Chapters 1–2
Summary: Chapter 1
Holden Caulfield writes his story from a rest home to which he has been sent for therapy. He refuses to talk about his early life, mentioning only that his brother D. B. is a Hollywood writer. He hints that he is bitter because D. B. has sold out to Hollywood, forsaking a career in serious literature for the wealth and fame of the movies. He then begins to tell the story of his breakdown, beginning with his departure from Pencey Prep, a famous school he attended in Agerstown, Pennsylvania.
Holden's career at Pencey Prep has been marred by his refusal to apply himself, and after failing four of his five subjects—he passed only English—he has been forbidden to return to the school after the fall term. The Saturday before Christmas vacation begins, Holden stands on Thomsen Hill overlooking the football field, where Pencey plays its annual grudge match against Saxon Hall. Holden has no interest in the game and hadn't planned to watch it at all. He is the manager of the school's fencing team and is supposed to be in New York for a meet, but he lost the team's equipment on the subway, forcing everyone to return early.
Holden is full of contempt for the prep school, but he looks for a way to “say goodbye” to it. He fondly remembers throwing a football with friends even after it grew dark outside. Holden walks away from the game to go say goodbye to Mr. Spencer, a former history teacher who is very old and ill with the flu. He sprints to Spencer's house, but since he is a heavy smoker, he has to stop to catch his breath at the main gate. At the door, Spencer's wife greets Holden warmly, and he goes in to see his teacher.
Summary: Chapter 2
“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
Holden greets Mr. Spencer and his wife in a manner that suggests he is close to them. He is put off by his teacher's rather decrepit condition but seems otherwise to respect him. In his sickroom, Spencer tries to lecture Holden about his academic failures. He confirms Pencey's headmaster's assertion that “[l]ife is a game” and tells Holden that he must learn to play by the rules. Although Spencer clearly feels affection for Holden, he bluntly reminds the boy that he flunked him, and even forces him to listen to the terrible essay he handed in about the ancient Egyptians. Finally, Spencer tries to convince Holden to think about his future. Not wanting to be lectured, Holden interrupts Spencer and leaves, returning to his dorm room before dinner.
Analysis: Chapters 1–2
Holden Caulfield is the protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye, and the most important function of these early chapters is to establish the basics of his personality. From the beginning of the novel, Holden tells his story in a bitterly cynical voice. He refuses to discuss his early life, he says, because he is bored by “all that David Copperfield kind of crap.” He gives us a hint that something catastrophic has happened in his life, acknowledging that he writes from a rest home to tell about “this madman stuff” that happened to him around the previous Christmas, but he doesn't yet go into specifics. The particularities of his story are in keeping with his cynicism and his boredom. He has failed out of school, and he leaves Spencer's house abruptly because he does not enjoy being confronted by his actions.
Beneath the surface of Holden's tone and behaviour runs a more idealistic, emotional current. He begins the story of his last day at Pencey Prep by telling how he stood at the top of Thomsen Hill, preparing to leave the school and trying to feel “some kind of a good-by.” He visits Spencer in Chapter even though he failed Spencer's history class, and he seems to respond to Mrs. Spencer's kindness. What bothers him the most, in these chapters and throughout the book, is the hypocrisy and ugliness around him, which diminish the innocence and beauty of the external world—the unpleasantness of Spencer's sickroom, for instance, and his hairless legs sticking out of his pajamas. Salinger thus treats his narrator as more than a mere portrait of a cynical postwar rich kid at an impersonal and pressure-filled boarding school. Even in these early chapters, Holden connects with life on a very idealistic level; he seems to feel its flaws so deeply that he tries to shield himself with a veneer of cynicism.
The Catcher in the Rye is in many ways a book about the betrayal of innocence by the modern world; despite his bitter tone, Holden is an innocent searching desperately for a way to connect with the world around him that will not cause him pain. In these early chapters, the reader already begins to sense that Holden is not an entirely reliable narrator and that the reality of his situation is somehow different from the way he describes it. In part this is simply because Holden is a first-person narrator describing his own experiences from his own point of view. Any individual's point of view, in any novel or story, is necessarily limited. The reader never forgets for a moment who is telling this story, because the tone, grammar, and diction are consistently those of an adolescent—albeit a highly intelligent and expressive one—and every event receives Holden's distinctive commentary. However, Holden's narrative contains inconsistencies that make us question what he says. For instance, Holden characterizes Spencer's behavior throughout as vindictive and mean-spirited, but Spencer's actions clearly seem to be motivated by concern for Holden's well-being. Holden seems to be looking for reasons not to listen to Spencer.
Chapters 3–4
Summary: Chapter 3
“This is a people shooting hat,” I said. “I shoot people in this hat.”
Holden lives in Ossenburger Hall, which is named after a wealthy Pencey graduate who made a fortune in the discount funeral home business. In his room, Holden sits and reads Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa while wearing his new hunting hat, a flamboyant red cap with a long peaked brim and earflaps. He is interrupted by Ackley, a pimply student who lives next door. According to Holden, Ackley is a supremely irritating classmate who constantly barges into the room, exhibits disgusting personal habits and poor hygiene, and always acts as if he's doing you a favor by spending time with you. Ackley does not seem to have many friends. He prevents Holden from reading by puttering around the room and pestering him with annoying questions. Ackley further aggravates Holden by cutting his fingernails on the floor, despite Holden's repeated requests that he stop. He refuses to take Holden's hints that he ought to leave. When Holden's handsome and popular roommate, Stradlater, enters, Ackley, who hates Stradlater, quickly returns to his own room. Stradlater mentions that he has a date waiting for him but wants to shave.
Summary: Chapter 4
Holden goes to the bathroom with Stradlater and talks to him while he shaves. Holden contrasts Stradlater's personal habits with Ackley's: whereas Ackley is ugly and has poor dental hygiene, Stradlater is outwardly attractive but does not keep his razor or other toiletries clean. He decides that while Ackley is an obvious slob, Stradlater is a “secret slob.” The two joke around, then Stradlater asks Holden to write an English composition for him, because his date won't leave him with time to do it on his own. Holden asks about the date and learns that Stradlater is taking out a girl Holden knows, Jane Gallagher. (Stradlater carelessly calls her “Jean.”) Holden clearly has strong feelings for Jane and remembers her vividly. He tells Stradlater that when she played checkers, she used to keep all of her kings in the back row because she liked the way they looked there. Stradlater is uninterested. Holden is displeased that Stradlater, one of the few sexually experienced boys at Pencey, is taking Jane on a date. He wants to say hello to her while she waits for Stradlater, but decides he isn't in the mood. Before he leaves for his date, Stradlater borrows Holden's hound's-tooth jacket.
After Stradlater leaves, Holden is tormented by thoughts of Jane and Stradlater. Ackley barges in again and sits in Holden's room, squeezing pimples until dinnertime.
Analysis: Chapters 3–4
These chapters establish the way Holden interacts with his peers. Holden despises “phonies”—people whose surface behavior distorts or disguises their inner feelings. Even his brother D. B. incurs his displeasure by accepting a big paycheck to write for the movies; Holden considers the movies to be the phoniest of the phony and emphasizes throughout the book the loathing he has for Hollywood.
Unfortunately, Holden is surrounded by phonies in his circa- prep school. Preening Ackley and self-absorbed Stradlater act as his immediate contrasts. But, despite their flaws, he acts with basic kindness toward them, agreeing to write Stradlater's English composition for him in Chapter , even though Stradlater is out with Jane Gallagher, a girl Holden seems to care for very deeply. The pressure of adolescent sexuality—an important theme throughout The Catcher in the Rye—makes itself felt here for the first time: Holden's greatest worry is that Stradlater will make sexual advances toward Jane.
Stradlater and Ackley sound like appallingly unsympathetic characters, but this is completely the result of the tone in which Holden describes them. For instance, Holden indicates his awareness that Ackley behaves in annoying ways because he is insecure and unpopular, but instead of trying to imagine what Ackley wants or why he does things, he focuses on Ackley's surface—literally, his skin. By describing in minute detail Ackley's nail trimming and pimple squeezing, Holden makes him seem disgusting and subhuman.
Holden's interactions also reveal how lonely he is. He describes Ackley as isolated and ostracized, but it's easy to see the parallel between Ackley's and Holden's situations. Holden notes that he and Ackley are the only two guys not at the football game. Both are isolated, and both maintain a bitter, critical exterior in order to shield themselves from the world that assaults them. In Ackley especially, we can see the cruelty of the situation. Ackley's isolation is perpetuated by his annoying habits, but his annoying habits protect him from the dangers of interaction and intimacy. Ackley's situation greatly illuminates Holden's own inner landscape: intimacy and interaction are what he needs and fears most.
Holden's new hunting hat, with its funny earflaps, becomes very important to him. Throughout the novel, it serves as a kind of protective device, which Holden uses for more than physical warmth and comfort. When he wears the hat, he always claims not to care what people think about his appearance, which might be a source of self-conscious embarrassment for Holden—he is extremely tall for his age, very thin, and, though he is only sixteen, has a great deal of gray hair. But it is also important to note when Holden does not wear the hat. Part of him seems to want to display his rebelliousness, but another part of him wants to fit in—or, at least, to hide his unique personality. Although he mentions the freezing temperature, Holden does not wear the hat near the football game or at Spencer's house; he waits for the privacy of his own room to put it on.
