a technique to help you write better VCE essays. This essay topic breakdown will focus on the THINK part of the strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response .

Within the THINK strategy, we have 3 steps, or ABC. These ABC components are:

Step 1: A nalyse

Step 2: B rainstorm

Step 3: C reate a Plan

Theme-Based Essay Prompt: ‘ Year of Wonders is a story of great courage in the face of extreme adversity.’ Discuss.

Not sure what we mean by ‘Theme-Based Essay Prompt’? Then, you’ll want to learn more about the 5 types of essay prompts here . 

Step 1: Analyse

The starting point of any theme-based prompt is the ideas, and while this prompt characterises the novel as one essentially about courage, it is more generally exploring the theme of how people responded to the various challenges of the plague. ‘Discuss’ questions give you scope to partially agree, disagree, or extend the prompt . It is okay to ultimately agree with the prompt but to also demonstrate the complexity and nuance of the author’s intentions, and I think that is the best approach for this essay! 

Step 2: Brainstorm

As we’ve already discussed, Year of Wonders depicts a community experiencing an acute crisis and Brooks presents the very worst and very best of human nature. There are characters who display enormous courage (Anna and Elinor), others who are cowardly (the Bradfords) and those who exploit others’ hardships for their own gain (Joss Bont). There is also an entire supporting cast of characters who individually display neither extreme courage nor cowardice but who muddle through a terrible situation with numb apathy . There is also the opportunity to define what courage means here – after all, the decision to isolate themselves within the boundaries of Eyam took immense courage from all the villagers, who knew full well that they would inevitably be exposed to the deadly contagion.  

Step 3: Create a Plan

Paragraph 1: [Agree] The novel is grounded in and revolves around the initial courageous decision of the villagers of Eyam to quarantine themselves and risk their own lives to protect others from the spread of the bubonic plague. 

• Focus on the initial act of courage and the knowing self-sacrifice that this decision required from every single person in Eyam. 
• As the event that forms the basis of this work of historical fiction , a logical argument can be made that this first act of courage in adversity forms the foundation of the novel and therefore affirms the idea that Year of Wonders is about great courage. 
• However, importantly, this decision was an act of community courage that anticipated future adversity but was taken before many of the villagers had actually experienced the acute hardship and suffering of the plague . This is why it is important to now discuss the courage shown by individuals in the midst of extreme adversity [link].

Paragraph 2: [Agree] The individuals who displayed courage, hope and conviction in the face of acute personal adversity demonstrate the enormous power of courage to steel us through a crisis . 

• Anna and the Mompellions concentrate on helping others and their service helped keep some degree of social order and provided comfort to victims of the plague. What they were able to achieve and provide for the community (and how much worse the situation would have been without their courageous assumption of responsibility) illustrates Brooks' high respect for courage and service.   
• To demonstrate additional analytical thinking, you might consider discussing the fact that these characters were not courageous solely out of charity , but that having an occupation and something to keep them busy and focused actually became a personal survival mechanism . This further highlights the absolutely pivotal role of courage in adversity and is only reinforced through the contrast with the ignoble behaviour of those characters who did not behave courageously and forthrightly [link].

Paragraph 3: [Partial disagree] However, Year of Wonders shows how adversity can provoke extremes of human behaviour and is thus also a story of human failings under immense pressure, with many characters motivated by cowardice and self-interested opportunism .  

• Here, you should discuss the dishonourable behaviour of the Bonts, the Bradfords and the hysterical mob that murdered the Gowdie women . Your aim should not only be to explain that they behaved without courage, but also to focus on the negative repercussions their behaviour had for them and the community This will help you build an analytical argument that Brooks’ core message is about the power and necessity of courage in the face of adversity . 
• Ultimately, while no character escapes from the pain and loss of the plague , Brooks provides illustrations of how different people responded to their shared suffering and it is clear that she believes that the best way to respond to adversity is with the courage and strength to face the challenge head on. 

If you found this essay breakdown helpful, let us know if you’d be interested in a complete LSG Year of Wonders Study Guide where we would cover 5 A+ fully written sample essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY the essays achieved A+ so you can reach your English goals! 

We’ve explored historical context, themes, essay planning and essay topics over on our Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy blog post. If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to studying this text, I highly recommend checking it out!

[Video Transcription]

Hey guys, welcome back to Lisa's Study Guides. So this week I have another essay topic breakdown for you. So eventually I'm going to get through all of the VCAA texts that are on the study design, but we're slowly going to get there and are just want to say yet again, even though this one is like a house on fire, I am really glad if you've clicked on this video and you're not necessarily studying it because as always with all my videos, I try to give you an overall message for you to take away that can be applied to any single text. So that is the same for this particular text today. And so even though the takeaway message for this video is quite specific to short stories, it's still an important consideration for any text that you're studying. Ideally, you want to use a diverse range of evidence for any text, but in particular, for short stories, you don't just want to rely on a small handful, but to try and make links between the different short stories. So let's see what that means on the other side of this quick overview of the text. Like a House on Fire is a collection of short stories by the author, Cate Kennedy, and unlike a lot of other texts on the study design, this book portrays a lot of very domestic situations, which seems fairly boring compared to some of the other texts that other students might be doing. However, I'm really excited about this text because the short stories are great. Not because they have groundbreaking premises, which they don't, but because of how effortlessly and deeply emotive they are. So the domestic scenarios actually help us relate to the characters in the stories and empathize with the complexity of their experiences. The essay topic we'll be looking at today is in Like a House on Fire, Kennedy finds strength in ordinary people. Discuss. Here, the term which you really have to think about is strength. We already know that she depicts the story of ordinary people, of people like you or me, or even just people we may know, but does she find strength in them? It could be physical strength, but more often than not, it might be other types of strength. For instance, the mental strength it takes to cope with intense pressure or the emotional strength it takes to make a difficult choice or action. It's important to think about how they might actually apply throughout the book. In this sense, our essay will have essentially two halves. The first two body paragraphs we'll look at scenarios of intense pressure, be it through the loss of control in one's life or a domestic situation which has become emotionally tense. The last two body paragraphs will then consider the types of strength that Kennedy evinces in these stories. And we'll contend that she does find strength in the characters who face a difficult decision, but that she also finds a lot more strength in the characters who managed to cope with their situation and grapple with the tensions in their lives.

Paragraph one

In many of her stories, Kennedy portrays characters who experience powerlessness. This loss of power can come a number of ways. For instance, both Flexion and Like a House on Fire tell the story of men who have injured their previously reliable bodies and have thus been rendered immobile. But they also tell the story of their respective wives who have lost some control over their lives now that they have to care for their husbands. On the other hand, there are the kids in Whirlpool whose mother insists that they dress a certain way for a Christmas photo. Her hand on your shoulders, exerting pressure that pushes you down. Kennedy's use of second person really makes you feel this pressure that keeps you from going out to the pool you so desperately desire to be in. Evidently powerlessness is an experience that comes in many shapes and forms in several stories.

Paragraph two

In addition to this, Kennedy explores other emotional tensions across the collection, subverting the idea that the home is necessarily a safe sanctuary. This is where she really goes beyond just the idea of powerlessness, but actually jumps into scenarios that are much more emotionally complex. In Ashes for instance, we see the homosexual protagonist struggle with feeling useless and tongue tied, embarrassed by the floundering pause between his mother and himself. There is a significant emotional hurdle there, which is particularly poignant given that mothers are usually considered a source of safety and comfort for their children. Kennedy's story of domesticity actually subvert or question what we might think of the domestic space shared by family members. If you have the Scribe edition of the book, the artwork on the cover would depict a vase of wilting flowers, an empty picture frame, and a spilt cup of coffee. These are all visual symbols of an imperfect domestic life. A similar rift exists between husband and wife in both Five Dollar Family and Waiting, the women find themselves unable to emotionally depend on their partners. While Michelle in Five Dollar Family despises her husbands startled, faintly incredulous expression, an inability to care for their child, the protagonist in Waiting struggles to talk about her miscarriages with her husband who is already worn down as it is. Kennedy takes these household roles of mother, son, husband, wife, and really dives into the complex shades of emotion that lies within these relationships. We realize through her stories that a mother can't always provide comfort to a child and that a husband isn't always the dependable partner that he's supposed to be.

Paragraph three

However, Kennedy does find strength in some characters who do take a bold or courageous leap in some way. These are really important moments in which she is able to show us the strength that it takes to make these decisions. And she triumphs however small or insignificant that can be achieved. A moment that really stands out to me is the ending of Laminex and Mirrors, where the protagonist rebelliously smuggles a hospital patient out for a smoke only to have to take him back into his ward through the main entrance and therefore get them both caught. She recounts this experience as the one I remember most clearly from the year I turned 18. The two of us content, just for this perfect moment. And their success resonates with the audience, even though the protagonist would have lost her job and therefore the income she needed for her trip to London, Kennedy demonstrates her strength in choosing compassion for an elderly patient. Even the sister in Whirlpool, who wasn't exactly kind to the protagonist in the beginning, forms an unlikely alliance with her against their mother, sharing a reckless moment and cutting their photo shoot short. Bold leaps such as these are ones that take strength and therefore deserve admiration.

Paragraph four

However, more often than not, Kennedy's stories are more about the strength needed to simply cope with life, one day at a time. She explores the minutiae of her characters lives in a way that conveys the day to day struggles, but also hints at the underlying fortitude needed to deal with these things on a daily basis. In Tender, the wife feels as if everything at home is on the verge of coming apart since her husband is only able to cook tuna and pasta casserole for their kids. However, when she must get a possibly malignant tumor removed, her concern of whether there'll be tuna and pasta in the pantry just in case, demonstrates her selfless nature. Kennedy thus creates a character who is strong for others, even when her own life at home is disorderly and her health may be in jeopardy. The strength of gritting one's teeth and getting on with things in spite of emotional tension is a central idea across this collection, and many other examples are there for you to consider as well. And so we come to the end of our essay. Hopefully going through this gives you an idea of how to cover more bases with your evidence. Remember that you don't have to recount lots and lots of events, but it's more important to engage with what the events are actually telling us about people. This is particularly important for prompts like this one, where it heavily focuses on the people involved. That is it for me this week, please give this video a thumbs up. If you wanted to say thanks to Mark, who has been helping me write these scripts up for a lot of the text response essay, topic breakdowns. If you enjoyed this, then you might also be interested in the live stream coming up next week, which will be on Friday the 25th of May at 5:00 PM. I'll be covering the topic of analyzing argument for the second time, just because there's so much to get through. I'll also be announcing some special things during that particular live stream. So make sure you're there so you're the first to hear it. I will see you guys next week. Bye.

Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy

How To Get An A+ On Your Like A House On Fire Essay

Close Analysis Of 'Cake' From Like A House On Fire

• Historical Context
• Cinematography
• Key Symbols

Sample Essay Topics

Essay topic breakdown.

Rear Window is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

When most people think of Hitchcock, it’s the screeching violins from  Psycho  that first come to mind. Whilst he is indeed known for his hair-curling thrillers,  Rear Window  is a slightly subtler film which focuses not on a murderer at large, but rather a crippled photographer who never even leaves his apartment.

Our protagonist L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies is portrayed by James Stewart, who was known at the time for portraying cowboys in various Western films as well as starring in an earlier Hitchcock film  Rope . After breaking his leg after a racing accident, Jeff begins to spy on his neighbours, one of whom he suspects of having committed a murder.

Despite some initial misgivings, his insurance nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and lover Lisa (Grace Kelly) also come to share his suspicions and participate in his spying. Their contributions ultimately allow the mystery to be solved.

Intertwined with this mystery is also the rather complex story of Jeff and Lisa’s relationship. Jeff on one hand resembles the ‘macho’ men of action whom Stewart is very accustomed to playing. On the other hand, Kelly portrays a character much like herself, a refined and elegant urbanite whose lifestyle inherently clashes with that of an action photographer.

Hitchcock ultimately resolves both of these storylines in the film’s denouement.

2. Historial Context

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the film, it is crucial to understand a bit about its historical context. As with any other text, the social conditions at the time of  Rear Window ’s release in 1954 inform and shape the interactions and events of the film.

Released in the  post-war period , the film is undoubtedly characterised by the interpersonal suspicion which defined the era. In particular, there was a real fear in America of Communist influences and Soviet espionage - so much so that a tribunal was established, supposedly to weed out Communists despite a general lack of evidence. This practice of making accusations without such evidence is now known as the McCarthyism, named after the senator behind the tribunal.

The film undoubtedly carries undertones of this, particularly in Jeff’s disregard for his neighbours’ privacy and his unparalleled ability to jump to conclusions about them. During this era, people really did fear one another, since the threat of Communism felt so widespread. Jeff’s exaggerated interpretations of his neighbours’ actions lead him to an irrational sense of suspicion, which is in many way the basis of the entire film.

At the same time, the 1950s saw a  boom in photojournalism  as a legitimate profession. To some extent, this was fuelled by the heyday of  Life  magazine (an American weekly, as well-known then as  Time  magazine is today). This publication was almost entirely photojournalistic, and one of their war photojournalists, Robert Capa, is actually the basis of Jeff’s character. This explains the prevalence of cameras in his life, as well as his ability to emotionally distance himself from those whom he observes through the lens.

Another crucial historical element is  the institution of marriage , and how important it was to people during the 1950s. It was an aspiration which everyone was expected to have, and this is reflected statistically - only 9.3% of homes then had single occupants (as opposed to around 25% today). People also tended to marry at a younger age, generally in their early 20s.

Conversely, divorce was highly frowned upon, and once you were married, you would in general remain married for the rest of your life. In particular, divorced women suffered massive financial difficulties, since men, as breadwinners, held higher-paying jobs, and women were only employed in traditionally female roles (e.g. secretaries, nurses, teachers, librarians). Seen in this light, we can understand Lisa’s overwhelming desire to marry and settle down with Jeff. The importance of marriage is also evident in the lives of Jeff’s neighbours; Miss Torso’s 'juggling [of the] wolves', and Miss Lonelyheart’s depression both reflect this idea.

Combining a basic understanding of the film’s plot, as well as our knowledge of its history, we can begin to analyse some of the themes that emerge.

Possibly the central tenet of the film is the big question of  privacy . Even in today’s society, the sanctity of privacy is an important concept; every individual has a right to make their own choices without having to disclose, explain or justify all of them. The character of Doyle says almost these exact words: 

'That’s a secret and private world you’re looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn’t possibly explain in public'

The tension that Hitchcock draws upon is this other idea of public responsibility, or civic duty - that is, the need to uphold the peace and protect one’s fellow citizens from harm. These ideas clash in  Rear Window , as fulfilling this civic responsibility (which for Jeff means privately investigating Thorwald) means that Thorwald’s right to privacy gets totally thrown out the window. So to speak.

Evidently, this is a major  moral dilemma . If you suspect that someone has committed murder, does this give you the right to disregard their privacy and surveil them in this way? While the film doesn’t give a definite answer (and you won’t be required to give a definite answer), Hitchcock undoubtedly explores the complexity of this question. Even Jeff has misgivings about what he’s seeing: 

 'Do you suppose it’s ethical to watch a man with binoculars, and a long-focus lens—until you can see the freckles on the back of his neck, and almost read his mail? Do you suppose it’s ethical even if you prove he didn’t commit a crime?'

