Module A Sometimes Gladness x 3 Poems + Additional Texts – Road to Paradise + The Gruen Transfer MUST DO 3 POEMS!! ONLY DO 2ND ADDITONAL TEXT IF YOU HAVE TIME!!! Introduction • Answer the question • State poems I am using Dialogue can be defined as an attempt by the writers to mimic spoken language, by using written language features to represent verbal language features. Dialogue can be direct, which is verbal, or indirect, which is shown through thoughts, non spoken, in novels or poems. Poem 1- Outline & LFs in ‘ Up the Wall’ Bruce Dawe’s poems, from Sometimes Gladness, are a commentary of Australian life, from 1954 to 1978. Dawe’s ‘ Up the wall’, from Sometimes Gladness is structured into the traditional form of a sonnet. This is ironic, as the traditional form of sonnets are love songs, whereas this is in sharp contrast to a love song, as it is full of hate and dread. • The specific purpose of this piece is to show the contrasting views or perspectives of the husband and wife, and how their different views create a gulf to emerge between them in their daily lives, shown through dialogue that isn’t in the form of a conversation. • LFS: This is demonstrated in the metaphor, repetition, and sarcasm.
LF – Metaphor • What is the LF – Firstly, Bruce Dawe attempts to represent the woman’s feeling of being irritated and annoyed, through the metaphor, “ children carve up the mind”. • What does it do -This is a violent image implying that they are eating, digging into her mind, aggressively nagging and cutting up her mind with loud, messy noise. • It also implies a surgical procedure, as her life has been reduced to nothing. . LF – Repetition • What is the LF – In the second stanza, “ She says” is repeated three times, representing a persistent nagging and a constant repetitiveness in her life. What does it do -This dialogue gives the audience a dramatic closeness to the miserable and desperate situation the woman is in. • This stanza is a turning point in the poem, as the first half is from the woman’s perspective. At this point the spotlight turns to the man, with him representing his impression of what his wife says. • The man having the last say is an important aspect, as the woman, who is the main character and the main voice throughout the poem, does not have the last say in the piece, as her voice is invalidated by his.
It shows no conclusion, or answer to the problem has been amounted to, but the man speaks last, emphasizing that he has the last word. LF – Sarcasm • What is the LF – In the final stanza, the husband, perhaps at the pub with his mates, with direct speech says sarcastically “ It’s a quiet neighborhood…almost too quiet”. • What does it do -This sarcasm conveys to the audience that the man resists his moral obligations to his wife, reflecting his relationship with her, and his feelings towards the situation. • This sarcasm could also be interpreted as a contrast in perspectives.
The woman’s life is full of noise, while he doesn’t understand his wife’s life, and doesn’t listen to her. • Throughout the poem, the husband and wife’s dialogue never occurs in a conversation between the couple, but is always them talking to us, or to themselves, but never directly interacting, resulting in a physical and emotional gulf in-between them. Conclude ‘ Up the Wall’ In summary, ‘ Up the Wall’ …answer question…dialogue doesn’t always equal conversation, which is done through metaphor, repetition, and sarcasm.
Link / Compare / Contrast: Another poem that displays the failure of dialogue, that doesn’t occur in a conversation between people, is ‘ Weapons Training’ Poem 2- Outline & LFs in ‘ Weapons Training’ • In Dawe’s Weapon Training, a military soldier is training recruits on how to use their riffles. • His sexist monologue insults and belittles the men, with the purpose of making them suffer, and toughening them up. • Within this monologue, Dawe uses a rhetorical question and hyperbole, to…answer question, showing the dehumanising process of creating a soldier. LF – Rhetorical Question The opening of the poem directly relates to the audience, and makes the audience feel like they have stepped into the dialogue. • Amongst the sergeant’s barrage of words, he poses the rhetorical question, “ Are you queer? ” This would usually require an answer, as it is a question, which would initiate dialogue, although as it is rhetorical, in the monologue, it doesn’t require a response, and defies interaction. LF –Hyperbole • As this text is very over the top, with the dialogue used to get the soldiers in the mood for war, it is appropriate that a hyperbole is used, by the over the top sergeant. This is used for example when he yells, “ Eye balls click”. • This also has the implication of human guns, as he wants their eye balls to click, and he is dehumanizing the enemy. • (this is also onomatopoeia) Conclude ‘ Weapons Training’ In summary, ‘ Weapons Training’ uses dialogue to… answer question… through rhetorical question and hyperbole. Link / Compare / Contrast: Just as the anguish and failure of dialogue is conveyed in ‘ Weapons Training’, ‘ Enter without so much as knocking’ shows that the silence of the grave is preferable to the anguish of dialogue in life.
