narrative essay about house fire

English Compositions

Short Essay on a House on Fire [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In this lesson, dear students, you will learn to write a narrative essay on ‘A House on Fire’ in three different sets. It will help you prepare for your upcoming examinations.

Short essay on a house on fire in 100 words.

Short Essay on a House on Fire in 200 Words

Short Essay on a House on Fire in 400 Words

Feature image of Short Essay on a House on Fire

It was late at night, and a loud noise awakened me. My mother arrived at that same moment to wake me up. Due to faulty wiring, the house just across the street from mine caught fire. It was the home of my friend Roshan. My mother and I rushed over to assist and calm them.

Black flames erupted from various locations across his home. Firefighters were doing everything they could to put out the blaze. My father was assisting Roshan’s father in saving crucial documents. I learned that we must always keep an eye on our wiring and not be careless or postpone when it comes to critical tasks.

Short Essay on a House on Fire in 200 Words

It was late at night, and a racket broke my sleep. It was naturally dark, but when I uncurtained my windows, I saw glowing lights everywhere. At that very moment, my mother came to wake me up. I could spot my father outside the window along with other neighbours. The house opposite my house had caught fire due to bad wiring. It was my friend Roshan’s house.

My mother and I immediately went to help and console them. Black flames that looked like smoky giants came out from different parts of his house. Firefighters were working their best to put off the fire. My father, along with other neighbours, was helping Roshan’s father to save important documents, among other flammable objects.

The fire had broken into their kitchen, but the other part of the house that included Rohan room and his parents’ room were not heavily destroyed. For one week, Rohan and his family stayed with us in our apartment while their house got repainted and refurbished. Their house was in dire need of renovation, and it looks like the newest house on the street. I learnt that we must always check our wiring and neither be negligent nor procrastinate on important activities.

It began when I was softly treading in the fairyland. I say this because my sweet dream was suddenly broken, and I woke up to a haywire sight before me. I was in my father’s arms. He was grabbing me tightly, and we were on the run. I was wondering if the wicked fairies were chasing us.

Everything felt so hot, and I could smell a mixture of strong body odour stinking from our bodies. I decided it was too much to bear and decided to sleep again. I was forced to reopen my eyes in a matter of two minutes. This time it was the sound of loud alarms that wouldn’t allow my mind the peace it so deeply craved.

I decided to take a look around the vicinity. I didn’t have to do a lot of neck work. We were not running anymore. We ran outside of our house and came on the road. It was at this moment that I spotted the red trucks. The source of the loud alarm was this truck. It was a fire engine. Our class teacher taught us the fireman lesson yesterday.

She told us that firefighters are brave people who have the lives of the burning people without caring about their life. At that moment, I heard the sobs of my mother. She stood next to us. She was crying. I looked at her and put my hands forward. She took me in her arms and wrapped me tightly. At first, I couldn’t understand a word that she was saying. Eventually, it occurred to me that she was trying to say that our house was on fire and the firemen were trying to put it off. I was shocked! I looked forward to seeing my house burning.

Little by little, the fire was perishing and consuming the whole of it. There was only one fire engine. The neighbours were trying their best to help. My father, along with some of the neighbours, had rushed inside the house to save important documents among their precious things from getting destroyed. We were later told that the source of the fire was the poor wiring of the house.

We had been negligent on that account. Poor wiring is risky, and it somehow caused the fire. One thing leads to another. We are staying at my maternal grandparents’ house for the time being. Our house is getting painted again. We have changed the wiring.

Dear students, hopefully, after this lesson, you have a holistic idea of writing a narrative essay on a house on fire. I have tried to be as descriptive as possible in the given word limit. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on many important topics, keep browsing our website.

Join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you, see you again soon.

Essay on A House on Fire

Students are often asked to write an essay on A House on Fire in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on A House on Fire

The unexpected incident.

One sunny afternoon, I witnessed an alarming scene. A house in my neighborhood was on fire. The flames were fierce and frightening.

People were panicking, running around to save themselves and their belongings. The fire was swallowing the house, turning everything into ashes.

The Brave Firefighters

Soon, the firefighters arrived. They fought bravely against the raging fire. Their quick actions saved the day.

The Aftermath

In the end, the house was severely damaged, but thankfully, no one was hurt. It was a terrifying experience, reminding us all of the power of nature.

Also check:

Paragraph on A House on Fire

250 Words Essay on A House on Fire

The unexpected inferno.

Fire, an element that signifies purification and destruction, can become a ruthless destroyer when uncontrolled. A house on fire is a sight that instills fear and a sense of helplessness, a spectacle of devastation that leaves an indelible mark on the observer.

The Awakening

It was a chilly winter night, the streets were deserted and the neighborhood was plunged into the peaceful embrace of sleep. Suddenly, the tranquility was shattered by a cacophony of frantic screams and the ominous crackling of fire. A house in the neighborhood was ablaze, the fire dancing menacingly, consuming everything in its path.

The Battle Against Time

The fire brigade was alerted immediately and they arrived in haste, their sirens piercing the night. The firefighters, the unsung heroes, plunged into action, battling against the clock and the raging inferno. The intensity of the fire, fueled by the wooden furniture and various household items, made the task daunting.

The fire was eventually subdued, leaving behind a charred skeleton of what once was a warm, welcoming home. The sight was heart-wrenching, a stark reminder of the transient nature of material possessions. The family, though safe, was left with the monumental task of rebuilding their lives from the ashes.

Reflections

A house on fire serves as a grim reminder of the unpredictability of life and the power of nature. It underscores the importance of fire safety measures and the need for preparedness. It also highlights the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity, and the inherent human capacity to rebuild, recover, and rise from the ashes.

500 Words Essay on A House on Fire

Introduction.

A house on fire is a sight that evokes a plethora of emotions, ranging from fear and panic to awe and intrigue. The destructive power of fire, coupled with the vulnerability of our homes, forms a potent and terrifying spectacle. This essay seeks to explore the concept of a house on fire from various perspectives, including the physical, psychological, and sociological implications.

Physical Manifestation and Impact

Fire, one of the four fundamental elements, is a paradoxical entity. It is both a life-giver, providing warmth and facilitating cooking, and a life-taker, causing devastation when uncontrolled. A house on fire is a stark representation of this destructive side. The sight of a house ablaze, with flames consuming everything in their path, is a testament to the relentless and indiscriminate nature of fire. It reduces a structure that once provided shelter and comfort to a charred skeleton, a grim reminder of its former self.

Psychological Implications

A house on fire elicits a profound psychological response. The home, often seen as a sanctuary, is suddenly transformed into a source of danger. This shift can trigger intense feelings of fear and helplessness. Furthermore, the loss of personal belongings, many of which hold sentimental value, can lead to a deep sense of grief and loss. This psychological trauma can be as damaging as the physical destruction, if not more so.

Sociological Perspective

From a sociological viewpoint, a house on fire can reveal much about community dynamics. It tests the strength of community bonds, as neighbors and bystanders are thrust into roles of potential rescuers or supportive onlookers. The incident can either foster unity, as people come together to help, or expose societal fissures, if people remain indifferent or exploit the situation. The response of the community, thus, becomes a mirror to its collective character.

Fire as a Metaphor

Beyond the literal interpretation, a house on fire can also serve as a powerful metaphor. In literature and art, it often symbolizes upheaval, change, or destruction. It can represent personal turmoil, societal chaos, or even the destructive consequences of unchecked power and ambition. This metaphorical use of a house on fire expands its significance beyond the physical and into the realm of the abstract.

In conclusion, a house on fire is a multi-faceted concept. It is a physical event, a psychological trigger, a sociological litmus test, and a metaphorical device. The sight of a house ablaze can evoke a wide range of responses, from fear and sorrow to fascination and introspection. It serves as a stark reminder of the destructive potential of fire, the fragility of our homes, and the complex interplay of community dynamics. Ultimately, a house on fire is not just an event, but a powerful symbol with deep and far-reaching implications.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Summer in Kashmir
Essay on Summer
Essay on Summer Camp

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

The Terrifying Experience Of A House On Fire: My Personal Account

A House On Fire: House fires are a terrifying experience, one that can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. In this article A House on fire, I will share my personal account of a house fire and the lessons I learned from the experience. Being prepared for emergencies is critical, and it can make all the difference in a life-threatening situation.

A House On Fire

In this blog A House On Fire, we include A House On Fire, in 100, 200, 250, and 300 words. Also, cover A House On Fire belonging to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and up to the 12th class and also for kids, children, and students.

You can read more Essay writing in 10 lines, and about sports, events, occasions, festivals, etc… A House On Fire is also available in different languages. In A House On Fire, the following features are explained in the given manner.

The Start Of The Fire

It was a cold winter night, and my family and I were getting ready for bed. I was watching television in the living room, and my parents were in their bedroom. Suddenly, we heard a loud noise that sounded like something had exploded. We quickly realized that the noise was coming from the basement, where we kept our heating system.

When my father went to check the basement, he saw that it was on fire. He yelled for us to get out of the house immediately. I was in shock, but my parents quickly grabbed my sister and me and rushed us out of the house.

The Fire Spreading

As we ran out of the house, we could see that the fire was spreading quickly. We called 911 and watched in horror as the flames consumed our home. The firefighters arrived within minutes and started fighting the fire. We were told to stay back and stay out of harm’s way.

The fire was intense, and the heat was unbearable. The firefighters worked tirelessly to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to nearby homes. Neighbors came out to help, providing blankets and hot drinks to keep us warm. We were relieved when the fire was finally extinguished, but the damage had been done.

The Aftermath

The aftermath of the fire was devastating. Our home was destroyed, and everything we owned was lost. It was a traumatic experience that left us feeling vulnerable and helpless. We had to rely on the kindness of friends and family to provide us with shelter and basic necessities.

The emotional toll of the fire was significant. We were grieving the loss of our home and everything we owned. We felt violated and helpless, wondering how we would ever recover from such a tragedy.

Fire Prevention And Preparedness

The experience of a house fire taught us the importance of fire prevention and preparedness. We realized that fires can happen to anyone and that it is crucial to take steps to prevent them from occurring. It is also critical to have a fire safety plan in place and to practice it regularly.

We learned that having working smoke detectors and fire extinguishers can make all the difference in a fire emergency. It is also essential to ensure that all electrical wiring and appliances are in good working order, and to be mindful of potential fire hazards such as candles and space heaters.

A house fire is a traumatic experience that can have long-lasting effects. It is essential to take steps to prevent fires from occurring and to be prepared in case of an emergency. The experience of a house fire taught my family and me the importance of fire prevention and preparedness, and we are grateful to have survived such a traumatic event. I urge everyone to take the necessary steps to protect themselves and their homes from the devastating effects of a fire. Be prepared, be safe, and stay vigilant.

Also Read: Fire And Ice Extra Questions And Answers

FAQ’s On A House On Fire

Question 1. Is the lifetime movie A House on Fire a true story?

Answer: Yes, A House on Fire is based on a true story. It is inspired by the book “Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t” by Edward Humes, which recounts the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of arson and murder in Texas in 1992. The movie explores the flawed investigation and trial that led to Willingham’s execution and the efforts to exonerate him posthumously.

Question 2. What does as a house on fire mean?

Answer: The phrase “as a house on fire” is an idiomatic expression used to describe a situation or relationship that is developing rapidly and with great intensity. It suggests that things are progressing quickly and with great enthusiasm, much like a house that is rapidly consumed by flames. For example, one could say, “We hit it off as a house on fire” to describe a new friendship that formed quickly and with great excitement.

Question 3. How do you write a paragraph about a house on fire?

Answer: To write a paragraph about a house on fire, you could describe the chaos and destruction that comes with such an event. Start with a vivid description of the flames, smoke, and heat.

Then, include details about the emergency response, such as the arrival of firefighters and the sound of sirens. Finally, convey the emotional impact of the fire, such as the fear and devastation experienced by the occupants of the house and the surrounding community.

Question 4. Is Ann Rule’s A House on Fire Based on a true story?

Answer: No, Ann Rule’s book “A House on Fire” is a work of fiction and is not based on a true story. Ann Rule is known for her true crime writing, but this particular book is not based on an actual case. The novel is a suspenseful thriller about a family whose lives are threatened by an unknown stalker, and it delves into themes of obsession, fear, and revenge.

Question 5. Is life the True Story that is based on?

Answer: No, the term “life” is too broad to refer to a specific story. However, there are countless true stories and experiences that have inspired books, movies, and other forms of art. Some works may be based on true events and people, while others may be entirely fictional. It is always important to research the background of a particular story to understand its origins and whether it is based on real events or not.

THEME ANALYSIS

Many of the characters feel an intense sense of alienation and loneliness. Sometimes this sense of disconnection is a result of their workplace. In White Spirit , for example, the unnamed protagonist attempts to bridge cultural differences on the council estate where she works. Amongst the wildly diverse inhabitants of the estate she finds herself to be a “dowdy, sad sparrow among peacocks.” Similarly, the narrator of Laminex and Mirrors is working at her job, cleaning in a hospital, in order to save money to fly to London. She envisages herself “absorbing culture and life” in the great capitols of Europe, and feels a strong sense of alienation from her co-workers, who find the fact that she reads for pleasure so remarkable that they refer to her as “the scholar.” Another example is Liz in Cake , who on her first day back after her maternity leave finds herself at odds with her colleagues, who all insist that working is far superior to child-rearing, an assessment Liz herself does not agree with.

It is alienation within the family unit, however, which is perhaps most striking in Like a House on Fire . In Whirlpool , Kennedy examines the unspoken divisions and allegiances of a small family. Twelve-year-old Anna finds herself growing ever distant from her mother, who clings to an idealised image of what she imagines her family to be, symbolised by her obsession with taking the perfect photo of them all to send to her distant friends. Anna finds herself unable to communicate with her own mother, who is “grim with the need to plot exile and allegiance” within her own family. In Ashes , Chris and his mother must navigate a complex history. They scatter the ashes of Chris’ father, who could never understand Chris’ lack of interest in traditionally masculine pursuits such as fishing, or his homosexuality. Indeed, his father’s final conversation with Chris was a request not to “throw” his homosexuality in his mother’s face. This inability to be open with his family led to Chris breaking up with his boyfriend Scott, compounding his loneliness. In Static , Anthony finds himself utterly alienated from his parents and his wife during their

Christmas lunch, where the follies of both parties are clearly displayed.

Alienation in the wake of relationships is also common in Like a House on Fire . In Sleepers , Ray finds himself in a state of paralysis, under employed in a half-time job, and beholden to a strange “lethargy” following being dumped by his girlfriend Sharon. This sense of alienation and paralysis results in him making the disastrous decision to assert some degree of control by stealing some sleepers from a construction site, for which he is arrested. Similarly, in Cross-Country , Rebecca is unable to break out of her lethargy following her divorce, and isolates herself from society.

As much as the stories are characterised by isolation and alienation, many of them do end optimistically. Laminex and Mirrors , Ashes , Flexion , White Spirit and many more all end in images of intense and intimate human connection.

Many of the characters in Like a House on Fire have unrealistic expectations or fantasies which inevitably result in disappointment. In Whirlpool , Anna’s mother is driven by the desire to create a perfect image of her family as a harmonious and happy entity which she can advertise to obscure connections in her annual Christmas cards. Ironically, her desire to take the perfect photo results in an exacerbation of the sort of unspoken resentments and divisions she hopes to hide. Similarly, Anthony in Static is attracted to his wife Marie because of the little physical imperfections, such as a crooked tooth, which make her beauty real and human, whereas Marie can only see beauty in perfectly posed photos which present “a perfected study of herself.” The desire for a false, physical connection is also evident, occasionally, in Laminex and Mirrors , both in the cosmetics which the narrator’s co-worker sells and in the brief description of the rhinoplasty ward. In Cross-Country , Rebecca inhabits a dream world in which she will compete against her ex-husband in a race, and beat him. She describes this fantasy as a “short film looping” in her head, and marvels at the extent to which “we’ll invent what we need.” Her illusion is shattered, mercifully, and the story ends with her decision to symbolically shut down the computer with which she had attempted to stalk her ex-husband and leave the house.

In some stories, the illusions which characters had clung to are well and truly dispersed by the time we meet them. In Tender , Christine recalls the imagined future she dreamt up, of domestic bliss, “a golden halo of lamplight, polished floors…everything clean and wholesome as a cake of handmade soap.” Instead, the house is “makeshift and unfinished,” a “more prosaic reality” full of ideas which “buckled in the face of reality and time.” Her and Al’s dream, of a super-sustainable and ecofriendly house existing without the benefits of electric heating or even toasters, has long since had to adapt to reality, and practicality. Another character who has broken out of her illusions by the time she enters a story is Michelle. The discovery that her boyfriend Des had been sleeping with other women while she was pregnant is the final, obvious truth that he is not going to be the husband she needs or the father that her child will need. She describes the process of realising this as an epiphany. After she has given birth, she feels the certainty that Des is a no-hoper flood into her “like a door opening.”

Illusions and fantasy are not presented as being exclusively dangerous, however. In White Spirit , the unnamed narrator fantasises that the mural she has commissioned for the council estate where she works will be a joint effort bringing the diverse occupants of the estate together. When it fails in that respect, she is disheartened; however, the story ends with a moment of connection with some of the estate’s inhabitants. Her expectations may not have been met in the way she anticipated, but the effort brought her closer to the community she works for. Similarly, the final story in the collection, Seventy- Two Derwents , can be read as a metaphor for the power of hope. Twelve-year- old Tyler lives with her mother, his boyfriend and her older sister in poverty, and Shane, the boyfriend, is violent and on parole. After he nearly murders her, the account, written as a series of journal entries from Tyler, ends with a solemn “promise” to collect a baby bird from her teacher to nurture, and a declaration of her intention to keep writing and to become an artist. Thus, the ability to envisage a better world is shown to be a positive trait, and even a necessary one for survival.

Kennedy pays much attention to gender, and is deeply sympathetic to the plights of both men and women. Several of her stories revolve around women trapped in unfulfilling relationships; occasionally, these relationships are even dangerous. The first story in the collection, Flexion , depicts a woman so tied down to her thankless marriage to Frank Slovak that she is literally defined by it: she is only ever referred to as Mrs Slovak or Frank’s wife, and by the townspeople in their rural community as “the quiet one.” After a terrible accident cripples Frank, her immediate sensation at his surviving it is not joy but resentment that she must now serve him even more intently than before; she feels “cheated.” She takes some control over the farm, and orders him to “get on that phone” and thank the well-wishers who have worked on the house in his absence. However, Mrs Slovak learns that Frank’s reluctance to accept help is not because he is misanthropic but because he himself is trapped in his own gender role, as a rugged, stoic man who is entirely self-dependent and always in control. Their quiet reconnection at the end of the story is mirrored in Waiting , in which the trials of the unnamed narrator attempting to become pregnant are paralleled by her husband’s equally futile efforts to grow a bountiful wheat crop.

In Tender , Christine is infuriated by her husband Al, who is in his own way loving and dutiful but vague to the point that everything “seems to be teetering on the verge of coming apart.” Christine loves her children and her house and probably Al, but the potential cancer in her body throws her role in the world into sharp relief over the course of the story, prompting a reflection on her life. In Five- Dollar Family , as discussed above, the Michelle’s reflections on her relationship with Des are much further developed, and she has no interest in maintaining a connection with him – especially since he will almost certainly be sent to prison. Whilst in Five-Dollar Family Des is presented as clearly thuggish but has never directly threatened Michelle, in Seventy-Two Derwents Shane rapidly moves from being seedy, spying on Tyler in her sleep and asking about “boyfriends,” to actually threatening murder. In the story’s climax, he pulls a knife on Tyler, her sister and her mother after the authorities learn that he has broken the terms of his parole. The scene shows at once the worst of masculinity and the strength of womanhood: the two girls and their mother face Shane down, and Tyler’s mother stabs him with her sewing scissors.

Kennedy also displays a keen awareness of the limitations and expectations of masculinity. In Ashes , Chris reflects on his late father’s inability to accept his lack of interest in traditionally masculine pursuits such as fishing. He recalls his father angrily declaring that he doesn’t “know what’s bloody wrong” with him. Chris’ homosexuality also sits well and truly outside of his more conservative parents’ notions of masculinity. Ashes at least ends on a positive note, suggesting reconciliation between Chris and his mother. By far the bleakest depiction of masculinity in the collection is Ray in Sleepers , who, along with many of the men in his town, find himself unemployed or underemployed owing to the outsourcing of major infrastructure projects. The story charts his decline into hopelessness, until, desperate to assert himself in some way upon the world, he makes the disastrous decision to steal a few of the redgum sleepers being unearthed at the construction site, leading to his arrest. Ultimately, Kennedy’s writing stresses the importance of respect and equality, and argues that any gender role, male or female, which encroaches on the autonomy of its subject, is harmful.

Many of the stories focus on bodily damage or trauma; or rather, on the implications of physical trauma rather than the act itself. In Flexion , Frank is crushed by his own tractor, and has his spine snapped: “not dead… but might as well be.” Miraculously, he survives, but this makes him so dependent that his wife, Mrs Slovak, can only feel barely contained “choking rage” burning through her. He cannot walk or wash unaided and is in constant pain. The sudden change in their relationship, as Frank, who had longed played the role of a bloody-mindedly stoic and self-sufficient Australian male, suddenly becomes completely dependent on his wife, forms the main part of the story. The honesty they find, as Mrs Slovak takes control of their farm, is foreshadowed neatly in the early image of a “strongbox” full of “every emotion he’s withheld from her in the last eighteen years” breaking open. Physical damage also looms over Laminex and Mirrors in the form of Mr Moreton, who is dying from cancer. The unnamed protagonist takes it upon herself to sacrifice her job in order to make his final days a little more joyous and human. In Little Plastic Shipwreck , Roland spends his days working at a pathetic aquarium complex in order to provide for him and his wife Liz, who suffered brain damage after falling from a balcony. He also sacrifices his job, although in this case it is that rather than mutilate the dead body of a dolphin. The ending of this story is less triumphant than Laminex and Mirrors , however; the protagonist of the latter is only potentially sacrificing a trip to Europe, whereas Roland must now find some new means of income to support his desperately ill wife. Finally, Like a House on Fire charts the tragi- comic feelings of helplessness that its protagonist feels as he impotently tries to maintain his household following a work injury which makes standing or walking agonisingly painful. He spends much of his story on the floor, “like a beaten dog,” attempting to get his sons to help decorate the Christmas tree. The focus of the stories is never the injury itself; indeed, in the case of Laminex and Mirrors or Like a House on Fire the exact nature of the injury is left reasonably ambiguous. Rather, the focus is on the aftermath of these injuries, and especially their ramifications for human relationships.

Poverty and Class

Cate Kennedy’s stories are focussed largely on very private human interactions, and display little in the way of political attitudes. Nevertheless, she exhibits a keen awareness of class and disadvantage. Sometimes this is through the perspective of more educated, presumably wealthier characters. Chris in Ashes for example is university-educated and thinks in a precise and eloquent fashion, conveyed in long, multi-clausal and lightly ironic sentences: “He thinks of them in formidable capitals: the Book Club Women. Women perennially sitting around modular lounge suites, criticising someone’s book.” He exhibits a certain disdain for his parents, and his desire to read rather than fish with his dad combined with his parents’ quiet disappointment with his homosexuality suggest that he is a more educated, progressive individual than his parents. In Laminex and Mirrors a similar tension exists between the narrator, who years to travel Europe and drink in the “culture” and her co- workers, who have no ambitions further than their cleaning work and find the fact that the protagonist reads for pleasure to be remarkable.

Other stories are told from the perspective of disadvantage or poverty. Five- Dollar Family does not stress so much as imply the low socio-economic status of its characters. Michelle does not mention any work awaiting her after giving birth, and Des exhibits distinctly “lower-class” tastes. Certainly they find the idea of a family photo for $5 extremely enticing. They are not mocked for their status, however: Kennedy’s stories are always compassionate. In Seventy- Two Derwents , however, some of the grimmer realities of poverty are on display. Tyler’s mum seems to have lived a life characterised by early pregnancy, estrangement, and terrible boyfriends, the latest of which is the violent Shane. The mother must prove that she can work by creating and selling luxury dolls in order to access a benefit scheme. Ellie, the older sister, is upwardly mobile, aiming to study, and this at times earns the resentment of her mother, who sees her daughter’s success as mere “showing off.” Whilst told with Kennedy’s usual warmth and humanity – possibly even more than usual – the story still emphasises the potential catastrophe of poverty; Shane almost kills Tyler.

Kennedy often takes the family unit as the focus of her stories. She is particularly interested in the divisions and tensions which simmer away under the surface of families. In Whirlpool , Kennedy presents a family riddled with unspoken resentments and bitterness. The setting, of a hot, interminable Australian summer, captures the sense of unbearably building distaste the young protagonist Anna feels for her family, and especially her mother. As discussed above, her mother obsesses over capturing the perfect photo of her family, often in such a way as to blind her to the reality of the family’s actual level of cohesion. The sense of a group of people mindlessly performing the rituals of a happy and loving family is also captured in Static . Anthony spends much of the story reflecting on the lack of love apparent in his marriage. The sense of performing the role of loving son to his parents is captured when his nephew asks why he must appear incredibly pleased with his grandmother’s lacklustre gift, and Anthony finds himself at a loss as to why he should bother pandering to “the domineering old harridan.” The title has several meanings, one of which is to be static, or still – and Anthony’s state, stuck in a seemingly joyless family unit, captures that meaning.