Chapters 5–6
Summary: Chapter 5
After a dry and unappetizing steak dinner in the dining hall, Holden gets into a snowball fight with some of the other Pencey boys. He and his friend Mal Brossard decide to take a bus into Agerstown to see a movie—though Holden hates movies—and Holden convinces Mal to let Ackley go with them. As it turns out, Ackley and Brossard have already seen the film, so the trio simply eats some burgers, plays a little pinball, and heads back to Pencey.
After the excursion, Mal goes off to look for a bridge game, and Ackley sits on Holden's bed squeezing pimples and concocting stories about a girl he claims to have had sex with the summer before. Holden finally gets him to leave by beginning to work on the English assignment for Stradlater. Stradlater had said the composition was supposed to be a simple description of a room, a house, or something similarly straightforward. But Holden cannot think of anything to say about a house or a room, so he writes about a baseball glove that his brother Allie used to copy poems onto in green ink.
Several years before Allie died of leukaemia. Though he was two years younger than Holden, Holden says that Allie was the most intelligent member of his family. He also says that Allie was an incredibly nice, innocent child. Holden clearly still feels Allie's loss strongly. He gives a brief description of Allie, mentioning his bright red hair. He also recounts that the night Allie died, he slept in the garage and broke all the windows with his bare hands. After he finishes the composition for Stradlater, he stares out the window listening to Ackley snore in the next room.
Summary: Chapter 6
Home from his date, Stradlater barges noisily into the room. He reads Holden's composition and becomes visibly annoyed, asserting that it has nothing to do with the assignment and that it's no wonder Holden is being expelled. Holden tears the composition up and throws it away angrily. Afterward, he smokes a cigarette in the room just to annoy Stradlater. The tension between the two increases when Holden asks Stradlater about his date with Jane. When Stradlater nonchalantly refuses to tell Holden any of the details, Holden attacks him, but Stradlater pins him to the floor and tries to get him to calm down. Holden relentlessly insults Stradlater, driving him crazy until he punches Holden and bloodies his nose. Stradlater then becomes worried that he has hurt Holden and will get into trouble. Holden insults him some more, and Stradlater finally leaves the room. Holden gets up and goes into Ackley's room, his face covered in blood.
Analysis: Chapters 5–6
Holden's kindness to Ackley in Chapter comes as a surprise after the disdain that Holden has displayed for him in the previous two chapters. Though he continues to complain about Ackley, the sympathy he feels for his next-door neighbor is evident when he convinces Mal Brossard to let Ackley join them at the movies. Equally surprising is Holden's willingness to go to the movies after his diatribes against their superficiality. Holden's actions are inconsistent with his opinions, but instead of making him seem like a hypocrite, this makes him more likable: he is kind to Ackley without commenting on it, and he shows himself capable of going to the movies with his friends like a normal teenager.
The most important revelation in these chapters comes about when Holden writes the composition for Stradlater, divulging that his brother Allie died of leukaemia several years before. Holden idealizes Allie, praising his intelligence and sensitivity—the poem--covered baseball glove is a perfect emblem for both—but remaining silent about his emotional reaction to Allie's death. He alludes to his behaviour almost in passing, saying that he slept in the garage on the night of Allie's death and broke all the windows with his bare hands, “just for the hell of it.” He tried to break the car windows as well, but could not because his hand was already fractured from smashing the garage windows. Throughout the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that Allie's death was one of the most traumatic experiences of Holden's life and may play a major role in his current psychological breakdown. Indeed, the cynicism that Holden uses to avoid expressing his feelings may result from Allie's death.
Holden seems to feel increasing pressure as he moves toward leaving school, and Salinger manipulates the details of Holden's physical environment to match his protagonist's feelings. Holden cannot get a moment alone; Ackley continues to barge in with his made-up sex stories, and when Holden writes the very personal composition about his brother Allie, Stradlater criticizes it and then taunts Holden about Jane. When Holden finally snaps and attacks his roommate, Stradlater easily overpowers him, and when he tries to seek refuge in Ackley's room, Ackley is so unpleasant that Holden cannot relax. He leaves abruptly, as though trying to escape the torment of his environment. What Holden does not yet realize, however, is that he carries his torment with him, inside himself.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Welcome back to term two
With 25% of the year out of the way, we are getting into the meaty part of the course.
This term we will be looking at the context component of Unit 3, (outcome 2) through a study of J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
We will also be finishing Unit 3 outcome 3, pesuasive language. This term our issue will be boatpeople and border security in Australia.
All the best for the term. Keep up the good work everyone.
Mt T
This term we will be looking at the context component of Unit 3, (outcome 2) through a study of J.D.Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
We will also be finishing Unit 3 outcome 3, pesuasive language. This term our issue will be boatpeople and border security in Australia.
All the best for the term. Keep up the good work everyone.
Mt T
Issues topic: Boatpeople and border security
This term we will be examining the issues surrounding boatpeople and border security in Australia. Find below the articles that we will study. Also you are encourage to read Australian newspapers every day, searching for opinion pieces and graphic/cartoons that use persuasive language to position readers on this issue.
Background
On the 16th April 2009, a boat carrying 49 people from Afghanistan explodes as it approaches Australia. The people on board had hired an Indonesian ‘people smuggler’ to carry them from Jakarta to Australia.
Two days before the explosion, the Australian navy intercepts the boat and directs it towards Christmas Island. Two days later the boat explodes, killing three people and injuring 40 others. The Western Australian Premier claims that the people smugglers doused the vessel in petrol and set it alight deliberately. The navy denies this happened.
The Liberal opposition claimed that the government is indirectly responsible for a situation that better under John Howard.
The Prime Minister responded by saying that people smugglers are the ‘scum of the earth, and ‘should rot in hell’. He promised that the government would get tough on people smugglers.
In recent days, some of the survivors claimed that the ship was not set on fire deliberately.
The following articles provide some samples of the public reaction to this event. Read these articles and identify some of the issues that this event raises.
Rudd: Human smugglers 'scum of the earth'
(CNN) -- Australia's prime minister Friday ripped those engaged in human trafficking after an explosion aboard a boat carrying Afghan refugees killed three people and injured more than 40 others near Ashmore Reef, off Australia's northwest coast.
"People smugglers are engaged in the world's most evil trade and they should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters.
"We see this lowest form of human life at work in what we saw on the high seas yesterday. That's why this government maintains its hardline, tough, targeted approach to maintaining border protection for Australia. And that's why we have dedicated more resources to combat people smuggling than any other government in Australian history."
The boat was carrying 49 refugees, officials said. In addition to the three killed, two others were missing.
Rudd would not comment on the cause of the explosion, citing the ongoing investigation.
The prime minister acknowledged that human smuggling was an increasing problem exacerbated by "global factors" but defended his government's border security policies.
"Our staff, our naval staff, our coast watch staff, our aerial surveillance staff and others, our police, are doing a first class job backed up by our intelligence officers as well, also in collaboration with partners across the region," the prime minister said.
"Because it is a global phenomenon and we are finding push factors operating from around the world, our active partnership with international governments and international agencies like the UNHCR is equally critical. This is a fight on many fronts. It is a fight which we have been engaged in for some time and a fight which other governments around the world are equally engaged in with us."
Rudd said the refugees' requests for asylum "will be treated under the normal provisions of the law through the examination of each of their individual cases."
Detained asylum seekers cast doubt on Oppn claims
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Television Broadcast: 18/04/2009
Reporter: Geoff Thompson
In another development in the situation the Indonesia Government has arrested scores of Afghan migrants in a hotel in west java, and just a few hours ago they told Lateline they planned to travel to Australia. But amid claims that the latest boat arrivals were encouraged by the Rudd Government's changed policy, a leader of the group says many began their attempted journey from Afghanistan to Australia while John Howard was still in power.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The political debate over border protection will doubtless continue following developments in Indonesia tonight. The Government there has arrested scores of Afghan migrants in a hotel in west Java. Just a few hours ago, they told Lateline they planned to travel to Australia. But amid claims that the latest boat arrivals were encouraged by the Rudd Government's changed policy, a leader of the group says many began their attempted journey from Afghanistan to Australia while John Howard was still in power. Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson travelled to west Java to file this report.
GEOFF THOMPSON, REPORTER: In a room made to hold stolen goods sit 64 men, two women, three girls and one boy, with only one destination on their minds.CHILDREN: Australia. Australia.
NUR ABDUL HASSAN HUSSAINI, ASYLUM SEEKERS SPOKESMAN: They are saying that we love Australia, we want Australia, we want to come Australia, yah?
GEOFF THOMPSON: These 70 Afghans claim to be ethnic Hazaras and were arrested in a hotel in the coastal town of Anya, two hours’ drive from Jakarta, before being moved inland to this room in Sarung.
NUR ABDUL HASSAN HUSSAINI: All of them are from Afghanistan. They are refugee. They have trouble. They came from different countries here by boat, by car. They have been in jungle about two weeks, three weeks in a jungle they were living. Mosquito - different mosquitoes, here, bitten mosquitoes, like this.