Poem 3- Outline & LFs in ‘ Enter without so much as knocking’ • ‘ Enter without so much as knocking’ tells the story of a man’s life from birth to death, and the different pressures to conform that he is exposed to. • It also explores the effect of the media and modern consumerist society on people’s lives. • Dawe presents this concern through a running commentary, interspersed with media quips and direct quotes from the life of this individual. • This is conveyed through humor and tone, presented in informal language, and a conversational tone, as is the poet is talking to a friend. …answer question LF – Humor Dawe uses the humor of much exaggerated examples to illustrate his point, such as the signs, and the traffic. • For example, the increasingly extreme instruction in capital letter, shouting “ NO BREATHING EXCEPT BY ORDER”. • Although he says these things with humor, the audience then realises how unfunny they are, as they are so realistic, and unfortunately true. LF – Tone 1. The poem opens in a lighthearted tone, representing the carefree beginning of his life, 2. before it is filled with the world’s mess, and before he enters the ruthless world of adult life with its material competitiveness. . After the traffic, the peaceful scene of the drive through is introduced, and ‘ a pure unadulterated fringe of sky, littered with stars’ 4. is contrasted to the hard edge that comes next in his life, when he is ‘ old enough to be realistic’, and turns into a ‘ godless money hungry backstabbing so and so’. • The contrasting tones represent different stages in his life, and effectively show the ups and downs in his life, up until the end of his life, when he is killed in a road accident, represented by the punctuation mark of a dash. Conclude – ‘ Enter without so much as knocking’
Dawe’s ‘ Enter without so much as knocking’ uses dialogue to …answer question …through humor and tone. Link / Compare / Contrast: Just as Dawe’s poems in Sometimes Gladness show the negative side of dialogue, being one sided, creating anguish, and failing, so does Paullina Simons in ‘ Road to Paradise’ Outline & LFS in Additional Text #1 – Road to Paradise Road to Paradise by Paullina Simons tells the story of Shelby, an eighteen year old girl fresh out of school, setting out from New York to California to find her mother, with her former friend Gina.
The purpose of this extract from the text is to take us into Shelby’s life, and into her head, which Simons encompasses through indirect speech and tone…to answer question. LF – Indirect Speech In a conversation, between Shelby and Gina, Shelby answers in her head, to questions of Gina’s that she doesn’t want to answer out loud. For example, ‘“ Look how skinny you got, Sloane”. Gina said. “ You must be training a lot”. If I didn’t run, I’d be prone to child bearing hips, but I was always running. I said nothing. The purpose of Shelby answering with internal dialogue, or indirect speech, gives the reader a sense of being in the main character’s head, and a feeling of intimacy with her, drawing us deeper in her world, through this internal monologue. LF – Tone – Ellipses Secondly, tone of voice conveys a lot about what the character wants out of the conversation. Simons uses an urgent nature of voice, to convey Gina’s desperateness to go on the road trip. The desperateness is emphasised through the ellipses. “ Are you or aren’t you? …I’ll split the expenses with you” Gina desperately pushes for an answer.
This dialogue and tone also gives the reader insight into what type of person Gina is, and what her place in the story is. Outline & LFS in Additional Text #2 – The Gruen Transfer • Similarly to ‘ Enter’, the 2008 episode of The Gruen Transfer explores the effect of media advertising on society in a light hearted manner. • The episodes was aired on July 23rd 2008 and deals with skin care. The program begins with Will Anderson (the host) being bombarded by products. This bombardment forms and immediate link to the young boy in ‘ Enter’, who is defined by the brand of clothing he and his family wear.
The camera pans a passive and applauding audience, representing how advertisers view society. Tilt shots alert viewers to the distorted information of advertising – the subject of the program. Anderson uses first person, colloquial language and hyperbole to introduce the subject of discussion – how advertises sell skin products. “ We’re (first person) all gunna (colloquial language) get wrinklier but according to the ACCC we spend $7 billion on little tubs of goo in the desperate hope (hyperbole) of stopping the wrinkly bit happening”.
This 2008 extract parallels to Dawe’s concern over the effect of advertising on the individual in the 1950s poem. Both use dialogue and comedic tone to communicate their warnings. Overall Conclusion In conclusion, these texts…answer question. By looking at these texts, we can see that conversations between characters can be portrayed very differently in poetry, and in novels. ———————– Texts ‘ Up the Wall’ = metaphor, repetition, sarcasm ‘ Weapons Training’ = rhetorical question, hyperbole Enter without so much as knocking’ = humor, tone Paullina Simons = indirect speech and tone/ ellipse The Gruen Transfer = First person, colloquial language, hyperbole Rubric: Experience through language “…Perceptions of and relationships with other and the worlds are shaped in written, spoken and visual language…Students examine particular language structures and features…daily lives…” Rubric: Dialogue “…Nature of speech…uses and conventions of dialogue…who controls the conversation (and how)… difference between spoken and written language”