In Ashes , it is Chris’ homosexuality and lack of interest in traditional masculine pursuits such as fishing which drives a wedge between him and his family. He finds his mother’s determination to whitewash her strained relationship with their dead father and husband, and to rewrite history so that the pair of them went on many fishing trips which they both enjoyed, to be utterly “nauseating.” Even with Alan dead, his ghost seems to linger and strain the relationship between mother and son. A similar strain is even more evident in Seventy- Two Derwents , between Ellie and her mother. The pair frequently argue with each other and the mother seems to deeply resent Ellie’s determination to pull herself out of her family’s disadvantage by working hard, saving money and aiming to go to TAFE or university. However, the pair and the younger sister Tyler eventually face down the abusive Shane, and seem to be growing stronger by the end of the story. This vein of hope runs throughout the entire collection. In Ashes Chris, for all his (understandable) bitterness, seems to yearn for reconciliation with his mother, symbolised in his brushing ash from her shoulder in the final lines. Like a House on Fire and Five-Dollar Family both depict fraught family situations which end on positive, hopeful notes. Kennedy seems to hold that no family is perfect, but that very few families are broken beyond hope of repair.

Many of the stories in this collection feature breakdowns in communication between characters. White Spirit depicts its unnamed narrator struggling to communicate with people who speak “languages I don’t understand,” and who feels a profound disappointment that she cannot communicate as readily as she would like to with the people she ostensibly works for. Cake features a similar predicament. Liz is unable to express to her grief at having to leave her son in the care of strangers. Her co-workers are adamant that working is far superior to staying at home and tending to the needs of children. Liz disagrees, finding herself vaguely surprised at just how pointless and meaningless her work at her office really is; when she attempts to explain that she likes spending time with her son to her co-workers, however, she can tell that “this is not the answer they want.”

More commonly, however, Kennedy depicts this broken communication within relationships and families. Whirlpool vividly depicts the growing alienation between twelve-year-old Anna and her mother. Anna speaks rarely throughout the story. When she does, it is often in a whisper. Instead she finds herself giving a “traitorous” smile to her mother, who she can barely bring herself to speak to. The final image of the story is of a pool filled with “unshed tears” – symbolic of the unspoken tensions rife in the household. In Static Anthony is constantly making sardonic observations about both his wife and his mother, suggesting his growing estrangement from both of them. Flexion depicts a relationship in which no meaningful emotional connection has been made for eighteen years, and Like a House on Fire vividly explores the effects of chronic pain on a marriage in which tensions are more frequently expressed by stony silence than they are through words.

Kennedy frequently takes her characters into places where language alone no longer suffices. However, she never leaves them stranded there. The stories frequently end with a non-verbal affirmation between two characters; clasped hands, an embrace or something similar. This suggests that for Kennedy there are forms of connection and communication which run deeper than language.

Frank and Mrs Slovak

Frank Slovak and his wife, who is never named, are one of many uneasy relationships in the collection. Frank is brooding, domineering, and emotionally repressed. It takes a horrific accident – being crushed by his own tractor – to open up the emotional “locked strongbox” he has kept shut for so long. He is stubborn and wilful, and resents being compelled to accept aid from anybody. His wife is not given a name, reflecting her status in the relationship; similarly, the townspeople refer to her as “the quiet one.” The strain on their already frosty relationship is initially exacerbated by Frank’s injury, to the extent that she resents his survival. However, when he himself confides sorrowfully that his death would have been a gift he “could give [her],” she understands his own emotional turmoil, and the story ends on a hopeful note.

Ashes depicts Chris struggling with the memory of his father, who was uneasy with Chris’ homosexuality. Chris is an articulate, university-educated young man who never fit into his father’s vision of a typically masculine son. Chris also struggles not to resent his own mother, who engages in a wholesale “revisionism” of Chris and his father’s relationship. She reinvents their incredibly awkward fishing trips as cherished memories, despite the fact that they were few and deeply unsatisfactory. Chris also struggles with the memory of his ex-boyfriend. The story ends with his unspoken acceptance of his mother’s grief.

The narrator of Laminex and Mirrors

The narrator of Laminex and Mirrors is a recent high-school graduate working a temporary job as a cleaner at a hospital in order to fund her planned holiday in Europe. She is something of a fish-out-of-water character within the hospital; she yearns for Europe and is nicknamed the Scholar by her co- workers owing to the fact that she occasionally reads for pleasure. She is also frustrated by the arbitrariness of the hospital; she resents being told to clean an old wing which is “about to be demolished” and she feels uncomfortable about the strict rules which forbid any fraternising between staff and patients. She befriends the terminally ill Mr Moreton and eventually gifts him a final morning in the sun with a cigarette, presumably at the cost of her own job.

Christine is another character in the collection who is embedded in a long- term relationship which has not panned out precisely as she had anticipated. She and her husband Al attempted to create an eco-friendly, anti-modern family home, which Christine “loves” but concedes seems permanently “unfinished.” Many of their plans for the house and their lifestyles have been abandoned for practical reasons. She has a lump which must be surgically excised, and this brush with mortality serves to highlight the issues in her life – her vague husband, unfinished house and unruly children – but also reaffirms her love of her family.

The narrator of Like a House on Fire

The narrator of the titular story is a husband and father who is left crippled and helpless after a severe back injury. He must try to organise Christmas from his position on the floor of his loungeroom, where he parks himself in order to exert control over his children while his wife, Claire, works extra shifts. Like all the stories involving bodily trauma in the collection – and there are many – the focus is not on the injury itself but its repercussions, and the effect it has on the emotional life of the person who suffers it. In this case, it is the strain put on the husband-wife relationship and the emasculating effects on the narrator which Kennedy explores.

Like many female characters in Like a House on Fire , Michelle is in a relationship with a useless man. Des is a philanderer, a drunkard and a thug. The story focusses on Michelle’s experience as a new mother, who gives birth to a son and has an epiphany about Des, and determines to live a more fulfilling life once he is out of the picture – and judging by his impending court date, that will not be far off. Through Michelle, Kennedy again affirms the relationship between mother and child creates a hopeful portrait of a young woman taking control of her life.

The narrator of Cross-Country

In Cross-Country , Kennedy paints an often darkly wry and comic portrait of post-breakup depression. The central character has been divorced by her husband, and spent most of her period of leave sitting in her own home, amidst mess and chaos, and obsessively attempting to track him down on her computer. She convinces herself that he has joined a cross-country club and fantasises about competing against him and humiliating him. When she realises that she has fooled herself she feels a metaphorical “cool and unexpected breeze” and seems to determine to re-join the outside world.

Ray is a sensitively-drawn no-longer-young male. He can only find work for a few days a week in a town where much of the male population is unemployed, partially due to outside contractors being given most of the new infrastructure projects. He has also slumped into a deep lethargy following being dumped by his former girlfriend. He lives in the shed of a friend. The rail project in his town becomes a fixation for many of the un- or underemployed men, who attempt to engage in some small act of defiance by stealing the old redgum sleepers which are being pulled up. Ray convinces himself to steal some and the story closes with the police surprising him.

Anna is a twelve-year-old girl with a fraught relationship with her mother, who fixates on appearances and obsessively attempts to create the perfect family Christmas photo. Anna’s mother seems intent on creating tiny rifts, loyalties and divisions within the family. It is a deeply unhealthy dynamic for Anna, who is self-conscious about her weight and body-image. Anna is an extremely sensitively-drawn portrait of a young girl on the cusp of adolescence, and Whirlpool expertly creates a sense of menace and paranoia in a suburban Australian home.

Liz, the central character of Cake , is a first-time mother who has just returned to work after maternity leave. She is horrified at the prospect of leaving her son in the care of others, and is forced with the realisation that her office job is full of banal and completely pointless tasks. Worse, she feels a sense of alienation from her co-workers, who universally agree that maternity leave was stressful and exhausting and that they couldn’t wait to get back to work. Liz is an interesting example of a woman who finds more “liberating” gender roles to be in their won way as constrictive as traditional gender roles.

The narrator of White Spirit

The narrator of White Spirit is a well-meaning but exhausted and alienated manager on a housing estate for immigrants. The story focusses on her futile effort to create a sense of community by commissioning a huge painted mural. However, her despair is challenged by a moment of connection with her charges at the end of the story.

Roley is a typical character for Like a House on Fire . He is working a casual job he hates in order to support his brain-damaged wife as she recovers. Also like many characters in the collection, the story peaks with a small moment of defiance. Ordered to cut up the body of a dead dolphin at the aquarium at which he works, he eventually snaps and loses his job, putting his sense of decency above his economic needs.

Anthony lives with his beautiful wife Marie in a beautiful home. Their perfect life is something of a façade, hiding various tensions – the luxury of the house depends on credit and debts, Marie is ashamed of any little humanising imperfection in her body, they want children but cannot conceive and eventually Anthony is faced with the fact that his economically poorer sister and her husband might actually be happier than he is. He has a biting, ironic sense of humour, particularly when critiquing the actions of his domineering wife.

The reader experiences young Tyler’s perspective on the world through her journal which she keeps for school. She is perceptive, articulate and very artistic, but also dangerously naïve, considering her disorderly family house, characterised by poverty and abuse. Her mother’s boyfriend, Shane, clearly takes a sexual interest in the two daughters, and turns violent by the end of the novel. However, Tyler and her sister and mother overcome Shane and the story – and thus the collection – ends on an optimistic note, with the voice of a creative young girl pledging to follow her dreams.

“Not dead, they said, but might as well be. Caught him straight across his spine.” (1) – Bodily trauma is a recurring motif throughout the collection. Kennedy uses damage to the body for a number of purposes, often, as in this case, as a metaphor for emotional paralysis. Frank’s incapacity represents his inability to connect to other people, especially his wife.
“Yeah, his wife, they said finally, nodding. The quiet one.” (2) – In Flexion , Kennedy begins crafting her motif of women in unfulfilled marriages. Mrs Slovak is defined by her unhappy marriage – literally so; she is never given any other name than Mrs Slovak or, more frequently, Frank’s Wife.
“As she runs she kicks off her slippery town shoes and feels dry furrowed earth rising and falling and crumbling under her bare feet all the way to where he’s lying.” (2) – Kennedy writes most of her stories in the present tense. Combined with vivid details such as the texture of the “dry furrowed earth,” this makes them feel immediate and relatable.
“It’s as if the locked strongbox inside has burst open…” (3) – Kennedy creates a vivid metaphor of a “strongbox” bursting open and repressed thoughts bursting out and “writhing” around. This is symbolic of the way in which physical trauma unlocks repressed emotions in many of the stories.
“The year she’d lost a baby…” (4) – See Lawson, The Drover’s Wife : “One of the children died while she was here alone. She rode nineteen miles for assistance, carrying the dead child.” In the original story, the Drover is physically distant from his wife. In Flexion , he is emotionally distant. Kennedy frequently uses infants and childbirth as symbols of the female experience, and as ways for women to feel a connection to others which they might otherwise lack. The repression of the story of the baby is thus symbolic of the repression of Mrs Slovak generally.
“…and she sits composing her face into relief and optimism while inside, truth be known, she feels cheated.” (6) – The image of the wife “composing” her face to hide her shameful disappointment is a powerful example of the sort of secret inner lives which Kennedy presents throughout her stories.
“It’s easier to nod and agree, to pretend to take his advice about what she should be doing about the farm work.” (7) – In these stories men, boyfriends and husbands are often portrayed as dominating women, physically or emotionally (this is most true of Seventy-two Derwents ). However, it is rarely that simple. The implicit suggestion in these lines that Mrs Slovak has no interest in actually following her husband’s advice, but rather does things her own way, reveals the complexities of their relationship. Frank, particularly in his debilitated state, needs to feel he has control over something; his wife maintains the illusion whilst seeing to it that the best courses of action are taken. The relationship is not a happy one exactly, but it is a functioning one.
“And while the physio shakes her head in admiration… she can’t trust herself to open her mouth.” (8) – This long, multi-clausal sentence is characteristic of Kennedy’s stream-of-consciousness style. We watch the scene unfold, from the doctor’s perspective and then to Mrs Slovak’s, and the manner in which Kennedy piles clauses on top of each other mimics Mrs Slovak’s train of thought.
“… choking rage burns like a grass fire, like gasoline.” (8) – This metaphor evokes the setting, of a farm, by comparing Mrs Slovak’s rage to quintessential rural objects/experiences.
“…tormented by something as incomprehensible and enraging as kindness.” (10) – Meaningful human connection is one of the hardest things for characters to experience in Like a House on Fire . Frank has walled himself off from the world so effectively that he is completely unable to understand why someone might do something out of sheer generosity.
“…and get on that phone.” (13) – Mrs Slovak takes control here – she forces Frank to acknowledge that they cannot continue in isolation; he must accept the kindness of others.
“Now would be a good time to die, while you weren’t there. That’s what I could give you.” (15) – Mrs Slovak realises here how aware of his own, self-imposed entrapment Frank is. His surliness is not evidence of an antisocial nature but rather a terrible fear of being a burden to others. This is true to the extent that he would have preferred to free his wife by dying. This is evidence that for Kennedy, traditional gender roles are as debilitating for men as they are for women.
“She places his hand wordlessly, determinedly, over his heart, and holds it there.” (16) – Kennedy uses a moment of intimate physical connection to symbolise the underlying unity of Frank and his wife.
“He thinks of them in formidable capitals: the Book Club Women. Women perennially sitting around modular lounge suites, criticising someone’s book.” (18) – A good example of the subjective third person narrative voice Kennedy writes in for several stories. Although not in first person, the narration still captures something of Chris’ character; his cynicism, and his University education. He thinks in complex sentences with a complex and self-aware vocabulary.
“As he straightened up after putting his father’s ashes inside the cabinet, longed so much to be with Scott that it almost hurt.” (20) – Chris’s conflictions over his relationship with his father and his failed homosexual relationship with Scott are very closely bound, and this association is particularly strong in this sentence, explicitly linking the two ideas. The story can be read on one level as an exploration of what it means to be male, and the turmoil Chris feels over not being “manly” in the way his father envisaged him..
“The words rage in his head, smoking like acid in behind his clamped mouth.” (27) – Kennedy employs a powerful image of “smoking” words “clamped” behind Chris’ mouth to metaphorically represent his emotional repression.
“And it’s not as if you have a wife and children at home waiting, is it?” (28) – The longstanding resentments of Chris’s family – at least in his mind, for this line is from an imagined, future conversation with his mother – lead back to his homosexuality. However, the “morose passivity” of his father, describes on pages 26 and 27, suggest that part of his father’s resentment is due to his own failure to be a stereotypically successful head of the family.
“He can’t believe this is all that’s left, this dust and grit…” (32) – ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ from the Book of Common Prayer. This passage reflects the Christian view of human life as a temporary, earthly state – the body is merely crude matter – and the afterlife as the true beginning of life. In Ashes , Chris reflects on the brevity of life, and the fact that we are all destined to turn to dust and ash, and he asks himself why he could not have been a little more patient with his father while he was still alive.
“…without interrupting her, he brushes it off.” (33) – In Like a House on Fire , small and seemingly inconsequential physical acts take on an immense significance, as a symbol of connection and love. Chris brushing the ash from his mother’s shoulder is one example of this.

Laminex and Mirrors

“The smell will stay hanging on me all day, burned and stale…” (36) – Kennedy brackets the first (and what is implied to be the last) day of the narrator’s hospital job with cigarettes.
“Feel like that thing’s choking me.” (38) – Entrapment is a common motif in Like a House on Fire , and is presented in a physical, literal depiction in Moreton, who cannot move.
“You can’t tell if she’s pretty or not because of the swelling and bruising…” (39) – The rhinoplasty patients appear as a sharp contrast to Moreton; one with (presumably) lung cancer, and the others undergoing elective surgery in order to fit into society’s stringent beauty standards. Both stand as examples of the many and varied ways that individuals can be pressured into or trapped within physical or social frameworks.
“But it’s about to be demolished.” (45) – The petty order from the matron for the narrator to clean a bathroom which will be demolished in a week is an example of the pointlessness the narrator feels in her job.
“There’s nothing to it in the end, just a steadying grip to help lift him up and over the rim.” (51) – In one of many powerful moments of physical touch representing emotional connection, the narrator lifts Moreton from the bath.
“…in the no-man’s-land of the hospital’s thermostatically cool interior, its sterilised world of hard surfaces…” (56) – The cold inhumanity of the hospital is a sharp contrast to the utterly reckless but poignant act of rebellion by the narrator. In this story, the hospital with its rules and regulations takes on the role of a physical entity which entraps the characters; in other stories, characters are trapped by less tangible forces.
“Christine had fantasies when the kids were babies…” (58) Christine’s fantasies of a “clean and wholesome” house with polite and loving children has given way to the more mundane realities of family life. As with many characters in Like a House on Fire , she must learn to reconcile expectations with reality, and learn that there is no such thing as a perfect family.
“Everything, on the contrary, seems to be teetering on the verge of coming apart.” (63) Christine’s exhausting experience of a domestic life forever on the verge of collapse is a reflection of the randomness of life in Like a House on Fire . Many characters find themselves in situations where they can barely cope with dramatic changes or disasters in their lives.
“But he’s so vague , that’s the trouble, so blind to how much organising she has to do around him to keep it all running.” (64) Christine’s frustration at her husband, who is not a bad man as such but just “vague,” is typical of the pent-up frustrations and resentments which characterise family life in the short-story anthology.
“She feels the ardent rush of helpless, terrible love.” (65) In Tender , the shadow of the narrator’s own mortality throws the mixed emotions of her family life into relief, including irritation at her thoughtless husband and intense “helpless” love for her children.
“They are eyes, it strikes me, that are all too familiar with endlessly compromised plans, as if life is already revealing itself to her as a long trail of small disappointments and changeable older brothers.” (76) The narrator, albeit with a light ironic tone, hits upon a central theme of the anthology when he describes his young daughter as already becoming aware of the “long trail of small disappointments” which characterise life. “Compromised plans” – or visions, or goals – are common throughout the anthology.
“…just to make sure I well and truly kill the occasion now that I’ve poisoned it.” (77) The narrator’s faintly comic, self-mocking tone reveals his nascent sense of shame and guilt at being so debilitated and helpless before is children.
“…and that’s the extent of how we communicate these days, in the tiny squeezed and inflamed gap somewhere between slippage and rupture.” (79) Like the image of Frank’s emotions pouring out of a “strongbox” in Flexion , this image metaphorically locates the relationship between Clair and her husband in the context of his damaged body.
“Well, it can’t be helped,’ she says, and there it is, the sound of everything she’s really talking about, echoing in the big, hollow silence under her words.” (86). As when the narrator imagines a string of rebukes he would never actually say to his wife, he imagines “everything she’d really talking about” when she answers him bluntly. Close relationships between characters in the collection are frequently communicated non-verbally, illustrating the depth of connection humans can create between one another.
“Definition of psychosomatic: something originating in the mind or the emotions rather than through a physical cause.” (88) The narrator’s definition of psychosomatic pain as something “originating in the mind or the emotions” echoes much of his own sense of shame and paranoia, which is largely due to his own sense of guilt rather than genuine resentment on the part of his family.
“….and I reach up to pull the elastic band and grips out of her hair.” (93) Like many of the stories in the collection, Like a House on Fire ends with a symbolic moment of physical connection between to characters, suggesting a deeper connection which is capable of surviving the difficulties life throws at them.

Five-Dollar Family

“The person she’d been before the birth, in fact, seems like a dopey, thickheaded version of who she’s become now.” (102) Whereas most of the characters in the first half of the anthology find themselves reconnecting in the wake of trauma or sudden change, Michelle finds herself finally accepting that she cannot rely on Des for anything.
“She couldn’t believe she’d ever needed him for anything.” (104) In Five-Dollar Family and later, in Seventy-two Derwents , Kennedy presents the bond between mother and child as infinitely more fulfilling than that between a woman and a “useless” man.
“First one thing, and then another thing, and the click when it happens, like a door opening.” (105) Michelle’s description of the way in which the birth of her child led to an important sense of finality about Des echoes the structure of many stories in the collection, where a sudden change or trauma leads to an epiphany.
“Felt herself as indulgent and forgiving and tolerant as his mother, like it was a club women belonged to.” (108) Michelle’s notion of the “club women belonged to” is a powerful example of the way in which women are trapped by society – in this case, through their emotional attachment to manipulative and uninspiring men.

Cross-Country

“There’s a short film looping in my head” (120) The narrator, like many characters in the collection, is a victim of her own fantasies, which threaten to distance her dangerously from the real world.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it, the level to which we’ll invent what we need.” (125) The narrator of Cross-Country , like Chris’ mother in Ashes , fulfils her desires in part by imagining a world in which they are met. For the narrator, this means imagining her ex-husband ringing her in the night, whilst for Chris’ mother it means imagining a version of the past in which her son and husband enjoyed a fulfilling relationship.
“…my face cools as if lifted to a merciful and unexpected breeze.” (125) The narrator of Cross-Country is one of the starkest examples of a character who is trapped by their own mind and their own fantasies. It is implied that the narrator of this story is, however, eventually set free by a “merciful” revelation.
“Ray was stuck in traffic” (127) Ray’s physical state at the opening of the story is a metaphor for his emotional and mental state of paralysis or, as he puts it, “the lethargic kind of trance he’d felt himself lapsing into more and more recently.”
“…passing another man who was pretending to be doing a job of work, bored shitless and leaning on a one-word sign.” (129) Ray’s appraisal of the road worker reflects his own exhausted view of life as consisting of pointless drudgery, a feeling shared by the narrator of Cross-Country .
“Frank, who hadn’t worked for fourteen months.” Kennedy explores the social effects of underemployment and poverty in Sleepers , charting the collapse of Ray’s life, and depicting various male characters who seem to struggle to find work and are reduced to petty theft and drink.
“His mind swam over this bit…” (136) Like many of Kennedy’s characters, Ray blurs the line dangerously between fantasy and reality, and his fate in Sleepers suggests that Kennedy is highly critical of this approach to life.
“…hauled up and discarded but with so much life in it, still, it just broke your heart to see it go to waste” (139) The final comment on the redgum is clearly metaphorical for the state of Ray and many of the underemployed men in the unnamed town who can feel their lives draining away.
“I can’t send one of these – every one’s a disaster.” (142) The mother in Whirlpool , like many characters is the collection, is obsessed with a fantasy of her family, and feels compelled to project an impossibly perfect image of them – even, ironically, as the pressure she applies actually puts strain on that same family.
“You hover there clenched, rooted to the spot.” (143) The description of Anna, silent and “rooted to the spot” as she listens to her mother, suggests that she is yet another character who feels a strong sense of alienation and paralysis, brought about by her sense of distance from her own family.
“You’re barely twelve, you’re nowhere near old enough for that.” (147) Anna’s mother’s obsession with envisaging an ideal family results in her denying reality, such as the fact that her daughter is maturing physically and emotionally. This denial of reality results in a sense of alienation and paranoia in Anna.
“You’re all touching and it feels weird.” (150) Unlike in many other stories in the collection, where physical connection is symbolic of emotional connection, Anna finds the proximity to her family discomforting and intrusive.
“…grim with the need to plot exile and allegiance…” (153) The schemes of “exile and allegiance” constantly gyrating in Anna’s mother’s head suggest that for Kennedy the family unit is as much a place of tension and division as it is love and unity.
“She senses, as they nod and smile, that this is not the answer they want.” (161) Like many of the stories in Like a House on Fire , Cake demonstrates Kennedy’s keen interest in the minutia of social interactions, and particularly the way thoughts and feelings are conveyed non-verbally.

White Spirit

“I don’t understand why this whole process hasn’t worked out like I thought, like I said it would on my grant project description.” (191) The narrator, like many characters in Like a House on Fire , must come to terms with reality as it is, rather than as she imagines it should be, or as it is idealistically depicted in “grant descriptions” and other such bureaucratic paraphernalia.
“…I feel two arms on either side of me, stretching tentatively round my waste, drawing me tighter, and in spite of everything I smile.” (195) Like many stories in the collection, White Spirit closes on an image of physical connection, which temporarily breaks through the narrator’s sense of alienation.

Little Plastic Shipwreck

“You fucking do it.” (207) Like the narrator of Laminex and Mirrors , Roley finds a small degree of comfort and release in a small act of defiance, placing his principles above his economic needs.
“Her hand there for comfort. Warmth and pulse flowing between us, skin to skin.” (213) In Waiting , the cold and clinical hospital is made human through physical human connection – a motif which appears time and again in Like a House on Fire.
“…lips closed and chin raised like a model of cool serenity, a perfected study of herself.” (226) Marie, like many of Kennedy’s characters, obsesses over a perfect, unattainable image of herself. This is often reflected in the myth of the perfect family, as in Static , where a group of people who clearly dislike each other must play at happy families for the occasion.
“Why indeed? Why is he pandering to the domineering old harridan?” (231) One of Kennedy’s many flashes of humour, this line illustrates the absurdity of the fictions which characters create and maintain in order to survive.
“Does she love him? She lets him see her in the morning without make-up, does that count?” (233) Anthony’s bitingly ironic tone skewers the level of artifice and make-believe which characterises his life, suggesting that allowing him to see her without make-up is the closest thing to genuine affection Marie shows him.