GEOFF THOMPSON: They say they have not eaten in two days and are asking to be transferred from the care of the International Organisation for Migration, or IOM.Asked whether they have heard of their fellow Afghan asylum seekers killed and injured this week, they replied that they know their venture is 99 per cent risk, but the one per cent of hope is worth it. Off camera, the apparent leader of the group inside this building told us that Australia had a good and kind Government and they wanted its help to solve all their problems. He also said some of the asylum seekers here left Afghanistan for Australia as long as one and a half years ago, before the Pacific Solution was dropped.
Column - People overboard, and the kindness than kills
Andrew Bolt
Friday, April 17, 2009
AT least three boat people now dead. So how much “kinder” do Kevin Rudd’s policies seem now?
John Howard was supposed to be the cruel one, said Labor. It was Howard when Prime Minister who put in the Pacific Solution, whisking illegal boat people to Nauru, rather than land them here.
Too harsh, said Kevin Rudd, and scrapped it. It was Howard who cut the legal circus that allowed illegal immigrants to play the system for years, until we gave up trying to deport them.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and laid on lawyers. It was Howard who cut the lure of benefits and then imposed on illegal immigrants the imminent threat of return.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and scrapped the Temporary Protection Visas, giving all illegal immigrants—including well-heeled ones fleeing no particular danger—instant access to permanent residency with all the tempting benefits and rights. Too harsh, said Rudd. And enlightened opinion cheered. Now we were nice.
Really? So how nice is it to have now lured at least three people to their deaths? To have not one child overboard—oh, what a confected scandal that was—but a whole boatload of 49?
Yes, indeed. This is a “people overboard” scandal, but for real this time.
The Rudd Government tried at first to deny and dodge, but West Australian Premier Colin Barnett let the mangy cat out of the bag—Defence sources had told him the explosion was caused when the boat people spread petrol around their vessel, clearly to prevent being turned away.
Here’s now what critics of “cruel” Howard so conveniently and willfully forgot or overlooked. Howard’s “cruel” policies saved lives. While Rudd’s “kind” ones now kill.
Howard stopped the illegal people smuggling almost instantly from the introduction in 2001 of his Pacific Solution. Boat arrivals went from 54 in 2000-01 to none in 2002-03. There was only one boat arrival in the two years after that, and just three in the year before Rudd’s election.
But now? The boat that blew up yesterday was the sixth to arrive this year—and the fourth in just a fortnight. It’s also the 13th since September, when the Rudd Government announced its latest measures to soften our treatment of refugees. This short year already, we’ve had 276 boat people arrive, compared with just 179 in all of last year.
But it wasn’t just the illegal immigrants that Howard stopped—people rich enough to pay perhaps $10,000 a head to get here, and choosy enough to pass through several safe countries before settling on ours. Howard also stopped the deaths—the drowning at sea of people drawn to our wealth, peace and too-easy welcome. Hundreds had died before he acted, most notoriously in the foundering of the SIEV X just off Indonesia’s coast.
A whole conspiracy over that sinking was built that falsely suggested Howard had blood on his hands, refusing to let the navy rescue the drowning. The Melbourne Theatre Company even commissioned a play showing a character clearly meant to be Treasurer Peter Costello letting the SIEV X passengers drown.
But if politicians must be blamed for boat people dying, then blame Rudd rather than Howard. It’s still unfair, yes, but far, far more justified. Rudd and his ministers have tried to insist the sudden rise in arrivals has nothing to do with them going soft. It’s Afghans fleeing a country gone bad, they claim, as if Afghanistan hasn’t been a basket case for years.
But Steve Cook, chief of mission for the International Organisation for Migration in Indonesia, had warned already in December: “People smugglers have clearly noted that there has been a change in policy and they’re testing the envelope.
“Up until about a year ago there was very little people-smuggling activity. Over the last year there’s been a considerable up-kick. There are rumours of a lot of organising going on.” And it was already clear that tragedy was just one boat away. As I wrote at the time: “Howard’s ‘inhuman’ policies stopped not just the people smugglers but the deaths at sea. If some of these boats lured here by Kevin Rudd now sink, how truly ‘kinder’ is he?”
Ask the moralisers now. But good news. Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus at last admitted yesterday that laws against people smuggling must be toughened, after all.
But here’s the sick joke. It’s Indonesia’s laws that are too soft, he claims, not our own. “We are in negotiation . . . and have been for some time with the Indonesians,” he burbled. “We are hopeful that they will change a number of their laws, particularly the laws that affect people smuggling directly.”
A farce. Pardon if Kevin Andrews, the former Howard Government Immigration Minister so reviled as vicious by Labor and the media, now allows himself a smile. “Labor’s response shows how different it is to govern than criticise,” he said yesterday.
And how different is seeming good from actually achieving it.
Crikey says
Friday, 17 April 2009
The asylum seeker debate has, over many years in Australia, witnessed plenty of low moments. But a new depth was plumbed by Andrew Bolt today, when he claimed "John Howard was called cruel for his Pacific Solution. But at least no one died. At least three boat people are now dead. So how much "kinder" do Kevin Rudd's policies seem now?"
Never mind the simple decency of waiting for the bodies to even be brought ashore before rushing to exploit them. This witless and contemptible remark is point blank wrong.
The sinking of SIEV X, with the loss of more than 350 people, was no less, or no more, the fault of the Howard Government than the events yesterday were the fault of Kevin Rudd. But the Howard Government was directly responsible for continuing and expanding the Keating Government's detention regime for asylum seekers -- an amplified regime that led explicitly to numerous suicides by detainees, as well as innumerable suicide attempts, including by children.
It was a sordidly opportunist and morally contemptible policy, one that left a trail of human misery, to the shame of Australia and Australians.
That is presumably the policy Bolt and his fellow travelers would prefer to see in force today. Never mind the facts, never mind that asylum seekers mostly arrive by air, that boat people are a minuscule subset, that Australia barely meets what should be its obligations as a first-world nation to offer sanctuary and a new life to the homeless, destitute and oppressed. Especially those fleeing from wars in which we are active participants.
The battle lines that have been drawn through the last 36 hours and their accompanying xenophobic, dog whistling blather, show our politics and public debate at their absolute worst.
Background
On the 16th April 2009, a boat carrying 49 people from Afghanistan explodes as it approaches Australia. The people on board had hired an Indonesian ‘people smuggler’ to carry them from Jakarta to Australia.
Two days before the explosion, the Australian navy intercepts the boat and directs it towards Christmas Island. Two days later the boat explodes, killing three people and injuring 40 others. The Western Australian Premier claims that the people smugglers doused the vessel in petrol and set it alight deliberately. The navy denies this happened.
The Liberal opposition claimed that the government is indirectly responsible for a situation that better under John Howard.
The Prime Minister responded by saying that people smugglers are the ‘scum of the earth, and ‘should rot in hell’. He promised that the government would get tough on people smugglers.
In recent days, some of the survivors claimed that the ship was not set on fire deliberately.
The following articles provide some samples of the public reaction to this event. Read these articles and identify some of the issues that this event raises.
Rudd: Human smugglers 'scum of the earth'
(CNN) -- Australia's prime minister Friday ripped those engaged in human trafficking after an explosion aboard a boat carrying Afghan refugees killed three people and injured more than 40 others near Ashmore Reef, off Australia's northwest coast.
"People smugglers are engaged in the world's most evil trade and they should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters.
"We see this lowest form of human life at work in what we saw on the high seas yesterday. That's why this government maintains its hardline, tough, targeted approach to maintaining border protection for Australia. And that's why we have dedicated more resources to combat people smuggling than any other government in Australian history."
The boat was carrying 49 refugees, officials said. In addition to the three killed, two others were missing.
Rudd would not comment on the cause of the explosion, citing the ongoing investigation.
The prime minister acknowledged that human smuggling was an increasing problem exacerbated by "global factors" but defended his government's border security policies.
"Our staff, our naval staff, our coast watch staff, our aerial surveillance staff and others, our police, are doing a first class job backed up by our intelligence officers as well, also in collaboration with partners across the region," the prime minister said.
"Because it is a global phenomenon and we are finding push factors operating from around the world, our active partnership with international governments and international agencies like the UNHCR is equally critical. This is a fight on many fronts. It is a fight which we have been engaged in for some time and a fight which other governments around the world are equally engaged in with us."
Rudd said the refugees' requests for asylum "will be treated under the normal provisions of the law through the examination of each of their individual cases."
Detained asylum seekers cast doubt on Oppn claims
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Television Broadcast: 18/04/2009
Reporter: Geoff Thompson
In another development in the situation the Indonesia Government has arrested scores of Afghan migrants in a hotel in west java, and just a few hours ago they told Lateline they planned to travel to Australia. But amid claims that the latest boat arrivals were encouraged by the Rudd Government's changed policy, a leader of the group says many began their attempted journey from Afghanistan to Australia while John Howard was still in power.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The political debate over border protection will doubtless continue following developments in Indonesia tonight. The Government there has arrested scores of Afghan migrants in a hotel in west Java. Just a few hours ago, they told Lateline they planned to travel to Australia. But amid claims that the latest boat arrivals were encouraged by the Rudd Government's changed policy, a leader of the group says many began their attempted journey from Afghanistan to Australia while John Howard was still in power. Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson travelled to west Java to file this report.
