VCE English Comparative Text Analysis (Grade A)

Summary:

The “VCE English Comparative Text Analysis” discusses the themes, quotes, symbols, and language used in two texts, “The Longest Memory” and “The 7 Stages of Grieving.” The booklet explores various elements in each text, such as memory, forgetting, grief, hope, empowerment, loss of humanity, racism, identity, and oppression. It also delves into the significance of certain symbols, like the whip, pen and book, carpet, earth, and distance. The use of language and characters is examined, along with the presence of darkness, colour, paradise, safety, scars, humour, and the Rainbow Serpent symbol. The booklet provides a detailed analysis and comparison of the two texts, revealing their themes and storytelling techniques.

Excerpt:

VCE English Comparative Text Analysis

Comparative Text Analysis Resource Booklet
The Longest Memory and The 7 Stages of Grieving

– QUOTES –

THE LONGEST MEMORY/7SG QUOTE PAGE
Whitechapel
Mr Whitechapel
Chapel

Cook
Plantation Owners
Lydia

The Virginian
Sanders Senior/Junior
7 stages of grieving

GENERAL
– ‘My hand was a crab walking sideways’ (learning to write) – walking sideways, never moving forwards – metaphoric 60 ‘books and slaves do not agree’ 87
– ‘There are two types of slave: the slave who must experience everything for himself before understanding anything and he who learns through observation.’
– The tricolon ‘father, jailer, catalysis’ encapsulates the decline in trust Chapel loses for Whitechapel, with ‘catalysis’ connoting to expediting his ‘running’ from the plantation.

MEMORY AND FORGETTING
– ‘Memory hurts. Like crying. But still and deep. Memory rises to the skin then I can’t be touched. I hurt all over, my bones ache, my teeth loosen in their gums, and my nose bleeds. Don’t make me remember. I forget as hard as I can.’ 3
– ‘Remembering’ must ultimately give way to ‘Forgetting’, since ‘Memory is a pain trying to resurrect itself.’ (p. 138).
– In ‘Remembering’ and ‘Forgetting’, a stream of consciousness captures Whitechapel’s bitter recollections and sense of futility: ‘I forget as hard as I can.’ (p. 2).
– ‘We speak from memory…in this darkness’ 62 – memory providing light in the dark
– ‘This whole mess cannot be ended any more than it can be made simple as it may have been at its inception. Your father’s action and that of countless others…have ensured that.