Seventy-Two Derwents

“Maybe that’s why Shane comes over to our place to have a shower and get changed.” (250) Kennedy creates an almost unbearable sense of tension in Seventy-Two Derwents through Tyler’s innocent and naïve child voice. The dramatic irony, whereby the reader can see that Shane is a despicable character long before the narrator can, helps build a sense of dread.
“I’m right behind you, Ty. Right here.” (275) Throughout the collection, there are occasional hints of a sort of female solidarity, of women characters who bond through the ineptitude of the men in their lives. It is most vividly portrayed in the set-piece at the end of Seventy-Two Derwents , of three girls and women standing up to a violent male.
“I kept writing mine these holidays so that you will know you were right.” (277) The collection ends with a powerful affirmation of the power of literature, and an image of Tyler collecting the budgie’s egg, suggesting hope and renewal. The overall effect is to affirm the power of art and literature to provide solace and hope.

Report Writing: House On Fire

A couple of examples to help with your report writing on a house on fire.

Table of Contents

A house fire is one of the most devastating events that can happen to a family. It can cause loss of property, injuries, and even fatalities. In this report, we will describe the events that took place during a recent house fire.

As we approached the scene, we could see the thick black smoke and flames engulfing the house. The sound of sirens blaring and people shouting added to the chaos and panic among the residents and passersby. The fire had spread rapidly, and it was clear that it was going to be a difficult task for the firefighters to contain it.

The firefighters arrived on the scene quickly, and we could hear the sound of their sirens getting louder as they approached. They sprang into action, trying to control the fire and prevent it from spreading to neighboring houses. The sound of breaking glass and crackling fire filled the air as they worked tirelessly to extinguish the flames.

After several hours of fighting the fire, the firefighters were finally able to bring it under control. However, the damage had already been done, and the once-beautiful house was now a charred and blackened shell. The aftermath of the fire was a somber reminder of the destructive power of fire, and the family who once called the house their home were left with nothing but memories.

In conclusion, a house fire is a devastating event that can leave families homeless and traumatized. We must take every precaution to prevent such incidents from happening and ensure that our homes are equipped with fire safety measures. The bravery of the firefighters who risked their lives to save the affected family and their property is commendable. We must always be grateful for their service and dedication to our community.

A fire outbreak is one of the most devastating events that can happen to any homeowner. It can be a traumatic experience that leaves one feeling helpless and vulnerable. In this report, I will describe a house on fire, including the initial sight of the fire, the response to the fire and the aftermath of the fire.

The fire outbreak occurred in a two-story house located in a quiet suburban neighborhood. The initial sight of the fire was alarming as the flames were already high and had spread to the roof of the house. The smoke was thick and black, making it difficult to see the extent of the damage. The sound of glass shattering could be heard as the windows of the house exploded from the intense heat. The flames were so intense that they could be seen from several blocks away.

The response to the fire was swift, with firefighters arriving on the scene within minutes. They quickly set up their equipment and began to work on controlling the flames. The firefighters were able to contain the fire to the house, preventing it from spreading to neighboring houses. The fire was eventually put out after several hours of intense firefighting. The cause of the fire was later determined to be an electrical fault.

The aftermath of the fire was devastating. The house was left in ruins, with most of the roof and the upper floor completely destroyed. The family who lived in the house were lucky to have escaped with their lives, but they lost most of their possessions. Several of their pets were not so lucky and perished in the fire. Efforts to rebuild and restore the house were already underway, but it would take months before the family could move back in.

In conclusion, a house on fire is a traumatic experience that can leave a lasting impact on the affected family. The quick response of the firefighters helped to prevent the fire from spreading to neighboring houses. However, the aftermath of the fire is a long and difficult process of rebuilding and restoring that requires patience and support. It is important for homeowners to take preventative measures to reduce the risk of fire outbreaks and to have an evacuation plan in place in case of emergencies.

A house fire is a devastating event that can leave a lasting impact on a community. When a fire breaks out, the initial response can be crucial in determining the extent of the damage. In this report, we will examine a recent house fire and its aftermath.

The house fire was first reported around 3:00 am on a Tuesday morning. Neighbors reported seeing flames and smoke coming from the roof of the house. The local fire department was immediately called, and they arrived on the scene within minutes. Firefighters quickly began to work on containing the fire, but it was already spreading rapidly.

Despite the efforts of the firefighters, the fire quickly spread throughout the house. The intensity of the flames made it difficult for firefighters to enter the house and attempt to put out the fire from the inside. Within an hour, the entire house was engulfed in flames. The roof collapsed, and the walls caved in, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble.

The aftermath of the fire and the impact on the homeowners and community.

The homeowners were devastated by the loss of their home and possessions. They were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The community rallied around the family, offering support and donations. The Red Cross provided temporary housing and assistance. The fire department conducted an investigation to determine the cause of the fire, but it was inconclusive. The impact of the fire on the homeowners and the community will be felt for years to come.

In conclusion, the house fire was a tragic event that had a significant impact on the homeowners and the community. The quick response of the fire department helped to contain the fire, but the intensity of the flames made it difficult to save the house. The aftermath of the fire has left the homeowners with nothing but memories of their former home. The community has come together to support the family during this difficult time, but the impact of the fire will be felt for a long time.

About Mr. Greg

Mr. Greg is an English teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently based in Hong Kong. He has over 5 years teaching experience and recently completed his PGCE at the University of Essex Online. In 2013, he graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BEng(Hons) in Computing, with a focus on social media.

Mr. Greg’s English Cloud was created in 2020 during the pandemic, aiming to provide students and parents with resources to help facilitate their learning at home.

Whatsapp: +85259609792

[email protected]

A House on Fire Essay

I had never seen a house on fire. So, one evening when I heard the roar of fire engines rushing past my house, I quickly ran out and a few streets away joined a large crowd of people.

But the police did not allow anyone to go near the building on fire. What a terrible scene I saw that day! Huge flames of fire were coming out of each floor and black and thick smoke spread all around.

Every now and then tongues of fire would shoot up almost sky-high, sending huge sparks of fire all around Three fire engines were engaged in putting out the fire by pouring water over it.

The rushing water from several houses soaked the building, but it did not seem to have any effect on the flames. Thereafter firemen stretched upwards a huge ladder structure and I could see some fireman climbing up with hoses in their hands.

On reaching almost the top of the ladder, they began to pour floods of water on the topmost part of the building. The continuous flooding brought the fire under control but the building had by then been completely destroyed.

Michael Poem by William Wordsworth Summary, Notes and Line by Line Explanation in English
Dream of the Rood Poem Summary, Notes and Line by Line Explanation in English
Random Phrase Generator [English]
Random Compound Word Generator
Random Joke of the Day Generator

India’s Largest Career Transformation Portal

A House on Fire Essay for Students and Children in English

January 3, 2021 by Sandeep

A House on Fire Essay – A burning house attracts many shocked spectators trying to take care of the situation. People come out with buckets of water, sand and dust trying to control the growing flames. Neighbours can be seen trying to help victims holed up inside the house and trying to care for their burns and injuries. Rescue personnel and fire engines from fire brigade with long water pipes would be deployed immediately to extinguish the fire.

Essay on A House on Fire 200 Words in English

Below we have provided a house on fire essay, suitable for class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

One evening, I was peacefully studying in my room because I had an important test the next day. I was so engrossed in my studies that I could not hear the noise of people shouting fire! fire! outside my house. My sister entered my room and told me that a home in our neighbourhood had caught fire. I panicked and screamed. We rushed outside along with my mother and father to help our neighbour.

The entire community were pouring buckets of water and dry sand to extinguish the fire. Many even tried to cover some area of the house by a blanket to control fire, but it was blazing. The view was horrifying. People were trying relentlessly to put out the fire but to no avail. The fire brigade was taking a lot of time to arrive on the spot because of which the fire caused considerable damage to the house.

Since the house was a three-storey structure, the inmates were trapped on the third storey and were crying for help. Their lives were in danger as the flames were encroaching them rapidly. We were helpless and at a loss to help the victims who were screaming for help. All of us were praying and waiting anxiously for the fire brigade. Meanwhile, the fire brigade turned up. People took a sigh of relief. The secretary of that area explained the scenario and efforts made to extinguish the fire to the staff.

Paragraph Writing
A House On Fire Paragraph

A House on Fire Paragraph - Check Samples for Various Word Limits

Building a house takes a lot of pain. It is not only about building a pucca house or a kutcha house. Having a shelter over your head is a blessing but when it is wasted within a few minutes, it feels as if the whole world has been destroyed. All the struggles and all the pain vanishes within a few minutes.

A House on Fire Paragraph in 100 Words

A house on fire paragraph in 150 words, a house on fire paragraph in 200 words, a house on fire paragraph in 250 words, frequently asked questions on a house on fire.

Writing your feelings after seeing a house on fire? Check the samples provided below before you write the paragraph.

Having a shelter over our heads is a blessing. It takes a lot of pain to build a house. It is not only about the money but also the physical labour we take to build a house. But when there is a fire outbreak and the whole place is burnt down, nothing can be more heartbreaking than this. All the pain and struggle vanishes within a few minutes. While walking down the street in 2018, I saw a small spark near the slum, and suddenly, one of the houses caught fire as it was a kutcha house and then within a few minutes, the entire house was burning. Being scared, I screamed out to help, and before the people could save the house, it was completely burnt down. The pain was seen in the eyes of the owner, and I could see the fire in his eyes.

Building a house is a labour of love. It is not only about the money; it is also about the physical labour required to construct a home. It is a blessing to have a roof over our heads. But nothing can be more terrible than a house fire that ultimately consumes the entire structure. All of the troubles you took and struggles you underwent vanish in a matter of minutes. Once I was returning from my tuition classes in the evening, and suddenly, someone shouted for help in my neighbourhood. It was a lonely place, and I got scared listening to the scream. Before I could turn back, I saw a bright light, and after turning back, I saw my neighbour’s house was on fire. I could see him trying to save his house by throwing water, and his wife was coming out of the house with two children. Thanks to the fire brigade who came immediately and saved more than half of the building.

Having a place to call home is a blessing and is a major boon to have your own home. Many people are homeless, and we can never understand the hardships they face every day. When someone constructs their own house, they go through a lot of grief and suffering that is concealed from the public eye. Nothing is more terrifying than discovering your home is on fire. All of your suffering and anguish are buried deep within you. I was studying in my room one day when I heard a loud explosion in my neighbourhood. I bolted from my room and dashed downstairs to see what had happened. Almost all of my neighbours were running towards the end of the lane, where a huge flame was blazing. I could not really distinguish if it was someone’s house or just a fire. When I arrived, I noticed that one of my neighbours’ houses was on fire, and the owner was crying. I phoned the fire department right away, and they arrived with a long siren and quickly evacuated the entire building. They attempted to save the cook and the owner’s wife, who were trapped inside. His house was half burned down, but there were few other casualties. The people who were saved are grateful to the fire department.

A house can catch fire due to various reasons. When a person builds his house, he takes a lot of pain which is hidden from the rest of the world. He puts in all his efforts to build the house, and nothing in this world can be as terrifying as seeing your house set on fire. A lot of people are homeless, and their pain is incomparable. Something happened when I was in 5th grade and was learning about the emergency contact numbers in my school. While returning from the school, I saw a huge flame from one of the houses in my neighbourhood. My father and I ran to the place to see if it was my house which caught fire, but fortunately it was not my house. It was my neighbour who was a very close friend of my father. I saw him running out of his house and screaming out for help. Without wasting a minute, I called the fire brigade. The flames were spreading, and the owner of the house lost his consciousness due to the gases and flames. The fire brigade reached the site immediately and saved the lives of the people who were trapped inside the house and saved almost sixty percent of the house from burning. Although the fire crew spared his home, the owner’s eyes are permanently scarred by the wreckage. He burst into sobs as he realised what had happened. Even though he repaired his home, the devastation it caused is indescribable.

How does a house catch fire?

A house can catch fire due to various reasons. Fire is unstoppable. Therefore, it can spread quickly inside a house. It can be caused if a gas cylinder bursts, if there is an electric spark, etc.

How can we save a house on fire?

If a house catches fire, the best thing to do is to call the fire brigade immediately. It is not easy to stop the fire from spreading without the help of fire extinguishers.

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Academic Test Guide

Essay on A House on Fire in English For Students & Children

We are Sharing an Essay on A House on Fire in English for students and children. In this article, we have tried our best to provide a Short Essay on A House on Fire for Classes 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 in 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500 words.

Essay on A House on Fire in English For Students & Children

Short Essay | Paragraph on A House on Fire ( 100 to 150 words )

It was the month of April. I was having a sound sleep. Suddenly cries of Fire! Fire! woke me up. People are running on the street. It took me a few minutes to realise that a house had caught fire. I went downstairs in hurry and rushed to the affected house. There were clouds of smoke. The flames were running to the sky. One baby was left sleeping in the upper house. Her mother was crying bitterly. Her cries touched every heart. Showing some courage, I put the ladder against the wall and saved that child. She was happy to see the baby. Everyone thanked me. The lady blessed me again and again. People started throwing buckets full of water and sand. In the meantime, the fire brigade rushed to the affected houses and controlled the fire.

Essay on A House on Fire for students ( 300 words )

Last Sunday, I went to bed a bit late. I had slept just a few minutes when I heard loud cries outside.

I came out of my house and looked out in the street. I found the people running hurriedly in one direction. I learned from n of the runners that Mr. Kirpal Chand’s house in the neighbour. ing street had caught fire. I bolted the house from outside and began to move quickly in that direction.

As I reached Danny’s house, I was shocked to see that the flames of fire were touching the sky. Mr. Danny was a cloth merchant. He was in the habit of keeping bundles of cloth in his house before being taken to his shop for sale in the market. I was told that the entire stock of cloth in his house had been engulfed by the fire which had started from an unextinguished butt of a cigarette.

Danny was a chain-smoker. It was a strange combination for a cloth merchant to be a chain-smoker also, and this fact was being discussed by the by slanders.

Danny’s wife was in a state of frenzy. She was crying loudly. I learned that her little child who was sleeping in its cradle had been left in the house.

Nobody, dared go and fetch the child, as there was real risk involved in the venture. But it was, at the same time, difficult to hear the loud pathetic wails of the lady. Moreover, it was a question of human service and humanity had been thrown a true challenge by the circumstances.

For a few moments, I looked at all the bystanders and then without a warning, jumped straight into the fire.

Within a few minutes, I brought the child out and handed it over to the poor lady. She was so overwhelmed with gratitude that she could hardly utter a word. But her silence and sobbing were more eloquent than any speech, and the bruises and slight burns that I got seemed sweet slich a noble venture for which I needed no recompense.

# Speech | Paragraph on A House on Fire for kids # A House on Fire composition

Dear viewers, Hope you like this article Essay on A House on Fire in English and Please let us know by commenting below.

Rainy Day Essay

Hindi (Sr. Secondary)

Punjab (Sr. Secondary)
Accountancy and Auditing
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology
Automobile Technology
Electrical Technology
Electronics Technology
Hotel Management and Catering Technology
IT Application
Marketing and Salesmanship
Office Secretaryship
Stenography
Hindi Essays
English Essays

Letter Writing

Shorthand Dictation

Essay on “A house on fire” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Essay No. 01

A house on fire

6 Best Essays on ” A House on Fire”

On the evening of last Saturday, we were having a tea party in our house. All of a sudden, the happy atmosphere of the party was disturbed by a loud noise. The guests at the party started running out of the house in great confusion. I came outside and found that one of our neighbors had caught fire. The flames were rising high up towards the sky. Everybody feared that a big fire would spread in the whole colony. We got anxious to bring the fire under control. The wind fanned the flames. People want to put out the fire with buckets full of water and bags of sand.

The lady of the house was weeping bitterly. Her cries were heart-rending. Her only son was sleeping on the upper story. The fire had not yet reached there. But clouds of smoke were summing out of the window of that room. Going to that story to save the boy meant sure death. I wanted to rush to the help of the injured boy but I had an injured leg. A young boy offered to risk his life. The people put a ladder against the wall. The boy ran up like an arrow. He brought down the child out of the flames. Both the boy and the child were choked with smoke.

The fire began to die down. It took two hours to bring it down. The building was reduced to ashes. It was a terrible sight. Our neighbor was in great distress. None could say how the fire broke out. Some said that the fire was started by some mischievous people in the colony. Others said that it was due to the carelessness of the servant of the house who left a burning cigarette near some clothes. In any case, the owner of the house suffered a heavy loss. But God is thankful there was no loss of life. Everyone praised the young boy for his bravery.

Essay No. 2

A House on Fire

It was midnight when the hands of the clock join palms. There was deep silence everywhere. I was enjoying a sound sleep in my room with my younger brother. All of a sudden, I was awakened by the noise of footsteps outside. It appeared as if the people were running in the street. I got up and peeped down from the window. I came to know that the house of my friend Roshan was ablaze. I at once hurried to the spot.

The house was completely enveloped in flames. A strong wind formed the fire. The flames leaped to the sky giving out the clouds of smoke. The owner of the house was beating his breast, crying “ I am undone!, I have lost all!” the articles were lying scattered in the street. There were endless hurry and excitement. Many were busy in bringing buckets of water while others poured it on the fire. I, too, joined them, we tried our best to put out the fire, but all our efforts were in vain.

Soon the whole building with everything in it was burnt to ashes.

The fire brigade was rung up. In no time it was there. A crew of active men in brass helmets got to work and the fire was brought under control in half an hour. God be thanked, the neighboring houses were saved.

It is said that it was all due to the carelessness of the servant who was a heavy smoker. While smoking his pipe, he dozed off to sleep. The burning ashes from the pipe fell down and set fire to the bed. Soon the fire spread in the whole building.

The loss was estimated at more than five lakhs. Everyone had sympathy for the affected family. They were shifted to a nearby house and an emergency meeting of all the elders of the colony was called. It was decided that the house will be repaired as a joint venture by people.

God save everybody from such a calamity but we have to be very vigilant to keep away from such an event and when we face one face it boldly as life is another name of a struggle.

Essay No. 03

A House on fire

I have often heard that smoking is injurious to health. It was, however, last Sunday that I realized that it could destroy a whole house and endanger the life of the dwellers.

Last Sunday, as I got up a bit late in the morning, I heard a loud noise outside in the street. At first, I dismissed it taking it for a noisy brawl between two quarrelsome neighbors who had recently shifted in our street from some other town.

The noise, however, was so loud that I could not help going out. To my great surprise, I found the people running towards the eastern side of the street. They had buckets of water and sand in their hands.

As I looked towards the east, I saw tall, forky flames of fire and clouds of smoke. Without wasting a moment, I rushed towards the side of the flames.

I was greatly shocked to learn that the famous tailor, Mr. Rahmat Ali’s house was on fire. It was learned that Ali being a chain smoker, could not resist smoking even while stitching costly clothes. They caught fire as a speck of burning cigarette fell on the silk and polyester clothes. The fire spread to the other occupant of the house, Mr. Pritam Kumar who happened to be a cloth merchant and had dumped bundles of cotton, silk, and polyester cloth in his rooms. He like Ali was also a tenant in the house.

Needless to say that the fire engulfed the whole house and within a short period of time, not only the costly cloth and stitched clothes but also all the furniture and wood articles such as doors, windows, ventilators, etc. were reduced to ashes. Meanwhile, the landlord also arrived. He beat his breast in vain. All the people’s efforts to control fire were also futile. I rang up the fire brigade. It came within a few minutes and controlled the fire after a hard struggle of about two hours.

Essay No. 04

In the evening of last Sunday, I found that the house of our neighborhood caught fire. The flames were rising to the sky.

Suddenly I heard shouts of “Fire, Fire!” I woke up at once and looked out in the street. I saw a house on fire.

I ran downstairs and reached the place. Many people had collected there. They were running with buckets full of water and bags full of sand. What a terrible scene I saw that day!

But it did prove of much help. A strong wind was blowing. Some cries were heard from inside the house. The house belonged to a doctor.

Soon some fire engines reached the spot. Two firemen entered the burning house. They helped the doctor’s family to come out. Fortunately, no one was killed.

The fire was brought under control. The building was reduced to ashes. The shopkeeper had suffered a great loss. It was a very fearful sight.

Essay No. 05

It was a winter night I was sleeping in the bedroom of my house. “A loud noise woke me up. I hurriedly put on some warm clothes and came down into the street. There were many people running helter-skelter.

One of the people stopped and told me that a big fire had broken out and that he was rushing to give a helping hand. I also joined him. We soon reached the house that had caught the fire.

It was a big fire. The whole house was engulfed in smoke. Flames were rising to the sky. Many people were throwing water on the fire. There was a strong wind. It fanned the fire and made spread to new areas of the house.

I rushed back and telephoned the fire brigade. The residents of the house were in a bad way. Women and children were crying. They were also shivering in the cold. Their cries touched every heart. Some of the people escorted them to a sheltered place.

One child was caught in the fire. Everyone feared for his life. Meanwhile, the flames were rising higher and higher

Luckily the fire brigade arrived in good time. The firefighters surrounded the house from all sides. They quickly placed the ladders and brought out all they could save from the fire. The child was also saved. Another big ladder was placed against the burning wall. A firefighter dressed in fire-proof clothing rapidly climbed up the ladder and went on the roof of the burning house. Therewith the help of an axe he broke the water tank of the house Three gallons of water rushed out from the broken water tank. It doused the fire from above. The firemen meanwhile doused the fire from below by spraying water from their water hoses.

The whole operation lasted about half an hour. The fire was brought under control. Soon it was put out. Fortunately, there was no loss of life. The loss to the property was estimated to be about fifty thousand rupees.

We came to know the cause of the fire three days later. It seemed that the residents of the house had left an angeethi burning to ward off the cold. A spark of fire from it had ignited a curtain and before anyone could react the whole house was on fire.

Essay No. 06

It was the night of June. I was sleeping on the roof of my house. Suddenly I woke up hearing a loud noise. I came downstairs and reached the street. I saw many people running.

I stopped a man. He told me that a big fire had broken out in a house nearby. I also ran with him and saw the house on fire.

It was a big fire. The whole house was engulfed in smoke. Soon flames were seen rising high. Many people were busy in throwing buckets of water on the fire. A strong wind fanned the fire.

The inmates of the house had come out. Women were crying loudly and children too were crying. Someone has rung up the fire station. The cries of the women and children were heart-rending. Everyone was moved by their utterances. One child was caught in the fire. None had the courage to go in and bring the child out. Everyone was worried for his life.

The fire-brigade bells echoed in the area. Soon the fire: men surrounded the house from all sides. One of them got into the burning house followed by another with a hose pipe of water pouring in the house. The child was first of all brought out of the burning house. The firemen, the water tank were placed on the roof of the house. Water gushed out from the rooftop which too helped in bringing. The fire is under control. The whole operation just took half an hour. Soon it was put out completely. Thanks to God that there was no loss of life. The loss of property was estimated to be more than eighty thousand. The cause of the fire was not known.

About evirtualguru_ajaygour

commentscomments

I want to know composition

Big house/night/all sleep/loud cries/the house of fire/flames rise/wind blows/terrible sight/people try… To stop fire/throw water… Sand/child….catch…in the house/ parents.. Cry/ young man bring.. Child out/ praise young man/ fire Brigade.. Arrive control fire/ loss… Property/ but all lives… Saved/ ok

Sir send me immediately story in composition I send to u. Plz send to my mail id

it helps much

I want to need for 9 th class essay ‘A house on fire’

Hi Momina Khan Essay on ” A House on fire”

http://evirtualguru.com/essay-on-a-house-on-fire-complete-essay-for-class-10-class-12-and-graduation-and-other-classes/

Nice 😀😀😀😀😀🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒🖒👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌 It will increase other students level of junior class 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😃😃😃🖒

Very interesting story but can I want building fire. ANYBODY DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO THAT

Great sir quaid.azam ka essay bhi likhe class 6 ke liye

intresting but i want that it was not happend to me or near me i want that it was happened on that road or that country like that but surely it is goood

Quick Links

Popular Tags

Visitors question & answer.