In some ways, the audience is also positioned to reflect on this question, and in particular, reflect on the paranoia that characterised and defined the McCarthy era.

Somewhat separate to these questions is the  romance  between Jeff and Lisa, since Hitchcock seems to keep the thriller storyline and the romance storyline separate for a large part of the film. Their contrasting lifestyles and world views present a major obstacle in the fulfilment of their romance, and the murder mystery both distracts and unites them. Hitchcock further alludes to the question of whether marriage will be able to settle those differences after all - a major example is the following scene, in which Lisa not only reveals her discovery of Mrs Thorwald’s ring, but also expresses a desire for Jeff to ‘put a ring on it’ as well:

4. Cinematography

It’s impossible to study a Hitchcock film without considering how he impacted and manipulated its storytelling. The cinematographic techniques employed in  Rear Window  are important ways of shaping our understanding of the film, and Hitchcock uses a wide array of visual cues to communicate certain messages.

Lighting  is one such cue that he uses a lot - it is said that at certain points in filming, he had used every single light owned by the studio in which this film was shot. In this film, lighting is used to reveal things: when the lights are on in any given apartment, Jeff is able to peer inside and watch through the window (almost resembling a little TV screen; Jeff is also able to channel surf through the various apartments - Hitchcock uses panning to show this).

On the contrary, a lack of lighting is also used to hide things, and we see Thorwald utilise this at many stages in the film. Jeff also takes advantage of this, as he often sits in a position where he is very close to being in the shadows himself; if he feels the need, he is able to retreat such that he is fully enshrouded. Low-key lighting in these scenes also contributes to an overall sense of drama and tension.

Another handy visual cue is the  cross-cut , which is an example of the  Kuleshov effect . The Kuleshov effect is an editing technique whereby a sequence of two shots is used to convey information more effectively than just a single shot. Specifically, the cross-cut shifts from a shot of a person to a second shot of something that this person is watching.

We see this often, particularly when Jeff is responding to events in the courtyard; Hitchcock uses this cross-cut to immediately show us what has caused Jeff’s response. This visual cue indicates to viewers that we are seeing what Jeff is seeing, and is one of the few ways that Hitchcock helps audiences assume Jeff’s point-of-view in key moments.

Similarly, Hitchcock also uses  photographic vignetting  to merge our perspectives with Jeff’s - in certain shots, we see a fade in clarity and colour towards the sides of a frame, and this can look like a circular shadow, indicating to us that we are seeing something through a telescope or a long-focus lens.

Interestingly, a vignette is also a short, descriptive scene that focuses on a certain character and/or idea to provide us with insights about them - in this sense, it’s also possible to say that Jeff watches vignettes of his neighbours. Since this word has two meanings, you must be careful about which meaning you’re referring to.

By the way, to download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use, click here !

5. Key Symbols

As with any other text, it’s important to consider some of the key symbols that Hitchcock draws upon in order to tell his story. That being said, one of the benefits of studying a film is that these symbols tend to be quite visual - you are able to see these recurring images and this may make them easier to spot. We’ll be going through some of these key images in the final part of this guide.

One of the first symbols we see is  Jeff’s broken leg , which is propped up and completely covered by a cast, useless for the time being. Because he has been rendered immobile by his leg, readers can infer from this symbol that he is also incapable of working or even leaving his apartment, let alone solving a murder mystery. The broken leg is in this sense a symbol of his powerlessness and the source of much of his discontent.

Another interpretation of the broken leg however, is that it represents his impotence which on one hand is synonymous for powerlessness or helplessness, but is on the other hand an allusion to his apparent inability to feel sexual desire. Being constantly distracted from Lisa by other goings-on in the courtyard definitely supports this theory. All in all, Jeff’s broken leg represents some compromise of his manhood, both in the sense that he cannot work in the way that a man would have been expected to, but also in the sense that he is unable to feel any attraction towards Lisa, even as she tries her best to seduce him.

Conversely, Jeff’s  long-focus camera lens  is a symbol of his passive male gaze, which is more or less the only thing he can do in his condition. It is the main means through which he observes other people, and thus, it also symbolises his voyeuristic tendencies - just as his broken leg traps and inhibits him, his camera lens transports him out of his own apartment and allows him to project his own fears and insecurities into the apartments of his neighbours, watching them for entertainment, for visual pleasure.

In this latter sense, the camera lens can also be understood as a phallic symbol, an erection of sorts. It highlights Jeff’s perverted nature, and the pleasure he derives from the act of observing others. Yikes.

On the other hand,  Lisa’s dresses  underscore the more positive parts of her character. Her initial wardrobe represents her elegance and refinery whilst also communicating a degree of incompatibility with Jeff. However, as she changes and compromises throughout the film, her wardrobe also becomes much more practical and much less ostentatious as the film wears on, until she is finally wearing a smart blouse, jeans and a pair of loafers. The change in her wardrobe reflects changes in her character as well.

Finally,  the wedding ring of Mrs Thorwald  is hugely significant; wedding rings in general represent marriage and commitment, and are still very important symbols that people still wear today. Specifically, Mrs Thorwald’s ring means a couple of things in the context of the film - it is firstly a crucial piece of evidence (because if Mrs Thorwald was still alive, she would probably still be wearing it) and it is also a symbol through which Lisa can express a desire for stability, commitment and for herself to be married.

There’s definitely plenty to talk about with Hitchcock’s  Rear Window , and I hope these points of consideration help you tackle this film!

Test your film technique knowledge with the video below:

Ready to start writing on Rear Window ? Watch the Rear Window Essay Topic Breakdown:

6. Sample Essay Topics

• In Rear Window , Hitchcock suggests that everybody can be guilty of voyeurism. Do you agree?
• Jeff’s attempts to pursue justice are entirely without honour. To what extent is this true?
• In the society presented in Rear Window , Jeff has more power and agency than Lisa in spite of his injury. Do you agree?
• Discuss how the opening sequence sets up later themes and events in Rear Window .
• 'Of course, they can do the same thing to me, watch me like a bug under glass if they want to.' Hitchcock’s Rear Window argues that it is human nature to be suspicious. To what extent do you agree?
• Explore the role of Jeff’s courtyard neighbours in the narrative of Rear Window .
• Jeff and Lisa’s roles in Rear Window , as well as that which they witness, reflect the broader societal tensions between the sexes of the time. Discuss.
• 'I’m not much on rear window ethics.' The sanctity of domestic privacy supersedes the importance of public responsibility. Is this the message of Rear Window ?
• Marriage lies at the heart of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window . Discuss.
• Hitchcock’s Rear Window explores and ultimately condemns the spectacle made of human suffering. Is this an accurate reflection of the film?
• Rear Window argues that it is more important to be right than to be ethical. Do you agree?
• 'To see you is to love you.' What warnings and messages regarding attraction are offered by Hitchcock’s Rear Window ?
• In Rear Window , women are merely objects of a sexist male gaze. To what extent do you agree?
• In what ways do Hitchcock’s cinematic techniques enhance his storytelling in Rear Window ?
• 'When they’re in trouble, it’s always their Girl Friday that gets them out of it.' Is Lisa the true heroine of Rear Window ?

Now it's your turn to give these essay topics a go! In our ebook A Killer Text Guide: Rear Window , we've take 5 of these essay topics and show you our analysis, brainstorm and plan for each individual topic. We then write up full A+ essays - all annotated - so that you know exactly what you need to do to replicate a 50 study scorer's success!.

7. Essay Topic Breakdown

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy - a technique to help you write better VCE essays. This essay topic breakdown will focus on the THINK part of the strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response because it’ll dramatically enhance how much you can take away from the following essays and more importantly, your ability to apply this strategy in your own writing.

Film technique-based prompt:

Hitchcock’s use of film techniques offers an unnerving viewing experience . Discuss.

While we should use film techniques as part of our evidence repertoire in each essay, this particular type of essay prompt literally begs for it. As such, I’d ensure that my essay has a greater focus on film techniques (without concerning myself too much over inclusion of quotes; the film techniques will act as a replacement for the quotes).

Since the essay prompt is rather open-ended, it is up to us to decide which central themes and ideas we’d like to focus on. By narrowing down the discussion possibilities ourselves, we’ll 1) make our lives easier by removing the pressure to write about everything , and 2) offer teachers and examiners a more linear and straightforward approach that will make it easier for them to follow (and give you better marks!).

The ‘unnerving viewing experience’ is present throughout the entire film, so my approach will be to divide up each paragraph into start of the film, middle of the film and end of the film discussions. This will help with my essay’s coherence (how well the ideas come together), and flow (how well the ideas logically progress from one to another).

Contention: Through a diverse range of film techniques, Hitchcock instils fear and apprehension into the audience of Rear Window .

P1: The opening sequence of Rear Window employs various film techniques to immediately establish underlying tension in its setting.

P2: Through employing the Kuleshov effect in the strategically cut scene of Miss Lonelyhearts’ attempted suicide, Hitchcock adds to the suspenseful tone of the film by developing a guilty voyeur within each viewer.

P3: In tandem with this, Hitchcock ultimately adds to the anxiety of the audience by employing lighting and cross-cutting techniques in the climax scene of the plot, in which an infuriated Thorwald attempts to enter Jeff’s apartment.

If you find this helpful, then you might want to check out our A Killer Text Guide: Rear Window ebook, which has all the information and resources you need to succeed in your exam, with detailed summaries and background information, as well as a detailed analysis of all five essay prompts!

8. Resources

Download a PDF version of this blog for printing or offline use

How To Write a Rear Window Film Analysis

Rear Window: How Does Its Message Remain Relevant Today?

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response

How To Write A Killer Text Response (ebook)

How To Embed Quotes in Your Essay Like a Boss

How To Turn Text Response Essays From Average to A+

5 Tips for a Mic-Drop Worthy Essay Conclusion

The Great Gatsby is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Introduction

Call it the greatest American novel or ultimate story of unrequited romance— The Great Gatsby is undoubtedly a stunning snapshot of one of the most American decades that America has ever seen. The 1920s saw significant economic growth after WWI, and what’s more American than material excess, wealth, and prosperity? The stock market was going off, businesses were booming, and people were having a great time.

Well, not everybody—and on the flipside, what’s more American than socio-economic inequality or the ever-quixotic American Dream?

In this blog, we’ll go through the novel in this context, examine some of its key themes, and also have a think about the critiques it raises about American society. We’ll also go through an essay prompt that ties some of these things together.

Life in the Roaring Twenties

This snapshot from the 2013 film adaptation actually tells us a lot about the 1920s. On the one hand, social and cultural norms were shifting—men no longer sported beards, and women were dressing more androgynously and provocatively. On the other hand, the modern, American economy was emerging—people began buying costly consumer goods (like cars, appliances, telephones etc.) using credit rather than cash. This meant that average American families were able to get these things for the first time, while more prosperous families were able to live in extreme excess.

In Fitzgerald’s novel, the Buchanans are one such family. Tom and his wife Daisy have belonged to the 1% for generations, and the 1920s saw them cement their wealth and status. At the same time, the booming economy meant that others (like the narrator Nick) were relocating to cities in pursuit of wealth, and (like Gatsby) making significant financial inroads themselves. 

The Great Gatsby traces how the differences between these characters can be destructive even if they’re all wealthy. Add a drop of Gatsby’s unrequited love for Daisy, and you have a story that ultimately examines how far people go for romance, and what money simply can’t buy. 

The answer to that isn’t so obvious though. Yes, money can’t buy love, but it also can’t buy a lot of other things associated with the lifestyle and the values of established wealth. We’ll get into some of this now.

Wealth and class

Fitzgerald explores tensions between three socio-economic classes—the establishment, the ‘nouveau riche’ and the working class.

Tom and Daisy belong to the ‘old money’ establishment, where wealth is generational and inherited . This means they were born into already wealthy families, which affects their upbringing and ultimately defines them, from the way they speak (Tom’s “paternal contempt” and Daisy’s voice, “full of money”) to their major life decisions (including marriage, symbolised through the “string of pearls” he buys for her—which, fun fact, is estimated to be worth millions of dollars today). It also affects their values, as we’ll see in the following section.  For now, consider this image of their home (and those ponies on the left, which they also own), described as follows:

“The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for [400 metres], jumping over sun-dials and brick walls and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.”

Nick Carraway also comes from a similar (though not as extravagant) background—his family had been rich by Midwestern standards for “three generations” before he came to New York.

Conversely, Gatsby belongs to the ‘ nouveau riche ’, or new money. Unlike the Buchanans, Gatsby was born into a poor family, only coming to wealth in the 1920s boom. Specifically, he inherited money from Dan Cody after running away from home at 17.

Although they are all rich, there are significant cultural differences between old and new money. Old money have their own culture of feigned politeness which Gatsby doesn’t quite get. When Tom and the Sloanes invite Nick and Gatsby to supper in chapter six, Gatsby naively accepts, to which Tom would respond behind his back, “Doesn’t he know [Mrs. Sloane] doesn’t want him?” Even though Gatsby is financially their equal, his newfound wealth can’t buy his way into their (nasty, horrible) lifestyle.

Finally, this is contrasted with the working class, particularly George and Myrtle Wilson who we meet in chapter two. They live in a grey “valley of ashes”, the detritus of a prosperous society whose wealth is limited to the 1%. Fitzgerald even calls it a “solemn dumping ground”, suggesting that life is precarious and difficult here. Consider what separates George—“blond, spiritless… and faintly handsome”—from Tom (hint: $$).

Myrtle is described differently, however—she is a “faintly stout” woman with “perceptible vitality”. This may be less of a description of her and more of a commentary on Tom’s sexuality, and what attracts him to her such that he cheats on Daisy with her. Still, Myrtle’s relative poverty is evident in her expressions of desire throughout their meeting—“I want to get one of those dogs,” she says, and Tom just hands her the money.

Ultimately, looking at the novel through the lens of class, we see a society where upward social mobility and making a living for yourself is possible, just not for everybody. Even when you get rich, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll suddenly, seamlessly integrate into the lives of old money. 

Morality and values

Added to this story of social stratification is a moral dimension, where Fitzgerald can be a little more critical. 

Firstly, old money is portrayed as shallow . Daisy’s marriage to Tom and the Sloanes’ insincerity are elements of this, but another good example is Gatsby’s party guests. Many aren’t actually invited—they invite themselves, and “they came and went without having met Gatsby at all.” Their vacuous relationship to Gatsby is exposed when he dies, and they completely abandon him. Klipspringer, “the boarder”, basically lived in Gatsby’s house, and even then he still wouldn’t come to the funeral, only calling up to get a “pair of shoes” back. 

The rich are also depicted as cruel and inconsiderate, insulated from repercussions by their wealth. Nick’s description of Tom’s “cruel body” is repeatedly realised, as he breaks Myrtle’s nose in chapter two and condescends Gatsby with “magnanimous scorn” in chapter seven. After Myrtle dies, Nick spots the Buchanans “conspiring” and describes them as “smash[ing] up things and creatures and then retreat[ing] back into their money or their vast carelessness”—he sees them as fundamentally selfish.