GEOFF THOMPSON, REPORTER: In a room made to hold stolen goods sit 64 men, two women, three girls and one boy, with only one destination on their minds.CHILDREN: Australia. Australia.
NUR ABDUL HASSAN HUSSAINI, ASYLUM SEEKERS SPOKESMAN: They are saying that we love Australia, we want Australia, we want to come Australia, yah?
GEOFF THOMPSON: These 70 Afghans claim to be ethnic Hazaras and were arrested in a hotel in the coastal town of Anya, two hours’ drive from Jakarta, before being moved inland to this room in Sarung.
NUR ABDUL HASSAN HUSSAINI: All of them are from Afghanistan. They are refugee. They have trouble. They came from different countries here by boat, by car. They have been in jungle about two weeks, three weeks in a jungle they were living. Mosquito - different mosquitoes, here, bitten mosquitoes, like this.
GEOFF THOMPSON: They say they have not eaten in two days and are asking to be transferred from the care of the International Organisation for Migration, or IOM.Asked whether they have heard of their fellow Afghan asylum seekers killed and injured this week, they replied that they know their venture is 99 per cent risk, but the one per cent of hope is worth it. Off camera, the apparent leader of the group inside this building told us that Australia had a good and kind Government and they wanted its help to solve all their problems. He also said some of the asylum seekers here left Afghanistan for Australia as long as one and a half years ago, before the Pacific Solution was dropped.
Column - People overboard, and the kindness than kills
Andrew Bolt
Friday, April 17, 2009
AT least three boat people now dead. So how much “kinder” do Kevin Rudd’s policies seem now?
John Howard was supposed to be the cruel one, said Labor. It was Howard when Prime Minister who put in the Pacific Solution, whisking illegal boat people to Nauru, rather than land them here.
Too harsh, said Kevin Rudd, and scrapped it. It was Howard who cut the legal circus that allowed illegal immigrants to play the system for years, until we gave up trying to deport them.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and laid on lawyers. It was Howard who cut the lure of benefits and then imposed on illegal immigrants the imminent threat of return.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and scrapped the Temporary Protection Visas, giving all illegal immigrants—including well-heeled ones fleeing no particular danger—instant access to permanent residency with all the tempting benefits and rights. Too harsh, said Rudd. And enlightened opinion cheered. Now we were nice.
Really? So how nice is it to have now lured at least three people to their deaths? To have not one child overboard—oh, what a confected scandal that was—but a whole boatload of 49?
Yes, indeed. This is a “people overboard” scandal, but for real this time.
The Rudd Government tried at first to deny and dodge, but West Australian Premier Colin Barnett let the mangy cat out of the bag—Defence sources had told him the explosion was caused when the boat people spread petrol around their vessel, clearly to prevent being turned away.
Here’s now what critics of “cruel” Howard so conveniently and willfully forgot or overlooked. Howard’s “cruel” policies saved lives. While Rudd’s “kind” ones now kill.
Howard stopped the illegal people smuggling almost instantly from the introduction in 2001 of his Pacific Solution. Boat arrivals went from 54 in 2000-01 to none in 2002-03. There was only one boat arrival in the two years after that, and just three in the year before Rudd’s election.
But now? The boat that blew up yesterday was the sixth to arrive this year—and the fourth in just a fortnight. It’s also the 13th since September, when the Rudd Government announced its latest measures to soften our treatment of refugees. This short year already, we’ve had 276 boat people arrive, compared with just 179 in all of last year.
But it wasn’t just the illegal immigrants that Howard stopped—people rich enough to pay perhaps $10,000 a head to get here, and choosy enough to pass through several safe countries before settling on ours. Howard also stopped the deaths—the drowning at sea of people drawn to our wealth, peace and too-easy welcome. Hundreds had died before he acted, most notoriously in the foundering of the SIEV X just off Indonesia’s coast.
A whole conspiracy over that sinking was built that falsely suggested Howard had blood on his hands, refusing to let the navy rescue the drowning. The Melbourne Theatre Company even commissioned a play showing a character clearly meant to be Treasurer Peter Costello letting the SIEV X passengers drown.
But if politicians must be blamed for boat people dying, then blame Rudd rather than Howard. It’s still unfair, yes, but far, far more justified. Rudd and his ministers have tried to insist the sudden rise in arrivals has nothing to do with them going soft. It’s Afghans fleeing a country gone bad, they claim, as if Afghanistan hasn’t been a basket case for years.
But Steve Cook, chief of mission for the International Organisation for Migration in Indonesia, had warned already in December: “People smugglers have clearly noted that there has been a change in policy and they’re testing the envelope.
“Up until about a year ago there was very little people-smuggling activity. Over the last year there’s been a considerable up-kick. There are rumours of a lot of organising going on.” And it was already clear that tragedy was just one boat away. As I wrote at the time: “Howard’s ‘inhuman’ policies stopped not just the people smugglers but the deaths at sea. If some of these boats lured here by Kevin Rudd now sink, how truly ‘kinder’ is he?”
Ask the moralisers now. But good news. Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus at last admitted yesterday that laws against people smuggling must be toughened, after all.
But here’s the sick joke. It’s Indonesia’s laws that are too soft, he claims, not our own. “We are in negotiation . . . and have been for some time with the Indonesians,” he burbled. “We are hopeful that they will change a number of their laws, particularly the laws that affect people smuggling directly.”
A farce. Pardon if Kevin Andrews, the former Howard Government Immigration Minister so reviled as vicious by Labor and the media, now allows himself a smile. “Labor’s response shows how different it is to govern than criticise,” he said yesterday.
And how different is seeming good from actually achieving it.
Crikey says
Friday, 17 April 2009
The asylum seeker debate has, over many years in Australia, witnessed plenty of low moments. But a new depth was plumbed by Andrew Bolt today, when he claimed "John Howard was called cruel for his Pacific Solution. But at least no one died. At least three boat people are now dead. So how much "kinder" do Kevin Rudd's policies seem now?"
Never mind the simple decency of waiting for the bodies to even be brought ashore before rushing to exploit them. This witless and contemptible remark is point blank wrong.
The sinking of SIEV X, with the loss of more than 350 people, was no less, or no more, the fault of the Howard Government than the events yesterday were the fault of Kevin Rudd. But the Howard Government was directly responsible for continuing and expanding the Keating Government's detention regime for asylum seekers -- an amplified regime that led explicitly to numerous suicides by detainees, as well as innumerable suicide attempts, including by children.
It was a sordidly opportunist and morally contemptible policy, one that left a trail of human misery, to the shame of Australia and Australians.
That is presumably the policy Bolt and his fellow travelers would prefer to see in force today. Never mind the facts, never mind that asylum seekers mostly arrive by air, that boat people are a minuscule subset, that Australia barely meets what should be its obligations as a first-world nation to offer sanctuary and a new life to the homeless, destitute and oppressed. Especially those fleeing from wars in which we are active participants.
The battle lines that have been drawn through the last 36 hours and their accompanying xenophobic, dog whistling blather, show our politics and public debate at their absolute worst.
Themes, symbols and motifs from Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Alienation as a Form of Self-Protection
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. As he says to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side” of life, and he continually attempts to find his way in a world in which he feels he doesn't belong.
As the novel progresses, we begin to perceive that Holden's alienation is his way of protecting himself. Just as he wears his hunting hat (see “Symbols,” below) to advertise his uniqueness, he uses his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them. The truth is that interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self-protection. Thus, Holden's alienation is the source of what little stability he has in his life.
As readers, we can see that Holden's alienation is the cause of most of his pain. He never addresses his own emotions directly, nor does he attempt to discover the source of his troubles. He desperately needs human contact and love, but his protective wall of bitterness prevents him from looking for such interaction. Alienation is both the source of Holden's strength and the source of his problems. For example, his loneliness propels him into his date with Sally Hayes, but his need for isolation causes him to insult her and drive her away. Similarly, he longs for the meaningful connection he once had with Jane Gallagher, but he is too frightened to make any real effort to contact her. He depends upon his alienation, but it destroys him.
The Painfulness of Growing Up
According to most analyses, The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, a novel about a young character's growth into maturity. While it is appropriate to discuss the novel in such terms, Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears change and is overwhelmed by complexity. He wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos and Indians in the museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can't understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only in a few instances—for example, when he talks about sex and admits that “[s]ex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't” (Chapter 9).
Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden's experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.
The Phoniness of the Adult World
“Phoniness,” which is probably the most famous phrase from The Catcher in the Rye, is one of Holden's favorite concepts. It is his catch-all for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him. In Chapter 22, just before he reveals his fantasy of the catcher in the rye, Holden explains that adults are inevitably phonies, and, what's worse, they can't see their own phoniness. Phoniness, for Holden, stands as an emblem of everything that's wrong in the world around him and provides an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation.