TEJAS on Hindi Essay on “Manoranjan Ke Adhunik Sadhan” , ” मनोरंजन के आधुनिक साधन” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
Hania Shakeel on Hindi Essay on “Yadi mein Adhyapak Hota”, “यदि मैं अध्यापक होता” Complete Essay, Paragraph, Speech for Class 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 Students.
Keshav on Hindi Essay on “Ekta me Shakti” , ”एकता में शक्ति” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
Fucker on Short Story ”A Faithful Dog and its Master” Complete Story for Class 10, Class 12 and other classes.
Aditi on Hindi Essay on “Parishram Saphalta ki Kunji Hai” , ”परिश्रम सफलता की कुंजी है ” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Download Our Educational Android Apps

Latest Desk

Samkaleen Bhartiya Mahilaye “समकालीन भारतीय महिलाएं” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1000 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
Nijikarn – Gun evm Dosh “निजीकरण: गुण एवं दोष” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1200 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
Bharat mein Mahilaon ke Rajnitik Adhikar “भारत में महिलाओं के राजनीतिक अधिकार” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 700 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
Bharat mein Jativad aur Chunavi Rajniti “भारत में जातिवाद और चुनावी राजनीति” Hindi Essay, Nibandh 1000 Words for Class 10, 12 Students.
Example Letter regarding election victory.
Example Letter regarding the award of a Ph.D.
Example Letter regarding the birth of a child.
Example Letter regarding going abroad.
Letter regarding the publishing of a Novel.

Vocational Edu.

English Shorthand Dictation “East and Dwellings” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines.
English Shorthand Dictation “Haryana General Sales Tax Act” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
English Shorthand Dictation “Deal with Export of Goods” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
English Shorthand Dictation “Interpreting a State Law” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.

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

How to get an A+ on your Like a House on Fire essay

October 4, 2020

Want insider tips? Sign up here!

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

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!

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 !

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

VCE Text Response Study Guide

Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy

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

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 ‍

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!

Access a FREE sample of our Like a House on Fire study guide

Learn how to brainstorm ANY essay topic and plan your essay so you answer the topic accurately
Apply LSG's THINK and EXECUTE strategy , a clear and proven method to elevate the quality of your text response writing
5 sample A+ essays with EVERY essay annotated and broken down on HOW and WHY these essays achieved A+ ‍
Think like a 45+ study scorer through advanced discussions on symbols & motifs, views & values and character analysis

Have you ever wondered how you can read your books so efficiently that you will be able to identify the most important passages, quotes, symbols, author’s views and values etc. all in one go? Well, I’m going to share some handy tips you can adopt while annotating a novel that will hopefully help you achieve this. Warning – if you are a reader who likes to preserve their books and keep them crispy clean, this study guide probably isn’t for you. However, keep in mind that annotating texts is a powerful step in getting to know your text and optimising your essay responses.

Before we get started, what exactly is ‘annotating’? To annotate means to add notes to a text where you provide extra comments or explanations (usually in the margins of the book). It is very much an activity for yourself, because it allows you to become an active reader – where you are engaged in thinking about the plot, themes, characters etc. as you are reading and jotting down key thoughts. As a result, active readers are more likely to become immersed in the story, absorb the ideas better, be more open-minded and therefore usually develop their own unique interpretation of the text. While annotating may not come so naturally to some of you, this guide below should definitely equip you with a good starting ground!

1. Think of your text as a colouring book. Use different coloured highlighters for different themes. This way when you’re rummaging through your book to find a certain quote to support a theme, say you specifically only highlight ‘romance’ theme in pink, it’s much easier for you to find the pink than to look through a whole book highlighted all in green. Think of it as creating a trail for you to follow throughout the book. Creating a legend at the start of the book (for example, in the contents page) can help you keep track of which colour stands for which theme.

2. Circle new vocabulary. Look it up and then write their definitions next to the word. Next, keep a word bank in a workbook or on a word document containing any words you’ve learnt. Now you’ve successfully killed two stones with one bird – you’ve broadened your vocabulary and you’ve got a handy sophisticated vocabulary list you can always refer to when it comes to essay writing!

3. Write notes in the margins. Here you can summarise the significant points of a passage without needing to re-read the whole thing again. Use a pencil rather than pen. If you don’t like writing on paper, you can always use sticky notes and stick them to the pages. However, avoid writing full comprehensive notes in the margins. You’re not trying to write another book inside the empty sections of a book. Use a separate workbook or a word document for that!

4. Be open to different interpretations. Just because your teacher or a study guide interprets the text in particular way, doesn’t mean that you need to agree. If you see things from a different angle, that’s an advantage for you. Remember that you can be ambiguous with your ideas, understanding a certain character or theme from multiple perspectives offers you a variety of ideas that can be applied in your essay. This idea is echoed by English assessors in the VCAA 2013 Examination Report,

…students should be encouraged to have confidence in their own reading and demonstrate a personal understanding of their text, rather than relying exclusively on commercially produced material. All texts are complex works of art with a wealth of opportunity for exploration. There is no ‘expected’ response to a topic, and the most successful pieces were those that were thoughtful and fresh.

5. Got burning questions that pop up? Don’t dismiss what you don’t understand! Put down a question mark and do some research. The better you understand your text now, the greater understanding you will have of events that occur later in the text.

6. Mark literary devices. Symbols, metaphors, alliteration, assonance – the list goes on. Use shapes such as circles, triangles, squares and create a legend in order to keep track of the different literary devices that present themselves throughout the text. Bear in mind that the best essays always include a well-rounded discussion about the author’s choices in literary techniques and how they develop specific themes and/or characters.

7. Dog-ear important passages . Some key passages can be lengthy (spreading over several pages), and it can be a pain to highlight pages and pages of a book (it might too much for your eyes to handle too – ouch!) so instead, fold the corners of those pages down so that you know exactly where that key event occurs.

8. Find unique phrases/quotes. You’ll come across the same quotes that are repeatedly mentioned in class, study guides and essays that other students have written. To stand out, you should try to find those quotes that are equally powerful but are somewhat overlooked or underrated.

9. Annotate study notes and study guides. These notes are written by another reader who has developed their own ideas about the text – this doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to share the same ideas as there is always opportunity to disagree with another’s opinion. Draw smiley faces or frowns in areas where you agree or disagree. This can be the basis of an interesting discussion in your own essay.

10. Don’t be afraid to destroy that book! Yes, it’s nice to have a book crispy and clean, but think of annotating as a way to own that book! Show that you know the in and outs of the text so well that if someone else were to pick it up, they would have no idea where to even begin! Having proper notes in the right places and annotations will make the biggest difference.

Keep in mind that annotating does not equal skimming (where you briefly speed-read through your text). If you’re planning to only flick through the book, you are probably not going to find those unique passages or under-used yet powerful quotes. Take it slow and easy!

Introduction

Poetry. Students tend to have strong feelings about it, some love the melodic rhythm and the eloquent way in which it encapsulates life and others hate it, either because they find it a snooze-fest and would rather read the dictionary, or they simply don’t know how to approach analysing it. Whatever boat you may be in, by the end of your study of Peter Skrzynecki’s New/Old World poems, you’re bound to have a new appreciation for the art that is poetry and find analysing poems less of a daunting prospect and more a something easy to nail.

Before we begin diving into Skrzynecki, I’d highly recommend that you check our LSG’s Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response . It’s jam-packed with awesome, FREE advice for how to ACE Text Response.

Analysing Poetry in Old/New World

Unlike other forms of text, a collection of poems is not one continuous body of writing, instead a poetry collection is more like a series of vignettes, snapshots into poignant moments, in this case, of an author’s life. Whilst many students may struggle with this form and ask “How many poems do I analyse? Do I need to know all of them?”, poems are easier than most texts to prioritise and categorise into themes and often have a significant amount of metalanguage. And in answer to your questions, whilst its best you analyse the whole collection to some extent, knowing 10 or so strategically chosen poems really well, covering all themes and types should hold you in good stead for any question thrown at you in the exam.

Peter Skrzynecki wrote his poems over a significant amount of time, starting in 1970 and ending in 2006. This has given the collection a unique perspective, not only demonstrating a migrant’s journey through narrative, but also by providing the different attitudes and feelings of belonging, experienced by one individual as they try to assimilate in their new world over a period of time. This gives us, as students, a wonderful opportunity to look deeper into the text and identify Skrzynecki’s differing positions in regard to identity, family and belonging, through the perspective from which he writes his poems at different stages of his life.

To learn more about the importance of context in VCE English, check out this blog post .

The Structure

Skrzynecki’s collection tends to feature three types of poem, by identifying these, analysing each piece can be made easier as similar types of poem often focus on similar themes. The three categories of poetry to look for are:

Nature Poems

Peter Skrzynecki showcases his connection to Australia through poems that depict often idyllic landscapes, or the lives of common fauna of Australia, such as birds and fish.

The Immigrant Experience

These poems such as Immigrants at Central Station, Migrant Hostel and The Polish Immigrant offer an insight into the emotionally turbulent and difficult journey migrants go through to live in Australia. These poems also demonstrate the experiences of relief and joy felt when arriving, as well as emotions of fear, trepidation and disconnect in regards to both their new home and their old world.

Family Poems

Often the most emotionally pulling, these poems tug at the heartstrings and showcase the relationships between Peter Skrzynecki and his family, as well as his exploration of his heritage, his ties to his Polish background.

The new/old world structure, similar to the old and new testament of the bible are used to highlight the old world of Skrzynecki’s Polish roots and childhood, whilst the new world is his new life in Australia.

Recurring Characters in Old/New World

Peter skrzynecki.

The author of this text, as well as a character in his own right, Peter describes his triumphs and struggles of immigrating to Australia in his poems.

Feliks Skrzynecki

The Polish adopted father of Peter, a “gentle man” who immigrated to Australia with him family from Germany often demonstrates the struggle of the older generation to fully ‘belong’, as they have grown up amongst different customs. This difference in the two generations’ assimilation is depicted in the poem Feliks Skrzynecki , as we see Feliks as attached to his Polish customs and traditions, as he “reminisce[s]” with his Polish friends. We also discover that he struggles with the English language, is a hard worker and has had cancer twice in his foot. Peter in comparison is seen to have far more of a disconnect with his Polish ancestry he “inherited unknowingly” and forget his “first Polish word” as he learns of a culture “further South of Hadrian’s Wall”.

Themes in Old/New World

As we all know, themes are an integral part of Text Response overall, and that still rings true for Skrzynecki’s poetry. To learn more about how to implement themes into different types of Text Response prompts, check out our blog on LSG’s Five Types of Text Response Prompts !

One of the most central themes of Skrzynecki’s poems is that of belonging. As the poems detail an immigrant’s emotional journey, alternating between feeling that they belong and don’t belong, we are invited to grapple with what it means to belong both mentally and physically as well as what elements are required to feel a sense of belonging in community and country.

Identity is another central theme, one that runs closely to that of belonging, as a main part of one’s identity is the culture/place/family to which they feel they belong. Old/New World: New and Selected Poems explores the formation and changes in a migrant’s sense of identity as they try to find belonging in their new Australian home as well as later, when they try to reconnect with their European heritage. To explore the theme of identity it’s best to break it down into several influential factors, which are listed below:

The surroundings in which a person finds themselves, as well as the place they call home is an essential part of identity, as it showcases what place one identifies with and feels safe in. Several of the poems are set in places of transition, such as at a train station, this helps to emphasize the displacement some migrants may feel as they struggle to acclimatise to their new home. In poems such as Immigrants at central station Skyznecki illustrates an environment of anxiety and trepidation, however, he finishes the poem with sentiments of hope of the new future, the new world the immigrants were travelling to, along “glistening tracks of steel”.

An individual’s heritage, that is the places and people from which they come to identify with, is seen to have a profound impact on the characters in Skrzynecki’s poems. There are several poems set in graveyards or in Europe where Peter questions his knowledge of where he came from, and his sense of connection to these people and places. One of the most interesting set of poems regarding heritage is the poems regarding the different sections of a graveyard for the different groups, through this Skrzynecki touches on how most will never fully part with their heritage, instead, even in death, most will reconnect with their upbringing and hold on to their roots.

The difference in a cultures’ customs is a struggle seen throughout the text. However, customs are also seen to be the way in which migrants make themselves at home whilst being able to still identify with their past. Through the generational gap between Peter and his father, we can identify the difficulty older generations may have in letting go of customs, whilst the younger new Australians often find it far easier to attach themselves to new traditions.

An integral part of identity and in cultivating a sense of belonging is the language that we speak, as the way in which we are able to communicate ourselves and who we have accessible conversation has a large impact on one’s sense of belonging or disconnect from a culture . This is due to language barriers’ ability to foster or inhibit connection. We see this as Peter demonstrates his struggle at times to identify with his Polish roots, symbolised in his loss of Polish language as he “forgot [his] first Polish word”. Despite his father repeating it until he never forgets, this forgetfulness illustrates the effort which is often required to remain connected to heritage when physically distant from it. Language’s ability to also expose the differences between people and make them feel like outsiders is also explored in First day of school and The Polish Immigrant as people such as teachers struggle with the pronunciation of Polish names and inevitably have to ask “boy, how do you pronounce that?”. We see through these poems how disconnect can be fostered due to the struggle of communication as the picking apart of their names make the new immigrants feel “tired”, “embarrass[ed]” and as if their name was that of a “European disease”. Language is also seen to hold migrants back as seen in Migrant Bachelor where a lack of a familiar language relegates a migrant to “factory chimneys and punch card clocks” which “ask no proof of speech”. This struggle with language, both the disconnect and joy that comes with communicating and the opportunities it affords individuals, is essential in determining how one identifies themselves.

Family/Ancestry

How connection to family members and knowledge of ancestry impacts sense of identity is investigated through many family poems and through Skrzynecki’s somewhat frequent admissions of remorse in regard to not knowing the history behind objects or people. We also see how a difference in sense of belonging can affect relationships, in that we see Peter and his father don’t have the closest of relationships, likely due to Peter feeling he belongs to Australia whilst Feliks still had strong connections to his Polish upbringing. We also see this regret of disconnect when Skrzynecki writes about his mother and the photograph he has of her and the man that was his father, and how he wishes he had asked about it more. Whilst Skrzynecki mainly describes the immigrant experience in his poems, we can also find an overarching warning to not take loved one, and their knowledge for granted, as often we don’t have them for as long as we would hope.

Skrzynecki often reminisces about his childhood and uses it as a way to explore both his experience in his new world of Australia, and his old world of his Polish roots. We see Skrzynecki in Migrant Centre Site, revisiting the location where he first lived after arriving in Australia, noting that there was nothing to “commemorate [their] arrival”, this perhaps demonstrates his desire for a legacy, to leave a footprint of the journey so many “thousand” migrants travelled and not just a “slab of cement” as if his home was a dead “cemetery”. He also reminisces in Old Hostel Site where he explores the “immense souvenirs” and “unclaimed baggage” that is one of the first sites in Australia his parents arrived at. Using this jargon regarding travel, Skrzynecki reminds readers of the many miles migrants often have to travel to reach Australia.

Skrzynecki often uses nature to symbolise the migrant experience, as demonstrated by the birds in his poem Migrant Hostel . In this poem migrants are compared to a “homing pigeon/circling to get its bearings” as Peter remarks on the struggle of taking someone out of their previous home, like an animal out of its natural habitat.

Nature is also a major element in Skrzynecki's effort to become an Australian poet, his frequent referencing of Australian landscapes signposting his journey to identify as an Australian, as well as an Australian poet.

Hope and Loss

Not only does Skrzynecki detail the hope for a new future and loss of home common in a migrant’s experience, his poems also cover other common situations of love and loss, such as his emotional poem Leukemia which details the journey of his father as a leukemia patient. This shows belonging and identity in a far different light, not in relation to a country but being identified by your sickness which “owns your name”. This explores the common experience where a patient feels defined by their condition and struggles to imagine/remember what life is like as a healthy individual.

Metalanguage, Symbols and Motifs in Old/New World

• Feliks Skrzynecki’s garden: due to his strong bond to his Polish roots Feliks arguably never felt a sense of belonging in Australia. Instead we find he creates a sense of belonging by cultivating a home of his own, a garden.

• Skrzynecki often uses the natural world such as fish and birds to mirror the migrant journey.

• Skrzynecki litters his poems with heirlooms such as watches, hammers and photos, often to illustrate how despite having these possessions Peter frequently finds that he doesn’t know the full story of his heritage and his parent’s life. In his rediscovery of the heirlooms we often see his disconnect from his background and his regret of not learning more about it.

• The use of a colloquial idiom of “kept pace only with the Joneses'' in Feliks Skrzynecki , to reference how his belonging only feels surface deep. However, as they are only the Joneses of “his own mind’s making” it also showcases his commitment to not simply copy and to still be individual.

• Skrzynecki often uses places of transit such as train stations or hostels to showcase the uncertainty often experienced in a migrant’s journey.

Research the places referenced in Skrzynecki poems such as Mt Warning
Learn to spell the authors last name
Don’t just analyse the poems individually, try and see the big picture and apply the overarching themes

For a more detailed guide on how to ACE VCE Text Response, I think you’d love the free sample of our top-rated eBook, How To Write A Killer Text Response ! To download, simply fill out the form below!

2. Historical Context

3. Main Characters

4. Minor Characters

5. Dissecting an A+ Essay using 'The Golden Age'

6. Creative Essay Topic Brainstorm

7. Essay Topics

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

Even though this hasn’t been one of the more popular choices on the VCE text list, Joan London’s The Golden Age is a personal favourite of mine for a number of reasons. This is a novel about the experiences of children recovering from polio inside a convalescent home in Perth. With a sympathetic and warm approach, London tells the tragic yet brave stories of these children, as well as the stories of their parents and carers.

The novel essentially revolves around Frank Gold, a Hungarian Jew and a war refugee, and London blends his mature voice with the innocence of a coming-of-age narrative, all set against the backdrop of World War II.

As you’re reading the book, watch out for her literary or poetic language, and keep track of the story’s overall mood. These will be important considerations for text study, particularly if you are to write a creative response on this text for your SAC. With this in mind, I’ve included writing exercises throughout this blog post for you to practise writing creatively on this text.

If you are writing analytically on this text, either for your SAC or for your exam, you may still complete the exercises—each one should still be insightful for your writing in some way. Also, feel free to check the video below; it breaks down an analytical prompt for this text.

Historical Context

This novel is set in Perth during the early 1940s, which gives rise to a couple of interesting historical elements all intersecting in the book.

Crucially, the events of the novel take place for the most part while World War II is raging in Europe. This is important for understanding the backstory of the Gold family: they are Hungarian Jews who have escaped their war-torn home of Budapest to seek safety in Australia. In particular, we know that at some stage, Meyer had been taken away to a labour camp, and that Frank had had to hide himself in an attic.

Their Hungarian heritage, however, is something that distances them from other Australians, and they never really get a good chance to settle in, always feeling like they just weren’t on the same wavelength as the locals. In many ways, the story of the Golds is underpinned by tragedy—not only are they war refugees, but young Frank then contracts poliomyelitis (known to us just as polio), which forces the family to reassess all the plans they had for him to settle into an ordinary, Australian life.

However, Frank was far from the only victim of polio at the time—the entire nation was rocked by a wave of polio , with major outbreaks during the 1930s-40s. This was quite a nerve-wracking, and causing great fear for our country and its active, outdoors-y culture. The prospects of death, paralysis and permanent disability were understandably terrifying. About 70,000 people were affected, and almost half of them eventually died as a result. Almost every Australian at the time knew or knew of someone who had polio.

Task: You are Ida, composing a letter to Julia Marai after Frank’s diagnosis. Convey succinctly (in 250 words or less) what you think and how you feel. ‍

Key themes & implications.

I like to think that a lot of the themes in this book exist in diametric or opposing pairs. For instance, London gives Frank a voice that is wise beyond his years, yet uses it to tell a tender story of first love. She also plays on the paradox that while some characters have become isolated due to the unfortunate events that have befallen them, these very events end up becoming the thing that unite them.

Essentially, London plays with a lot of these thematic tensions, showing us that life isn’t really ever black and white, but there are whole lot of grey areas in every day life.

Central to the novel are ideas of innocence or childhood . These ideas are really explored in the friendship between Frank and Elsa, who are both on the cusp of adolescence. While they are set up as young lovers in the eyes of readers, we know that they are far too young to truly have romantic feelings for each other. In actual fact, their interactions are permeated by a sense of innocence.

However, these interactions are also punctuated by a sense of maturity , a desire for more. This is evident to the extent where nurses are getting hesitant about leaving them alone with each other (even though their parents still trust them entirely). In actual fact, these parents serve as an important point of contrast. Some manage to recapture the magic of youth even as adults—consider Ida reigniting her love for the piano, or Meyer jumping on opportunities to start anew. In this sense, innocence and maturity are a pair of themes that are interestingly not always found where one might expect.

Another key thematic element of the novel is tragedy or adversity , which are relevant to a far wider gamut of characters. Considering the story’s geographical and historical setting, it seems evident that these ideas will play a major role in the story. A particularly poignant example lies in Sullivan, who contracts polio right on the cusp of adulthood, and readers can’t help but feel a sense of loss for what might have been.

However, on the other end of this spectrum is the strength required to cope with their suffering. While Sullivan had his indefatigable sense of humour, other characters have developed different mechanisms to stay strong in the face of adversity. In some cases, you might say that they’ve transcended or risen above their tragedies, and become stronger for it.

Finally, London also tackles the idea of isolation , which can be seen as a consequence of tragedy—characters become isolated because they lose their ability to relate to others, and others feel unable to relate to them. Symbolically, the Golden Age hospital is surrounded by four roads and therefore cut off from the world, almost as if quarantined. However, the solidarity and unity of patients inside becomes a great source of strength—I’ll leave it to you to think about what London was trying to say with this!

Task: Selecting one of the above themes, write a poem from the POV of an imaginary spectator in the novel, outlining how you perceive/experience these themes in other characters. Use all five senses(how you see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and touch/feel it)

Major characters.

I haven’t written too extensively about characters for a range of reasons: on one hand, it’s important for you to form your own interpretations about what they’re like and why they do the things they do, but on the other hand, I wanted to leave you with some key points to consider and/or some essential points about their characters to incorporate into your writing. This will allow you to hopefully feel like you’re capturing them accurately when writing your creatives, but without feeling restricted by an extensive set of traits that you have to invoke.

the central character, he is cerebral, intelligent and mature (which we can tell from his narrative voice, or how he ‘sounds’)
he is, however, still very young, wide-eyed, inquisitive in spite of the tragedies which have befallen him (consider how he sees his relationship with Elsa)
also significant is the motif of his poetry; not only does it highlight his maturity, but it also acts as a way for him to voice or articulate his feelings and experiences in the hospital—you could try incorporating some poetry in your writing (either original poems or quoted from the novel)

Elsa Briggs

another central character who becomes quite attached to Frank (they are the two eldest children in the Golden Age)
she is warm, caring and selfless, demonstrating an emotional maturity beyond her years (because of having to bear the metaphorical albatross of polio)
a lot of what we know about Elsa comes from Frank’s perspective (though we do get some insight from her own, and some from her mother’s)—how does this shape the way we see her? Consider London’s use of imagery, portraying her as an angelic figure.

Ida & Meyer

Frank’s parents, Hungarian Jews, and war refugees who come to Australia to cleanse them of their pasts and to have a fresh start; some of this is purely by circumstance, but there are parts of their past that they willingly and actively eschew e.g. Ida’s piano
note that Hungary is a landlocked country in the midst of European hustle and bustle with easy access to other nations/cultures/peoples, but Australia is an island on the other side of the world—consider how this affects their sense of isolation
on the other hand, they do form new connections with people here and in their own individual ways; Ida by reclaiming her pianist talents and Meyer by taking up a new job

Task: You are Elsa, Ida, or Meyer and you’ve just discovered Frank’s poem book. What are your thoughts and feelings towards his writing? Consider the context of your chosen character’s own experiences

Minor characters.

I’m sure you’ve heard it by now, but any piece of text-based writing (creative or analytical) can be strengthened by diversifying the range of characters that you write about. Even though you’ve already differentiated yourself from most VCE students by even doing this text at all (very few people choose it, so props to you!), some inclusion of more minor characters might help to distinguish yourself further. I’ve picked some that I think are interesting to talk about, but feel free to experiment with others as well!

a young man who contracts a severe strand of polio right on the cusp of adulthood, thereby exemplifying the theme of tragedy—however, his sense of humour remains active in spite of his immobility, so perhaps he not only exemplifies this theme but subverts it as well
London poses the complex question of whether or not he’s actually unhappy or defeated as a result of polio; there’s no clear answer, since there’s many ways to interpret his humour (is it a sign of strength or is it a front for inner turmoils expressed through poetry?)
in addition to his humour and poetry, his relationship with his family could also be an interesting point of discussion to address some of these questions
a young girl in the hospital who is quite close to Elsa (almost in a sisterly way)—how have they developed this relationship, and how does this relate to the theme of unity/companionship/human connection?
notably, she wanted to rehabilitate herself after polio took away her ability to feed the brumbies in her desert town—think about how this might represent strength as well

Julia Marai & Hedwiga

Ida’s former piano teacher and her flatmate/partner who live at the top of an apartment block in Budapest; they shelter Frank in their attic under no obligation whatsoever, but purely out of the kindness and selflessness of their hearts
again, there’s this subversion of what it means to be isolated: on one hand, their apartment is so cut off from the rest of the world below, and they lead a largely self-sufficient life together, but on the other hand, the fact that they’re together means that they’re not entirely isolated consider the power of human connection in this context as well

Task: Pick a minor character from this list and a character from the above list of major characters, and write about them meeting each other for the first time. Pick two that do not already interact closely within the novel e.g. Elsa meeting Sullivan

I hope this gives you some ideas or starting points about writing creatively on this text!