Gatsby is portrayed more sympathetically though, which may come from his humble upbringing and his desire to be liked. This is probably the key question of the novel—is he a hero, or a villain? The moral of the story, or a warning? Consumed by love, or corrupted by wealth?

I’m going to leave most of those for the next section, but I’ll finish here with one last snippet: Lucille, a guest at his parties, tears her dress and Gatsby immediately sends her a “new evening gown”. Weird flex, but at least he’s being selfless…

That said, a major part of Gatsby’s character is his dishonesty, which complicates his moral identity. 

For starters, he fabricates a new identity and deals in shady business just to reignite his five-year-old romance with Daisy. We see this through the emergence of Meyer Wolfsheim, with whom he has unclear business “gonnegtions”, and the resultant wealth he now enjoys. 

In chapter three, Owl Eyes describes Gatsby as a “regular Belasco”, comparing him to a film director who was well-known for the realism of his sets. This is a really lucid analysis of Gatsby, who is in many ways just like a film director constructing a whole fantasy world.

It’s also unclear if he loves Daisy for who she is, or just the idea of Daisy and the wealth she represents. Indeed, he doesn’t seem to treat her as a person, but more like something that he can pursue (like wealth). This is a good read, so I won’t really get into it here—just consider how much things have changed since Gatsby first met Daisy (like her marriage and her children), and how Gatsby ignores the way her life has changed in favour of his still, stationary memory of who she used to be.

Love, desire and hope

All of this makes it tricky to distil what the novel’s message actually is. 

Is it that Gatsby is a good person, especially cast against the corrupt old money?  

This analysis isn’t wrong, and it actually works well with a lot of textual evidence. Where Nick resents the Buchanans, he feels sympathy for Gatsby. He explicitly says, “they’re a rotten crowd…you’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” Maybe love was an honourable goal compared to money, which ostensibly makes you “cruel” and “careless”. 

I wouldn’t say he was cruel, but this reading is complicated by how he can be careless, choosing not to care about Daisy’s agency, and letting his desires overtake these considerations. 

Is it that Gatsby and his desire for Daisy were corrupted by wealth despite his good intentions? 

There’s also evidence to suggest wealth corrupts—Nick describes it as “foul dust” that “preyed” on Gatsby, eroding his good character and leaving behind someone who resembles the vacuous elite. Although love might’ve been an honourable goal, it got diluted by money. 

Gatsby’s paradigm for understanding the world becomes driven by materialism, and he objectifies Daisy. He starts trying to buy something that he originally didn’t need to buy—Daisy’s love. She certainly didn’t fall in love with this man who owned a mansion and a closet full of “beautiful shirts.” Thus, Gatsby is a sympathetic product of a system that was always stacked against him (a poor boy from North Dakota). Capitalism, right?

Is it that capitalist America provides nothing for people to pursue except for wealth, and therefore little reason for people to feel hope?

Past the basics: structural economic tension and the doomed American Dream

Now we want to start thinking beyond the characters (e.g. if Gatsby is a good person or not) and also factor in their social, historical, political and economic context (e.g. if he was doomed to begin with by a society driven by money). This subheading does sound a bit much, but we’ll break it down here. 

A key part of this novel is the American Dream, the idea that America is a land of freedom and equal opportunity, that anyone can ‘make it’ if they truly try. Value is placed on upward social mobility (moving up from a working-class background) and economic prosperity (making $$), which defined much of the Roaring 20s…

…for some. 

For many others, there was significant tension between these lofty values and their lived reality of life on the ground. As much as society around them was prospering, they just couldn’t get a piece of the pie, and this is what makes it structural—as hard as George Wilson might work, he just can’t get himself out of the Valley of Ashes and into wealth. Indeed, you can’t achieve the Dream without cheating (as Gatsby did). 

So, there’s this tension, this irreconcilable gap between economic goals and actual means. Through this lens, the tragedy of The Great Gatsby multiplies. It’s no longer just about someone who can’t buy love with money—it’s about how nobody’s dreams are really attainable. Not everyone can get money, and money can only get you so far. Everyone is stuck, and the American Dream is basically just a myth. 

Thus, the novel could be interpreted as a takedown of capitalist America, which convinced people like Gatsby that the answer to everything was money, and he bolted after the “green light” allure of cold, hard cash only to find out that it wasn’t enough, that it wasn’t the answer in the end.  (.

Consider what kind of message that sends to people like the Wilsons—if money can’t actually buy happiness, what good is it really to chase it? And remember that Gatsby had to cheat to get rich in the first place. 

Is [the novel’s message] that capitalist America provides nothing for people to pursue except for wealth, and therefore little reason for people to feel hope?

You tell me.

Prompt: what does Fitzgerald suggest about social stratification in the 1920s?

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy , a technique to help you write better VCE essays. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response .

Let’s try applying this to a prompt. I’ll italicise the key points that have been brought up throughout this post. 

Firstly, social stratification clearly divided society along economic lines . This could be paragraph one, exploring how class separated the Buchanans and Wilsons of the world, and how their lifestyles were so completely different even though they all lived in the prosperity of the Roaring 20s . George Wilson was “worn-out” from work, but he still couldn’t generate upward social mobility for his family, stuck in the Valley of Ashes. Conversely, Tom Buchanan is born into a rich family with his beach-facing mansion and polo ponies . Colour is an important symbol here—the Valley is grey, while East Egg is filled with colour (a green light here, a “blue coupe” there…).

The next paragraph might look at the cultural dimension , exploring how you just can’t buy a way of life. This might involve analysing Gatsby’s wealth as deluding him into thinking he can “repeat the past” by buying into the life(style) of old money . This is where Fitzgerald disillusions us about the American Dream —he presents a reality where it isn’t possible for anyone to ‘make it’, where the Buchanans still treat you with scorn even if you’re just as wealthy. Gatsby’s dishonesty is ultimately a shallow one—try as he might, he just cannot fit in and win Daisy back.

Finally, we should consider the moral dimension —even though the wealthier socioeconomic classes enjoyed more lavish, luxurious lifestyles, Fitzgerald also argued that they were the most morally bankrupt. Money corrupted the wealthy to the point where they simply did not care about the lives of the poor, as seen in the Buchanans’ response to Myrtle’s death. Even Gatsby had to compromise his integrity and deal in shady business in order to get rich—he isn’t perfect either. Social stratification may look ostentatious and shiny on the outside, but the rich are actually portrayed as shallow and corrupt. 

A good essay on this novel will typically combine some of these dimensions and build a multilayered analysis. Stratification, love, wealth, morality—all of these big ideas can be broken down in terms of social, economic, cultural circumstances, so make sure to consider all angles when you write. 

Have a go at these prompts!

1. Nick is biased in his assessment of Gatsby—both of them are no better than the corrupt, wealthy Buchanans. Do you agree?

2. In The Great Gatsby , money is a stronger motivating factor than love. Do you agree?

3. Daisy Buchanan is more innocent than guilty—explore this statement with reference to at least 2 other characters. 

4. What does Fitzgerald say about happiness in The Great Gatsby ?

5. Is money the true antagonist of The Great Gatsby ?

6. The women of The Great Gatsby are all victims of a patriarchal society. To what extent do you agree? (Hint: are they all equally victimised?)

Challenge: According to Fitzgerald, what really lays underneath the façade of the Roaring 20s? Make reference to at least 2 symbols in The Great Gatsby . (Hint: façade = “an outward appearance that conceals a less pleasant reality” – think about things like colours, clothes, buildings etc.)

How To Write A Killer Text Response Study Guide

How to embed quotes in your essay like a boss

How to turn your Text Response essays from average to A+

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion

The Importance of the Introduction

Frankenstein is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

2. Historical Contexts and Setting

4. Feminist Interpretation

• Frankenstein is a Gothic novel. The genre emerged in the eighteenth century, and was characterised by elements of mystery, horror and the supernatural. Such elements are manifested in the novel by Shelley’s use of isolated settings and dark undertones. Through her main plot of raising the dead to create a living creature, Shelley stays true to Gothic elements by allowing her characters to cross boundaries between mortal and supernatural worlds. 
• The novel is told in the epistolary form - written in a series of letters. This effectively integrates the reader into the story by allowing them to feel as if they are receiving a personal account of the events of the novel, adding an element of immersion. 
• Frankenstein is also a frame narrative, a form which examines the dark, internalised consciousness of each character that narrates the events of a story in each frame. Unlike in an omniscient narrative perspective, each storyteller is a character with concomitant shortcomings, limitations, prejudices, and motives.

Historical Contexts and Setting

• Born in London, 1797, Mary Shelley was the only daughter of notable intellectual radicals. Her father, William, was a philosopher who condemned social institutions as corrupt and instead advocated for reason to guide people’s decisions. 
• During the 18th century, the traditional and metaphysical understanding of the meaning of life were replaced by more secular ideologies. It was during this period that galvanism was born; Luigi Galvani’s experimentalism with electrical currents to stimulate muscle movement. Shelley took inspiration from this to form the crucial plot device of Frankenstein .
• The context of Frankenstein was also the backdrop of the French Revolution. There has been critic speculation that Shelley’s creature is an emblem of the French Revolution itself – originally created in order to benefit mankind, but the abuse of which drives it to uncontrollable destruction. 
• Thus, in Frankenstein , Shelley explores not only the scientific possibilities of human existence, but also the nature of man and self awareness of ambition. The novel is designed to make the reader wonder - is scientific exploration an exciting or terrifying thing? How much ambition is too much - and does having it offer more good or harm to humanity?

Pursuit of dangerous knowledge

Victor’s personal torment throughout the novel arises as a result of his attempt to surge beyond accepted human limits of science. Walton mirrors this pursuit by his attempt to surpass previous human explorations in his endeavour to reach the North Pole. Shelley evidently warns against such pursuits, as Victor’s creation causes the destruction of all those dear to him, and Walton finds himself critically trapped between sheets of ice, with only his deep loneliness to keep him company. A key difference between Victor and Walton’s fate, however, is that while Victor’s hatred of the creature drives himself into misery, he serves as a warning for the latter to pull back from his treacherous mission, proving just how dangerous the desire for knowledge can become.

Sublime Nature

The sublimity of the natural landscape is a typical Romantic symbol throughout the novel, as it acts as a source of emotional and spiritual renewal for both Frankenstein and his creature. Depressed and remorseful after the deaths of William and Justine, Victor retreats to Mont Blanc in the hopes that its grandness will uplift his spirits. Likewise, the creature’s ‘heart lightens’ as spring arrives, delivering him from the ‘hellish’ cold and abandonment of the winter. Such as this, nature acts as an instrument through which Shelley mirrors inherent similarity between Frankenstein and the creature. Nature is also constantly depicted as a force stronger than that of man, perceivable by its punishment of Frankenstein for attempting to violate maternal laws in his unnatural creation of the creature. As such, Shelley suggests that Frankenstein’s hubristic attitude towards nature ultimately results in his damnation.

Beauty and Monstrosity (Societal Prejudice)

The creature is rejected almost solely due to its hideously ugly physical appearance, standing at ‘eight feet tall’ and described as ‘a thing even Dante could not have conceived’. Prejudice against outward appearances becomes apparent throughout the novel, as despite educating itself and developing a ‘sophisticated speech’, the creature continues to be judged solely on its appearance and is shunned and beaten due to its repulsiveness. Shelley condemns the extent of this prejudice through the character of William, who, despite the creature’s belief that he is far too young to have ‘imbibed a horror of deformity’, demonstrates intense loathing at the ‘ugly wretch’. In stark contrast to this, the reader can perceive a prevalent social privilege of beauty, as numerous characters are favoured solely for their outward appearances. Safie, similar to the creature in that she is also foreign and unlearned in English, is admired for her ‘countenance of angelic beauty’. While the ‘demoniacal corpse’ of the creature is perceived by society as ‘a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned’, Safie’s beauty marks her as a cherished individual who ‘infuses new life’ into souls.

Victor’s obsession with creating life is shrouded in secrecy, and his obsession with destroying his creation remains equally secretive until his revelation to Walton near the end of the story. However, while Victor chooses to remain reclusive due to his horror and guilt, the creature is forced to do so merely by his hideous appearance. Despite this, the theme of secrecy also links the creator and creature through the character of Walton; in confessing to Walton of his crimes before he dies, Victor is able to escape this stifling secrecy that ruined his life, just as the monster desperately takes advantage of Walton’s presence to force a human connection, hoping to find someone who will empathise with his miserable existence as ‘a monster’. 

Feminist Interpretation

• Frankenstein has been perceived by many as a feminist novel, as Shelley’s weak representation of women acts as a critique to patriarchal ideals of females.
• During the eighteenth century, a woman’s finest characteristics were described by Rousseau himself: ‘The first and most important qualification in a woman is good nature or sweetness of temper.’ 
• Thus, in Frankenstein , women are almost always perceived through a male’s perception. The women in the novel are thus excluded from all spheres; not given voices in telling their stories, nor truly figuring in the male characters’ romantic lives. 
• Female representation is purposefully excluded from the novel in order to accentuate this flaw in society. As such, the women that do appear are symbols of the ‘ideal women’ of the eighteenth century - they are presented as reflections of their male counterparts; as mothers, daughters, sisters, or wives, rather than strong individual entities. 
• It is important to note that most of Shelley’s idealised women in Frankenstein all die in the end, and the character traits that had defined them as idealised women were the cause of their deaths. For example, Caroline Beaufort dies directly as a result of her acting as a dutiful caregiver, and looking after Elizabeth when she contracts scarlet fever. By emancipating her from her stereotypical role as a woman through death, Shelley suggests that her Enlightened society must depart from this systematic oppression of the female sex.

Author's Views and Values

Frankenstein depicts a variety of Shelley’s views and values. Some ways to word these in an essay would be: 

• Shelley suggests through Frankenstein’s downfall that an individual cannot succeed in isolation.
• Shelley visibly condemns the misuse of intellect and scientific discovery for one’s own personal gain.
• In Frankenstein , Shelley depicts the creature’s mistreatment to oppose the societal judgement that beauty is reflective of character. 
• Shelley offers a moral edict that superfluous pride leads to downfall.
• Shelley denounces the naïve ideals of revolution ideology through the tragic and violent consequences of Frankenstein’s discovery 

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy , a technique to help you write better VCE essays. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response . ‍

Here are a few practice essay questions:

• ‘In Frankenstein, the creature is shown to be more humane than its human creator.’ To what extent do you agree?
• ‘Frankenstein often falls physically ill after traumatic events.’ Discuss the role of sickness in the novel.
• 'Although Frankenstein is written by a woman, it contains no strong female characters.’ Discuss.
• ‘Life, although it may only be awn accumulation of anguish, is dear to me and I will defend it.’ How does Shelley use paradox to show the complexity of the human condition?.
• ‘In Frankenstein, suffering results when imperfect men disturb nature’s perfection.’ To what extent do you agree

Essay Topic 1 : 'Although Frankenstein is written by a woman, it contains no strong female characters.’ Discuss.