Though oversimplified, Holden's observations are not entirely inaccurate. He can be a highly insightful narrator, and he is very aware of superficial behavior in those around him. Throughout the novel he encounters many characters who do seem affected, pretentious, or superficial—Sally Hayes, Carl Luce, Maurice and Sunny, and even Mr. Spencer stand out as examples. Some characters, like Maurice and Sunny, are genuinely harmful. But although Holden expends so much energy searching for phoniness in others, he never directly observes his own phoniness. His deceptions are generally pointless and cruel and he notes that he is a compulsive liar. For example, on the train to New York, he perpetrates a mean-spirited and needless prank on Mrs. Morrow. He'd like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue in a world of phoniness, but that simply isn't the case. Although he'd like to believe that the world is a simple place, and that virtue and innocence rest on one side of the fence while superficiality and phoniness rest on the other, Holden is his own counterevidence. The world is not as simple as he'd like—and needs—it to be; even he cannot adhere to the same black-and-white standards with which he judges other people.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
Loneliness
Holden's loneliness, a more concrete manifestation of his alienation problem, is a driving force throughout the book. Most of the novel describes his almost manic quest for companionship as he flits from one meaningless encounter to another. Yet, while his behavior indicates his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from introspection and thus doesn't really know why he keeps behaving as he does. Because Holden depends on his isolation to preserve his detachment from the world and to maintain a level of self-protection, he often sabotages his own attempts to end his loneliness. For example, his conversation with Carl Luce and his date with Sally Hayes are made unbearable by his rude behavior. His calls to Jane Gallagher are aborted for a similar reason: to protect his precious and fragile sense of individuality. Loneliness is the emotional manifestation of the alienation Holden experiences; it is both a source of great pain and a source of his security.
Relationships, Intimacy, and Sexuality
Relationships, intimacy, and sexuality are also recurring motifs relating to the larger theme of alienation. Both physical and emotional relationships offer Holden opportunity to break out of his isolated shell. They also represent what he fears most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability, and potential for conflict and change. As he demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, Holden likes the world to be silent and frozen, predictable and unchanging. As he watches Phoebe sleep, Holden projects his own idealizations of childhood onto her. But in real-world relationships, people talk back, and Phoebe reveals how different her childhood is from Holden's romanticized notion. Because people are unpredictable, they challenge Holden and force him to question his senses of self-confidence and self-worth. For intricate and unspoken reasons, seemingly stemming from Allie's death, Holden has trouble dealing with this kind of complexity. As a result, he has isolated himself and fears intimacy. Although he encounters opportunities for both physical and emotional intimacy, he bungles them all, wrapping himself in a psychological armor of critical cynicism and bitterness. Even so, Holden desperately continues searching for new relationships, always undoing himself only at the last moment.
Lying and Deception
Lying and deception are the most obvious and hurtful elements of the larger category of phoniness. Holden's definition of phoniness relies mostly on a kind of self-deception: he seems to reserve the most scorn for people who think that they are something they are not or who refuse to acknowledge their own weaknesses. But lying to others is also a kind of phoniness, a type of deception that indicates insensitivity, callousness, or even cruelty. Of course, Holden himself is guilty of both these crimes. His random and repeated lying highlights his own self-deception—he refuses to acknowledge his own shortcomings and is unwilling to consider how his behavior affects those around him. Through his lying and deception, Holden proves that he is just as guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The “Catcher in the Rye”
As the source of the book's title, this symbol merits close inspection. It first appears in Chapter 16, when a kid Holden admires for walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk is singing the Robert Burns song “Comin' Thro' the Rye.” In Chapter 22, when Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to do with his life, he replies with his image, from the song, of a “catcher in the rye.” Holden imagines a field of rye perched high on a cliff, full of children romping and playing. He says he would like to protect the children from falling off the edge of the cliff by “catching” them if they were on the verge of tumbling over. As Phoebe points out, Holden has misheard the lyric. He thinks the line is “If a body catch a body comin' through the rye,” but the actual lyric is “If a body meet a body, coming through the rye.”
The song “Comin' Thro' the Rye” asks if it is wrong for two people to have a romantic encounter out in the fields, away from the public eye, even if they don't plan to have a commitment to one another. It is highly ironic that the word “meet” refers to an encounter that leads to recreational sex, because the word that Holden substitutes—“catch”—takes on the exact opposite meaning in his mind. Holden wants to catch children before they fall out of innocence into knowledge of the adult world, including knowledge of sex.
Holden's Red Hunting Hat
The red hunting hat is one of the most recognizable symbols from twentieth-century American literature. It is inseparable from our image of Holden, with good reason: it is a symbol of his uniqueness and individuality. The hat is outlandish, and it shows that Holden desires to be different from everyone around him. At the same time, he is very self-conscious about the hat—he always mentions when he is wearing it, and he often doesn't wear it if he is going to be around people he knows. The presence of the hat, therefore, mirrors the central conflict in the book: Holden's need for isolation versus his need for companionship.
It is worth noting that the hat's color, red, is the same as that of Allie's and Phoebe's hair. Perhaps Holden associates it with the innocence and purity he believes these characters represent and wears it as a way to connect to them. He never explicitly comments on the hat's significance other than to mention its unusual appearance.
The Museum of Natural History
Holden tells us the symbolic meaning of the museum's displays: they appeal to him because they are frozen and unchanging. He also mentions that he is troubled by the fact that he has changed every time he returns to them. The museum represents the world Holden wishes he could live in: it's the world of his “catcher in the rye” fantasy, a world where nothing ever changes, where everything is simple, understandable, and infinite. Holden is terrified by the unpredictable challenges of the world—he hates conflict, he is confused by Allie's senseless death, and he fears interaction with other people.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon
Holden's curiosity about where the ducks go during the winter reveals a genuine, more youthful side to his character. For most of the book, he sounds like a grumpy old man who is angry at the world, but his search for the ducks represents the curiosity of youth and a joyful willingness to encounter the mysteries of the world. It is a memorable moment, because Holden clearly lacks such willingness in other aspects of his life.
The ducks and their pond are symbolic in several ways. Their mysterious perseverance in the face of an inhospitable environment resonates with Holden's understanding of his own situation. In addition, the ducks prove that some vanishings are only temporary. Traumatized and made acutely aware of the fragility of life by his brother Allie's death, Holden is terrified by the idea of change and disappearance. The ducks vanish every winter, but they return every spring, thus symbolizing change that isn't permanent, but cyclical. Finally, the pond itself becomes a minor metaphor for the world as Holden sees it, because it is “partly frozen and partly not frozen.” The pond is in transition between two states, just as Holden is in transition between childhood and adulthood.
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Alienation as a Form of Self-Protection
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the world around him. As he says to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on “the other side” of life, and he continually attempts to find his way in a world in which he feels he doesn't belong.
As the novel progresses, we begin to perceive that Holden's alienation is his way of protecting himself. Just as he wears his hunting hat (see “Symbols,” below) to advertise his uniqueness, he uses his isolation as proof that he is better than everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them. The truth is that interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self-protection. Thus, Holden's alienation is the source of what little stability he has in his life.
As readers, we can see that Holden's alienation is the cause of most of his pain. He never addresses his own emotions directly, nor does he attempt to discover the source of his troubles. He desperately needs human contact and love, but his protective wall of bitterness prevents him from looking for such interaction. Alienation is both the source of Holden's strength and the source of his problems. For example, his loneliness propels him into his date with Sally Hayes, but his need for isolation causes him to insult her and drive her away. Similarly, he longs for the meaningful connection he once had with Jane Gallagher, but he is too frightened to make any real effort to contact her. He depends upon his alienation, but it destroys him.
The Painfulness of Growing Up
According to most analyses, The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, a novel about a young character's growth into maturity. While it is appropriate to discuss the novel in such terms, Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist for a bildungsroman because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears change and is overwhelmed by complexity. He wants everything to be easily understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos and Indians in the museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and because he can't understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge this fear, expressing it only in a few instances—for example, when he talks about sex and admits that “[s]ex is something I just don't understand. I swear to God I don't” (Chapter 9).
Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden's experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.
The Phoniness of the Adult World
“Phoniness,” which is probably the most famous phrase from The Catcher in the Rye, is one of Holden's favorite concepts. It is his catch-all for describing the superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the world around him. In Chapter 22, just before he reveals his fantasy of the catcher in the rye, Holden explains that adults are inevitably phonies, and, what's worse, they can't see their own phoniness. Phoniness, for Holden, stands as an emblem of everything that's wrong in the world around him and provides an excuse for him to withdraw into his cynical isolation.