Download the PDF version of The Golden Age study guide here .

Dissecting an A+ Essay using 'The Golden Age'

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 so you are up to scratch.

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.

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!

The Golden Age Essay Topic Brainstorm

[Video Transcript]

The takeaway message for this video will be to utilise minor characters here and there to deepen your argument. London has really developed all her characters to feel three-dimensional and real, so it’s important not to just write about Frank and Elsa when there are so many others worth touching on.

Let's head straight into background information:

Joan London’sThe Golden Age is a novel about children recovering from polio in a convalescent home in Perth. She tells the stories of these various children, their families, and their caretakers, focusing on FrankGold and Elsa Briggs, the young protagonists who are just starting to develop romantic feelings for each other. Though they, and many of the other children, have faced much hardship and misfortune, London tells a story of hope and human connection in times of misery.

On that note, today’s essay topic is:

The Golden Age is primarily a tragic tale of isolation. Discuss.

Let’s break this prompt down and define some keywords. The keywords we’ll be looking at first are isolation and tragic. We’ll be defining them quite briefly, but be sure to think about these in terms of how they relate to the novel. In particular, see if any scenes, passages or characters jump to mind.

Isolation is a state of being alone or away from others and can be associated with a sense of powerlessness or insignificance. Tragic can simply just mean sad, depressing and loaded with sorrow or ‘pathos’, but there are also literary implications to this word: you might’ve done a tragic Shakespeare play and learned this before, but in general, a tragic story centres on a hero who encounters misfortune, and treats their demise in a serious or solemn way. Note that a good essay will discuss both these terms, and will address not only isolation but also the question of whether or not it is treated tragically.

The other important word is ‘primarily’. This word in the prompt suggests that The Golden Age is for the most part about these ideas - for you, that means you should ask yourself how central you think they are, and make a call on whether they are the most central.

Well, it’s definitely true that elements of isolation and separation do exist in The Golden Age, but these themes are not primarily tragic ideas in the novel -London explores the way in which hope can shine through in times of hardship. In fact, the novel overall has a message of kinship and hope, and this would be the primary thematic focus, as well as the main treatment of otherwise tragic ideas. So how might this look in paragraphs?

Paragraph 1: Let’s concede that the novel does evoke sadness through its frequently sombre tone and treatment of isolation

We see this through characters such as Ida and Meyer, who have been cut off from the world in their escape from their war-torn home, and forced to transition from their landlocked Hungary to an island on the other side of the globe. Their struggle to adjust is evoked through symbols - for instance, black cockatoos, which represent a “homely, comforting” omen to locals, sound “melancholy [and] harsh” to Ida. In particular, London’s solemn characterisation of Ida as constantly “frowning”, and as having a “bitter little mouth that usually gripped a cigarette ”works to emphasise her ennui or her dissatisfaction with being cut off from the world. Their homesickness is evoked through this constant longing for home, though sometimes much more literally: Meyer feels that “never again on this earth…would, he feel at home as he once had.”

Similarly, the story of Sullivan Backhouse, confined in an “iron lung” and physically isolated from outside contact, is also primarily tragic. London develops this character and gives him a backstory - he has “just turned eighteen” and had been the “prefect [and] captain of the rowing team.” This gives readers an idea of the life he might have had if not for the tragedy of his condition. Even in spite of his “good-humoured nature”, his poetry belies the pessimism within - his book, morbidly entitled “on my last day on earth”, closes with the line “in the end, we are all orphans.” We can thus see how lonely he must have felt when he tragically passed away.

In this paragraph, we’ve considered three different characters, whereas a lot of people writing on this text might just do a character per paragraph, so this is a good way to really show the examiners that you’ve considered the full extent of what the book offers. Let’s continue this as we move onto…

Paragraph 2: We disagree, however, since the novel includes various other moods and thematic material - in particular, London explores notions of resolve and hope in times of hardship

Now, the first character that comes to mind would have to be Elsa - London uses particularly powerful imagery, such as her “translucent”, “golden wave” of hair or even her “profile, outlined in light”, to portray her as angelic or elysian. For the children, Elsa evidently represents hope - even in her state of isolation, her “graceful and dignified” demeanour and her quiet acceptance that polio “was part of her” is courageous and worthy of admiration.

Moving onto a minor character who was perhaps inspired by Elsa - the young Ann Lee, who was quite close to Elsa, also has a story which is more inspiring than tragic. When polio first crippled her, she found herself unable to give water to the brumbies in her desert town. As a result, she perseveres, “step after painstaking step” so as to be able to return home and “give a drink to thirsty creatures.” Her compassion and determination to work against her isolation become the focus of her tale.

Paragraph 3: In fact, the novel ’s focus is on hope rather than tragedy

A range of other characters demonstrate the power of love and human connection in the face of adversity, and London seems to be focusing on these ideas instead. Plus, it’s not just the children who are brave in the face of tragedy, but ordinary people prove themselves to have the potential for strength and courage. Take Julia Marai and Hedwiga, who hide Frank in their attic during the Nazi invasion of Hungary. Even though their apartment is “on the top” of the block, and isolated in its height, suspended from the world, they become “provider[s]” for Frank. London writes that in difficult times, “kindness and unselfishness were as unexpected, as exhilarating, as genius,” and it’s easy to see how these qualities form a counterpoint to the tragedies that permeate the novel, allowing hope to shine through.

And that’s the end of the essay! Being able to explore minor characters like we did here is a really good way to show examiners that you have a deeper understanding of a text, that you’ve considered it beyond just the main characters on the surface. The Golden Age is a really great one for this because London has done so much with her cast.

Essay topics

1. “Being close made them stronger.” In The Golden Age , adversities are tempered by camaraderie. Do you agree?

2. Despite the grim context, The Golden Age highlights and celebrates the potential of life. Discuss.

3. Memories of past successes and failures have significant lingering effects on characters in The Golden Age . Is this an accurate assessment?

4. “[I would be] a fox, following a Palomino.” How do animals such as these contribute symbolically to The Golden Age ?

5. It is largely loneliness which defines the struggles of the children in The Golden Age . Discuss.

6. In what ways is The Golden Age a novel of displacement?

7. Fear of the unknown is something which permeates The Golden Age . Is this true?

8. What is the role of family in Joan London’s The Golden Age ?

9. Isolation in The Golden Age exists in many oppressive forms. Discuss.

10. Throughout The Golden Age , London draws attention to beauty rather than to suffering. Discuss.

11. In spite of their youth, it is the children of The Golden Age who understand best what it means to be an individual in the world. Do you agree?

12. How do characters from The Golden Age learn, grow and mature as the novel takes its course?

13. Due to the range of different onset stories, each of the children and their families in The Golden Age face a different struggle with their identity. Discuss.

14. “Home. She hadn’t called Hungary that for years.” In spite of all their struggle, the Golds never truly feel any sense of belonging in Australia. To what extent do you agree?

15. Explore the factors which drive Joan London’s characters to persevere.

How To Write A Killer Text Response Study Guide

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion

1. What is an Oral Presentation? 2. What are you expected to cover? (Oral Presentation Criteria) 3. Choosing your Topic 4. Choosing your Contention 5. Writing your Speech 6. Presenting your Speech 7. Writing the Written Explanation 8. Resources to help you prepare for your Oral Presentation

What is an Oral Presentation?

For many VCE English students, the oral presentation is the scariest part of the course; it’s often also the first.

Doing a speech can indeed be daunting— you’re marked in real time, you can’t go back and edit mistakes, and the writing part itself is only half the battle. Nonetheless, the Oral SAC can also be one of the more dynamic and engaging tasks you complete in VCE English, and there’s plenty of ways to make it more interesting and also more manageable for yourself.

Keep reading for a comprehensive overview of what you need to know to succeed in your Oral Presentation. We’ve got you covered- from choosing your topic and contention, to writing and presenting your Speech.

We’ll also be suggesting useful resources, Study Guides and YouTube videos that will provide more detailed information and give you more confidence. Let’s get into it!

What are you expected to cover in an Oral Presentation? (Oral Presentation Rubric)

1. Your Oral Presentation SAC has two components. The first is the Oral Presentation itself (“a point of view presented in oral form”), and the second is a Written Explanation, also known as a Statement of Intention.

2. Your selected topic needs to be an issue that has appeared in the media since 1 September of the previous year

3. Your aim for this entire Oral Presentation SAC is to persuade your audience to agree with your contention (whatever that may be) based off the issue you’ve selected.

Here’s the raw version of VCAA’s expectations from you, taken from the VCAA website :

How to choose your Oral Presentation topic

1. select a topic that has appeared in the media since 1 september of the previous year.

This can be time consuming and tricky, especially if you want to choose something a bit more original or fresh.

Firstly, you need an event. An event in the VCE English context is anything that happens which also generates opinionated media coverage—so, it’s not just an event but it has to be an event that people have published opinions about, and they have to have been published since September 1.

You might wonder why we don’t go to the issue straight away. Here’s a hypothetical to illustrate: if you asked me to name an issue, the best I could probably come up with off the top of my head is climate change. However, if you asked me to name an event, I’d pretty easily recall the Australian bushfires—something much more concrete which a) has generated specific and passionate opinions in the media; and b) can easily be linked to a wider issue such as climate change.

The ABC news archive is also really helpful for finding events since you can pick dates or periods of time and see a good mix of news events from then. Otherwise, Wikipedia has helpful pages of events that happened in specific years in specific countries, so “2023 in Australia” might well be a starting point.

When you have your event, you can then look for an issue. This will be a specific debate that comes out of the event, and can usually be framed as a “whether-or-not” question. The bushfires, for example, might generate debate around whether or not the Australian government is doing enough to combat climate change, whether or not Scott Morrison has fulfilled his duties as Prime Minister.

Most importantly, choose an issue from an event that’s interesting and important to you. After all, you’re going to be spending the time researching, writing and presenting!

2. Filter out the boring events/issues

Understand who your audience is.

Once you know who your audience is, ask yourself: Does this event and issue relate to my audience?

This question matters because “your aim of this entire Oral Presentation SAC is to persuade your audience to agree with your contention (whatever that may be) based off the issue you’ve selected.” This means that what you say to your audience and how they respond to your speech matters.

Even if your assessor isn’t counting exactly how many people are still listening to your speech at the end, everyone knows a powerful speech when they’re in the presence of one - it hooks the audience from start to end - and an assessor, consciously or subconsciously, cannot deny that the collective attentiveness of the room has an influence on their marking of your Oral Presentation.

That’s why you should choose a topic that your audience can relate to. Also, avoid topics that have too many unfamiliar words, because as soon as there’s something they don’t understand, it becomes much harder for them to follow your speech.

Now you may be asking yourself; what is the best topic for oral presentation?

Here are some example topics from previous years to give you inspiration:

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2014

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2015

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2016

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2017

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2018

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2019

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2020

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2021

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2022

VCE English Oral Presentation Topics 2023

For more detailed information on choosing a topic, read my blog Choosing a WOW topic for your VCE Oral Presentation ‍

How to choose your oral presentation contention

Once you've chosen an interesting topic and have researched all of its different viewpoints, it's time to formulate your contention.

Often, creating a killer contention is about avoiding some common traps that will make your overall presentation boring, bland and just like the rest of your cohorts'.

So, there are three things I like to AVOID:

1. Broad, Overarching statements

2. A Contention That Is Just Plain Obvious

3. Avoid A Contention That Is Generally Accepted As True In Today’s Age

For more information on writing a contention, read my blog Creating a Killer Contention for your Oral Presentation ‍

How to write your speech

1. Have a CAPTIVATING introduction sentence; use a short, clear and powerful sentence.

2. RELATE to your audience so that it keeps them interested so they actually WANT to listen.

3. If you are taking on a persona, firstly study and UNDERSTAND your character.

4. Don’t forget your persuasive techniques. I usually use repetition in conjunction with the ‘rule of three’.

5. Remember that you are writing a SPEECH, not an essay. Instil your oral with emotion, varied tone and sentence lengths.

In fact, I've talked about a few of these in a 'Must Dos and Don'ts' video. If you haven't seen it yet, watch below before you read on.

4 tips on presenting your Speech

1. Body Language

Confidence is key. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and, more importantly don’t move your legs. Especially if you’re nervous, swaying or shuffling will be noticeable and make you appear more nervous—when you practise, pay attention to the lower half of your body and train it to stay still if possible.

That being said, do use your arms for gestures. Those are more natural and will help engage the audience, though don’t overdo it either—usually, holding cue cards in one hand frees up the other but also stops you from going overboard.

2. Eye contact

Cue cards brings up another important consideration- eye contact. Hold cue cards in one hand as high as you can without it feeling uncomfortable. This means you don’t have to take your eyes away from the audience for too long or too noticeably to check your notes.

Eye contact increases your engagement with the audience. It also gives the impression of confidence and that you’ve been practicing and know your speech inside and out!

3. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

In a best case scenario, you won’t need to rely on your cue cards as you will have your speech basically memorised! Read your speech aloud and pretend that you’re actually delivering your speech. This means:

- Looking up ahead

- Holding the cue cards in the right spot; and

- Not just reading the words, but speaking as if to an audience

It’s extremely helpful to also practice your speech to an actual audience! Practice in front of your family and friends. An alternative is to put a sticker next to your camera and record yourself. The sticker will help indicate where you should create eye contact. Look back at the video and give yourself some feedback, you might be surprised at your presentation!

4. Tone variation

Tone variation involves emphasising certain words, using pauses or slowing down for effect, or modifying volume. Incorporating some of these elements- even writing them into your notes by bolding/italicising/underlining will help you break out of monotony and make the speech more engaging.

Be sure to emphasise emotive language and any evidence you might use to illustrate your arguments. Most importantly, don’t speak too quickly!

5 things to keep in mind while writing the written explanation

For oral presentation based written explanations, the VCAA study design requests students write...

"A written statement of intention to accompany the student’s own oral presentation, articulating the intention of decisions made in the planning process, and how these demonstrate understanding of argument and persuasive language."

Using the topic, 'Why we need to stop crying 'cultural appropriation' when cultural exchange is far more important, ‘let’s see how this can be done with FLAPC with some examples below:

2. Language

3. Audience

For more information on writing a Written Explanation and a sample FLAPC compiled and rearranged for flow and fluency, read my blog How to Write a Stellar Written Explanation (Statement of Intention) .

Resources to help you prepare for your Oral Presentation

Doing this study all by yourself can be rather daunting, so we've got your back. We specialise in supporting VCE English by creating helpful videos, study guides and eBooks. Here are some just to get your started:

‍ A Three Part Guide to Nailing Your Oral Presentation

Advice for A+ Oral Presentations

How I Got A+ in My Oral Presentation | Live QnA With Lisa Tran

How To 'Overcome' Your Fear of Public Speaking

Oral Presentations | How To Do Speeches

5 Common Oral Presentation Mistakes

Our How to Write a Killer Oral Presentation Study Guide has all the information you need to succeed in your Oral Presentations. Sample A+ essays and written explanations are also included!

Updated 24/12/2020

Themes, Motifs and Key Ideas
Comparative Essay Prompt Example
Sample Essay Topics

The Crucible is a four-act play that portrays the atmosphere of the witch trials in Salem. As an allegory of McCarthyism, the play primarily focuses on criticising the ways in which innocent people are prosecuted without any founded evidence, reflecting the unjust nature of the corrupted authoritarian system that governs Salem. It starts off with the girls dancing in the woods and Betty’s unconsciousness, which causes the people of Salem to look for unnatural causes. People start scapegoating others to escape prosecution and falsely accuse others to gain power and land, facilitating mass hysteria which ultimately leads to the downfall of the Salem theocracy. The protagonist John Proctor is one of those that decides to defy the courts and sacrifices his life towards the end of the play, ending the play on a quiet note in contrast with its frenzied conflict throughout the acts.

The Dressmaker shows the audience the treatment towards Tilly Dunnage upon her return to fictional town Dungatar years after she was wrongly accused of being a murderess. Rosalie Ham critiques the impacts of rumours on Tilly and Molly, also establishing her condemnation of the societal stigma of this isolated town. Tilly starts making haute couture outfits to transform the lives of the women in the town and help them present themselves as more desirable and elevate their ranks. However, the townspeople still see Tilly negatively, except for some individuals who are able to look past the opinions of others and get to know Tilly themselves. Ham’s gothic novel garners the audience’s sympathy towards the outcasts of the town and antagonises those who find pleasure in creating drama and spreading rumours about others.

2. Themes, Motifs and Key Ideas

Through discussing themes, motifs, and key ideas , we’ll gain a clearer understanding of some super important ideas to bring out in your essays. Remember, that when it comes to themes, there’s a whole host of ways you can express your ideas - but this is what I’d suggest as the most impressive method to blow away the VCAA examiners. Throughout this section, we'll be adhering to the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy to help us easily find points of similarity and difference. This is particularly important when it comes to essay writing, because you want to know that you're coming up with unique comparative points (compared to the rest of the Victorian cohort!). I don't discuss this strategy in detail here, but if you're interested, check out How To Write A Killer Comparative . I use this strategy throughout this discussion of themes and in the next section, Comparative Essay Prompt Example.

Similarities and Differences (CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT Ideas)

Social class .

Both The Crucible and The Dressmaker talk extensively about class. By class, what I mean is the economic and social divisions which determine where people sit in society. For instance, we could say that the British Royals are ‘upper class’, whilst people living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to get by are ‘lower class’.

Ultimately, both The Crucible and The Dressmaker are set in classist societies where there is no opportunity for social advancement. Whilst Thomas Putnam steals the land of poor Salemites accused of witchcraft, the McSwineys are left to live in absolute poverty and never leave the ‘tip’ where they have lived for generations. Dungatar and Salem view this social division as a ‘given’ and reject the idea that there is anything wrong with certain people living a life of suffering so others can have lives of wealth and pleasure. As such, for both Salem and Dungatar, the very idea that anyone could move between the classes and make a better life for themselves is inherently dangerous. What we can see here is that class shapes the way communities deal with crisis. Anything that overturns class is dangerous because it challenges the social order – meaning that individuals such as Reverend Parris in The Crucible , or Councillor Pettyman in The Dressmaker may lose all their power and authority.

For The Crucible , that’s precisely why the witchcraft crisis is so threatening, as the Salemites are prepared to replace Reverend Parris and deny his authority. Although Abigail and the group of girls thus single-handedly overturn Salem’s class structures and replace it with their own tyranny, Parris’ original intention was to use their power to reinforce his authority. In The Dressmaker , Tilly is threatening because she doesn’t neatly fit in to Dungatar’s class structure. Having travelled the outside world, she represents a worldly mindset and breadth of experiences which the townspeople know they cannot match.

For this theme, there’s a DIVERGENCE of ideas too, and this is clear because the way that class is expressed and enforced in both texts is vastly different. For The Crucible , it’s all about religion – Reverend Parris’ assertion that all Christians must be loyal to him ensures the class structure remains intact. More than that, to challenge him would be to challenge God, which also guides Danforth in executing those who don’t follow his will. In the case of The Dressmaker , there’s no central authority who imposes class on Dungatar. Rather, the people do it themselves; putting people back in their place through rumour and suspicion. However, by creating extravagant, expensive dresses for the townspeople, Tilly inadvertently provides people with another way to express class.

Isolated Communities

CONVERGENT:

The setting forms an essential thematic element of The Crucible and The Dressmaker . Both communities are thoroughly isolated and, in colloquial terms, live in the ‘middle of no-where’.

However, what is starkly different between the texts is how this isolation shapes the respective communities’ self-image. For Salem, its citizens adopt a mindset of religious and cultural superiority – believing that their faith, dedication to hard work and unity under God make them the most blessed people in the world. Individuals as diverse as Rebecca Nurse and Thomas Putnam perceive Salem to be a genuinely incredible place. They see Salem as the first battleground between God and the Devil in the Americas, and as such, construct a grand narrative in which they are God’s soldiers protecting his kingdom. Even the name ‘Salem’ references ‘Jerusalem’, revealing that the Salemites see themselves as the second coming of Christ, and the fulfilment of the Bible’s promises.

Not much of the same can be said for The Dressmaker . Dungatar lacks the same religious context, and the very name of ‘Dungatar’ references ‘dung’, or beetle poop. The next part of the name is 'tar', a sticky substance, creating the impression that Dungatar's people are stuck in their disgusting ways. The townspeople of Dungatar are acutely aware of their own inadequacy, and that is why they fight so hard to remain isolated from the outside world. Tilly is therefore a threat because she challenges their isolation and forces the men and women of Dungatar to reconsider why their community has shunned progress for so long. In short, she makes a once-isolated people realise that fear, paranoia, division and superstition are no way to run a town, and brings them to acknowledge the terribly harmful impacts of their own hatred.

On top of that, because Salem is literally the only Christian, European settlement for miles, it is simply impossible for them to even think about alternatives to their way of life. They are completely isolated and thus, all of their problems come from ‘within’ and are a result of their own division. For Dungatar, it’s a mix of societal issues on the inside being made worse by the arrival of people from the outside. The township is isolated, but unlike Salem, it at least has contact with the outside world. All Tilly does, therefore, is show the people of Dungatar an alternative to their way of life. But, for a community used to the way they have lived for decades, it ultimately contributes to its destruction.

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

3. Comparative Essay Prompt Example

The following essay topic breakdown was written by Lindsey Dang. If you'd like to see a completed A+ essay based off this same essay topic, then check out LSG's A Killer Comparative Guide: The Crucible & The Dressmaker , written by 50 study scorer and LSG tutor, Jordan Bassilious!

[Modified Video Transcription]

Compare the ways in which outcasts are treated in The Crucible and The Dressmaker.

Step 1: Analyse

Before writing our topic sentences, we need to look at our key words first. The keywords in this prompt are outcasts and treated .

So, who are considered outcasts in the two texts? Outcasts can be those of traditionally lower classes, they can be characters with physical flaws, those that are different to others or those who do not abide by the standards of their respective societies.

In The Crucible : Tituba, Abigail, John Proctor or even Martha Giles can be considered as outcasts.
In The Dressmaker : We can consider Tilly, Molly, The McSwineys, etc.

We also need to look our second key word ‘treated’. How would we describe the treatment towards these characters? Are they treated nicely or are they mistreated and discriminated against? Do ALL members of that community have that same treatment towards those outcasts or are there exceptions? Remember this point because we might be able to use this to challenge the prompt.

We’re going to skip Step 2: Brainstorm today, but if you’re familiar with LSG teachings, including the THINK and EXECUTE strategy discussed in my How To Write A Killer Text Response ebook, then you’ll be good for this part.

Step 3: Create a Plan

Both texts portray outcasts as victims of relentless accusations or rumours, seeking to engage the pathos of the audience towards those who are marginalised.

In The Crucible , Tituba the ‘Negro slave’ is the first person to be accused by witchcraft in Salem. Her ‘consequent low standing’ is also shown through her use of language ‘You beg me to conjure! She beg me make charm’ which is fraught with grammatical errors, compared to Judge Danforth who uses legal jargon and the Putnams who are much more well-spoken.
Similarly, the McSwineys are also those of lower class and are seen as the outcasts of Dungatar. Their names show us their position in the social hierarchy because they are associated with swines which are pigs. This is confirmed by Sergeant Farrat who said ‘Teddy McSwiney was, by the natural order of the town, an outcast who lived by the tip’. Even when Teddy McSwiney died, the townspeople still did not reflect on the impacts that their prejudice and bigotry had on him, eventually forcing the McSwineys to leave the town because they could not find a sense of belonging living there.
Tilly is also poorly treated due to the fact that she is fatherless, being bullied by the kids at school especially Stewart Pettyman and also used by William as a leverage to marry Gertrude, threatening Elsbeth that ‘it’s either her [Gertrude] or Tilly Dunnage’
Also discuss Giles Corey’s death and the significance of his punishment as the stones that are laid on his chest can be argued to symbolise the weight of authority

Miller and Ham also denounce the ways in which outcasts are maltreated due to their position in the social hierarchy through his antagonisation of other townspeople.

There’s also a quote on this by Molly ‘But you don’t matter – it’s open slather on outcasts'. Herein, she warns the audience of how quickly outcasts can become victims of rumours and accusations as the term ‘slather’ carries negative connotations.
Similarly, the theocracy that governs Salem dictates the rights of their people and children. He specifically states 'children were anything but thankful for being permitted to walk straight, eyes slightly lowered, arms at sides, and mouths shut until bidden to speak', which explains the girls’ extreme fear of being whipped. Salem is very violent to children, slaves and helpers and it can be seen that this is the result of the social hierarchy and the Puritan ideology.
For The Dressmaker , also discuss the ways in which they name others in this quote ‘daughter of Mad Molly is back – the murderess!’ Likewise discuss how Goody Osbourne the ‘drunkard half-witted’ and Sarah Good an old beggar woman are the first ones to be named. You can talk about Martha who is accused of being a witch just because she has been ‘reading strange books’, and Sarah Good due to the mere act of ‘mumbling’. The normality of these actions underlines the absurdity of the accusations made against these individuals, furthering Miller’s chastisement of the fictitious nature of the trials and also the ways in which outcasts are the first to be scapegoated.