You could approach this topic in a character-based manner , and focus on three female characters: 

Paragraph One: 

• Focus on how Shelley depicts women as merely weaker, sacrificial reflections of their male counterparts.
• Margaret Saville, Walton’s ‘dear sister’, is only present in the novel through his narrative portrayal of her. She is described as the ‘angel [of] the house’, and while her brother is exploring to ‘accomplish some great purpose’, Margaret is at home, passively waiting for his letters.
• Caroline Beaufort, Victor’s mother, is also only perceptible as the archetypal female, encompassing the roles of wife, mother, and daughter. After her father dies, leaving her as an ‘orphan and beggar’, Caroline is reduced to a damsel in distress in need of saving by Alphonse Frankenstein, who comes to her ‘like a protecting spirit’. 

Paragraph Two:

• In this paragraph, you could focus on how females are valued primarily as objects of physical beauty, rather than individual human beings of autonomy.
• Elizabeth is selected from the orphan peasant group merely due to her ‘very fair’ beauty. Thus, it is this ‘crown of distinction’ which affords Elizabeth her subsequent life of happiness in the Frankenstein household. However, beauty for women also induces objectification, as she is ‘given’ to Victor as a ‘pretty present’, and he views her as his ‘possession’ to ‘protect, love, and cherish’. 
• Safie is also physically beautiful, with a ‘countenance of angelic beauty and expression’. It is this attractiveness of Safie which affords her marginalised power as a woman. Unlike the creature, who is rejected by the De Laceys because of his ‘hideous deformity’, the foreign Safie ‘[diffuses] happiness among’ the De Lacey household through her ‘exotic’ beauty.

Paragraph Three: 

• Shelley’s deliberate exclusion of women from romantic and reproductive spheres in Frankenstein condemns the societal oppression of females.
• Frankenstein encompasses an immense focus on male relationships. There exists an almost homosexual ‘brotherly affection’ between Walton and Frankenstein, as Frankenstein can be perceived as the figure fulfilling Walton’s ‘bitter… want of a friend’ and companion for life; something that would conventionally be found in a wife. 
• Homosexual undertones are also evident in Frankenstein’s ‘closest friendship’ with Henry Clerval, who he treasures arguably more than Elizabeth. The murder of Frankenstein’s ‘dearest Henry’ exacts from him ‘agonies’ in the form of ‘strong convulsions’, as he subsequently falls physically ill for two months ‘on the point of death’. In contrast to this, the strangulation of Elizabeth is received by a brief period of mourning, implying that Frankenstein does not require as much time to grieve Elizabeth. 
• Finally, the male creature and his assumption that a female creature ‘will be content with the same fate’ as himself further emphasises male dismissal of female autonomy. 

Essay Topic 2: ‘Life, although it may only be awn accumulation of anguish, is dear to me and I will defend it.’ How does Shelley use paradox to show the complexity of the human condition?’.

• As the creature’s education by books teaches him contradictory lessons on human nature, Shelley portrays the acquisition of knowledge as a paradoxical double-edged sword.
• Through intertextual references to the books through which the creature ‘[studies] human nature’, Shelley presents the paradoxical characteristics of mankind. 
• Although The creature is propelled to suicidal thoughts of ‘despondency and gloom’ by Goethe’s Sorrows of Werther , the book also reveals his empathy, as he becomes ‘a listener’ to the ‘lofty sentiments and feelings’ of humanity. 
• Plutarch’s Lives instils in him the ‘greatest ardour for virtue… and  abhorrence for vice’; two traits, the creature realises, that simultaneously and paradoxically manifest in society.
• Milton’s Paradise Lost allows the creature to compares his rejection by Frankenstein with that of Satan by God. This results in his own paradoxical turn in character - as he subsequently declares ‘ever-lasting war against his ‘accursed creator’, ’evil thenceforth [becomes his] good’. 

Paragraph Two: 

• Shelley purposefully pairs the grotesque physicality of the creature with potent verbal power to showcase his complex humanity. 
• The creature’s humanity despite his ‘physical deformity allows him to be perceived by the audience as human rather than a ‘wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition’. 
• For De Lacey, the hideous appearance of the creature is eclipsed by his eloquence, which ‘persuades [him] that [he] is sincere’. Shelley portrays through his initial acceptance of the creature that he is a ‘daemon’ only in appearance, and thus criticises the ‘fatal prejudice that clouds [the majority of society’s] eyes’. 
• This idea is furthered as Felix’s perception of the creature’s ‘miserable deformity’ results in a ‘violent attack’ upon him. However, the creature abstains from defending himself out of human goodness - despite his capability to tear ‘[Felix] limb from limb’, the creature instead showcases his sensitivity. 
• Thus, the paradoxical antithesis of the creature is the way in which human actions, such as those of Felix, diminish his own humanity and mould him into the monstrous animal his appearance presents him as. 

Paragraph Three:

• The symbolism of fire and ice in ‘Frankenstein’ serves as a moral reminder of the paradoxical essence of human ambition. 
• The motif of fire symbolises the seductive quality of scientific aspiration, as Frankenstein’s ‘longing to penetrate the secrets of nature’ is described as literally ‘warming’ his young imagination. Despite being life-giving, fire is also evidently death-dealing, as fifteen-year-old Frankenstein perceives a vicious storm during which lightning causes the destruction of an oak tree into a ‘blasted stump’ issuing a ‘stream of fire’. As such, the powerfully antithetical nature of fire complicates his ambition, as he muses, ‘How strange… that the same cause should produce such opposite effects!’.
• In contrast, the motif of ice represents the perils of superfluous ambition. The icy sea of Mont Blanc serves as the backdrop of Frankenstein’s dialogue with his ‘filthy creation’. The creature utilises his familiarity to the icy climate to overpower his ‘master’; there is a disturbing reversal in roles as the creature forces Frankenstein to follow him into the ‘everlasting ices of the north’, and wishes for him to suffer ‘the misery of cold and frost to which [he himself is] impassive’. 
• The paradox of fire and ice in Frankenstein culminates in the creature’s dramatic announcement of death by fire, surrounded by ice. This acts as a bitter and ironic parody of both Walton's and Frankenstein's dream of the fire, underscoring its tragic fatality. This is emphasised by the creature’s final words, ‘I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames… my ashes will be swept into the sea by winds’.

For more advice on Frankenstein , read Kevin's blog post on How to Nail A Frankenstein Essay.

We all love hacks. Life hacks, game hacks, Netflix hacks  (wait, what) ? They're all fabulous. Even better is when we can use English study hacks - because who doesn't want to make English just that much simpler?

Watched the video above already? Awesome! Keep reading for extra life hacks:

Extra hack #11 - don’t just write essays..

There is a massive difference between writing an essay for the sake of writing an essay, as opposed to actively learning when applying your skills. If you feel yourself slipping into the dreaded ‘reusing the same evidence for every essay’, or you’ve somehow ended up doing 5 essay prompts based on the same character – STOP RIGHT THERE. Be proactive. You have to keep switching things up. This means constantly trying new prompts that are more challenging than the last and always trying to find new evidence you can use. Yes, there will always be our go-to pieces of evidence we like to use, like our favourite quote or symbol, but change it up often so that you don’t become complacent.

‍Extra hack #12 – Unique interpretations

The purpose of develop a unique interpretation of a text or film is so that you can demonstrate originality in your thinking and bring something new to the table that teachers have never come across before. After all, if you’re marking 30 essays in a row, you’d get pretty bored reading the same arguments again and again, wouldn’t you? Try to view the text from different lenses – feminist, Marxist, post-colonial perspective – and these will offer you new ways of interpreting the story.

Extra hack #13 – FOCUS

Some books can be very long (and no, we’re not talking about don’t need to go into detail with every single passage. Instead, have a selection of passages throughout the book that you know really well. It’s much better having an in-depth understanding of fewer passages, but produce a sound essay than to have a superficial overview of the book and struggle to write much at all!

English is not easy, but it doesn’t need to be hard either. Adopt only a few of these hacks and see your improvement in English – they really do work! Keep it up!

We’ve explored creative writing criteria, literary elements and how to replicate the text over on our The Ultimate Guide to VCE Creative Writing blog post . If you need a quick refresher or you’re new to creative writing, I highly recommend checking it out!

There are two types of people in this world… those who love creative writing, and those who don’t. But no matter which one you are, never fear, your saviour is here (in the form of this simple guide to writing creatively – whether it’s for school, for a writing competition or just for fun)!

What Are the Five Steps?

• Do a brain dump of your ideas!
• Stay true to yourself
• Start small - keep it simple
• Don't be afraid to add "spice"
• Read your writing out loud

STEP 1: Do a brain dump of your ideas!

You’ll often find that your brain is buzzing with possible storylines or scenarios; you’ll feel so overwhelmed trying to pick just one! Or maybe, you’re experiencing  “writer’s block”,  a mind blank. My tip for this is to set a five-minute timer, get a blank sheet of paper and scribble down everything that comes to your mind! You’ll be surprised at how imaginative your mind can be under pressure! When the timer goes off, take a break and then read through each idea individually before choosing one to develop. This way you’ll be able to clearly see all your thoughts, and maybe even be able to link multiple ideas into a more detailed story !

STEP 2: Stay true to yourself

Creative writing is so different to other text types because it gives you the freedom to choose what you're writing about, and how you're going to do it! So, take advantage of this and write from the heart – don’t try to be someone you’re not. Let your personality shine through your writing. It's usually the stories that have some kind of personal backstory, or are based on a real-life experience that are the most enjoyable to read!

STEP 3: Start small - keep it simple

No one expects you to write a New York Times best seller novel in your first attempt! Even the most talented authors began with a dot point plan or a simple paragraph based on their idea. From my experience, the absolute hardest thing to do is actually get started. Keeping it simple and focusing on getting your ideas down on the page is the easiest way to overcome this hurdle. You can worry about the language and descriptions later, once you have a basic first draft, editing and developing is so much easier!

Want to also know the 11 mistakes high school students tend to make in creative writing? Check out this  

STEP 4: Don't be afraid to add "spice"

Now it's time for my favourite part; adding the flavour! This is what will make your writing stand out from the crowd! Take some risks , don’t be afraid to rewrite parts of your piece or use language techniques that are out of your comfort zone! 

Here are a few of my favourite features to use when creative writing:

• Flashbacks / Foreshadowing (these are good tools to subtly suggest a character’s backstory and add some mystery – especially if you use third-person language to make it more cryptic) 

E.g. As he entered the quadrangle for the first time since the accident, a wave of nostalgia hit Jack… The boy chuckled as the girl ran across the quadrangle to meet him, her cheeks rosy from the frosty air. The pale orange sky was transforming into a deep violet and the new-formed shadows cast dancing silhouettes on the young couple. The boy took the girl’s hand, making a silent promise to himself to protect her smile forever. A promise he would fail to keep…

• Personification (giving inanimate objects some life to spice up your descriptions!)

E.g. Her favourite oak tree stood proudly in the middle of the park, arms outstretched, waving to those that passed by.

• Oxymoron (contradictory words or groups of words)

E.g. Deafening silence, blinding darkness, cold fire

If you want to enhance your language or use different adjectives to what you normally use, https://www.thesaurus.com/ is your best friend! 😉 

If you're stuck on how to develop your descriptions and make them more vivid, I suggest relating back to the five senses . Ask yourself, what can the character see? What can they smell? What does the setting they're in sound like?

E.g. He was paralysed in front of the caskets… the cotton wrapped, caterpillar-like bodies, the oppressive silence of the parlour made him feel sick. And the overpowering stench of disinfectant mixed with already-wilting flowers certainly didn’t help.

STEP 5: Read your writing out loud

It can be awkward at first, but have some fun with it! Put on an accent, pretend you're a narrator, and read your writing. It really helps you to gauge the flow of the piece , and also identify things you might need to change. Or even better, read your writing to a friend or family member - ask them how they feel and what their initial thoughts are after hearing your piece .

Either way, reflection is one of the best ways to improve your writing and get it to the next level.

That’s all there is to it folks! Follow this simple recipe and you’ll be cooking up a creative-writing storm! Good luck! 😊

Want more tips on how you can achieve an A+ in creative writing? Read this blog post.

1. Dissecting the prompt

2. Essay Topic and Body Paragraphs Breakdown

3. Resources

Like A House On Fire  is currently studied in VCE English under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our  Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response .

Dissecting the Prompt

Dissecting a collection of short stories can be very challenging due to the many characters involved, and the different themes. But what most students don’t realise is that almost all the stories in the anthology have common and overlapping themes. And that’s what you need to focus on when you’re building your essay. I’m going to go through one essay topic to demonstrate how you’re expected to dissect and plan the essay. This is how I planned my essays ate the beginning of the year when I was still struggling with writing an essay on short stories and wanted everything to be clear to me before I start writing so that I know exactly what I will be covering. 

Although many of the characters in like a house on fire are dealing with physical and emotional pain, it is their resilience that will be remembered by the reader. Do you agree?

So first of all, you need to highlight all the important aspects of this question.

Although many of the characters in like a house on fire are dealing with  physical and emotional pain , it is  their resilience  that will be remembered by the reader. Do you agree?

Now that we have highlighted the important parts that the question is inviting us to discuss, we know that we need to mention characters who are dealing with physical and emotional trauma yet rise above their tribulations, leaving the readers hopeful and optimistic. In doing so, you’ve pretty much discussed everything the prompt wants you to, but you can always go one step further and have a rebuttal paragraph. What I mean by that is: find a character who is faced with physical or emotional trauma yet gives up and becomes trapped in his/her imperfect reality. That way you show the assessor your knowledge of the text because you show them that even though Kennedy focuses on the resilience of her characters, she also sheds light on the reality that some people don’t have the strength to recover from such traumas.

Detailed Plan

What I personally do after dissecting my prompt is have a plan of what I’m going to be covering in each paragraph. The aim for a high scoring essay is to cover 5-6 short stories, if you chose to cover only 3-4 then from my experience the maximum you can score is an 8/10.

I’m going to split my essay into three sections each covering a certain aspect of my prompt.

First paragraph

Which characters struggled with physical trauma yet rose above it? 

1. In ‘Flexion’, Kennedy explores the pain and anguish Frank feels as he fights his injury, determined not to let it destroy him through her use of linguistic imagery whereby the slimily of Frank ‘[clawing] himself up onto the machinery’ as he is ‘growling like an animal’ depicts the sheer resolve that he exhibits as he tries to overcome the physical pain and handicap that threaten his independence. Thus, his resilience becomes admired by the readers who realise that despite almost dying, he chooses to alter his imperfect circumstances.

2. In the eponymous story ‘Like a House on Fire’, the unnamed protagonist suffers from a herniated disc that hinders his ability to carry out his role as a husband and a father yet he chooses to alter his imperfect reality by working his ‘teeth gritted way up the stairs’ not once but twice, in hope of finding a solution to the stagnation taking place in his own marriage.

Second paragraph

Which characters struggled with emotional trauma yet rose above it? 

1. In ‘Waiting’, the protagonist is waiting in a cold clinic whereby she will be told that she has suffered yet another miscarriage. Despite the harrowing pain she feels and the feeling of something ‘ebbing away’ leaving her once again without a ‘viable’ child, she chooses to move forward and declares that she is ‘not a martyr, just someone who sees what need to be done and does it’.