Though oversimplified, Holden's observations are not entirely inaccurate. He can be a highly insightful narrator, and he is very aware of superficial behavior in those around him. Throughout the novel he encounters many characters who do seem affected, pretentious, or superficial—Sally Hayes, Carl Luce, Maurice and Sunny, and even Mr. Spencer stand out as examples. Some characters, like Maurice and Sunny, are genuinely harmful. But although Holden expends so much energy searching for phoniness in others, he never directly observes his own phoniness. His deceptions are generally pointless and cruel and he notes that he is a compulsive liar. For example, on the train to New York, he perpetrates a mean-spirited and needless prank on Mrs. Morrow. He'd like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue in a world of phoniness, but that simply isn't the case. Although he'd like to believe that the world is a simple place, and that virtue and innocence rest on one side of the fence while superficiality and phoniness rest on the other, Holden is his own counterevidence. The world is not as simple as he'd like—and needs—it to be; even he cannot adhere to the same black-and-white standards with which he judges other people.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
Loneliness
Holden's loneliness, a more concrete manifestation of his alienation problem, is a driving force throughout the book. Most of the novel describes his almost manic quest for companionship as he flits from one meaningless encounter to another. Yet, while his behavior indicates his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from introspection and thus doesn't really know why he keeps behaving as he does. Because Holden depends on his isolation to preserve his detachment from the world and to maintain a level of self-protection, he often sabotages his own attempts to end his loneliness. For example, his conversation with Carl Luce and his date with Sally Hayes are made unbearable by his rude behavior. His calls to Jane Gallagher are aborted for a similar reason: to protect his precious and fragile sense of individuality. Loneliness is the emotional manifestation of the alienation Holden experiences; it is both a source of great pain and a source of his security.
Relationships, Intimacy, and Sexuality
Relationships, intimacy, and sexuality are also recurring motifs relating to the larger theme of alienation. Both physical and emotional relationships offer Holden opportunity to break out of his isolated shell. They also represent what he fears most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability, and potential for conflict and change. As he demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, Holden likes the world to be silent and frozen, predictable and unchanging. As he watches Phoebe sleep, Holden projects his own idealizations of childhood onto her. But in real-world relationships, people talk back, and Phoebe reveals how different her childhood is from Holden's romanticized notion. Because people are unpredictable, they challenge Holden and force him to question his senses of self-confidence and self-worth. For intricate and unspoken reasons, seemingly stemming from Allie's death, Holden has trouble dealing with this kind of complexity. As a result, he has isolated himself and fears intimacy. Although he encounters opportunities for both physical and emotional intimacy, he bungles them all, wrapping himself in a psychological armor of critical cynicism and bitterness. Even so, Holden desperately continues searching for new relationships, always undoing himself only at the last moment.
Lying and Deception
Lying and deception are the most obvious and hurtful elements of the larger category of phoniness. Holden's definition of phoniness relies mostly on a kind of self-deception: he seems to reserve the most scorn for people who think that they are something they are not or who refuse to acknowledge their own weaknesses. But lying to others is also a kind of phoniness, a type of deception that indicates insensitivity, callousness, or even cruelty. Of course, Holden himself is guilty of both these crimes. His random and repeated lying highlights his own self-deception—he refuses to acknowledge his own shortcomings and is unwilling to consider how his behavior affects those around him. Through his lying and deception, Holden proves that he is just as guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The “Catcher in the Rye”
As the source of the book's title, this symbol merits close inspection. It first appears in Chapter 16, when a kid Holden admires for walking in the street rather than on the sidewalk is singing the Robert Burns song “Comin' Thro' the Rye.” In Chapter 22, when Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to do with his life, he replies with his image, from the song, of a “catcher in the rye.” Holden imagines a field of rye perched high on a cliff, full of children romping and playing. He says he would like to protect the children from falling off the edge of the cliff by “catching” them if they were on the verge of tumbling over. As Phoebe points out, Holden has misheard the lyric. He thinks the line is “If a body catch a body comin' through the rye,” but the actual lyric is “If a body meet a body, coming through the rye.”
The song “Comin' Thro' the Rye” asks if it is wrong for two people to have a romantic encounter out in the fields, away from the public eye, even if they don't plan to have a commitment to one another. It is highly ironic that the word “meet” refers to an encounter that leads to recreational sex, because the word that Holden substitutes—“catch”—takes on the exact opposite meaning in his mind. Holden wants to catch children before they fall out of innocence into knowledge of the adult world, including knowledge of sex.
Holden's Red Hunting Hat
The red hunting hat is one of the most recognizable symbols from twentieth-century American literature. It is inseparable from our image of Holden, with good reason: it is a symbol of his uniqueness and individuality. The hat is outlandish, and it shows that Holden desires to be different from everyone around him. At the same time, he is very self-conscious about the hat—he always mentions when he is wearing it, and he often doesn't wear it if he is going to be around people he knows. The presence of the hat, therefore, mirrors the central conflict in the book: Holden's need for isolation versus his need for companionship.
It is worth noting that the hat's color, red, is the same as that of Allie's and Phoebe's hair. Perhaps Holden associates it with the innocence and purity he believes these characters represent and wears it as a way to connect to them. He never explicitly comments on the hat's significance other than to mention its unusual appearance.
The Museum of Natural History
Holden tells us the symbolic meaning of the museum's displays: they appeal to him because they are frozen and unchanging. He also mentions that he is troubled by the fact that he has changed every time he returns to them. The museum represents the world Holden wishes he could live in: it's the world of his “catcher in the rye” fantasy, a world where nothing ever changes, where everything is simple, understandable, and infinite. Holden is terrified by the unpredictable challenges of the world—he hates conflict, he is confused by Allie's senseless death, and he fears interaction with other people.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon
Holden's curiosity about where the ducks go during the winter reveals a genuine, more youthful side to his character. For most of the book, he sounds like a grumpy old man who is angry at the world, but his search for the ducks represents the curiosity of youth and a joyful willingness to encounter the mysteries of the world. It is a memorable moment, because Holden clearly lacks such willingness in other aspects of his life.
The ducks and their pond are symbolic in several ways. Their mysterious perseverance in the face of an inhospitable environment resonates with Holden's understanding of his own situation. In addition, the ducks prove that some vanishings are only temporary. Traumatized and made acutely aware of the fragility of life by his brother Allie's death, Holden is terrified by the idea of change and disappearance. The ducks vanish every winter, but they return every spring, thus symbolizing change that isn't permanent, but cyclical. Finally, the pond itself becomes a minor metaphor for the world as Holden sees it, because it is “partly frozen and partly not frozen.” The pond is in transition between two states, just as Holden is in transition between childhood and adulthood.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
End of week revision/comprehension test
We will have a revision test period 5/6 Friday
You will need to study pages 17, 24, 25, 26,28, 29, 30 Insight English Year 12
and pages 21-31 of the Insight Issues Media textbook
These are the questions you will be asked:
End of week test week 4
Outcome 1 reading and responding
features of narrative texts and Look Both Ways
What is imagery?
What are symbols?
What is Mise-en-scene?list the four elements of mise-en scene
What is cinematography?What are the five main elements of cinematography?
What is a protagonist? Give a detailed response
Name three functions of a minor character?
Write a descriptive biography of Nick
Write an annotated biography of Meryl
Write an annotated biography of Phil
Describe the setting and context for the opening sequence of Look Both Ways
Outcme 3 – persuasive language
1. List five key differences between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers
2. What is an editorial?
3. What is a news report?
4. What is an opinion piece? Name several types of opinion pieces.
5. What does positioning the reader mean?
6. Describe the elements of inverted pyramid writing style.
7. What are the key differences between a letter to the editor and an editorial? name three.
8. Name three main differences between a tabloid editorial and a broadsheet editorial?
9. What are the main elements of a feature story?
10. Of all the different types of articles in a news paper, which is the most objective?
You will need to study pages 17, 24, 25, 26,28, 29, 30 Insight English Year 12
and pages 21-31 of the Insight Issues Media textbook
These are the questions you will be asked:
End of week test week 4
Outcome 1 reading and responding
features of narrative texts and Look Both Ways
What is imagery?
What are symbols?
What is Mise-en-scene?list the four elements of mise-en scene
What is cinematography?What are the five main elements of cinematography?
What is a protagonist? Give a detailed response
Name three functions of a minor character?
Write a descriptive biography of Nick
Write an annotated biography of Meryl
Write an annotated biography of Phil
Describe the setting and context for the opening sequence of Look Both Ways
Outcme 3 – persuasive language
1. List five key differences between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers
2. What is an editorial?
3. What is a news report?
4. What is an opinion piece? Name several types of opinion pieces.
5. What does positioning the reader mean?
6. Describe the elements of inverted pyramid writing style.
7. What are the key differences between a letter to the editor and an editorial? name three.
8. Name three main differences between a tabloid editorial and a broadsheet editorial?
9. What are the main elements of a feature story?
10. Of all the different types of articles in a news paper, which is the most objective?
Look Both Ways study guide
This study guide explains all the concepts and themes involved in the text and analyses the characters and their predicaments.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Bushfires News Stories
Please post your bushfire stories here. Remember you must write a story with an original angle. Also, make sure you follow the inverted pyramid news writing conventions.
VCE Unit 3 guidlines
VCE English
Unit 3 - Semester One 2009
Unit 3 English will be conducted over two terms in Semester one 2009. Unit 3 consists of 3 outcomes. Outcome 1 will be completed in term 1, Outcome 2 will be completed in term 2 and Outcome 3 will be completed over two terms.
Requirements
Outcome One – Text Response
Outcome Two – Writing in ContextOutcome Three – Analysis of Language Use
Term One
Outcome 1
Reading and Responding.