However, there are still characters that are driven by their sense of morality or remorse instead of mistreating the outcasts of their community.

Both Sergeant Farrat and Proctor are motivated by their remorse to make amends. Proctor’s evasion of ‘tearing the paper’ and finding ‘his goodness’ is motivated by his desire to atone for his sin (having committed adultery with Abigail), and Sergeant regretted sending Tilly away. He, in his eulogy, says ‘if you had included [Tilly], Teddy would have always been with us’, expressing his regret for the ways outcasts are treated in Dungatar. Similarly, Teddy McSwiney also has a pure relationship with Tilly and treats her differently instead of judging her based on the rumours about her being a ‘murderess’.
While those who can sympathise with outcasts in The Dressmaker are either outcasts themselves or are remorseful (or both), there are those in The Crucible that are purely and solely motivated by their moral uprightness. Rebecca Nurse is neither an outcast (as she is highly respected for her wisdom) nor remorseful (as she has remained kind and pure from the beginning of the play). She is always the voice of reason in the play and tries to stop authoritative figures from convicting and prosecuting outcasts. A quote you can use would be ‘I think you best send Reverend Hale back as soon as he come. This will set us all to arguin’ again in the society, and we thought to have peace this year'.

4. Sample Essay Topics

1. 'I say—I say—God is dead.' —John Proctor, The Crucible . Explore how communities respond to crisis.

2. People must conform to societal expectations in The Crucible and The Dressmaker . Do you agree?

3. Discuss how The Crucible and The Dressmaker use textual features to convey the author’s perspective.

4. Gender repression is rife in both The Crucible and The Dressmaker . Discuss.

Now it's your turn! Give these essay topics a go. If you're interested in reading a 50 study scorer's completed essays based off these 4 essay topics, along with annotations so you can understand his thinking process, then I would highly recommend checking out LSG's A Killer Comparative Guide: The Crucible & The Dressmaker.

This blog has written contributions from Lindsey Dang.

Understanding Context in The Crucible and The Dressmaker

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham

This blog was updated on 21/10/2020.

4. Character Analysis

6. Symbolism

8. Essay Topic Breakdown

Così 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 .

Lewis is faced with a seemingly impossible task – to bring order to the chaotic world of the asylum – yet in the process of doing so, he develops hugely as a person. Although, it’s important not to take Lewis’ development at face value. His growth is used to highlight many of Nowra’s values on issues surrounding love, fidelity, madness and reality, just to name a few. It’s also important to look at the development (or lack of development) of other characters and think about why Nowra might have included them in the play. Luckily for you, Così is quite a short play and doesn’t have a huge cast of characters. However, this means that it’s even more important to get a great understanding of each character – they’re all there for a reason!

To fully understand this text, you’ll need to move beyond analysing characters and dialogue and consider Nowra’s main messages. Così is essentially a social commentary, packed full of criticisms of conventional perspectives and values. Also, Così is full of symbols and imagery, which can help you score highly on your essays if you integrate them into your work. Lastly, it's vital to remember that Così is a play, not a book, and on top of that, it is a play within a play. This means that setting, structure and stage directions are all crucial, and make for a high-scoring essay.

Melbourne Mental Institution, Australia during the 1970s.

All of the action takes place inside a burnt-out, derelict theatre. This serves to create an atmosphere of confinement for the audience, encouraging them to reflect on the stifling experience of the patients.

Così is divided into two acts and nine scenes. The play is dominated by Lewis’ development . Act 1 highlights his uncertainty and distance from the world of the asylum. Whereas by Act 2, we see Lewis become more invested in the patients and the asylum, as his relationships with the other characters grow. Lewis’ development is symbolised through the changing imagery throughout the play, specifically fire and water.

Così also is a piece of metatheatre , which Nowra achieves through structuring it as a ‘play within a play’. Metatheatre means that the play draws attention to its distance from reality. This makes sense in relation to Così , as Nowra is continually encouraging his audience to accept their own reality instead of falling into escapism. Including Così Fan Tutte in Così also serves to highlight the difference in popular opinion between Mozart’s era and the 1970s, while emphasising the continuity of love. This contrast also helps Lewis to come to terms with his valuation of love over war, which is at odds with the common opinions of his society.

The line between reality and illusion is explored through the characters who are labelled as ‘insane’ as well as those considered ‘normal.’ Nowra demonstrates that reality is unique for each person, and often people may slip into illusions in order to avoid the truth. It is suggested that although they may not have been completely ‘normal’, those considered to be ‘insane’ still possess great insight that ‘normal’ people may overlook. Additionally, Così reminds the reader of the absurdities of a mental asylum shunned by society, which would only have added to patients’ instabilities, especially as families dealt with the matter secretly. Furthermore, the issue of love and fidelity that was valued so highly in Mozart’s era, is proven to still be relevant in our modern times. Ultimately, Così is a play that criticises traditional structures and views of society – whether they be asylums, university education or harsh stigma. Nowra encourages his audience to accept both the complexity of people and of life, which begins with accepting your own reality.

Character Analysis

The protagonist of Così , Lewis is a new university graduate who has agreed to direct a play cast with patients from a mental institution because he needs money. At first, Lewis shares the same values as his friends Nick and Lucy - that love is ‘not so important’ in the days of politics and war. During the time he spends with the patients, however, Lewis experiences a turning point in his understanding and perception of people. By the end of the play, Lewis learns to value love and friendship over war and politics, even stating that ‘without love, the world wouldn’t mean as much’. In emphasising the development of Lewis’ values away from the social norm, Nowra highlights the confining nature of society and the danger of its limited focus, which fails to recognise the value of love and companionship.

Additionally, Nowra blurs the lines between insanity and sanity by portraying Lewis as a bridge between the ‘real’ world and that of the asylum. At the beginning of the play, Lewis states that his grandmother was in an asylum. However, despite knowing that ‘she had gone mad’, he reflects that ‘she was still [his] grandmother.’ This, alongside his passion for Julie, enables Lewis to see the patients as people, not their illnesses. Therefore, he subconsciously allows himself to be influenced by them, just as he influences them. This contradicts the traditional views surrounding the unproductivity of the mentally ill and instead highlights their value and worth. Therefore, Nowra warns against dismissing individuals who are mentally ill, instead highlighting their capacity to garner change and therefore be productive and valuable members of society.

Moreover, not only is Lewis involved in directing Così Fan Tutte, but he also finds himself playing the part of Fernando. This again further reinforces his role as a bridge between society and the asylum (and his connection to its patients), and he ends up embodying the role. Like Fernando, Lewis is unfaithful to his partner. While still in a relationship with his girlfriend Lucy, Lewis becomes intimate with a patient, Julie. Nowra uses his unfaithfulness as evidence of the indiscriminate nature of infidelity – it is not restricted only to women.

Finally, Così explores how Lewis deals with a hardship that he essentially created for himself – he signed up to direct the play. This links to Nowra’s view of the senselessness of war , which he views as a problem that mankind has created for themselves.

Girlfriend and roommate of Lewis, Lucy cannot understand why Lewis is directing a play about love when thousands are dying in the war. She has an affair with Nick, who shares similar beliefs – that politics and the Vietnam War protest are more important than anything else. The flippant nature with which she regards her affair with Nick as purely sexual is also reflective of her lack of value towards love. Thus, Nowra portrays Lucy as a personification of the societal norms of the 1970s – she is political, into free love and challenges traditional notions of femininity.

Furthermore, it is ironic that Lucy and Lewis have similar names. At the start of the play, Lewis allows himself to be influenced by Lucy’s values rather than his own, but by the end, Lewis’ true views prove to be very different from hers.

Lucy also acts as a catalyst for Lewis’ change and development . She pushes him to ‘make a choice’ between the world of insanity and fidelity that represents truth for Lewis, or the world of sanity, free love and politics that Lewis comes to view as restrictive and stifling.

An experienced student director, roommate and friend of Lewis who is heavily involved in the moratorium (a protest against the Vietnam War). He promises to help Lewis direct Così Fan Tutte , however he quickly breaks this vow in order to spend time furthering his political career with Lucy. Lewis later discovers that Lucy and Nick are having an affair. Unlike Lewis, however, Nick views his relationship with Lucy as ‘only sex’, therefore suggesting his superficiality and lack of compassion .

This superficiality is further shown through his obsession with the moratorium and his disinterest in Lewis’ Così Fan Tutte. He criticises Lewis for prioritising theatre over politics, stating that ‘only mad people in this day and age would do a work about love and infidelity.’ This suggests that what drives Nick is a desire to be seen doing the ‘normal’ and ‘right’ things, rather than an intrinsic belief that what he is doing is good. He views life as a series of transactions and values activities based on the immediate benefit that they bring him. For example, he admitted to helping Lewis with his direction only ‘so [Lewis would] help [him] on the moratorium committee’.

Overall, Nick lives up to his label of being an ‘egotistical pig’ who ‘likes the sound of his own voice’. He is used by Nowra as a benchmark with which Lewis’ development is compared (i.e. we can see how much Lewis has developed by comparing him to Nick). For example, at the start of the play Lewis shares similar superficial values to Nick, admitting to only take the directing job for a bit of money; however, by the end of Così, he holds vastly different views than Nick.

Fidelity & Infidelity

According to Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte, fidelity is depicted as an ideal that is never achieved. Since ‘women are like that’ – the interpretation of ‘ Così fan tutte’ , Mozart supported the belief that men should simply accept that women will inevitably be disloyal in relationships. Nowra echoes this view of women through Lewis and Lucy’s relationship. While Lucy is ‘sleeping’ with Lewis, she is also triflingly ‘having sex’ with Nick. When Lewis discovers Lucy’s betrayal, she waves aside his shock, defending herself, ‘it is not as if we’re married.’ The revelation thus does prove Mozart right, that ‘woman’s constancy is like the Arabian Phoenix. Everyone swears it exists, but no one has seen it.’

Although the women in both Così Fan Tutte and Così are shown to be unfaithful, so are the men. While the men in Così Fan Tutte do not actively participate in adultery, they do fabricate their departure to the war and also disguise themselves as ‘Albanians.’ Their deception is also a betrayal to their wives. Meanwhile, Don Alfonso manipulates everyone. As seen in Così , Lewis is unfaithful to Lucy as he kisses Julie during rehearsals. Julie later reveals that she has a girlfriend who she would prefer to be with, confirming that both men and women are unfaithful in relationships, despite whatever values they may claim to have.

Nowra considers many perspectives of love and fidelity, without offering a definitive opinion. Instead, he explores the progression (or stagnation) of characters’ opinions on love and contrasts them to those of other characters, in the hope of highlighting its complexity . Nick and Lucy both view love as an indulgence that is incompatible with politics and secondary to life’s basic needs. Whereas Lewis claims, ‘without love, the world wouldn’t mean that much’. These differences between Nick and Lucy’s view on love and Lewis’, are major contributors to the deterioration of their relationships. Therefore, Nowra shows that communication and truthfulness are needed for healthy, and reciprocal, relationships.

Overall, while Così Fan Tutte presents love and fidelity as wavering, Nowra provides a more practical view of love. Nowra suggests that love is complex and cannot be fully understood or tamed , instead portraying it as akin to madness . As love is universal, this view ties in nicely with his non-judgmental perspective on madness and insanity.

Sanity & Insanity

The line between sanity and insanity is explored through the juxtaposition of the patients and society. In the 1970s, those who behaved abnormally were declared to be ‘insane’ and placed in mental institutions that were shunned by society. As scientific developments have now informed us, these environments often failed to assist their patients. The use of electric shock therapy, for example, frequently led to severe, long-term negative effects upon patients.

While the patients were viewed as ‘madmen’ by outsiders, Lewis soon discovers that they are, in many ways, ordinary people. Although each patient has a mental flaw, all possess interesting opinions and beliefs on different matters. Additionally, Nowra encourages his readers to view insanity as more complex than a diagnosis or something that can be fixed with a ‘coat of paint’. Instead, he suggests that insanity is imposed on people through the judgment of others .

Nowra also attempts to blur the lines between sanity and insanity to emphasize the indiscriminate nature of madness. This is seen through Lewis’ character, who consistently bridges the gap between madness and normalcy. For example, despite his ‘sane’ status, he is mistaken for a patient by Justin, joins Roy in imitating electric shock therapy, replaces Doug in the play, and stands with the patients against Justin.

Overall, Nowra portrays insanity as a matter of perspective , rather than an objective diagnosis. He refuses to define madness, instead depicting it as somewhere on the spectrum of human behaviour. In doing so, he critisises traditional perspectives of sanity and insanity and instead encourages his audiences to consider the complexity of madness.

Reality & Illusion

The question of what is real or an illusion is weaved through the patients’ state of mentality. As shown through Ruth who struggles to pretend like she is having real coffee on stage, it is difficult for some to distinguish reality from illusion , even if it is clear to everyone else. For others, they may willingly refuse the truth and succumb to an illusion. Lewis deluded himself into believing that Lucy was faithful, when all signs (such as Nick residing in the same home and Nick and Lucy spending time together) indicated that Lucy was, in fact, blatantly disloyal. Much like Lewis’ protective delusion, Roy uses illusions of a happy childhood to shield him from facing his reality. This builds upon his tendencies to blame others for his behaviour – he is inherently unable to face the truth of his ‘insanity’ and so manipulates his reality to make it more bearable.

Throughout Così, Nowra also explores the relativity of reality . For the patients of the asylum, pretending to give electric shock therapy to others ‘seems realer’ than ‘kissing and stuff’, whereas the opposite would be true in ‘ordinary’ society. However, Così also suggests that imagination has the capacity to empower . Through participating in the play, which is an illusory form of reality, the patients are able to explore their views on love and commitment.

Ultimately, the behaviour of characters such as Roy and Ruth encourages us to consider the reliability (or unreliability) of our own perceptions . Alongside this, Nowra stresses the importance of being able to accept your own reality , as he shows that characters who fail to do so, also fail to experience personal growth (e.g. Roy, Julie).

Burnt-Out Theatre

The setting of a burnt-out theatre depicts the miserable environment in which the patients of mental institutions are forced to live. As they are ostracised by the community, a lack of care and support is shown through the rejected and deteriorating theatre. The patients’ considerable enthusiasm highlights their unfortunate circumstances, since even a chance to spend their time in an old building performing a play causes much excitement.

Although we see the theatre being touched up with new lights and a ‘coat of paint’, it still remains derelict and run-down. Nowra uses this to symbolise the futility of surface-level treatments (such as medication and isolation) of mental illnesses, and how we should instead focus on seeing the person behind the illness.

However, Nowra also uses the theatre as a symbol of hope. Despite its desolation, it is in the theatre that Lewis feels safe to grow and develop . Additionally, Julie and Lewis’ kiss takes place on the theatre’s stage. The kiss itself represents Lewis becoming more comfortable with himself and his increasingly counter-cultural views.

Arabian Phoenix

The women in both Così Fan Tutte and Così are compared with the Arabian Phoenix. The mythical creature is a representation of women, beautiful and enchanting, capturing men such as the god Apollo with its voice. This reflects the power of women to attract men. Nevertheless, its rarity, as often commented on in Così , is linked with the seemingly infrequent loyalty demonstrated by women .

The frequent reference to the Arabian Phoenix throughout Così continually reinforces the play’s misogynistic undertone . Its rarity is likened to the absence of women’s fidelity, yet never male fidelity. Similarly, Nowra invites his audience to condemn Lucy’s unfaithfulness towards Lewis, yet we are not encouraged to feel the same way about Lewis’ unfaithfulness to Lucy.

Light and Dark

The lights in Act 1, Scene 1 highlight Lewis’ entrance into a new world , where he befriends patients who will ultimately help him to learn and develop. At first Lewis, much like Lucy and Nick, possesses a ‘pitch black’ perspective of the world. This is a representation of their modern beliefs that circulate around politics and war. When the lights are turned on, Roy is present, demonstrating that the patients of the mental institutions are the source for Lewis’ changing perspective throughout the play. Nowra also uses the lights to represent the hope for change that Lewis brings to the patients, and vice versa.

Light is also used to directly juxtapose the chaos and desperation that darkness brings. Before Lewis entered the theatre, it was dark and derelict, symbolising the abandonment and hopelessness of the asylum’s patients. This desperation is viewed in another light during Julie and Lewis’ kiss (which takes place in the dark). In this instance, their desire for each other and the chaos that ensues is liberating for Lewis, as it enables him to come to terms with what he truly values.

However, Julie notes that the wards are ‘never really dark’ as ‘there’s always a light on in the corridor.’ In this sense, darkness symbolises autonomy and freedom , whereas light represents the constant monitoring and scrutinising that the patients are subjected to.

Essay Topics

1. Così contends that some things are more important than politics.

2. In Così, the ‘insane’ characters are quite normal.

3. The line between reality and illusion is often blurred.

4. Ironically, it is through the ‘madmen’ that Lewis learns what is truly important.

5. Nick and Lucy’s ‘modern’ value of free love is depicted to be a backwards belief. Discuss.

Now it's your turn! Give these essay topics a go. For more sample essay topics, head over to our Così Study Guide to practice writing essays using the analysis you've learnt in this blog!

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

Character-Based Prompt: It is not only Lewis who develops in Così , but other characters as well. Discuss.

Simply spot a character’s name and there you have it, it’s a character-based prompt. However, it’s important to recognise that your essay does not need to revolve around only the character(s) in the prompt but should also incorporate discussion of other major and minor characters as well.

In this topic, it is important to incorporate other characters, such as the patients, into your essay, because they are crucial to Lewis’ development. To ensure that you stay on topic, it is best to include a paragraph (or paragraphs) that explore characters other than Lewis and their development. Also try and focus on different areas/types of development (i.e. not just Lewis’ changing values).

Highlight Key Words :

It is not only Lewis who develops in Così , but other characters as well.

Find Synonyms:

Develops: learns, grows, changes, flourishes, progresses, matures

Step 2: Brainstorm

Così explores the development/growth of multiple characters, including Lewis.
Lewis is the central catalyst that enables other character’s development to be seen (such as Ruth’s and Zac’s)
However, we also see characters who fail to develop. This is either because they fail to accept their own reality (Roy) or they fail to accept the errors in their thinking (Lucy, Nick)
Nowra also uses Lewis as the benchmark against which the development of other characters is measured. For example, Nick’s lack of development is highlighted through comparing his stagnation/unchanging ways to Lewis’ growth.
Lewis’ development is facilitated by the patients. Nowra uses this to suggest the productivity of the mentally ill and challenge traditional stereotypes that label them as incapable.
Through Lewis’ development, Nowra highlights the falsity in societal stereotypes of the mentally ill (i.e. Lewis’s views change from being discriminatory and stereotypical to more compassionate, and well founded.)
Imagery and symbolism are used to represent development and growth (fire and water) as well as Lewis’ catalytic nature (light and dark).

Step 3: Create a Plan

Contention: Nowra encourages his audience to reconsider their perspective on the mentally ill by highlighting their capacity to not only change themselves, but enact change in others.

Topic Sentence 1: Through his exploration of Lewis’ changing ideals during Così , Nowra attempts to highlight the value of companionship and productivity of the mentally ill, which act to increase Lewis’ confidence when faced with adversity.

Examples: Lewis’ changing ideas on love and fidelity, Lewis’ changing levels of subservience to Lucy and Nick

Evidence:

"Not so important."

"Without love, the world wouldn’t mean as much."

"They are coming to take me away, ha, ha."

"Not sing that."

"I said, don’t sing that song."

Linking Sentence(s): In contrasting Lewis’ meekness to his boldness, Nowra alludes to the personal benefits that personal growth can have. Additionally, he ultimately encourages his audience to view Lewis’ learning as evidence against the common notion of the unproductivity of the mentally ill, as we see Lewis’ development flourish during his time at the asylum.

Topic Sentence 2: Moreover, throughout Così we see Lewis develop a greater understanding of the complexity of madness due to his partnership with the patients.

Examples: Lewis’ changing perspective of the patients, Lewis’ involvement with the patients beyond his role as director, fire and water imagery

"Uncertain."

"Will go bezerk without their medication."

"Unable to believe he has found himself caught up in [directing]."

"Water drip[ping] though the hole in the roof."

Linking Sentence: Ultimately, through highlighting the development of Lewis’ views towards insanity, Nowra positions his audience to reflect on the complexity of madness and thus warns of the danger of stereotypes.

Topic Sentence 3: Furthermore, as an outsider, Lewis assists the patients in their development, acting as their connection to the real world and ultimately providing a space for them to grow and flourish.

Examples: Juxtaposition of light and dark, Ruth’s development.

"Chink of light."

"Burnt out theatre."

"Real coffee."

"Real cappuccino machine."

"Wasn’t [her], it was the character."

"Time and motion expert."

Linking Sentence: Ultimately, Nowra explores the learning and growth of characters in Così to not only highlight the necessity of a humanistic approach to treating mental illness, but also to illustrate the nature of mental health as a continuum, on which no one person needs to be stationary forever. ‍

If you find this essay breakdown helpful, then you might want to check out our Così Study Guide where we cover 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! Let's get started.

The Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response

Black Diggers & The Longest Memory are studied as part of VCE English's Comparative. For one of our most popular posts on Comparative (also known as Reading and Comparing), check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Comparative .

Here, I will be breaking down a comparative analysis. You will get to know exactly how I write one! Specifically, I will be focusing on the two texts, The Longest Memory and Black Diggers . I have also included my own essay as an example to follow through.

But firstly, if you haven't watched our The Longest Memory and Black Diggers introductory video which details themes, characters and more, check it out below:

This is the prompt that I have decided to approach:

‘The hopes and dreams of oppressed characters rarely eventuate.’ How do Black Diggers and The Longest Memory explore this idea? ‍

Let’s break it down!

The Introduction

Firsts things first, we need an introduction. Here is an example of my one:

The hopes and dreams of oppressed individuals can be fulfilled to a certain extent. This degree of fulfilment, however, can ultimately become restricted by the entrenched beliefs and dictations of society; and thus, this process of fulfilment is presented to be difficult and rare to achieve. In Fred D’Aguiar’s novella, The Longest Memory, the hopes and dreams for equality and racial acceptance is revealed to coerce oppressed individuals to subvert social norms, all in an attempt to gain liberty and fairness. Similarly, Tom Wright’s play, Black Diggers, explores the collective yearning of oppressed Indigenous Australians who seek to gain a sense of belonging and recognition in society. Both D’Aguiar and Wright expose how the obstacles of social inequality, deep-rooted prejudice and beliefs can essentially restrict the fulfilment of such desires and dreams.

Okay, now let’s take a closer look at it and see exactly how I constructed my introduction:

The hopes and dreams of oppressed individuals can be fulfilled to a certain extent.

Here, I have immediately addressed the topic question in my first sentence and provided my standpoint.

This degree of fulfilment, however, can ultimately become restricted by the entrenched beliefs and dictations of society; and thus, this process of fulfilment is presented to be difficult and rare to achieve.

In my next sentence, I went on to elaborate about my viewpoint of the prompt. I highlighted how society’s perceptions and beliefs restrict individuals’ hopes and dreams to occur.

In Fred D’Aguiar’s novella, The Longest Memory, the hopes and dreams for equality and racial acceptance is revealed to coerce oppressed individuals to subvert social norms, all in an attempt to gain liberty and fairness.

I then went on to introduce the first text, The Longest Memory . I explained the role of hopes and dreams, and how they drive individuals to gain their own freedom.

Similarly, Tom Wright’s play, Black Diggers, explores the collective yearning of oppressed Indigenous Australians who seek to gain a sense of belonging and recognition in society.

Next, I introduced the second text, Black Diggers , by using the transition comparing word, 'similarly', I briefly explained how Black Diggers is similar to The Longest Memory , in that they both have individuals who have yearnings and desires.

Both D’Aguiar and Wright expose how the obstacles of social inequality, deep-rooted prejudice and beliefs can essentially restrict the fulfilment of such desires and dreams.

I finished off my introduction by addressing the two writers, and the message they convey about hopes and dreams.

Body Paragraphs

Now moving on to the body paragraphs!

In Comparative, there's an emphasis on your ability to draw insightful connections between the two texts. That’s why in How To Write A Killer Comparative , we show you how to use the LSG CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy to identify and discuss unique points of comparison. In the study guide, which has been written by 45+ study scorers, we also explain how to strengthen your comparative discussion through Advanced Essay Paragraph Structures which truly showcase the power of the CONVERGENT and DIVERGENT strategy. You can check it out here .