2. Michelle in ‘Five-Dollar Family’, has to adjust all her dreams of Des becoming the perfect father and boyfriend when she realises, he’ll be going to jail. Thus, Michelle’s epiphany that ‘she is got everything this baby needs now’ and no longer sees any value in Des allow for self-growth and ultimately the ability to cope with single parenting.

Third paragraph

Which characters are unable to show resilience and become prisoners of their imperfect circumstances? 

1. In ‘Sleepers’, Ray becomes a sleeper in his own life in the aftermath of his break up. Unlike many of the short stories in the collection, Sleepers is one that does not end with the optimism of a new start but rather ends with Ray being trapped again in his life waiting ‘to take what was coming to him’ thus signifying the damage his loneliness has cost him; whereby his life has become a series of lethargic and meaningless events.

After planning which stories, we want to discuss in the essay, we can now begin the writing process. So essentially the most important part of writing your essay is planning it and making sure you understand properly what you need to answer in your essay.

Later in the year when you are doing EAL/English practice papers, it is quite unrealistic for you to create such a detailed plan considering the time restrictions. So, I will run you through how I planned my essay in an actual exam situation.

So just like we did with the detailed plan, we highlight the important parts of the question that will need to be discussed in the essay.

Then you need to think of the stories that represent physical pain yet the characters rise above their tribulations:

2. Like a House on Fire

Then you need to think of the stories that represent emotional pain:

2. Five-Dollar Family

Then you need to think of the rebuttal story whereby the characters suffer but do not exhibit resilience:

1. Sleepers

So essentially in the short plan you just outline the stories that you would like to mention and split them up according to which aspect of the prompt they will be answering rather than actually writing dot points on each one. So your plan becomes less detailed but rather just an outline so you stay on track and do not ramble.

If you found this essay breakdown helpful, then you might want to check out our Like a House on Fire Study Guide which includes 5 A+ sample essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY these essays achieved A+ so you reach your English goals!

By the way, to download a PDF version of this guide for printing or offline use, click here !

VCE Text Response Study Guide

Like a House on Fire Essay Topic Breakdown

Close analysis of 'Cake' from Like a House on Fire

'Cake' from Like a House on Fire YouTube Video

The Ultimate guide to VCE Text Response

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion ‍

• What Is The Creative Response?
• What Are You Expected To Cover? (Creative Writing Criteria)
• Literary Elements (Characterisation, Themes, Language, Symbolism, Imagery)
• LSG's unique REPLICATE and IMAGINE strategy
• Sample A+ Creative Response
• Writing The Written Explanation
• Resources To Help You Prepare For Your Creative Response

1. What Is The Creative Response?

The Creative Response, which forms part of the ‘Reading and creating texts’ component of the study design, is part of the 1st Area of Study (AoS 1) - meaning that the majority of students will tackle the Creative Response in Term 1. Unlike the analytical text response, in the Creative Response you will be asked to write your own imaginative piece in response to a selected text. 

You are expected to read and understand the selected text, analyse its key features, and write a creative piece which demonstrates your comprehension of the text.

2. What Are You Expected To Cover? (Creative Writing Criteria)

The creative writing task assesses your ability to combine features of an existing text with your own original ideas. The key intention here is to demonstrate your understanding of the world of the text. You can achieve this by exploring and applying selected elements from the text, such as context, themes, literary devices like symbols, and/or characters. You should also consider the values embedded within the text - this includes explicit values (which can be seen on the surface of the text) and implied values (values we uncover through analysis of the text’s deeper meaning). Try to reflect these values within your writing. 

Your piece will be a creative response, after all, so you should apply the conventions of this style of writing. Firstly, your creative should follow the structure of a beginning, middle, and end. We can also think of this as rising tension, climax, and resolution. Secondly, you should develop an authentic use of language, voice and style to make your writing more engaging and sophisticated. Thirdly, you can use literary devices to build meaning and depth within your piece. As always, your writing should be consistent with the rules of spelling, punctuation, and syntax (that is, written expression) in Standard Australian English.

Part of this assessment is the Written Explanation, which is a chance for you to explain and justify your creative writing choices. Within the Written Explanation, you should reflect on your writing process and analyse your own work. The primary goal here is to explain the links you’ve made to the original text, by considering features like purpose, context, and language. 

Ultimately, to put it simply, you are expected to understand the selected text and demonstrate this in your creative piece. If you're looking to quickly increase your creative skills, watch our incredibly popular video below:

3. Literary Elements (Characterisation, Themes, Language, Symbolism, Imagery)

Literary elements are different parts of the creative writing equation that ensure your piece is consistent with the expected features of this type of writing. When selecting which literary elements to include in your piece, remember to consider the original text and ensure that your work, while creative, also demonstrates your ability to replicate some of its elements.

Characterisation

As we know, characters are fictionalised people within the world of a creative text. Almost an entire century ago, the English writer E. M. Forster famously introduced the concept of flat and round characters in his 1927 book, ‘Aspects of the Novel’. According to Forster, flat characters can be defined by a single characteristic; in other words, they are two-dimensional. For example, the characters of The Simpsons could arguably all be defined as flat characters; Homer is characterised as a slob, Flanders is defined by his Christian faith, Lisa is stereotyped as the ‘teacher’s pet’, and Bart is portrayed as rebellious. We can define all of these characters as flat because they are labelled to the audience in these two-dimensional ways.

In contrast to this, round characters have multiple characteristics, which brings them closer to seeming like real, human figures. The personality of these characters extends beyond a single attribute. In Harry Potter , Harry himself is a round character because of how much we learn about him over the course of the series. For example, we find out about Harry’s difficult childhood, his personal challenges, his love interests, and we see his personality grow from book to book. 

Whether the characters of your creative are flat or round will depend on their involvement within, and importance to, the storyline of your piece. Generally speaking, however, you should aim for the central character(s) to be round, while any minor characters are likely to be flat. Developing round major characters will ensure that they are realistic and believable. In turn, you’ll be able to better demonstrate your imaginative skills and understanding of the text through these characters. 

Themes are the key ideas and issues that are relevant to the storyline of a fictional text. We can identify themes by labelling the main areas of meaning within a text and thinking about the messages that emerge throughout the text. To build your understanding of themes within a particular text and to evaluate the themes of your own creative, consider the following questions:

• What is the text really about, beyond superficial elements like plot and character?
• What is the text saying to its reader?
• What are the core idea(s) or issue(s) within the text?
• What idea(s) or issue(s) do the message(s) of the text correspond with?

To return to our example of The Simpsons , we could say that the themes within this sitcom include love and family, neighbourliness, and social class. From episode to episode, The Simpsons comments on these different issues. For example, Marge and Homer’s relationship, with its domestic setting and marital ups and downs, is a core aspect of the Simpsons household. Likewise, family is a major component of not only the Simpsons themselves, but also the broader Springfield community. The interactions between parents and children is evident on Evergreen Terrace with the Simpsons and the Flanders families, as well as in other settings such as Springfield Elementary School (where even an adult Principal Skinner is seen through his relationship with his elderly mother). These broad areas can be identified as the key thematic concerns of the series because each episode centres around these ideas.

Language refers to the way in which a piece of writing is expressed. We can define this as the ‘style’, or ‘tone’, of a text. The words and phrasing chosen by a writer determine how ideas are communicated. Effective language will be appropriate for the world of the text and contribute to the narrative in a meaningful way. There are a number of ways in which a piece of writing can be articulated and you should consider the nature of your piece and the language of the original text when deciding what type of language is most appropriate for your creative.

Dialogue, on the other hand, is an exchange of conversation between characters. Dialogue is often used to provide context to a text, develop its storyline, or offer direct insight into a character’s thoughts, feelings and personality. ‍

A symbol can be defined as a thing that represents something else. Symbols are typically material objects that hold abstract meaning. For example, in Harry Potter , Harry’s scar is a symbol of his difficult childhood. Because Harry’s scar causes him pain in Voldemort’s presence, it can also be said that the scar is symbolic of the connection forged between Harry and Voldemort when his attempt to kill Harry failed. As this example suggests, symbols are often associated with the text’s themes - in this case, Harry’s scar relates to the themes of childhood and death. 

The key with symbolism is to connect a particular theme or idea to a physical object. For example, the theme of grief could be portrayed through a photo of someone who has died. Likewise, the theme of change might be represented by a ticking clock, while a character’s clothing could be a symbol of their wealth or status.

For more literary elements, also known as metalanguage, check out our lists:

Part 1 – Metalanguage Word Bank For Books

Part 2 – Metalanguage Word Bank For Films With Examples

And if that's not enough, you'll also want to check out our How To Write A Killer Creative Study Guide where we unpack these elements in more detail AND analyse imagery, foreshadowing, flash-backs and flash-forwards! 

4. LSG's unique REPLICATE and IMAGINE Strategy

If we think about the criteria of creative writing, we’ll see that much of this task involves demonstrating your understanding of the text. For this reason, being able to replicate the world of the text will enable you to showcase your understanding and, in turn, to meet the criteria your teacher will be looking for. Let’s consider how you can strengthen your creative by taking the time to understand the text on a meaningful level and reflect this within your writing.

Step 1: Read

Writing a strong creative piece begins with reading. Reading the text (or watching, in the case of a film) is essential to developing an informed creative response. The more closely you read, the more confidently you’ll be able to engage with the important ideas and textual elements necessary to take your creative from good to great. 

While reading the text for the first time, focus on developing your understanding and clarifying any uncertainty. I would recommend taking the time to read a plot summary before beginning on the text - this will allow you to go in with a reasonable idea of what to expect, and also provide a security net to minimise your likelihood of misunderstanding the plot. 

While reading the text once is sufficient, you will benefit from reading it twice. A second reading enables you to take the time to annotate key sections of the text and to further your initial understanding. If you choose to read the text a second time, pay extra attention to the themes and inner-workings of the text. This means reading between the lines and starting to form an analytical understanding of what the text is about, beyond surface ideas like plot and character. 

Annotating the text (or note-taking, in the case of a film) is an important aspect of any academic reading. The key intention is to ensure your annotation approach is as convenient and accessible as possible. To achieve this, I suggest listing the key themes, allocating a different coloured highlighter to each, and colour-coding sections of the text which you think relate to each specific theme. This will give your annotating process more direction compared to the common approach of simply leaving notes in the margin, which may be time-consuming to read over later. 

I would also recommend making the most of coloured tabs - these enable you to immediately see the key sections of the text, rather than flicking through aimlessly. If you can colour-code these tabs according to the same key as your highlighters, you’ll be able to instantly spot which sections correspond with which theme (and trust me, this will come in handy if you decide to replicate these themes in your own creative).

Aside from annotating the text itself, try to ensure that the notes you write are concise - not only will this save you time, but it’ll mean you focus on condensing the key information. In turn, you’ll have less material to sift through later on, giving you the ability to jump straight into planning and drafting your own piece. This video, How to effectively annotate your books for school! and this blog post, How to effectively annotate your texts in VCE will provide you with more helpful strategies to get the most out of annotating. ‍

Step 2: Understand the World of the Text

‍ Regardless of how many times you read the text, your understanding will be strengthened by seeking out resources to help you think about the text on a deeper level. A good starting point for this is to have a look for LSG blog posts and videos that are about your specific text.

Watching or reading interviews with the author of the text is a fantastic way to hear directly about their intention in writing the text - after all, they are the single most authoritative source on the text. The goal here is to understand the author’s intent (something we’ll expand on in Chapter 8: Strengthening Your Creative ) so that you can reflect this within your own writing. Focus on how the author explains certain aspects of their text, as well as any points they make about its context and background. 

Additionally, peer discussions and asking questions in class will help you to further develop your understanding of the text and clarify any uncertainty. Seeing the text from another’s perspective will develop your knowledge beyond a superficial understanding of the text and introduce ideas you may not have otherwise considered.

Remember to take notes as you go - these will be useful to reflect on later. ‍

Step 3: Implement Your Understanding ‍

Okay, so you’ve taken the time to read and annotate the text, and you’ve sought out external resources to further develop your comprehension. Now we want to apply this understanding within a creative context. Reflect on what you know about the text. Think closely: What have you learnt about its context, characters, and themes? What elements of the text stand out? The goal here is to draw inspiration from the text and begin to think about which aspects of the text you might like to replicate within your creative piece. Begin to put together a shortlist to keep track of your ideas. The aim here is to develop a picture of the parts of the text you might decide to replicate in your own writing. 

Although understanding and replicating the text is important, if we were to only do this, your piece wouldn’t have much creative flair or originality. Here, we’ve taught you the ‘ Replicate ’ component of this strategy . If you’d like additional information about how to elevate this to an A+ standard AND a comprehensive explanation of the ‘ Imagine ’ component, check out our How to Write A Killer Creative study guide ! ‍

5. Sample A+ Creative Response

Here's a sample excerpt from a creative piece written by Taylah Russell, LSG tutor and 47 study scorer, in response to the short story 'Waiting' in Cate Kennedy's anthology, Like a House on Fire :

"The clinician presses forcefully into my lower abdomen, refusing to stop and accept my reality. The poor thing, deprived of such hopelessness as I, seems to honestly believe that the longer he agonises over finding something, the more likely it is that some form of life will appear. That those horoscopes in those grimy magazines, written by journalists who’ve probably been fired from their former reputable jobs, may actually hold some validity. I place my hands over my eyes, tentatively pressing against my eyelids, turning my surroundings a dark black and blocking the stream of water that has readied itself to spill when the time comes, when that young boy finally gives up and realises that his degree holds no value in providing me with happiness."

As we can see in this paragraph, the writer is replicating certain themes from the original text, such as grief. Additionally, this piece is written from the perspective of the original protagonist, which means that its characters and context are also directly inspired by Kennedy. Ultimately, by carrying across these text elements of theme, character, and context, the writer is able to clearly demonstrate an extensive knowledge of the text , while also showcasing their creativity. To see more of this creative piece as well as another A+ example, check out the How to Write A Killer Creative study guide !

6. Writing The Written Explanation ‍

For a detailed overview of the Written Explanation, check out our Written Explanation Explained blog post. ‍

7. Resources To Help You Prepare For Your Creative Response

Youtube videos ‍.

We create general creative writing videos where I explain the method behind this task: ‍

We also create videos that outline ways you can set yourself apart in this assessment:

‍ ‍ Check out our entire YouTube channel (and don't forget to subscribe for regular new videos!). ‍

Blog Posts ‍

Our awesome team of English high-achievers have written a number of blog posts about creative writing to help you elevate the standard of your work! ‍

5-Step Recipe for Creative Writing   ‍

How to achieve A+ in creative writing (Reading and Creating) ‍

"Creative Response to Text" Ideas ‍

Written Explanation - Explained ‍

Reading My 10/10 Marked CREATIVE GAT essay ‍

VCE Creative Response to Runaway by Alice Munro

VCE English Unit 3, Areas of Study 2: Creating Texts - What Is It?

VCE Creative Writing: How To Structure Your Story

Study guide ‍.