Set Text – Look Both Ways.
Resources – Website: http://movies.juicemedia.com.au/lookbothways/
The focus of this AOS is in reading and writing and their interconnection.
Writing Portfolio
Film interpretation: You are required to write about the author's intentions and the ways that authors make meaning from texts. In order to do this with a film text you will need to discuss film techniques such as camera angles, shot length, lighting, props, viewpoints etc. Collectively these are known as mise en scene. In your work books, create a glossary of filmmaking terms, including a definition and an example. You will be later being tested on these. 10 points. Week 2 Term One
Creative (What is black humour?) Death doesn’t have to be serious and comedy isn’t always funny: 500 words. Create an original piece using this sentence somewhere in the work. 25 points. Week 4 Term One
Monologue: 500 words Theme ‘Love and Death make great friends.’ 15 points Week 6 Term One
Sac 1 – Week Seven Term One.
Essay: 800 words. The blurb for the film says that Look Both Ways ‘asks the biggest of big questions and does this in an entertaining way.’
With reference to how director Sarah Watt uses mise-en-scene to achieve this, write an essay discussing whether you agree with this statement or not? 25 points
Important: You must also provide a written explanation of how you came to form your opinion.
Term 2
Outcome Two
Context – Issues of belonging and identity
Creating and Presenting
The context the school has chosen for outcomes 2 in units 3 & 4 is Issues of identity and belonging (see handout for detailed description of this context) Students are required to read, analyse and draw on the ideas and arguments raised in the set text and then produce their own original texts in response.
Students’ created texts should be written with a specific audience and purpose in mind. Students should also provide a rationale describing how their created work is relevant to the context.
Assessment for Outcome 2 consists of: a writing portfolio and an Oral SAC
Set Text – J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye.Additional texts – Michael Moore Bowling for Columbine, James Dean and Rebel without a Cause. PBS Frontline: Growing Up Online.
Assessment
Assessment for Outcome 2 consists of: a writing portfolio and a written SAC
Portfolio
Four pieces of original writing. (total 1500 words)
You are required to write a 600 word research paper about the social and cultural environment in which the Catcher in the Rye is set and link it to the present day. Choose one area to focus on:The Beat Generation.Changes in teenage culture 1950s to 2009.The Post Second World War Western world.Existentialism and/or modernism and post modernismDifficulties finding a sense of belonging in the 21st century. 25 pointsDue Friday week one Term Two
Compile a glossary of literary terms relevant to the context. Examples: modernism, ennui, materialism, multiculturalism, community, existentialism, the absurd. These terms will be discussed in class. You will be required to write definitions in your workbooks and will be tested for your understanding and marked appropriately. You will be later expected to employ these terms in your Oral Sac and your end of year VCE exam. 10 points – Test Week Three Term Two
Creative response to be negotiated with your teacher. Choosing a particular audience, write a creative piece that explains the importance of identity and belonging to 21st century adolescents. 25 points –week four Term two.
Workbooks and journal. Workbooks. In addition to keeping notes in class, you are required to develop at least one question, per week, related to the topics we have covered. Raise these questions in class. Raise arguments with your teacher and your classmates and develop a personal position on these topics. You are also advised to keep a context file. This is a collection of notes, articles, thoughts to help you create your own response to the context. Journal. You are required to keep a journal reflecting on the notes you have taken during each lesson. Write a personal response to the topics we have covered in class. Your journal should illustrate your growing personal understanding of the context and how the themes affect you personally.This journal will be sighted by your teacher at least once every fortnight. 15 points - Complete journal due end of term two.SAC2 – 25 points (Fourth/fifth week Term Two)Oral presentation – creative response to the context Issues of Belonging and Identity:Prompt: Being a teenager is difficult enough, but being a Muslim teenager in Australia creates added difficulties.
Or
Adults just don’t understand the pressures that teenagers face trying to fit in to society, yet they should – they were once teenagers themselves.Important: You must also provide a written explanation or statement of intention outlining your message, your purpose and your audience.
Terms One & Two
Outcome Three
Using Language to Persuade
Set Texts – Insight: Persuasive Language in Media Texts. Selection of Australian newspapers, satirical and political cartoons, commercial advertising.
Outcome 3
Assessment for Outcome 3 consists of: a writing portfolio, a debate, and a written SAC.
Writing portfolio – 50 points (due end term one)
Media report ( evidence of bias in media reporting) – 10 points Term 1
Essay – What is Audience? 10 points Term 1
Test – glossary of persuasive literary devices - 10 points Term 1
Create a piece of persuasive media – 10 points Term 2
Workbook demonstrating note taking and personal ideas – 10 points Term 2
Debate – 25 points (term two)
Topic – Is the media a propaganda tool?
Sac – 25 points (term two)
Analyse the ways in which language and visual features are used to present a point of view. (Articles and visuals chosen but teacher in term two).
Unit 3 - Semester One 2009
Unit 3 English will be conducted over two terms in Semester one 2009. Unit 3 consists of 3 outcomes. Outcome 1 will be completed in term 1, Outcome 2 will be completed in term 2 and Outcome 3 will be completed over two terms.
Requirements
Outcome One – Text Response
Outcome Two – Writing in ContextOutcome Three – Analysis of Language Use
Term One
Outcome 1
Reading and Responding.
Set Text – Look Both Ways.
Resources – Website: http://movies.juicemedia.com.au/lookbothways/
The focus of this AOS is in reading and writing and their interconnection.
Writing Portfolio
Film interpretation: You are required to write about the author's intentions and the ways that authors make meaning from texts. In order to do this with a film text you will need to discuss film techniques such as camera angles, shot length, lighting, props, viewpoints etc. Collectively these are known as mise en scene. In your work books, create a glossary of filmmaking terms, including a definition and an example. You will be later being tested on these. 10 points. Week 2 Term One
Creative (What is black humour?) Death doesn’t have to be serious and comedy isn’t always funny: 500 words. Create an original piece using this sentence somewhere in the work. 25 points. Week 4 Term One
Monologue: 500 words Theme ‘Love and Death make great friends.’ 15 points Week 6 Term One
Sac 1 – Week Seven Term One.
Essay: 800 words. The blurb for the film says that Look Both Ways ‘asks the biggest of big questions and does this in an entertaining way.’
With reference to how director Sarah Watt uses mise-en-scene to achieve this, write an essay discussing whether you agree with this statement or not? 25 points
Important: You must also provide a written explanation of how you came to form your opinion.
Term 2
Outcome Two
Context – Issues of belonging and identity
Creating and Presenting
The context the school has chosen for outcomes 2 in units 3 & 4 is Issues of identity and belonging (see handout for detailed description of this context) Students are required to read, analyse and draw on the ideas and arguments raised in the set text and then produce their own original texts in response.
Students’ created texts should be written with a specific audience and purpose in mind. Students should also provide a rationale describing how their created work is relevant to the context.
Assessment for Outcome 2 consists of: a writing portfolio and an Oral SAC
Set Text – J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye.Additional texts – Michael Moore Bowling for Columbine, James Dean and Rebel without a Cause. PBS Frontline: Growing Up Online.
Assessment
Assessment for Outcome 2 consists of: a writing portfolio and a written SAC
Portfolio
Four pieces of original writing. (total 1500 words)
You are required to write a 600 word research paper about the social and cultural environment in which the Catcher in the Rye is set and link it to the present day. Choose one area to focus on:The Beat Generation.Changes in teenage culture 1950s to 2009.The Post Second World War Western world.Existentialism and/or modernism and post modernismDifficulties finding a sense of belonging in the 21st century. 25 pointsDue Friday week one Term Two
Compile a glossary of literary terms relevant to the context. Examples: modernism, ennui, materialism, multiculturalism, community, existentialism, the absurd. These terms will be discussed in class. You will be required to write definitions in your workbooks and will be tested for your understanding and marked appropriately. You will be later expected to employ these terms in your Oral Sac and your end of year VCE exam. 10 points – Test Week Three Term Two
Creative response to be negotiated with your teacher. Choosing a particular audience, write a creative piece that explains the importance of identity and belonging to 21st century adolescents. 25 points –week four Term two.
Workbooks and journal. Workbooks. In addition to keeping notes in class, you are required to develop at least one question, per week, related to the topics we have covered. Raise these questions in class. Raise arguments with your teacher and your classmates and develop a personal position on these topics. You are also advised to keep a context file. This is a collection of notes, articles, thoughts to help you create your own response to the context. Journal. You are required to keep a journal reflecting on the notes you have taken during each lesson. Write a personal response to the topics we have covered in class. Your journal should illustrate your growing personal understanding of the context and how the themes affect you personally.This journal will be sighted by your teacher at least once every fortnight. 15 points - Complete journal due end of term two.SAC2 – 25 points (Fourth/fifth week Term Two)Oral presentation – creative response to the context Issues of Belonging and Identity:Prompt: Being a teenager is difficult enough, but being a Muslim teenager in Australia creates added difficulties.
Or
Adults just don’t understand the pressures that teenagers face trying to fit in to society, yet they should – they were once teenagers themselves.Important: You must also provide a written explanation or statement of intention outlining your message, your purpose and your audience.