Here is an example of one paragraph I wrote for my essay:

The ambitions of the oppressed are achieved to a certain extent. However, they are not maintained and thus become restricted due to the beliefs and conventions entrenched in society. D’Aguiar asserts that a sense of liberation can indeed be achieved in the unjust system of slavery, and this is demonstrated through his characterisation of Chapel. His depiction of Chapel serves as a subversion of the conventional type of slave; he is 'half a slave, half the master' and belongs to 'another way of life'. His defiance and rebellion against the dictations of society is exemplified through his speech, which consists of rhythmic and poetic couplets, filled with flowery language; which ultimately challenges the idea of illiterate slaves. D’Aguiar also associates the allusion of the 'two star-crossed lovers' in regards to the relationship between Lydia and Chapel; who were 'forbidden' to 'read together'. Despite this, the two characters take on a form of illicit, linguistic, sexual intercourse with each other, as they 'touch each other’s bodies in the dark' and 'memorise [their] lines throughout'. Here, D’Aguiar illustrates their close intimacy as a form of rebellion against the Eurocentric society, who believed such interrelation between blacks and whites was 'heinous' and 'wicked'. The individualistic nature of Chapel is also paralleled in Black Diggers, where Wright’s portrayal of Bertie expresses the yearning for a sense of belonging. Just like Chapel, Bertie desires free will, and he decides to 'fight for the country'. This aspiration of his however, is restrained by both his Mum and Grandad; who in a similar manner as Whitechapel, represent the voice of reality and reason. Wright employs the metaphor of the Narrandera Show to depict the marginalisation and exclusion of Aboriginal people, as they will never be 'allowed through the wire', or essentially, ever be accepted in Australia. This notion of exclusion is further reinforced through Bertie’s gradual loss of voice and mentality throughout Wright’s short vignettes, as he soon becomes desensitised and is 'unable to speak'. Here, Wright seems to suggest that the silenced voices of the Indigenous soldiers depict the eternal suffering they experienced; from both the horrors of war, but also the continual marginalisation and lack of recognition they faced back home. Consequently, D’Aguiar and Wright highlight how the ambitions of young individuals are limited by the truths and history of reality, and are essentially rarely achieved.

Now let’s take a deeper look into this paragraph:

The ambitions of the oppressed are achieved to a certain extent. However, they are not maintained and thus become restricted due to the beliefs and conventions entrenched in society.

I started my paragraph by briefly explaining how the hopes and dreams of individuals are achieved, but they are not maintained due to social beliefs and conventions.

D’Aguiar asserts that a sense of liberation can indeed be achieved in the unjust system of slavery, and this is demonstrated through his characterisation of Chapel.

I went on to highlight the first text, The Longest Memory , and started to discuss about D’Aguiar’s characterisation of Chapel.

His depiction of Chapel serves as a subversion of the conventional type of slave; he is 'half a slave, half the master' and belongs to 'another way of life'. His defiance and rebellion against the dictations of society is exemplified through his speech, which consists of rhythmic and poetic couplets, filled with flowery language; which ultimately challenges the idea of illiterate slaves.

Here, I provided evidence and emphasised on the language D’Aguiar has used to construct his character of Chapel, and further explained how he did it in order to portray Chapel as non-standard type of slave.

D’Aguiar also associates the allusion of the 'two star-crossed lovers' in regards to the relationship between Lydia and Chapel; who were 'forbidden' to 'read together'. Despite this, the two characters take on a form of illicit, linguistic, sexual intercourse with each other, as they 'touch each other’s bodies in the dark' and 'memorise [their] lines throughout'.

I continued to discuss about the relationship between Lydia and Chapel, as they are both characters who defied society’s expectations and ideals.

Here, D’Aguiar illustrates their close intimacy as a form of rebellion against the Eurocentric society, who believed such interrelation between blacks and whites was 'heinous' and 'wicked'.

I have highlighted D’Aguiar’s characterisation of Chapel and Lydia, and further explained how he uses their relationship to demonstrate defiance and rebellion against society.

The individualistic nature of Chapel is also paralleled in Black Diggers, where Wright’s portrayal of Bertie expresses the yearning for a sense of belonging.

Then, I have addressed the second text by discussing the similarity between the characters of Chapel and Bertie.

Just like Chapel, Bertie desires free will, and he decides to 'fight for the country'. This aspiration of his however, is restrained by both his Mum and Grandad; who in a similar manner as Whitechapel, represent the voice of reality and reason.

I explained the similarities between Chapel and Bertie, but also included some comparisons with Mum and Grandad and Whitechapel.

Wright employs the metaphor of the Narrandera Show to depict the marginalisation and exclusion of Aboriginal people, as they will never be 'allowed through the wire', or essentially, ever be accepted in Australia.

I went on to explain how Wright used the construction of a metaphor, to convey the marginalisation and exclusion Aboriginal people faced.

This notion of exclusion is further reinforced through Bertie’s gradual loss of voice and mentality throughout Wright’s short vignettes, as he soon becomes desensitised and is 'unable to speak'.

I have further emphasised how Wright characterised Bertie to become silent throughout the play.

Here, Wright seems to suggest that the silenced voices of the Indigenous soldiers depict the eternal suffering they experienced; from both the horrors of war, but also the continual marginalisation and lack of recognition they faced back home.

I explained Wright’s portrayal of the silent Indigenous soldiers, in which he conveyed their exclusion and lack of recognition in society.

Consequently, D’Aguiar and Wright highlight how the ambitions of young individuals are limited by the truths and history of reality, and are essentially rarely achieved.

I ended my paragraph by explaining how both of the writers reveal how the ambitions of individuals are rarely achieved due to the truth of reality.

The Conclusion

And lastly, we need to end our comparative analysis with a conclusion. Here is my conclusion:

D’Aguiar and Wright both illustrate oppressed individuals fighting against the beliefs and conventions of society; in order to gain their freedom and achieve their hopes and dreams. However, both reveal the harsh truths of reality that ultimately inhibit and restrict the capacity of people’s ambitions. D’Aguiar and Wright compel their readers to try and grasp an understanding of the past of slaves and Aboriginal soldiers, in order to seek remembrance and closure of this fundamental truth. They both convey the need for memories and the past to never be forgotten; and instead remembered and recognised in history.

Here, I will explain how I constructed my conclusion:

D’Aguiar and Wright both illustrate oppressed individuals fighting against the beliefs and conventions of society; in order to gain their freedom and achieve their hopes and dreams.

I begin my conclusion by explaining the similarities between the two writers, in which they both presented oppressed individuals who desire freedom and have defied social beliefs.

However, both reveal the harsh truths of reality that ultimately inhibit and restrict the capacity of people’s ambitions.

I then further emphasised how Wright and D’Aguiar convey the message that hopes and dreams are restricted due to the truths of reality.

D’Aguiar and Wright compel their readers to try and grasp an understanding of the past of slaves and Aboriginal soldiers, in order to seek remembrance and closure of this fundamental truth.

I elaborated on the message that both writers conveyed to their audience, in which they wanted their readers to acknowledge the history and truth of slavery and war.

They both convey the need for memories and the past to never be forgotten; and instead remembered and recognised in history.

I ended my paragraph by highlighting the main purpose of the texts and the writers’ intention; which was to convey to their audience the significance of memories, and the need for the past to be remembered and recognised in history.

And that’s all folks! That’s the total rundown of my comparative analysis. I hope you were able to learn a thing or two from this article. Now, go on and begin writing!

In your Language Analysis (or Analysing Argument) SAC, you will be required to analyse how language is used to persuade in three or more texts. While this may seem a bit daunting at first, it really isn’t much harder than a single text analysis once you know how to approach it. Of course, there are multiple ways to tackle this task, but here is just one possible method!

Introduction:

Begin with a sentence that briefly describes the incident that sparked the debate or the nature/context of the debate. Remember to use the background information already provided for you on the task book!

Next, introduce the texts one at a time, including the main aspects for each (eg. title, writer, source, form, tone, contention and target audience). You want to show the examiner that you are comparing the articles, rather than analysing them separately. To do this, use appropriate linking words as you move onto your outline of each new text.

Consider significant features for comparison, for example:

Is the tone/style the same?
Is there a different target audience?
How do their key persuasive strategies differ?

You may choose to finish your introduction with a brief comment on any key difference or similarity.

Sample introduction: The recent return to vinyls and decline in CD sales has sparked discussion about the merits of the two forms of recorded sound. In his feature article, For the Record, published in the monthly magazine Audioworld in June 2015, Robert Tan contends that vinyls, as the more traditional form, are preferable to CDs. He utilises a disparaging tone within his article to criticise CDs as less functional than vinyls. In response to Tan’s article, reader Julie Parker uses a condescending and mocking tone to lampoon Tan for his point of view, in a letter published in the same magazine one month later.

Body paragraphs:

Block structure

Spend the first half of your essay focused on Article 1, then move into Article 2 for the second half of your essay (and, for those doing three articles, the later part of your essay based on Article 3). This structure is the most simple of all, and unfortunately does not offer you ample opportunity to delve into an insightful analysis. Hence, we would not recommend this structure for you. If possible, adopt the Bridge or Integrated structures discussed below.

Bridge structure

Analyse the first text, including any visuals that may accompany it. Students often spend too long on the first text and leave too little time to analyse the remaining texts in sufficient depth, so try to keep your analysis specific and concise! Remember to focus on the effects on the reader, rather than having a broad discussion of persuasive techniques.

Linking is essential in body paragraphs! Begin your analysis of each new text with a linking sentence to enable a smooth transition and to provide a specific point of contrast. Continue to link the texts throughout your analysis, for example, you could compare:

The techniques of each writer and how these aim to position the reader in different ways.

Often your second and/or third texts will be a direct response to the first, so you could pick up on how the author rebuts or agrees with the arguments of the first text.

Integrated structure

In this type of structure, you will analyse both articles in each body paragraph.

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 .

If you'd like to see an in-depth explanation of these different essay structures with sample A+ annotated essays as examples, check out our How To Write A Killer Language Analysis ebook! This study guide includes heaps of other valuable content too, including the SIMPLICITY and SPECIFICITY strategy, which has helped hundreds of students achieve A+ in their assessments.

Conclusion:

In Lisa's videos above, she suggests a short and sweet summary in your conclusion by incorporating some quotes from the author's own conclusion.

Alternatively, you could opt for a different approach. In your conclusion, aim to focus on how each text differs from the others in terms of the main techniques used by the author, and more importantly, the effect of these techniques on the reader or audience. You should summarise the main similarities and differences of each text without indicating any personal bias (ie. you should not state whether one text might be more or less persuasive than another). For example, a point of comparison could be the audience appeal - will any particular audience group be particularly engaged or offended? Why?

Finally, finish with a sentence suggesting a possible outlook for the issue.

Next Steps:

Watch our 'Language Analysis' playlist where Lisa analyses the VCAA 2016 exam over the span of 7 videos. From the first read all the way through to writing up the full essay, Lisa shows you step by step how you can improve your Language Analysis marks.

*This blog post was originally created by Christine Liu, with additions made by Lisa Tran to suit the new modifications in the English study design.

[Video Transcription]

You’ll often find that study guides begin with a section on historical context. Even though it might be tempting to skip over this section, there’s a lot you can take away from understanding the period of time in which your texts are set in. I’ll show you how with examples for both Ransom and The Queen in this video.

Let’s start with a brief overview of why you need to know the historical context. Context, a topic explored in detail in our How To Write A Killer Text Response , plummets you back to the era of when your texts were set. You effectively ‘step into the shoes’ of the people living in that time, and in doing so, gain a better understanding of their views and values. People’s views and values are often shaped by important events of the time, social culture and norms, and everyday experiences. For example, think about your own context. You’re part of Generation Z, and one defining part of a Gen Z experience is growing up with technology from a young age. Social media is just normality, pretty much everyone has it, uses it as a source of online communication. So how does this shape your views and values? By having access to online information in this way, Gen Zers tend to be more passionate about social issues, because people of this age can leverage social media to voice their opinions or follow those who resonate with them. Only 20 years or so ago, we only had giant media that voiced their own opinions via newspapers or TV. You didn’t have such a wide array of voices from people of different races or experiences. Think about the recent death of George Floyd, and the incredible ripple effect his death had on the world and the power of social media in the Black Lives Matter movement.

So looking at The Queen and Ransom , we want to dive right into their respective eras and understand how people thought and felt during these time periods. This helps us better understand what the messages Frears and Malouf are trying to tell or teach us through their works, enabling you to write better essays. Let’s start with The Queen.

The 1980s to 1990s was a time when the world was enamoured by the Princess of Wales (or Diana, as we’ll call her). Her shyness, broken family history, ongoing charitable efforts, and iconic fashion choices made her a royal favourite. She was dubbed the ‘People’s Princess’ not only because of her relatability but also because of her tenuous relationship with the royal family. She’d been wronged by the royal family; first by Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla, then with the lack of support from the Queen when she asked for marriage advice.

At the time, public opinion of the royal family was greatly influenced by tabloid papers - after all, there was no Instagram for the royals to tell their own story. After an estimated 750 million people tuned in to watch Diana’s wedding to Charles, paparazzi began documenting her every move. Princess Diana became the most photographed person in the world, with paparazzi offered up to £500,000 for even grainy pictures of her (that’s equivalent to $1.5 million AUD today!). In the competitive fight to snap the most profitable photos of Diana, the paparazzi invaded her most private moments, taking shots of her kissing Dodi Al Fayed while on holidays, and sunbathing topless at her hotel in Spain. Diana’s despair and requests to be left alone remained unanswered, so when the paparazzi chased her to her death in 1997, the public response was emphatic .

The public turned against Britain's press and photographers, and the overwhelming outpour of grief is a testament to the injustice the public felt on behalf of Diana. To add insult to injury, the monarchy’s initial reticent response was deemed inadequate, negatively shifting the public’s attitude or ‘mood’ - a term we often hear in the film - towards the royals. The monarchy needs to stay in the public’s favour, lest the end of the institution.

That’s why The Queen is a film about change on several fronts, the first dynamic response from the public, The Queen abandoning royal tradition and acquiescing to public demand, and how all this happens within months of Tony Blair’s new premiership .

With this, you can understand why change is one of the biggest themes discussed when comparing these two texts. Let’s look at Ransom.

Moving back a further 3000 years earlier than The Queen , Ransom is a retelling the Trojan War, one of the most famous events in Greek mythology. To truly understand random, you must first familiarise yourself with Greek mythology, the Trojan War, and The Iliad. We’ll have a look at these three as if they’re matryoshka dolls (where dolls of decreasing size are place done inside another):

The biggest doll: Greek mythology

We’ll start with Greek mythology since it’s the umbrella knowledge you need to know before understanding the Trojan War and The Iliad . Essentially a collection of stories about gods, heroes and other creatures, Greek mythology was used by ancient Greeks to explain the existence of the world. Without the scientific developments we’ve discovered to date, ancient Greeks attempted to explain the creation of the earth, human behaviour, death and love through their mythical stories. Notice how the gods (Iris, Hermes) appear when Priam needs help and advice throughout Ransom.

The reason why Greek mythology is still prevalent in modern society is that the lessons taught in these stories are still applicable today as they depict universal truths about human qualities such as our strengths and flaws. Without you even realising it, our world today is filled with references to Greek mythology. Take, for example, Pandora , (the jewellery company that sells little charms you need to buy separately to make up a bracelet), whose namesake comes from the myth about Pandora’s box (basically, Pandora’s unchecked curiosity led her to open a forbidden box, releasing all illnesses and death into the world - side note, could we blame Pandora for COVID-19 then? Just kidding). Or take the first God of War game , which follows the story of Kratos whose ability to be a loving father is overpowered by his anger and desire for vengeance. Interestingly, the tale of Pandora’s box also is featured in this game.

Luckily for you though, you don’t have to be an expert in all Greek mythology, but you should probably have a good gist of the Trojan War.

The middle doll: The Trojan War

Now we narrow things down to one of the most legendary Greek myths - the Trojan War. This war might be familiar to you because it is the backdrop and context for Malouf’s Ransom .

The myth begins with Zeus , the father of all gods, and his brother Poseidon lusting after the goddess of water, Thetis . However, they are warned by Prometheus , an intelligent mortal - better known for being chained to a rock as a result of stealing Zeus’ fire - that Thetis would give birth to a son who would be mightier than his father. Alarmed at this possibility, the two gods arrange for Thetis to marry Peleus, a mortal. Since humans were believed to be inferior to gods, this ensured that Thetis’ child would be a mere mortal, rendering the prophecy redundant.

Any potential issues appeared resolved until the gods omitted Eris , the goddess of discord from Thetis and Peleus’ wedding invitation list. Furious at this insult, Eris arrives at the wedding with her own plans. She inscribes a golden apple with the words, ‘To The Fairest’ and throws it amongst the guests. Naturally, all goddesses want to claim the prize. Eventually, the choice is narrowed down to three of the most beautiful goddesses: Aphrodite , Athena and Hera . Unable to reach a decision, they turned to Zeus to judge who should win the title. However, Zeus refuses to do so and instead, elects a mortal with good judgment of beauty to make the choice. This mortal is Paris, Prince of Troy and whose birth produced a prophecy that he would one day bring misfortune to his people and town.

The three goddesses approach Paris with not only their beauty but also bribes. Hera offers him power and control over Europe and Asia, Athena promises that she will make him a great warrior while Aphrodite proposes to him the most beautiful woman on earth. Since Paris is more interested in women than power and war, he awards Aphrodite with the golden apple. With this exchange sealed, the beginning of Troy’s troubles begin as the most beautiful woman on earth, Helen is already married to Menelaus, king of Sparta.

After a diplomatic mission to Sparta, Paris elopes with Helen, who falls in love with Paris upon their first encounter (literature concerning this part of the story remains ambiguous). Upon discovering Paris’ betrayal, Menelaus calls on Helen’s many suitors to invade Troy and retrieve his wife. His brother, Agamemnon recruits and leads the Greek army into battle against the city of Troy, and thus begins the Trojan War.

And finally, the baby doll: The Iliad

Homer’s The Iliad is a poem that begins ten years into the Trojan War. By now, Thetis, the goddess who had married Peleus, has given birth to their mortal son Achilles , the mightiest of all Greeks, as predicted by the prophecy (Achilles should definitely be familiar to you because he’s the main character in Ransom !). Although he is a fighter for Agamemnon, their relationship is strained after Agamemnon demands that Achilles give up his beloved war prize, Briseis . Since Agamemnon desires Briseis for himself, this enrages Achilles to the point where he refuses to fight in the Trojan War. This leads to dire consequences for the Greeks as they lose many men in battle and are forced to retreat to their ships after the Trojans successfully turn the tide of the battle.

Concerned for his Myrmidons (a group of the strongest and skilled warriors who fight for Achilles) yet too proud to budge from his position, Achilles is persuaded to allow his close friend and comrade Patroclus, to wear Achilles’ renowned armour and lead his Myrmidons into battle (ah, we’re starting to see even stronger connections to Ransom now). This strategy is designed to rouse fear in the Trojans and cause them to temporarily retreat - enough time to allow the Greeks to rest and recover - as they’d see ‘Achilles’ back in battle.

Despite Patroclus’ skills as a soldier, Achilles insists that Patroclus only fight until the Greeks can successfully fend off the Trojans away from their ships. During the fight, however, Patroclus disobeys Achilles’ orders and continues to pursue the Trojans back to their gates. At this point, he encounters and is killed by Hector, the prince of Troy and leader of the Trojan army.

Fuelled with rage and grief over Patroclus’ death, Achilles agrees to fight once again for the Greek army, much to Agamemnon’s pleasure. In their next battle, Achilles kills many warriors and the Trojans are forced to retreat back to the safety of their walls. Hector, against the will of his family, faces Achilles alone outside the walls of his home, knowing that Achilles is on a path to avenge Patroclus’s death. In a fierce battle between the two greatest Trojan war warriors, Hector was killed. Achilles takes Hector’s body with him and dishonours it day after day by chaining it to a chariot and dragging it along the walls of Troy. Malouf begins the Ransom story here. The gods agree that this blasphemous behaviour cannot continue and send the god Hermes to guide king Priam, father of Hector to the Greek camp. Once in their camp, Priam falls to his knees and pleads Achilles for the body of his son. Touched by the king’s words, Achilles relents, allowing Priam to finally hold a proper burial for Hector.

Appreciating the differences between The Iliad and Ransom storyline will lead to a better understanding of the themes and symbols in Ransom .

One of the main differences between the two texts is their depiction of Priam’s journey to Achilles . In The Iliad , this journey is explored only momentarily and focuses more on the presence of Hermes. The inclusion of the new character Somax in Ransom also offers a new perspective on this old tale. While The Iliad only touches upon Achilles’ and Priam’s suffering, Malouf delves into the emotional journey that the characters undergo during the darkest episode in the Trojan War.

That’s why the themes of grief , loss and death should be quite prominent in your comparison between Ransom and The Queen along with the importance of stories and storytelling.

In my new study guide Ransom and The Queen , I show you how you can use your knowledge you’ve learned there to write A+ essays. Take a look at our study guide below!

Additional resources for Ransom and The Queen

A Killer Comparative Guide: Ransom and The Queen

[Video] Ransom and The Queen (Themes, Film Techniques, Literary Devices)

How to Write a Killer Comparative Ebook

Ransom Study Guide

[Video] Ransom Themes (Revenge, Grief, Forgiveness and Essay Topics)

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., how to incorporate sunset boulevard's cinematic features into your vce essay.

VCE Creative Writing: How To Structure Your Story

The White Girl by Tony Birch: Historical Context and Quotes

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

Skip to primary navigation
Skip to main content
Skip to primary sidebar

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Setting Thesaurus Entry: House Fire

April 24, 2010 by ANGELA ACKERMAN

Smoke (light & white, drifting at the ceiling level in a haze to start, then billowing plumes darkening to sooty black as plastics, oils, chemicals, varnish and paint etc are consumed), flame, coals, flames licking the walls and sweeping across the ceiling, fire ropes chewing…

The crackle of flame, the woof sound as something catches fire quickly, plastics melting and dripping into hissing puddles, the creak and groan of timbers contracting, cries for help, glass breaking, roof caving in, floor groaning, someone banging on a door, shouting…

Smoke will pick up the smells of what’s burning and at what stage. Walls, wooden furniture, etc will have a smokey campfire-ish smell at first, plastics a sharp, acrid smell that will burn the nose and throat, but as the fire progresses the smoke will grow…

Gummy, acrid ash coating the tongue, phlegm, the occasional gulp of fresher air if leaning out a window to breathe on a second story or above window

rubble underfoot, cutting feet on glass or wood splinters, searing burns, intense heat, blistering palms from touching something too hot, pressing a towel or shirt to the mouth and nose in an attempt to breathe cleaner air, wrapping shirts around hands to protect..

Helpful hints:

–The words you choose can convey atmosphere and mood.

Example 1: I crammed myself tight into the corner so the flames couldn’t find me. Mr. Bear’s hard plastic nose dug into my chest but I didn’t dare loosen my grip on him. Across from me, the dolls on my shelf began to change, their fine blond ringlets shrinking into black frizz and then crumbling into dust. They stared at me, black bristles poking out their heads, their smiling faces shifting and drooping, crying plastic tears. I pushed my face into the soft fur of Mr. Bear and pretended I was at Grandma Hiller’s, hiding in the linen cupboard, waiting for her to find me…

–Similes and metaphors create strong imagery when used sparingly.

Example 1: (Simile) As Mary lay there, her face pressed to the warm floor boards, she pulled in a final, reedy breath. Time slowed, and darkness began to close in on her like the heavy velvet curtains that signalled the end of a theatre performance…

Think beyond what a character sees, and provide a sensory feast for readers

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers , a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

Reader Interactions

May 31, 2021 at 11:17 pm

Thank GOD I found this!! I was searching high and low for ways to help me describe what a character was smelling when it came to a burning building (and the internet was NOT being helpful!). I have the Setting books and one of your others as well. So when I saw this was by you guys and it had the other stuff with it, too, I rejoiced!

April 26, 2010 at 12:08 am

*shivers* I can hear, smell, and see this. You are amazing! Thank you for the list.

April 25, 2010 at 8:33 pm

I think it’s cool how you called out the different smells for different materials – you have such a well-rounded approach to description

April 25, 2010 at 6:36 pm

Bish, Ouch is right. I would never wish fire upon anyone. Such a terrible force.

Shannon, you crack me up. And yes, do send it on–I’d like to see how it turned out. 🙂

Julie, I’m glad I got this one right. I’ve asked a few people to look it over in the field to make sure I didn’t miss anything huge.

Martha, so glad you found your way over here and the post is just what you needed. 🙂

Dean, you are on a roll! Buy a lottery ticket!

Mary, Thanks!

Stina, LOL!

April 25, 2010 at 4:03 pm

Gee, where were you when I was working on my last book? I had to torch my house just to figure it all out. 😉

April 25, 2010 at 10:52 am

This is another great post, Angela. I’m impressed by all the good work you put in on these.

The image of melting dolls’ faces will stay with me for a long time!

April 25, 2010 at 9:59 am

Am I lucky today!! first, I got paid for some drawings, then a friend I haven’t seen for a long time called and this!! I found a blog really worth following..

So I’m now a follower and bookmarked this page so I can come back anytime I want… easily.

More Power!!

April 25, 2010 at 7:17 am

I was referred over here by a gal in RWA during a discussion on desription and the senses. Wow, am I glad I made the trip.

Just in time too! The opener on my new ms is a fire scene… and look what to my wondering eyes should appear?? lol.

Awesome post! I’ll be stalking your blog for sure.

April 24, 2010 at 9:51 pm

My husband is a firefighter and can relate to your mood words. Great stuff!

April 24, 2010 at 8:44 pm

See how you are? You post things like this, and I become utterly dependent upon you! ha ha ha. You really are a blog I couldn’t live without.

P.S. I have 1-2 more days worth of work and then I think I’m ready to query. If you want to see the final version (just for fun – no crit. obligation) I’d be happy to send it to you. 🙂

April 24, 2010 at 7:08 pm

Kamila Shamsie

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Twenty-eight-year-old Isma Pasha is detained at Heathrow Airport, where she is held and interrogated for two hours, singled out specifically for her hijab and her Muslim background even though she is a British citizen. After officers question her on whether she considers herself British, she is allowed to board the plane to Boston, where she will be pursuing a PhD in sociology under an old professor of hers, Hira Shah .

Isma spends her days working and reading in a coffee shop, where she befriends 24-year-old Eamonn Lone , who is also from London. Isma recognizes Eamonn as the son of Karamat Lone , a British politician who, though he is Muslim and has a Pakistani background, has largely made British Muslims feel like he has turned his back on them in order to gain support of the wider British public. Eamonn and Isma become friends over the next few weeks, and Isma grows romantically interested in Eamonn as well, even though Isma quickly realizes that Eamonn has little understanding of his Muslim or Pakistani heritage. When Karamat is appointed Home Secretary of the U.K., Isma admits that she knows who Eammon’s father is, and that she is critical of his treatment of his Muslim constituents. As a person who looks up to his father a great deal, Eamonn grows cold toward her as a result.

That night, Isma is woken by a call from her 19-year-old sister, Aneeka , who is extremely upset after finding out that Isma was the one to report their brother, Parvaiz , to the police. Aneeka feels completely betrayed, even though Isma assures her that the police would have found out about what Parvaiz had done anyway and that she was trying to protect Aneeka. Aneeka says that Isma has made Parvaiz unable to come home, and she tells Isma not to contact her anymore. Upset, Isma texts Eamonn, wanting comfort and to explain her perspective more fully. Isma tells him that her father, Adil , left her family to become a jihadi in Bosnia. He was imprisoned in Bagram and then died while being transported to Guantánamo. When her family tried to approach Karamat, a new Member of Parliament at the time, to find out more information about Adil’s death, Karamat said that they were “better off without him.” In the present, Eamonn apologizes to Isma, but he still defends his father’s actions. As they part, Eamonn tells Isma that he is returning to London and offers to deliver M&Ms that Isma was planning to send to Aunty Naseem , a neighbor with whom Aneeka is currently staying.

Back in London, Eamonn delivers the M&Ms to Aunty Naseem and meets Aneeka, who is instantly suspicious of him because of his father. But when he leaves, Aneeka follows him and asks him to take her to his apartment. Eamonn does so, and when they arrive, Aneeka takes off her hijab and the two have sex. The next morning, Aneeka tells him that she wants to keep their relationship a secret, and he agrees. This also means that Aneeka will not give Eamonn her cell phone number, nor can he find her online.

A few weeks pass, and their relationship deepens, though occasionally they also butt heads over Karamat’s attitudes towards Muslims. Eamonn gives her keys to his apartment, and they get to know each other better. Eamonn is amazed at the fact that Aneeka can be so devoted in her prayer and yet still have so much control over and freedom in her own sexuality. Eamonn even suggests to Aneeka that he wants to propose to her. Aneeka then admits to Eamonn that her twin brother Parvaiz left to go to Raqqa, Syria, the previous year, to join ISIS ’s media unit. At first Eamonn is extremely hurt, particularly after realizing that this is why she pursued him in the first place, but Aneeka assures Eamonn that she truly loves him, and that she just wants to get her brother home.

Eamonn approaches his father, telling him about Aneeka and then about Parvaiz. Karamat immediately grows furious with how Eamonn has been completely blinded by Aneeka, and he tells Eamonn that he cannot see Aneeka again.

The perspective then shifts to Parvaiz, hopping between the present and the events that led to his leaving for ISIS. The previous fall, he was approached by a man named Farooq , who told him that he had heard stories of heroism about Adil. Parvaiz eagerly listens to Farooq, excited to hear about his father as a hero rather than as a “feckless husband,” as his mother, Zainab , and grandmother always told him before their deaths when he and Aneeka were 12 years old. Farooq teaches him about the conflict between Islam and Christianity, and he often talks about how to be a man. One day, Farooq invites Parvaiz over to his flat, and two cousins chain Parvaiz to the floor in a squatting position for hours before waterboarding him. Parvaiz is at first horrified, but then he realizes that this torture makes him feel connected to his father for the first time, and so he asks to be tortured again. Over time, Farooq convinces Parvaiz to come to Syria with him to find more people who knew his father.

Parvaiz creates a cover story about getting a job on a popular music show in Pakistan, then leaves for Syria. When he arrives, Farooq takes his passport and leaves for the front lines before Parvaiz realizes how little information he’s been given. He undergoes months of training, then joins the media unit of ISIS. He also learns that Aneeka and Isma know where he has gone, and that MI5 is now monitoring them. Parvaiz recognizes that he has become like his father only in his “abandonment of a family who had always deserved better than him.” Parvaiz is taken out for a field recording, but when he realizes this means filming an execution, he grows queasy and cannot watch. In another incident, Parvaiz sees a woman pinned underneath a wall that has been bombed, but because she is not wearing a face veil, he is not allowed to approach her even as she begs for help. This is a turning point, as he realizes the horrible mistake he has made. He calls Aneeka, who tells him to get to Istanbul, Turkey, to go to the British consulate.

A few weeks later, he and Farooq take a trip to Istanbul to pick up new recruits and to buy media equipment. When Farooq leaves Parvaiz alone in the electronics store, Parvaiz runs out and takes a cab to try to get to the British consulate. He calls Aneeka, who says that she will fly to Turkey and tells him to wait for her. He also receives a text from Farooq, implying that Farooq is coming after him. Realizing that it is unlikely that they will let Aneeka onto a plane, he approaches the British consulate alone, desperate to get home. Before he steps inside, he is shot and killed by Farooq.

Aneeka is overwhelmed with grief after learning of Parvaiz’s death, and she refuses to be comforted by Isma, who flies home immediately. They watch stories mount about Parvaiz, calling him “the latest name in the string of Muslims from Britain who have joined ISIS.” The news then shows a clip of Karamat, who says that he has revoked the citizenship of all dual nationals who have left Britain to “join our enemies.” He says that Parvaiz’s British citizenship has been revoked and that he will be buried in Pakistan. Policemen then come to interview Aneeka about her relationship with Eamonn. She admits she pursued him because she thought he could help get her brother home. Isma is appalled to learn of the relationship and the reason for it. Despite Isma’s attempts to reconcile with Aneeka, Aneeka refuses to be comforted because she believes that Isma is the reason that Parvaiz could not come home and is now dead.

More articles come out about the story: one quotes Isma, who says that she and Aneeka were shocked and horrified to learn that Parvaiz had joined ISIS, and that she immediately informed the Counter Terrorism Command. Another article centers on the fact that Parvaiz’s father also fought with jihadi groups. A third article comes out, explaining that Karamat’s office revealed Aneeka and Eamonn’s affair in the name of transparency. The article describes Aneeka as Parvaiz’s accomplice, having hunted down Eamonn to try and convince Karamat to return her brother to Britain. Meanwhile, Aneeka applies for a Pakistani passport and goes to Karachi to retrieve Parvaiz’s body.

The story shifts perspective once more, to Karamat. Eamonn, who is now staying with friends, calls Karamat and tells him that his actions do not look good from the outside. Eamonn continues to try to talk through the politics, but Karamat dismisses him, telling him not to try to “develop a spine,” and he also denigrates Aneeka. After the call, Karamat watches the Pakistani news, and he sees that Parvaiz’s body is delivered to a park near the British Deputy High Commission, where Aneeka is holding vigil. She implores Karamat and the Prime Minister for justice. The Prime Minister and Karamat refuse to allow Parvaiz’s body to return, a decision which is supported by Parliament.

The next morning, Eamonn arrives in Pakistan. Eamonn has also released a video, criticizing Karamat’s decision and supporting Aneeka, whom he describes as his fiancée. He says that Karamat’s actions are due to his own “personal animus”—a phrase which deeply hurts Karamat. Articles are released in the morning papers, painting Karamat as an ambitious son of immigrants who married into wealth, used his identity as a Muslim to win elections, and then left it behind when it was no longer valuable.

Karamat returns home to be with his wife, Terry , and his daughter, Emily . After talking through the situation with Terry, he comes to the realization that he should allow Aneeka to bring Parvaiz’s body back to Britain. Soon after, his security detail receives word of a threat. Karamat, Terry, and Emily are taken to the safe room in his house, then released when they find out that the threat wasn’t intended for them.

In Pakistan, news outlets capture Eamonn’s arrival in the park. When he approaches Aneeka, two men run up to him and lock a belt of explosives around his waist. Everyone else starts to flee, but Aneeka approaches him and holds him. For a moment they are “two lovers in a park, […] at peace.”

A Portrait of an Obsolete Man

Culture and entertainment musts from Caleb Madison

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Caleb Madison, The Atlantic ’s very own crossword-puzzles editor and the author of the Good Word newsletter. He has written about why AI doesn’t get slang , the true meaning of meta , and the two most dismissive words on the internet.

Caleb recently ventured through the filmography of the director John Ford; his journey culminated in a screening of The Searchers , starring John Wayne. His other cultural interests include probing the “neoliberal child-product” of Spy Kids —a movie he truly enjoys, for the record—and reading Emily Wilson’s “colloquial yet classic” translation of The Odyssey .

But first, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic :

Trump, defeated
The real “deep state”
The same old sex talk isn’t enough.

The Culture Survey: Caleb Madison

The culture product my friends are talking about most right now: A couple of months ago, a few friends (well, one friend and one fiancée) and I embarked on FordFest, an informal retrospective of the Golden Age of Hollywood director John Ford. Ford made more than 140 movies in a career that spanned from the Silent Era to Technicolor. He is best known for his elegant and poetic Westerns, starting with Stagecoach in 1939. Whereas most movies in the genre simplify the frontier into cartoonish propaganda, Ford’s depiction of the West is bittersweet and conflicted. I admit, before I saw any of his work with Ford, I thought John Wayne was supposed to be this macho hero. But Ford dissembles Wayne’s bravado to explore the sadness of the obsolete man––an aging former cowboy with no West left to win.

FordFest culminated at the Egyptian Theatre (where Ford’s first major movie, The Iron Horse , had its Los Angeles premiere in 1925) for a screening of the brand-new 70-mm print of The Searchers , a landmark achievement in narrative storytelling that inspired everything from Lawrence of Arabia to Taxi Driver . In it, Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a weird old Confederate soldier who returns to his brother’s house three years after losing the Civil War, which he is very defensive about. “Well, I never surrendered,” Ethan exclaims like a Tim Robinson character.

When Comanches raid the house and abduct Ethan’s “niece,” he makes rescuing her his whole thing. But the longer he spends looking for her, the more his rescue mission seems motivated by a depressive drive toward death-by-Comanche. By the final, heartbreaking shot, you can only pity the man. A cowboy is just an outcast with a rebrand.

Best novel I’ve recently read, and the best work of nonfiction: Not exactly a novel, but I’m loving Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey . The way she renders Homer feels colloquial yet classic, and the world of ancient Greece has the soothing aesthetic qualities of a Nancy Meyers movie. Whenever Odysseus washes up on some island, the local royalty is always giving him a hot bath and anointing him in oils before laying down some comfy textiles on a marble floor by the fire so he can tell them his tale over a big chalice of wine and some roast meats. Yes, please.

Carlo Rovelli’s Reality Is Not What It Seems , about how scientific concepts of reality have evolved, blew my mind in a way that I am still actively trying to recover from. For a while there, I caught myself staring for hours at particles of dust, stretches of road, or leaves in the wind. It was not okay.

A musical artist who means a lot to me: This is a two-birds-one-stone situation. At the Met Gala, Rosalía —one of my favorite artists—shared an effervescent story about the salsa singer Héctor Lavoe, thus turning me onto this album , which I can’t stop listening to right now.

I also have a deep and undying love for the North London alt-rapper Jimothy Lacoste .

An online creator that I’m a fan of: Kevin Kennedy is a lawyer in Tennessee who somehow made it onto my TikTok feed and never left. He’s a theatrical guy with an outlandish sense of style and a flair for jewelry. I love how he gives us a peek into his practice, but I’m not sure I’d turn to him for representation. I guess it would depend on my crime.

Something I recently rewatched: Spy Kids , directed by Robert Rodriguez, is a true masterpiece––by far the best live-action children’s movie of all time. No guns or blood or dumb, winky jokes … Spy Kids is told from the perspective of a kid in a way that dignifies rather than demeans.

It’s also the origin story of the 21st-century neoliberal child-product. Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, formerly active agents for the state, now live safely and comfortably as “consultants” with their two young Millennial children. But something is wrong. Their days of violence may be over, but the battle has relocated to the culture industry. Fegan Floop, the Gaudíesque children’s-show host their children love, also works for a private military contractor, abducting former spies whom he transforms into sculptural creatures known as Fooglies, then forcing them into supporting roles on his show. Floop operates from an island that’s both a prison and a production studio, disguising political warfare as children’s popular entertainment in a sick psyop conspiracy that would make Thomas Pynchon proud.

The ultimate product of this merger of media mind control? An army of robot children with computers for brains. A better metaphor for the formation of Millennial consciousness I have never seen.

All intellectual BS aside, the film is so beautifully faithful to the mind of a child. Apparently, Rodriguez adapted a lot of the details of the world from his childhood doodles, and it shows. Certain ideas and images from the film are lodged into my mind forever: the henchmen creatures composed of five huge thumbs, the car that seamlessly turns into a submarine when they drive off a cliff, the microwavable McDonald’s meal … It feels like playing a great game of imagination with your sibling. The story elegantly taps into the existential mystery of coming of age and realizing that your parents live in another world—one of unknowable intrigue, but one that you must prepare to enter soon.

The Week Ahead

The Watchers , a horror film directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan and starring Dakota Fanning as a woman who is trapped in a forest and stalked by unknown creatures (in theaters Friday)
Queenie , a television series based on the best-selling novel about a Jamaican British woman in London who goes through a quarter-life crisis after a messy breakup (premieres Friday on Hulu)
Fire Exit , a novel by Morgan Talty about a man who wrestles with whether or not to tell his neighbor that he’s actually her father (out Tuesday)

‘She Is the Icon of All That Is Joyful in the World’

By J. Clara Chan

Earlier this year, I was scrolling through TikTok when the sound of a piano, accompanied by a baby bird chirping, stopped my thumb mid-air. In the video , a little green puppet girl with big eyes and two tufts of hair holds a yellow felt bird in a blanket. “Hey, birdie. It’s okay, birdie,” she coos. “I’m gonna take care of you, birdie.” My mind went back to the difficult year I’d just had: the loss of my father to cancer, two consecutive layoffs from jobs I loved. But this video made me feel oddly comforted, as if I were both the girl and the bird. We were going to be okay.

Read the full article.

IMAGES

Descriptive Witnessing a House On Fire Narrative And Creative Essay
Short Essay on a House on Fire [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF
Fire Prevention Essay Example
A house on fire essay for 10th class in 2021
House On Fire Essay: Suitable for all students Fire Pit, Essay, Burns
Easy and Outstanding Essay on 'A House on Fire' for 12th and 10th

VIDEO

report writing on fire accident/report writing/report writing in english
The HOUSE is ON FIRE and this happened… PART 2 #shorts
Home destroyed by fire
Did neglect lead to tragic house fire?
Man injured in Brevard house fire
A House On Fire Essay in English// Essay on A house on Fire in English

COMMENTS

Short Essay on a House on Fire [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF
In this lesson, dear students, you will learn to write a narrative essay on 'A House on Fire' in three different sets. It will help you prepare for your upcoming examinations. Table of Contents. Short Essay on a House on Fire in 100 Words; Short Essay on a House on Fire in 200 Words; Short Essay on a House on Fire in 400 Words
A House On Fire Essay
A House On Fire essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations. You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.
Essay on A House on Fire
500 Words Essay on A House on Fire Introduction. A house on fire is a sight that evokes a plethora of emotions, ranging from fear and panic to awe and intrigue. The destructive power of fire, coupled with the vulnerability of our homes, forms a potent and terrifying spectacle. This essay seeks to explore the concept of a house on fire from ...
My House Burned Down: A Mother's True Story
Cissy, nine, and Taylor, four, are downstairs eating Cheerios. Cartoons hum cheerily in the background. The dogs are under the table, waiting to catch any stray crumbs. I try to shake the residual ...
The Terrifying Experience Of A House On Fire: My Personal Account
In this article A House on fire, I will share my personal account of a house fire and the lessons I learned from the experience. Being prepared for emergencies is critical, and it can make all the difference in a life-threatening situation. A House On Fire. In this blog A House On Fire, we include A House On Fire, in 100, 200, 250, and 300 words.
Like a House on Fire Study Guides & Sample Essays
Essay 4 : "Like a House on Fire shows that family relationships are never perfect.". Discuss. Essay 5 : Cate Kennedy warns her readers of disparities between fantasies and reality in Like a House on Fire, particularly regarding families and relationships. Discuss. Essay 6 : Discuss the role of despair in these stories.
Report Writing: House On Fire
A house fire is a devastating event that can leave a lasting impact on a community. When a fire breaks out, the initial response can be crucial in determining the extent of the damage. In this report, we will examine a recent house fire and its aftermath. The house fire was first reported around 3:00 am on a Tuesday morning.
Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy
1. Historical Context. Kennedy's anthology of fifteen short stories, Like a House on Fir e, explores the impacts of familial and social issues on an individual's sense of identity and humanity, illustrating the vast spectrum of human condition. Having lived a majority of her life in Victoria, Australia, Kennedy's collection follows the ...
A House on Fire Essay in English
A House on Fire Essay. I had never seen a house on fire. So, one evening when I heard the roar of fire engines rushing past my house, I quickly ran out and a few streets away joined a large crowd of people. But the police did not allow anyone to go near the building on fire. What a terrible scene I saw that day!
A House on Fire Essay for Students and Children in English
A House on Fire Essay for Students and Children in English. January 3, 2021 by Sandeep. A House on Fire Essay - A burning house attracts many shocked spectators trying to take care of the situation. People come out with buckets of water, sand and dust trying to control the growing flames. Neighbours can be seen trying to help victims holed up ...
A House on Fire Paragraph
A House on Fire Paragraph in 150 Words. Building a house is a labour of love. It is not only about the money; it is also about the physical labour required to construct a home. It is a blessing to have a roof over our heads. But nothing can be more terrible than a house fire that ultimately consumes the entire structure.
A Night of Horror: Our Neighbor's Fire Nightmare
Categories: House And Home. Download. Essay, Pages 3 (736 words) Views. 6965. Fire, a helpful friend in our daily lives, turned into a ruthless foe one summer night ten years ago, leaving an indelible mark on my memory. Though no lives were lost, our neighbor's cherished home fell victim to a devastating fire.
Essay on A House on Fire in English For Students & Children
Short Essay | Paragraph on A House on Fire ( 100 to 150 words ) It was the month of April. I was having a sound sleep. Suddenly cries of Fire! Fire! woke me up. People are running on the street. It took me a few minutes to realise that a house had caught fire. I went downstairs in hurry and rushed to the affected house.
Essay on "A house on fire" Complete Essay for Class ...
Essay No. 01. A house on fire. 6 Best Essays on " A House on Fire". On the evening of last Saturday, we were having a tea party in our house. All of a sudden, the happy atmosphere of the party was disturbed by a loud noise. The guests at the party started running out of the house in great confusion. I came outside and found that one of our ...
How to get an A+ on your Like a House on Fire essay
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: 1. Flexion. 2. Like a House on Fire.
Essay on Fire Safety at Home
Essay on Fire Safety at Home. This essay sample was donated by a student to help the academic community. Papers provided by EduBirdie writers usually outdo students' samples. In 2018, the frequency of house fires reached an all-time high, making it more important now than ever to know how to safely and effectively handle a house fire situation.
Narrative Essay On How I Survive A House Fire
1029 Words. 5 Pages. Open Document. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Show More. I survived a house fire when I was twenty one years old [provide the current time somehow, so your reader get an idea how long ago this incident took place]. I was not completely prepared for the fire when it happened. You need run out [use more precise language ...
Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy
Step 2: Identify your technique (s) 'Like a House on Fire' centres an awful lot on the dynamic between Claire and the narrator, one representing chaos, and another representing order — hence why characterisation here is extremely important, as well as foils, to explore the themes. The above quote is a personification of a cypress branch ...
450 words essay on A House on Fire
A house in my neighborhood had caught fire; people from the neighboring areas were rushing towards the house. They were pouring buckets of water to extinguish fire. Many people were throwing sands and dust over the fire. A few people were trying to control fire by throwing blankets on it. But the fire was ravaging.
Setting Thesaurus Entry: House Fire
Helping writers become bestselling authors. Setting Thesaurus Entry: House Fire. April 24, 2010 by ANGELA ACKERMAN. Sight. Smoke (light & white, drifting at the ceiling level in a haze to start, then billowing plumes darkening to sooty black as plastics, oils, chemicals, varnish and paint etc are consumed), flame, coals, flames licking the ...
Home Fire Study Guide
Home Fire is a modern retelling of Sophocles's play Antigone, with characters in the novel directly correlating to characters in the play (Isma to Ismene, Aneeka to Antigone, Eamonn to Haemon, Karamat to Creon, and Parvaiz to Polynices).The major plot points of the novel also follow the developments of the play closely. Shamsie has also credited the documentary play Another World: Losing Our ...
Narrative Essay- Fire!
Narrative Essay- Fire! Narrative Essay- Fire! The skies were painted into a blend of rosy pink to salmon orange. I admired the natural beauty in awe as the calm breeze caressed my face gently. After taking in some fresh air, I cleaned up and dressed up for the day and went downstairs. My father was reading the newspapers one Sunday morning.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie Plot Summary
Home Fire Summary. Twenty-eight-year-old Isma Pasha is detained at Heathrow Airport, where she is held and interrogated for two hours, singled out specifically for her hijab and her Muslim background even though she is a British citizen. After officers question her on whether she considers herself British, she is allowed to board the plane to ...
A Portrait of an Obsolete Man
When Comanches raid the house and abduct Ethan's "niece," he makes rescuing her his whole thing. But the longer he spends looking for her, the more his rescue mission seems motivated by a ...

Short Essay on a House on Fire [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

Table of Contents

Short Essay on a House on Fire in 400 Words

Short Essay on a House on Fire in 200 Words

Essay on A House on Fire

100 Words Essay on A House on Fire

The Brave Firefighters

The Aftermath

250 Words Essay on A House on Fire

The Awakening

The Battle Against Time

Reflections

500 Words Essay on A House on Fire

Physical Manifestation and Impact

Psychological Implications

Sociological Perspective

Fire as a Metaphor

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

The Terrifying Experience Of A House On Fire: My Personal Account

A House On Fire

The Start Of The Fire

The Fire Spreading

The Aftermath

Fire Prevention And Preparedness

FAQ’s On A House On Fire

Table of Contents

THEME ANALYSIS

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Report Writing: House On Fire

About Mr. Greg

A House on Fire Essay

Related Posts:

A House on Fire Essay for Students and Children in English

Essay on A House on Fire 200 Words in English

A House on Fire Paragraph - Check Samples for Various Word Limits

A House on Fire Paragraph in 100 Words

How does a house catch fire?

How can we save a house on fire?

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Essay on A House on Fire in English For Students & Children

Essay on A House on Fire in English For Students & Children

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Hindi (Sr. Secondary)

Letter Writing

Essay on “A house on fire” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

About evirtualguru_ajaygour

commentscomments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Quick Links

Popular Tags

Download Our Educational Android Apps

Latest Desk

Vocational Edu.

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

How to get an A+ on your Like a House on Fire essay

Want insider tips? Sign up here!

Dissecting the Prompt

Detailed Plan

First paragraph

Second paragraph

Third paragraph

Get our FREE VCE English Text Response mini-guide

Access a FREE sample of our Like a House on Fire study guide

Introduction

Analysing Poetry in Old/New World

The Structure

Nature Poems

The Immigrant Experience

Family Poems

Recurring Characters in Old/New World

Feliks Skrzynecki

Themes in Old/New World

Family/Ancestry

Hope and Loss

Metalanguage, Symbols and Motifs in Old/New World

Historical Context

Task: You are Ida, composing a letter to Julia Marai after Frank’s diagnosis. Convey succinctly (in 250 words or less) what you think and how you feel. ‍

Task: Selecting one of the above themes, write a poem from the POV of an imaginary spectator in the novel, outlining how you perceive/experience these themes in other characters. Use all five senses(how you see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and touch/feel it)

Task: You are Elsa, Ida, or Meyer and you’ve just discovered Frank’s poem book. What are your thoughts and feelings towards his writing? Consider the context of your chosen character’s own experiences