And if that isn't enough, I'd highly recommend our How To Write A Killer Creative study guide .

In this study guide, we teach you the unique REPLICATE and IMAGINE strategy, a straightforward and methodical approach to creative writing. The study guide also covers our step-by-step method to guide you through every phase of creative writing (no more not knowing where to start!) AND includes excerpts from multiple A+ creative pieces. Find out more and download a free preview here . 

Updated 08/01/2021

For a detailed guide on Language Analysis, including how to prepare for your SAC and exam, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Language Analysis .

Often, beginning a Language Analysis essay can be tough. How do you start? Do you even need to write an introduction? There are many answers to these questions- some say that because an introduction is not explicitly worth any marks, you don’t need to bother. However, an introduction can be a great way to organise your thoughts and make sure you set up your analysis properly…as long as you don’t waste a lot of time writing unnecessary sentences. 

If you'd like to see exactly what goes into an A+ Analysing Argument response, from the introduction to body paragraphs and beyond, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook!

You can use a simple, easy to remember formula that will help you to identify the key aspects of the piece very early on, and this will show your examiner that you know exactly what you’re talking about- all you have to do is to remember the acronym "CDFASTCAT”.

Here is a breakdown of each aspect and its importance:

This gives the audience some background information on the issue, and “sets the scene” for the article or text. In ANY language analysis article/piece you come across (whether it be in the exam or in practice), there is always a box with the context of the article explained. ALWAYS read it and let it influence your analysis. If you exemplify consideration of the information provided to you in your analysis, you will show a deeper understanding of the issue, and your analysis will be more accurate and detailed. Aim to demonstrate that you understand why the article was written, and its surrounding circumstances.

This gives the article a wider context, and helps the audience understand why the author may have a certain viewpoint. It is also good practice to properly reference the article in your analysis, which includes the date, author, source and title.

The form of a Language Analysis text can vary, from newspaper articles, blogs, comics or even speeches. Each form has its own set of conventions which can help you identify language techniques, and can change the way the message is communicated to the audience. For example, in a speech, the speaker is more likely to directly address their audience than the editor of a newspaper may in an editorial.

When writing a Language Analysis essay (or any essay for that matter), always refer to the author by either their full name, their surname only, or a title and a surname - NEVER by their first name alone. For example: 'Lyle Shelton', 'Mr. Lyle Shelton', 'Mr. Shelton' and 'Shelton' are all okay to use in your essay. However, you would never use 'Lyle' on its own.

The source of a text can influence your understanding of the audience. For example, an article written on a blog about gardening is likely to have a different audience to a financial journal. Including the source is also an important so that the article is properly referenced.

Including the title in the introduction is critical to properly introducing the article. Remember to analyse major techniques in the title if there are any during the body of your essay!

Contention ‍

Identifying the author’s contention can be the most difficult aspect of Language Analysis for many students. The trick is to ask yourself the question 'What is the author’s argument?' If you want to break it down even further, try asking 'What does the author want to change/why/what is it like now/what do they want it to be?'

Depending on the audience, different techniques and appeals may work in different ways. For example, an appeal to the hip-pocket nerve is more likely to have an effect on single parents who are struggling financially than it is on young children or very wealthy people.

You should not include a tone word in your introduction as the author’s tone will shift throughout the text. However, identifying the tone early on is important so that you can later acknowledge any tonal shifts.

Often, articles will include some sort of graphic; it is important that you acknowledge this in your introduction and give a brief description of the image - enough so your analysis can be read and understood on its own. The description of the image is the equivalent of an embedded quote from an article; both are used to provide evidence to support your analysis.

10 Things to Look for in Cartoons is a great resource to help you learn what to look for in graphics. Don't be put-off by the name; you don't need to be studying cartoons specifically in order to learn heaps from this blog post.

If you follow the CDFASTCAT approach, your Language Analysis introductions will become easy to write, straight to the point and full of all the most important information - good luck! ☺

I am Malala and Made in Dagenham is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing). For a detailed guide on Comparative , check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative .

• Compare the importance and role of idols and role models in I am Malala and Made in Dagenham.
• Describe the role of fear and obligation as an obstacle to progress by comparing I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• ‘As we change the things around us, the things around us change us’. Discuss the extent to which this is true by comparing I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Discuss the benefit of adversity in strengthening one’s will to persevere by comparing I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Resilience is more important than success. Discuss whether this is true within the texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Compare the role and importance of family within the texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Compare both I am Malala and Made in Dagenham in relation to the importance of language as a device (spoken and written).
• Compare the forms of resistance displayed by protagonists Malala Yousafzai and Rita O’Grady in texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham and decide why they chose these methods.
• Analyse the effectiveness of small triumphs creating ripple effects in wider communities by comparing I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Discuss whether support networks are intrinsic for a single figure to create positive change by comparing I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• The main protagonists are galvanized by the people they wish not to be like rather than their role models. Discuss to what extent this is true by comparing the texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham.
• Made in Dagenham and I am Malala explore the vices of deceit, appeasement and scapegoating. Discuss these by comparing both texts, commenting on how they pose a threat to the causes of both protagonists.
• What role do interpersonal relationships play in the texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham? Can these relationships be both positive and negative? Discuss.
• Change cannot be immediate but gradual. To what extent is this true in texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham .
• Examine the role of the media in driving social change by comparing texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham ‍
• A patriarchal society is invariably one that is repressive. Discuss this statement and its truths or falsities by comparing texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham. ‍
• Discuss solidarity in relation to social, historical and cultural progress and whether it can be both positive and negative by comparing texts I am Malala and Made in Dagenham.

Get exclusive weekly advice from Lisa, only available via email.

Power-up your learning with free essay topics, downloadable word banks, and updates on the latest VCE strategies.

latest articles

Check out our latest thought leadership on enterprise innovation..

VCE English Unit 3, Area of Study 2: Creating Texts - What Is It?

Breaking Down Themes & Key Quotes in The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie

Keep in touch

Have questions? Get in touch with us here - we usually reply in 24 business hours.

Unfortunately, we won't be able to answer any emails here requesting personal help with your study or homework here!

Copyright © Lisa's Study Guides. All Rights Reserved. The VCAA does not endorse and is not affiliated with Lisa's Study Guides or vcestudyguides.com. The VCAA provides the only official, up to date versions of VCAA publications and information about courses including the VCE. VCE® is a registered trademark of the VCAA.

03 9028 5603 Call us: Monday to Friday between 3pm - 6pm or leave us a message and we'll call you back! Address: Level 2 Little Collins St Melbourne 3000 VIC

• study guides
• lesson plans
• homework help

The Golden Age Study Questions & Topics for Discussion

(read more)

FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:

The Golden Age: a Multifaceted Exploration of History and Culture

• Categories: World History

About this sample

Words: 655 |

Published: Sep 5, 2023

Words: 655 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The historical genesis of the golden age, golden age across cultures: diverse representations, reflecting values and aspirations, conclusion: an enduring tapestry of human aspirations.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: History

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1729 words

7 pages / 3347 words

2 pages / 729 words

2 pages / 1047 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on World History

Delgado, James P. 'Kublai Khan's Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada.' Vancouver Maritime Museum, 2010.Myers, Robert J. 'The Children of Pride: A True Story of Georgia and the Civil War.' Yale University Press, [...]

In the annals of history, the classical Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta are often portrayed as polar opposites. While Sparta is lauded for its unparalleled military prowess and austere lifestyle, Athens is celebrated for [...]

The Historical Impact of Sugar: Analyze the profound historical impact of sugar on global trade, economies, and societies, discussing its role in the development of the Atlantic slave trade and the rise of plantation [...]

Delgado, J. P. (2008). Khubilai Khan's Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada. HarperCollins.Seymour, G. (1995). Divided Loyalties: Fort St. George During the American Revolution. Rutgers University Press.Belloc, H. (1926). [...]

A scream rang through the church. Tituba, a Puritan slave who claimed to believe voodoo magic coursed through her veins had to confess to God to pray away the devil . In the year 1620, after the Puritans came from France and [...]

The fall of the Roman Empire was the first steps of Monasteries in the third century. A young man named Saint Anthony led and taught the teachings of Christ in Western Europe. Saint Anthony led a worldly routine to follow [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Islamic Golden Age Essay

Introduction, the islamic golden age: an overview, islamic contributions to knowledge, the decline of the golden age.

While modern-day Islam is not renowned for its role in the contemporary scientific field, medieval Islam is credited with making enormous contributions to scientific thinking and practice. This great contribution by Islam was made in the legendary “Islamic Golden Age”. This age was characterized by significant scientific endeavors in the Arabian world. Much of the progress made in science by the contemporary world can be attributed to innovations made by Muslims in the Golden Age. This Golden Age of Islamic science occurred from the 8th to the 13th centuries CE. As a whole, the Golden Age is a period typified by glorious scientific advancement in the Arab World. This paper will set out to highlight the role that Islam played in the advancement of science during the Golden Age. The paper will highlight some of the accomplishments made by famous Muslim scientists in order to underscore the contribution of Islam to science.

The Islamic Golden Age began with the ascendancy of the Abbasid Caliphate in the mid-eighth century. This Caliphate moved the capital of the Muslim world from Damascus to Baghdad and set out to build an empire that valued scholarly knowledge. The Golden Age was made possible by a number of important factors. Arguably, the most important factor was the unification of the previously disparate Arab tribes into one strong nation through religion. The great feat was accomplished by Prophet Mohammed who introduced the religion of Islam and prompted the formation of a united Arabic nation. This unification greatly strengthened the Arabic people and they were able to control and/or influenced large parts of the plan within a century after the death of the Prophet. The unification of the geographically extensive Muslim Empire made communication easy as the Arabic language was used in all provinces. Scholars could therefore travel and share ideas with each other.

The guidelines offered by Prophet Mohammed concerning knowledge also contributed to the development of the Golden Age. The Prophet challenged Muslims to search for knowledge and the Quran clearly articulated, “The scholar’s ink is more sacred than the blood of martyrs”. Muslim scholars, therefore, endeavored to increase their knowledge and innovation in the years after the death of the Prophet. Muslims made use of the knowledge of the great ancient civilizations to come up with their own achievements. By studying the past research of Romans, Greeks, Indians, and Persians, Islamic scholars were able to create a glorious future. The result of their work is what made the Golden Age significant.

The golden age was characterized by a gigantic endeavor to acquire and translate the ancient science knowledge from other civilizations and then an endeavor to make splendid original thinking and contributions. A number of specific fields obtained noteworthy advancement during this age of great progress.

Biomedical Sciences

An example was the significant flowering of knowledge in biomedical sciences in the Islamic world during the Golden Age. Muslim scholars went into great troubles to translate and analyze the works of prominent physicians such as Hippocrates, Rufus, and Galen. The scholars proceeded to synthesize the works of these great minds and elaborate on the knowledge gathered. This led to the development of a number of prominent Arab pioneers such as Yuhanna ibn Massuwayh who performed numerous dissections in an attempt to discover how the human body operated. Through his work, he was able to provide original material on the capillary system.

Likewise, Al-Razi is considered the “greatest physician of Islam and Medieval Ages”. Born in the city of Ray, Al-Razi demonstrated a deep thirst for knowledge and entered into the field of medicine in his later years. Al-Razi is the individual who identified smallpox and measles, writing an influential treatise on these two ailments. He wrote numerous works on medicine and treatment and was a pioneer in pediatrics and obstetrics. Al-Razi authored the al-Hawi, which is a “comprehensive book on medical works based on medical knowledge from the Greeks, Syrians, and early Arabs”. This book is widely regarded as the most extensive and comprehensive book ever written by a single medical scholar and it served as an authority in medicine for centuries. Al-Razi was also knowledgeable in other sciences including chemistry. Al-Razi was able to apply his knowledge of chemistry to his medical practice with great success. He was the first physician to make use of alcohol as a disinfectant when treating his patients. He also made use of opium as anesthesia as he performed surgery on his patients.

Another great Muslim pioneer was Az-Zahrawi who engaged in numerous experiments in human surgery. Falagas et al. (2006: 1582) reveal that because of the revolutionary nature of Az-Zahrawi’s work, he is known as the father of surgery. This great pioneer engaged in successful tracheotomy and lithotomy on numerous patients. He is also credited with introducing the use of cotton in medicine to dress wounds. Az-Zahrawi was also among the first physicians to properly identify breast cancer and offer suggestions on how it could be detected. Al-Zahrawi’s work was so impressive that it drove Western scholars to increase their interest in the medical knowledge of the Muslims. Al-Zahrawi’s book on surgery, which was a culmination of what was known in his time, became a standard in Europe. His work was unique since it was the first medical work to contain diagrams of surgical instruments. His work provided novel knowledge on issues such as fractures and paralysis due to spinal injuries. His book was the first to offer treatments for deformities of the mouth and dental arches.

The era also produced the great Muslim pioneer in medicine, Ibn Sina, who remains to be the most highly recognized Muslim scholars in the field of medicine. He had started practicing medicine by the age of eighteen and by the age of twenty-one, he had written an encyclopedia of medicine. The book “The Canon of Medicine” authored by Ibn Sina was radical in its time and even today, it is the most important book on medicine ever written. Some of the contributions made by this book include the differentiation of meningitis from other neurologic diseases, the identification and description of tuberculosis as a contagious disease, and the introduction of urethral drug installation. Ibn Sina also stressed on the importance of hygiene in promoting human health and encouraged a holistic approach to patient care.

The House of Wisdom

The Islamic Golden Era contributed to the development of knowledge with the establishment of the House of Wisdom in 1004CE. The House of Wisdom (Bayt-el-Hikma) was built with the help of a grant offered by the Abbasid Caliphate. This academic institution, which was established in Baghdad, served as a major global intellectual hub. It was a major library where all significant knowledge from all over the world was translated into Arabic and stored for use by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. In addition to translating almost all the scientific works of the classical Greeks into Arabic, Muslim scholars also added commentaries and made original contributions.

The House of Wisdom contributed to the advancement of research efforts by scholars and scientists in the Golden Age era. This House of Wisdom was a true science academy that provided a center where high-level mathematicians and scientists could work and consult. Research indicates that many great contributions to world knowledge came from this medieval Science Academy. The union of scientific tradition and an effective centralized government enabled sustained research to take place in the House of Wisdom. Scholars from other parts of the Muslim world were attracted to this academy and they visited it frequently making their own contributions to the library. They added their unique knowledge and research. The collaboration made possible by the Bayt-el-Hikma led to growth in scientific knowledge in the period. For example, African scientists were able to communicate with their colleagues over the vast stretches of Muslim influence, from Spain and Italy on the West across Africa and Asia, to China on the East. By using the Bayt-el-Hikma as the central location and Arabic as the common language of learning, knowledge was exchanged and great advances were fostered.

Also, Islam made a great contribution to the development of historical knowledge. Muslim scholars in the Golden Era were responsible for the preservation of knowledge from extinction. Through their scholarly efforts, they sought out knowledge of nearly all of the other hitherto major civilizations. These works were then translated into Arabic and disseminated as widely as possible. Information that would otherwise have been destroyed or lost forever was therefore preserved due to the Muslim scholars of the Golden Era.