Terms One & Two
Outcome Three
Using Language to Persuade
Set Texts – Insight: Persuasive Language in Media Texts. Selection of Australian newspapers, satirical and political cartoons, commercial advertising.
Outcome 3
Assessment for Outcome 3 consists of: a writing portfolio, a debate, and a written SAC.
Writing portfolio – 50 points (due end term one)
Media report ( evidence of bias in media reporting) – 10 points Term 1
Essay – What is Audience? 10 points Term 1
Test – glossary of persuasive literary devices - 10 points Term 1
Create a piece of persuasive media – 10 points Term 2
Workbook demonstrating note taking and personal ideas – 10 points Term 2
Debate – 25 points (term two)
Topic – Is the media a propaganda tool?
Sac – 25 points (term two)
Analyse the ways in which language and visual features are used to present a point of view. (Articles and visuals chosen but teacher in term two).
Look Both Ways Film Review
Look Both Ways
(Review Sydney Morning Herald August 20, 2005)
Written and directed by Sarah Watt
Look Both Ways isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I could have drunk the whole pot. It made seeing an Australian film pleasurable again, and it's a while since I could say that.
It's a comedy, but so oblique and sad to begin with that it takes a while to recognise. And it's about death, or fear of it, which might scare some people away, thinking it's going to be hard work. It isn't, but it isn't dumb either. The script is mysterious and sophisticated. It's perhaps a film for people who have tasted life's seasoning, good and bad.
The script is built on what people are thinking, rather than what they're saying. Sarah Watt is an animator and her short films (Small Treasures, Living With Happiness) were intimate and internal, like daydreams. This is her first feature and she throws in a couple of richly painted animated sequences to take us inside her characters' thoughts. The animations are meant to disrupt our view of what's normal and connect us directly to the characters' deepest emotions. Once we know these things, the events of their daily lives become heightened: funnier, sadder, scarier.
An example: Meryl (Justine Clarke), a young illustrator, is riding a suburban train home when she has a vision of the train lurching off a bridge into the street below. She daydreams three separate and horrible accidents, all of which are shown by animation. By the time she gets off the train, we know her imagination is uncontrollable and unpredictable and slightly morbid. We also know she's right - this could happen. It already has: at the start of the film, Mary Kostakidis from SBS announces a terrible rail accident on the news.
Meryl has other reasons for feeling mortal - she is returning from her father's funeral. By now we share her anxiety - we know something bad is going to happen. She watches a man in a park, throwing a stick for his dog.
Elsewhere in the city, Nick (William McInnes) sits in a doctor's office, looking stunned. He has just learned he has cancer. He is a newspaper photographer and his thoughts flash by in a rapid photomontage. Back at the office, he tells his editor, Phil (Andrew S. Gilbert), who has a peculiarly Australian reaction. "Christ! You only went for a travel medical!" (One of the best things about the film is the way it captures, with gentle humour, the great Australian masculine inarticulacy, particularly at times of stress.)
As Nick is heading home for a weekend of cancer panic, he is collared by Andy (Anthony Hayes), a pushy young reporter. Someone has gone under a train near Nick's place. He can take the pictures on his way home. That's how Nick meets Meryl - she is a witness. The man with the dog has been killed. So a man who fears he is going to die is sent to take pictures of a man who died without warning, and there meets a woman whose father has just died. Did I mention it's a film about life and death issues?
On the scene, Nick watches a woman approach. The dog recognises her and she drops her shopping, as she realises what has happened. Nick shoots a few frames with a long lens - a grief shot that makes page one the next day. When Andy the reporter arrives home later, a young woman (Lisa Flanagan) is on the doorstep, waiting to tell him she's pregnant. Andy behaves badly. The theme now encompasses hatch, as well as dispatch. Match isn't far behind.
The script concentrates on these three characters - Nick, Meryl and Andy - over the course of a very hot and difficult weekend. It's partly a love story, as Nick and Meryl fall for each other, and it's partly about forms of grief, although not in a sombre way. At one point Meryl asks Nick if he's familiar with the seven stages of grief. "What's the point of knowing about them when you've still got to go through them?" she wonders.
The performances in this movie are exceptional, a sort of strained realism heading towards mild hysteria. In SeaChange, where he came in to fill David Wenham's shoes, McInnes had an unflappable charm that was partly an illusion. Here, he is shattered, trying desperately to hold it together. Watt has written a part (for her husband) where she can observe the great Australian stoicism under real stress. It's not just masculine either: part of what makes Clarke so good as Meryl is her heroic struggle to find the right tone for what she's feeling. Her father is dead, she will lose her job on Monday if she doesn't work all weekend and she's falling for a man who seems on the verge of tears all the time. No wonder she's confused.
Look Both Ways reminded me at times of Ray Lawrence's Lantana, for its ensemble structure, its care with characterisation and its underlying seriousness, but Lantana wasn't a comedy. Look Both Ways isn't a thigh-slapper either, but it is full of wry observation about the mysteries of human behaviour. It has a very individual consciousness behind it, an off-centre intelligence that makes it a pleasure to watch.
(Review Sydney Morning Herald August 20, 2005)
Written and directed by Sarah Watt
Look Both Ways isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I could have drunk the whole pot. It made seeing an Australian film pleasurable again, and it's a while since I could say that.
It's a comedy, but so oblique and sad to begin with that it takes a while to recognise. And it's about death, or fear of it, which might scare some people away, thinking it's going to be hard work. It isn't, but it isn't dumb either. The script is mysterious and sophisticated. It's perhaps a film for people who have tasted life's seasoning, good and bad.
The script is built on what people are thinking, rather than what they're saying. Sarah Watt is an animator and her short films (Small Treasures, Living With Happiness) were intimate and internal, like daydreams. This is her first feature and she throws in a couple of richly painted animated sequences to take us inside her characters' thoughts. The animations are meant to disrupt our view of what's normal and connect us directly to the characters' deepest emotions. Once we know these things, the events of their daily lives become heightened: funnier, sadder, scarier.
An example: Meryl (Justine Clarke), a young illustrator, is riding a suburban train home when she has a vision of the train lurching off a bridge into the street below. She daydreams three separate and horrible accidents, all of which are shown by animation. By the time she gets off the train, we know her imagination is uncontrollable and unpredictable and slightly morbid. We also know she's right - this could happen. It already has: at the start of the film, Mary Kostakidis from SBS announces a terrible rail accident on the news.
Meryl has other reasons for feeling mortal - she is returning from her father's funeral. By now we share her anxiety - we know something bad is going to happen. She watches a man in a park, throwing a stick for his dog.
Elsewhere in the city, Nick (William McInnes) sits in a doctor's office, looking stunned. He has just learned he has cancer. He is a newspaper photographer and his thoughts flash by in a rapid photomontage. Back at the office, he tells his editor, Phil (Andrew S. Gilbert), who has a peculiarly Australian reaction. "Christ! You only went for a travel medical!" (One of the best things about the film is the way it captures, with gentle humour, the great Australian masculine inarticulacy, particularly at times of stress.)
As Nick is heading home for a weekend of cancer panic, he is collared by Andy (Anthony Hayes), a pushy young reporter. Someone has gone under a train near Nick's place. He can take the pictures on his way home. That's how Nick meets Meryl - she is a witness. The man with the dog has been killed. So a man who fears he is going to die is sent to take pictures of a man who died without warning, and there meets a woman whose father has just died. Did I mention it's a film about life and death issues?
On the scene, Nick watches a woman approach. The dog recognises her and she drops her shopping, as she realises what has happened. Nick shoots a few frames with a long lens - a grief shot that makes page one the next day. When Andy the reporter arrives home later, a young woman (Lisa Flanagan) is on the doorstep, waiting to tell him she's pregnant. Andy behaves badly. The theme now encompasses hatch, as well as dispatch. Match isn't far behind.
The script concentrates on these three characters - Nick, Meryl and Andy - over the course of a very hot and difficult weekend. It's partly a love story, as Nick and Meryl fall for each other, and it's partly about forms of grief, although not in a sombre way. At one point Meryl asks Nick if he's familiar with the seven stages of grief. "What's the point of knowing about them when you've still got to go through them?" she wonders.
The performances in this movie are exceptional, a sort of strained realism heading towards mild hysteria. In SeaChange, where he came in to fill David Wenham's shoes, McInnes had an unflappable charm that was partly an illusion. Here, he is shattered, trying desperately to hold it together. Watt has written a part (for her husband) where she can observe the great Australian stoicism under real stress. It's not just masculine either: part of what makes Clarke so good as Meryl is her heroic struggle to find the right tone for what she's feeling. Her father is dead, she will lose her job on Monday if she doesn't work all weekend and she's falling for a man who seems on the verge of tears all the time. No wonder she's confused.
Look Both Ways reminded me at times of Ray Lawrence's Lantana, for its ensemble structure, its care with characterisation and its underlying seriousness, but Lantana wasn't a comedy. Look Both Ways isn't a thigh-slapper either, but it is full of wry observation about the mysteries of human behaviour. It has a very individual consciousness behind it, an off-centre intelligence that makes it a pleasure to watch.
Black Comedy
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