While Islam was demonstrating a pre-eminence in every field of learning, Europe was lurking behind. The prominent encyclopedist of sciences, George Sarton, in a comparison of European with Muslim learning during the Golden Age wrote moving from European to Islamic learning was like “passing from the shade to the open sun and from a sleepy world into one tremendously active one”. This overwhelming superiority of the Islamic culture continued to prevail through the 10th century. The West was able to experience scientific growth by using knowledge from the Islamic culture.

The Muslims were able to make astonishing progress in the field of astronomy. Great advances were made in this field through the works of Ibn Yunus. This mathematician was one of the great astronomers of all time. Ibn Yunus prepared the “Hakimi Tables” which contained observations of eclipses and conjunctions of the planets. Ibn Yunus made use of superior equipment to test and improve the observations of earlier astronomers and their measurements of astronomical constants. He was able to accomplish significant feats such as solving the problems of spherical astronomy by use of orthogonal projections or the celestial sphere.

Nasir al-Din’s also made a significant contribution to astronomy. Due to his outstanding knowledge of the field, he was commissioned to build an observatory in Maraghah in Iran. This observatory was the most modern at its time and it had the most sophisticated scientific instruments and an expansive library. Nasir al-Din spent a considerable amount of time compiling a new set of planetary tables and he wrote a comprehensive book on astronomy. This book, the Zij-i Ilkhani, became a standard in the field of astronomy.

The contribution made by astronomers in the Golden Age contributed significantly to navigation. Muslim sailors were able to travel further into the expansive sea without getting lost. Travelers who ventured into distant lands could use the knowledge on the position of the constellations and the movements of the bright stars to establish the route to follow and to calculate the time.

Mathematics and Physics

The mathematics formulated in the Golden era was often used to solve practical problems. Even so, the Islamic mathematics tradition was not limited to this and some mathematicians established theorems and proofs. The Arabic thinkers surmised that theoretical mathematics was necessary to understand the world and practical mathematics were useful to solve everyday problems. Mathematics in the modern world has benefited much from the contributions of the Islamic culture. Scholars on mathematics point to the Islamic Golden Age as a time when many well-known Islamic mathematicians made monumental contributions to the field of mathematics. The significance of Islamic contributions to mathematics can be deduced from the fact that the prevalent mathematical terms such as ‘algebra’ and ‘algorithm’ have their roots in Arabic.

The Islamic Golden Age made a significant contribution to algebra through the works of a number of prominent Muslim mathematicians. Al-Khwarizmi is credited with having prepared the oldest astronomical table and produced works on arithmetic and algebra. However, his greatest accomplishment is in algebra. His text on the subject consisted of original research and it was the first of its kind. His treatises on algebra were of great importance and they served as the basis on which modern algebra is built. While al- Khwarizmi’s work did not use the algebraic symbols used today to solve equations, it was the original work on algebra and acted as a foundation from which the modern-day algebraic system is derived.

Abu Kamil went on to develop Al-Khowarizmi’s algebra at a higher level. He wrote a book on algebra and this book was the most advanced of its time. Sertima (1992: 368) reveals that Abu Kamil was able to work with complex irrational quantities and his work was used by prominent Western scholars such as Leonardo Fibonacci. Abu Kamil was able to develop a number of useful algebraic formulas that are still in use to date. His formulas were used to solve nonlinear solutions for indeterminate equations.

Great advances were made in measuring techniques during the Golden Age. One of the great Arabic scholars, al-Biruni did numerous studies on measurements of the earth and was able to measure the distance around the world with a light error. Al-Biruni observed the altitude of the North Star and proceeded to measure it from northern and southern vantage points. He then used trigonometry to come up with the figure for the earth’s circumference. While al-Biruni’s measurement of the circumference of the Earth was not entirely accurate, the result had a remarkably small error of 200 miles only.

Muslim scientists made a contribution in various areas of physics. The most renowned Islamic physicist was Ibn-Haytham who made groundbreaking revelations in optics engaging in an in-depth study on the nature of light in the human eye. Based on this study, he was able to demonstrate that humans are able to perceive objects since rays of light are reflected from the objects. This observation refuted the previously held theory of extra mission that suggested that human’s perceived objects since their eyes emitted energy. A further experiment by al-Haytham showed that images register on the retina and are then transmitted to the brain along optic nerves.

Architecture

The Islamic Golden Age led to a development in architecture as a number of innovations were made in the field. The social and religious needs compelled Muslim architects to develop their own creative stylistic features. During the Islamic Golden Age, most masonry structured were in arched, vaulted, or domed form, borrowing from the prominent Roman and Byzantine building traditions. A defining characteristic of Islamic architecture was that it made use of precise geometry. This style led to a distinct form that was unique to the Arabic world. Muslim builders aimed to achieve structures that would provide a conducive atmosphere in the hot and dry Middle East. The development of sophisticated window scoops became a key aspect of Islamic buildings. Muslim builders mastered the art of constructing these sophisticated window systems for climate control.

In addition to the aesthetic value of their creations, Muslim builders were concerned about the stability of their buildings. They, therefore, made use of designs that were less susceptible to earthquakes. They made use of the pointed arch and horseshoe arches in their structures. These features would become prominent in Western Gothic architecture.

The era after the Islamic Golden Age is referred to as the “age of decline”. It was marked by a significant slowdown in the scientific advances that the Islamic world has enjoyed for over a century. This period was characterized by a decline in the magnitude of scientific work and achievement in the Islamic world. This age started in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and by the fifteenth century, Islamic science had become a shadow of its previous self. This period made it possible for the Western world to catch up with Islamic progress and surpass it over the following centuries. Even so, the contributions made during the Islamic Golden Age continued to be used by the West and had spectacular results. The great knowledge and intellect obtained from the Islamic world had a major influence on the scientific practices of Europe in the subsequent centuries.

This paper set out to highlight the contributions made by Islam to the global scientific body, documenting how Muslim scholars made a considerable contribution to science using information from ancient civilizations, and enlarging their own knowledge to further various disciplines during the Islamic Golden Age. A number of Islamic works in mathematics, medicine, and astronomy became standard texts for scholars all over the world. Also, the paper has shown how Islamic scientific and scholarly works were developed in the Golden Age and gradually spread to Europe in the subsequent centuries. The great knowledge and intellect obtained from the Islamic world had a huge influence on Western science for centuries.

Abdalla, M. (2007). “Ibn KhaldĐn on the Fate of Islamic Science after the 11th Century.” Islam & Science , Vol. 5, No. 1. (Pp. 61-70). Web.

Basheer, A., Syed, A., & Siddiqui, A. (2005). Muslim Contributions to World Civilization. Paris: International Institute of Islamic Thought. Web.

Chavoushi, S. (2012). “Surgery for Gynecomastia in the Islamic Golden Age: Al-Tasrif of Al-Zahrawi (936–1013 AD).” International Scholarly Research Network, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Pp. 1-5). Web.

Essa, A., & Othman, A. (2010). Studies in Islamic Civilization: The Muslim Contribution to the Renaissance. Paris: IIT. Web.

Falagas, M., Zarkadoulia, E., & Samonis, G. (2006). “Arab science in the golden age (750-1258 C.E.) and today.” FASEB Journal, Vol. 20. No. 10. (Pp.1581-1586). Web.

Meri, J. (2004). Medieval Islamic civilization . NY: Routledge. Web.

Ofek, H. (2011). “Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science.” The New Atlantis, Vol. 3. No. 1. (Pp.3-23). Web.

Sertima, I. (1992). The Golden Age of the Moor . Boston: Transaction publishers. Web.

Shafiq, A. & Al-Roubaie, A. (2011). Globalization of Knowledge: Islam and Its Contributions . Manchester: Trafford Publishing. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, January 5). The Islamic Golden Age. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-islamic-golden-age/

"The Islamic Golden Age." IvyPanda , 5 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/the-islamic-golden-age/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'The Islamic Golden Age'. 5 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "The Islamic Golden Age." January 5, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-islamic-golden-age/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Islamic Golden Age." January 5, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-islamic-golden-age/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Islamic Golden Age." January 5, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-islamic-golden-age/.

• Al Razi and Ibn Sina Hospitals' Merger Advice
• Islamic Civilization and the Development of Astronomy
• Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi's Science Contributions
• The Tale of a Great Journey: "The Rihla" by Ibn Battuta
• Algebra in the Real World and Everyday Life
• Algebra and Modern Business Development
• Algebra in the Curriculum: Reasons to Choose
• Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
• Khalid Ibn Al Walid
• History of Algebra Brief Overview
• European Global Power: History and Modern Trends
• Innovation, Revolution and Global Crisis
• Technological Advancement Essay
• The Nation of Ghana - Demographic Data
• Industrialization and Changes of Western History

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Examples >
• Essay Topics

Essays on Golden Age

14 samples on this topic

To some students, crafting Golden Age papers comes easy; others need the help of various types. The WowEssays.com collection includes expertly crafted sample essays on Golden Age and related issues. Most definitely, among all those Golden Age essay examples, you will find a piece that resonates with what you perceive as a worthy paper. You can be sure that virtually every Golden Age paper presented here can be used as a bright example to follow in terms of general structure and composing different parts of a paper – introduction, main body, or conclusion.

If, however, you have a hard time coming up with a solid Golden Age essay or don't have even a minute of extra time to browse our sample directory, our free essay writer service can still be of great help to you. The thing is, our writers can craft a sample Golden Age paper to your individual needs and particular requirements within the pre-set period. Buy college essays today!

The Research Aim Research Proposal Template For Faster Writing

Research Outline Proposal: Development of Geometry by the Hippocrates of Chios

Introduction Hippocrates made mathematical advancement during the Golden Age in which fundamental concepts of geometry began thriving in the social dynamics (Huffman, and Filolaos 197). Some of the two core mathematic techniques that occurred during this era include axiomatic techniques to geometry and introduction of paradoxes by the Zeno of Elea (Bell 138). Principally, the paradoxes were concerned with the determination of infinite and infinitesimal mathematic concepts (Klette, and Azriel 455).

Free Research Paper On Pulp Fiction And American Culture

Free the history of radio research paper sample, proper research paper example about the history of women directors in film, schudson’s 5r model of culture essay example.

Introduction

This Topic Thus Presents The Classic Argumentative Essay For This Historical Issue.: Free Sample Argumentative Essay To Follow

INDIA’S CLASSIC AGE

Medical Profession: Now And During The Golden Age Of Doctoring Essay Sample

Draw topic & writing ideas from this capstone project on organizational structures and functions.

Mission statement for the Golden Age Hospital and Community Clinic

Gothic Art Era Research Paper Sample

Good example of research paper on aviation history in the usa, learning in the islamic world during the 9th to 14th centuries essays example.

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Study Like a Boss

The Golden Age Of Greece

The ancient statues and pottery of the Golden Stone Age of Greece were much advanced in spectacular ways. The true facts of Zeuss main reason for his statue. The great styles of the Kouros and the Kore. The story of The Blinding of Polphemus, along with the story of Cyclops. The Dori and Ionic column stone temples that were built in Greece that had an distinctive look. The true colors of the vase, Aryballos. The vase that carried liquids from one place to another.

The Lyric Poetry that was originally a song to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Zeus was considered, according to Homer, the father of the gods and of mortals. He did not create either gods or mortals; he was their father in the sense of being the protector and ruler both of the Olympian family and of the human race . He was lord of the sky, the rain god, and the cloud gatherer, who wielded the terrible thunderbolt. His breastplate was the aegis, his bird the eagle, his tree the oak. Zeus presided over the gods on Mount Olympus in Thessaly.

His principal shrines were at Dodona, in Epirus, the land of the oak trees and the most ancient shrine, famous for its oracle, and at Olympia, where the Olympian Games were celebrated in his honor every fourth year. The Nemean games, held at Nemea, northwest of Argos, were also dedicated to Zeus. Zeus was the youngest son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea and the brother of the deities Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. According to one of the ancient myths of the birth of Zeus, Cronus, fearing that he might be dethroned by one of his children, swallowed them as they were born.

Upon the birth of Zeus, Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes for Cronus to swallow and concealed the infant god in Crete, where e was fed on the milk of the goat Amalthaea and reared by nymphs. When Zeus grew to maturity, he forced Cronus to disgorge the other children, who were eager to take vengeance on their father. Zeus henceforth ruled over the sky, and his brothers Poseidon and Hades were given power over the sea and the underworld, respectively. The earth was to be ruled in common by all three. Beginning with the writings of the Greek poet Homer, Zeus is pictured in two very different ways .

He is represented as the god of justice and mercy, the protector of the weak, and the punisher of the wicked. As usband to his sister Hera, he is the father of Ares, the god of war; Hebe, the goddess of youth; Hephaestus, the god of fire; and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. At the same time, Zeus is described as falling in love with one woman after another and resorting to all kinds of tricks to hide his infidelity from his wife. Stories of his escapades were numerous in ancient mythology, and many of his offspring were a result of his love affairs with both goddesses and mortal women.

It is believed that, with the development of a sense of ethics in Greek life, the idea of a lecherous, sometimes ridiculous father od became distasteful, so later legends tended to present Zeus in a more exalted light. His many affairs with mortals are sometimes explained as the wish of the early Greeks to trace their lineage to the father of the gods. Zeus’s image was represented in sculptural works as a kingly, bearded figure. The most celebrated of all statues of Zeus was Phidias’s gold and ivory colossus at Olympia. The standing nude youth (kouros), the standing draped girl (kore), and the seated woman.

All emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure and how an increasingly accurate comprehension of human anatomy. The youths were either sepulchral or votive statues. Examples are Apollo (Metropolitan Museum), an early work; Strangford Apollo from Limnos (British Museum, London), a much later work; and the Anavyssos Kouros (National Museum, Athens). More of the musculature and skeletal structure is visible in this statue than in earlier works . The standing, draped girls have a wide range of expression, as in the sculptures in the Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Their drapery is carved and painted with the delicacy and meticulousness ommon to the details of sculpture of this period. The Blinding of Polyphemus. Polyphemus, a Cyclops, the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and of the nymph Thoosa. During his wanderings after the Trojan War , the Greek hero Odysseus and his men were cast ashore on Polyphemus’s island home, Sicily. The enormous giant penned the Greeks in his cave and began to devour them. Odysseus then gave Polyphemus some strong wine and when the giant had fallen into a drunken stupor, bored out his one eye with a burning stake.

The Greeks then escaped by clinging to the bellies of his sheep. Poseidon punished Odysseus for blinding Polyphemus by causing him many troubles in his subsequent wanderings by sea. In another legend, Polyphemus was depicted as a huge, one-eyed shepherd, unhappily in love with the sea nymph Galatea. Cyclops, giants with one enormous eye in the middle of the forehead. In Hesiod, the three sonsArges, Brontes, and Steropesof Uranus and Gaea, the personifications of heaven and earth, were Cyclopes. The Greek hero Odysseus was trapped with his men in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a son of Poseidon, god of the sea.

In order to escape from the cave after the giant devoured several men, Odysseus blinded him. Dori and Ionic Columns. Aware of Egyptian temples in stone, Greeks in the 7th century began to build their own stone temples in a distinctive style. They used limestone in Italy and Sicily, marble in the Greek islands and Asia Minor, and limestone covered with marble on the Greek mainland. Later they built chiefly in marble. The temples were rectangular and stood on a low, stepped terrace in an enclosure where rituals were performed. Small temples had a two-columned front porch, sometimes with portico before it.

Larger temples, with front and back porches, might have a six- columned portico before each porch or be entirely surrounded by a colonnade. The colonnade supported an entablature, or lintel, under the gabled, tiled roof. Architects developed two orders, or styles of columns, the Doric and the Ionic (see Column). Doric columns, which had no bases and whose capitals consisted of a square slab over a round cushion shape, were heavy and closely spaced to support the weight of the masonry. Their heaviness was relieved by the tapered and fluted shaft.

On he entablature, vertical triglyphs were carved over every column, leaving between them oblonglater squaremetopes, which were at first painted and later filled with painted reliefs. The Doric style originated on the mainland and became widespread. The Doric temples at Syracuse, Paestum, Selinus, Acragas, Pompeii, Tarentum (Taranto), Metapontum, and Corcyra (Kerkira) still exist. Especially notable is the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum (450 BC). Columns in the Ionic style, which began in Ionia (Asia Minor) and the Greek islands, are more slender, more narrowly fluted, and spaced farther apart than Doric olumns.

Each rests on a horizontally fluted round base and terminates in a capital shaped like a flat cushion rolled into volutes at the sides. The entablature, lighter than in the Doric style, might have a frieze. Examples of Ionic temples are in Ephesus near modern Izmir, Turkey, in Athens (the Erechtheum), and (some traces) in Naucratis, Egypt. There are three standard types of columns in Greek classical architecture. The oldest is the Doric, which is the widest, has no base, and is topped by a simple abacus with an echinus directly underneath it.

The Ionic column has a base and a capital made f scroll-shaped volutes directly beneath the abacus. The most elaborate column is the Corinthian. It has the most complex base, and the capital is made of layers of carved acanthus leaves ending in volutes. All three columns have fluted shafts. The Aryballos was a very colorful vase. The black figure technique and the very Eastern-looking panther are characteristic of the Orientalizing style. Also characteristic are the flower like decorations, which are blobs of paint scored with lines. The musculature and features of the panther are also the result of scoring.

The most haracteristic shape was that of the aryballos, a polychromed container for carrying liquids. The Corinthian artist developed a miniature style that made use of a wide variety of eastern motifs-sphinxes, winged human figures, floral designs-all of them arranged in bands covering almost the entire surface of the vase. White, yellow, and purple were often used to highlight details, produced a bold and striking effect. The small size of the pot mad them ideal for exporting. The vases are well made, the figures lively, and the style instantly recognizable as Corinthian-an important factor for ommercial success.

Lyric Poetry. The lyric was originally a song to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Two main types of lyrics were composed in ancient Greece: the personal and the choral lyric. The personal lyric was developed on the island of Lesbos (modern Lesvos). The poet and musician Terpander, who was born on Lesbos but lived much of his life in Sparta, introduced the seven-string lyre and set the poems of Homer to music. Most of his poems were nomes, or liturgical hymns, written in honor of a god, especially of Apollo, and sung by a single performer to the accompaniment of the lyre.

The surviving fragments of his work are of doubtful authenticity. Terpander was followed later in the 7th century BC by the great poets of Lesbos. Alcaeus treated political, religious, and personal themes in his lyrics and invented the Alcaic strophe. Sappho, the greatest woman poet of ancient Greece , invented the Sapphic strophe and wrote also in other lyric forms. Her poems of love and friendship are among the most finely wrought and passionate in the Western tradition. The Lesbian poets, as well as a number of later lyric poets from other Greek cities, composed their poems in the Aeolic dialect.

In the 6th century BC the playful lyrics of the poet Anacreon on wine and love were written in various lyric meters. Subsequent verse similar in tone and theme was known as anacreontic. The choral lyric was first developed in the 7th century BC by poets who wrote in the Dorian dialect. Dominant in the region around Sparta, the Dorian dialect was used even in later times, when poets in many other parts of Greece were writing choral lyrics. The Spartan poets first wrote choral lyrics for songs and dances in public religious celebrations. Later they wrote choral lyrics also to celebrate private occasions, uch as a victory at the Olympian Games.

The earliest choral lyric poet is said to have been Thaletas, who in the 7th century BC reputedly came from Crete to Sparta in order to quell an epidemic with paeans, or choral hymns addressed to Apollo. He was followed by Terpander, who wrote both personal and choral lyrics; by Alcman, most of whose poems were partheneia, processional choral hymns sung by a chorus of young girls and partly religious in character and lighter in tone than the paeans; and in the late 7th century by Arion. Arion is said to have invented both the dithyramb, or hymn to Dionysus, and the tragic mode, which was used extensively in Greek drama .

Later great writers of choral lyrics include Sicilian poet Stesichorus, a contemporary of Alcaeus, who introduced the triadic form of choral ode, consisting of a series of groups of three stanzas; Ibycus of Rhegium, author of a large extant fragment of a triadic choral ode and of erotic personal lyrics; Simonides of Ceos, whose choral lyrics included epinicia, or choral odes in honor of victors at the Olympian Games, encomia, or choral hymns that celebrated particular persons, and dirges, as well as personal lyrics, including epigrams; nd Bacchylides of Ceos, a nephew of Simonides, who wrote both epinicia, of which 13 are extant, and dithyrambs, of which 5 are extant.

The ancient statues and pottery of the Golden Stone Age of Greece were much advanced in spectacular ways. The statue of Zeus was done for a very good reason. The statue represents being the lord of the sky, the rain god and the cloud gatherer. When I look at this statue, I see a whole bunch of different things, for example, I see a statue that has great muscular shapes which to me it represents that he had power over some town or group of people. I personally would be afraid of a statue that looks like Zeus. The Kore and the Kouros both emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure and show an increasingly accurate comprehension of human anatomy.

The youths were either sepulchral or votive statues. The Blinding of Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and of the nymph Thoosa. Odysseus gave Polyphemus some strong wine and when the giant had fallen into a drunken stupor, bored out his one eye with a burning stake. The Dori and Ionic columns were rectangular and stood on a ow, stepped terrace in an enclosure where rituals were performed. These columns were very much done with a great deal of intelligence. I personally do not understand how the people of the Golden Age had such intelligence in the columns for where they can build one or two to hold up a building, and it now still stands. Its incredible.

The Aryballos are a very colorful vase. They Golden Age folks had great artistic talent to dray out on a vase the beautiful colors and drawings that it has. The Vase has an organizing style. The vase were used for carrying liquids. Vases like the Aryballos are now worth a fortune, why? Well, it took a great deal of time and talent to make these vases. The vases are probably worth about one million a piece. The height of the vases are varied, depending on the designs that were put on it. I think that the people of the Golden Age were very talented. The objects that we have from back then is very remarkable. The objects are had a great deal of time put into each of them.

The pottery for example was what had really gotten to me because of the art that were drawn on it and the why they used there colors. I think that if It wasnt people like the Golden Age people who had drew these great objects, we would be way behind on the art that we have today. I like to look at it like our fathers before us that are teaching us what we know now. I must say, living in the nineties are much more better, relaxing, stress less, and more of a easy life now than before. I that god that I am here now with the knowledge that I know now. If I was a Nejeh in the Golden Age, I would probable commit suicide, if I wasnt killed by someone else. I can not complain. We have it good, we must thank God for being where we are.

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Related posts:

• Ancient Greece Essay
• Greek Architecture and Orders
• The Golden Stone Age of Greece
• Throughout the history of ancient Rome and Greece drama remained a reflection of the nature of their contemporary society
• Greece, a country in southeastern Europe
• Athens’ Golden Age
• Philosophy of Ancient Greece
• Ancient Greece Paper
• Greece: Heroism Essay
• The Two Faces Of Ancient Greece
• Ancient Greece Research Paper
• Daily Life in Fifth Century Greece
• The Olympic Games in ancient Greece
• Theater and drama in Ancient Greece

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Free Samples
• Premium Essays
• Editing Services Editing Proofreading Rewriting
• Extra Tools Essay Topic Generator Thesis Generator Citation Generator GPA Calculator Study Guides Donate Paper
• Essay Writing Help
• About Us About Us Testimonials FAQ
• Studentshare
• The Golden Age of Radio

The Golden Age of Radio - Essay Example

• Subject: Other
• Type: Essay
• Level: Undergraduate
• Pages: 9 (2250 words)
• Downloads: 0

Extract of sample "The Golden Age of Radio"

• radio jockey
• the free radio salman rushdie
• Cited: 0 times
• Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Golden Age of Radio

Online radio and globalization, digital innovations of the radio in the military, the fibonacci sequence and golden ratio, abstract and conclusion for my critical communication event in recent history, the end of the radio days of the past, the changes in technology and society, american consumer society, critical process paper.

• TERMS & CONDITIONS
• PRIVACY POLICY
• COOKIES POLICY

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward

Journalists, researchers and the public often look at society through the lens of generation, using terms like Millennial or Gen Z to describe groups of similarly aged people. This approach can help readers see themselves in the data and assess where we are and where we’re headed as a country.

Pew Research Center has been at the forefront of generational research over the years, telling the story of Millennials as they came of age politically and as they moved more firmly into adult life . In recent years, we’ve also been eager to learn about Gen Z as the leading edge of this generation moves into adulthood.

But generational research has become a crowded arena. The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology. There’s also been a growing chorus of criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular.

Recently, as we were preparing to embark on a major research project related to Gen Z, we decided to take a step back and consider how we can study generations in a way that aligns with our values of accuracy, rigor and providing a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue.

A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience and behavior within generations.

We set out on a yearlong process of assessing the landscape of generational research. We spoke with experts from outside Pew Research Center, including those who have been publicly critical of our generational analysis, to get their take on the pros and cons of this type of work. We invested in methodological testing to determine whether we could compare findings from our earlier telephone surveys to the online ones we’re conducting now. And we experimented with higher-level statistical analyses that would allow us to isolate the effect of generation.

What emerged from this process was a set of clear guidelines that will help frame our approach going forward. Many of these are principles we’ve always adhered to , but others will require us to change the way we’ve been doing things in recent years.

Here’s a short overview of how we’ll approach generational research in the future:

We’ll only do generational analysis when we have historical data that allows us to compare generations at similar stages of life. When comparing generations, it’s crucial to control for age. In other words, researchers need to look at each generation or age cohort at a similar point in the life cycle. (“Age cohort” is a fancy way of referring to a group of people who were born around the same time.)

When doing this kind of research, the question isn’t whether young adults today are different from middle-aged or older adults today. The question is whether young adults today are different from young adults at some specific point in the past.

To answer this question, it’s necessary to have data that’s been collected over a considerable amount of time – think decades. Standard surveys don’t allow for this type of analysis. We can look at differences across age groups, but we can’t compare age groups over time.

Another complication is that the surveys we conducted 20 or 30 years ago aren’t usually comparable enough to the surveys we’re doing today. Our earlier surveys were done over the phone, and we’ve since transitioned to our nationally representative online survey panel , the American Trends Panel . Our internal testing showed that on many topics, respondents answer questions differently depending on the way they’re being interviewed. So we can’t use most of our surveys from the late 1980s and early 2000s to compare Gen Z with Millennials and Gen Xers at a similar stage of life.

This means that most generational analysis we do will use datasets that have employed similar methodologies over a long period of time, such as surveys from the U.S. Census Bureau. A good example is our 2020 report on Millennial families , which used census data going back to the late 1960s. The report showed that Millennials are marrying and forming families at a much different pace than the generations that came before them.

Even when we have historical data, we will attempt to control for other factors beyond age in making generational comparisons. If we accept that there are real differences across generations, we’re basically saying that people who were born around the same time share certain attitudes or beliefs – and that their views have been influenced by external forces that uniquely shaped them during their formative years. Those forces may have been social changes, economic circumstances, technological advances or political movements.

When we see that younger adults have different views than their older counterparts, it may be driven by their demographic traits rather than the fact that they belong to a particular generation.

The tricky part is isolating those forces from events or circumstances that have affected all age groups, not just one generation. These are often called “period effects.” An example of a period effect is the Watergate scandal, which drove down trust in government among all age groups. Differences in trust across age groups in the wake of Watergate shouldn’t be attributed to the outsize impact that event had on one age group or another, because the change occurred across the board.

Changing demographics also may play a role in patterns that might at first seem like generational differences. We know that the United States has become more racially and ethnically diverse in recent decades, and that race and ethnicity are linked with certain key social and political views. When we see that younger adults have different views than their older counterparts, it may be driven by their demographic traits rather than the fact that they belong to a particular generation.

Controlling for these factors can involve complicated statistical analysis that helps determine whether the differences we see across age groups are indeed due to generation or not. This additional step adds rigor to the process. Unfortunately, it’s often absent from current discussions about Gen Z, Millennials and other generations.

When we can’t do generational analysis, we still see value in looking at differences by age and will do so where it makes sense. Age is one of the most common predictors of differences in attitudes and behaviors. And even if age gaps aren’t rooted in generational differences, they can still be illuminating. They help us understand how people across the age spectrum are responding to key trends, technological breakthroughs and historical events.

Each stage of life comes with a unique set of experiences. Young adults are often at the leading edge of changing attitudes on emerging social trends. Take views on same-sex marriage , for example, or attitudes about gender identity .

Many middle-aged adults, in turn, face the challenge of raising children while also providing care and support to their aging parents. And older adults have their own obstacles and opportunities. All of these stories – rooted in the life cycle, not in generations – are important and compelling, and we can tell them by analyzing our surveys at any given point in time.

When we do have the data to study groups of similarly aged people over time, we won’t always default to using the standard generational definitions and labels. While generational labels are simple and catchy, there are other ways to analyze age cohorts. For example, some observers have suggested grouping people by the decade in which they were born. This would create narrower cohorts in which the members may share more in common. People could also be grouped relative to their age during key historical events (such as the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic) or technological innovations (like the invention of the iPhone).

By choosing not to use the standard generational labels when they’re not appropriate, we can avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes or oversimplifying people’s complex lived experiences.

Existing generational definitions also may be too broad and arbitrary to capture differences that exist among narrower cohorts. A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience and behavior within generations. The key is to pick a lens that’s most appropriate for the research question that’s being studied. If we’re looking at political views and how they’ve shifted over time, for example, we might group people together according to the first presidential election in which they were eligible to vote.

With these considerations in mind, our audiences should not expect to see a lot of new research coming out of Pew Research Center that uses the generational lens. We’ll only talk about generations when it adds value, advances important national debates and highlights meaningful societal trends.

• Age & Generations
• Demographic Research
• Generation X
• Generation Z
• Generations
• Greatest Generation
• Methodological Research
• Millennials
• Silent Generation

Kim Parker is director of social trends research at Pew Research Center

How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time

Who are you the art and science of measuring identity, u.s. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years, older workers are growing in number and earning higher wages, teens, social media and technology 2023, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy