hsc english advanced module b - critical study of texts

HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’

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A Home in Fiction

Geraldine Brooks

ABC Radio, 2011

Context:

A Boyer Lecture is a famous annual lecture sponsored and delivered on ABC Radio. Chosen

as she is considered a prominent Australian.

Personal: before she was a novelist she worked both as a journalist in Australia domestically

and as a foreign correspondent, often covering conflicts in the middle east. Her involvement

with and immersion in the lives of Islamic women and her journalistic writing about them is

one of her noted achievements (apart from her novel) –relates to reconciling of facts and

fiction

-recipient of the Man Booker Prize

-the power of literature shown through the eyes of a truly global citizen

-time when computers and digital technology is overshadowing literature for

communication, maths has a certain authority in explaining the world as opposed to

literature, rational outlook–why she is arguing for the value of literature in its power to

explore emotions

Audience:

The scope of the audience is national for these lectures


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-often lectures given by historians, writers, politicians – those educated on humanities and

not necessarily maths and science

-but because she is an internationally renowned author the scope of her secondary

audience is quite large

-boyer lectures designed for an intelligent and well informed as its main audience

Purpose:

-to show why literature is needed in our society and the power it holds – we can learn from

it

-the speech itself shows how storytellers can have a role in national dialogue

-demonstrate her outlook: we have a shared quest for the full truth of the world –unifying

the goal of writers/scientists/mathematicians

-to argue for the role of literature in finding truths and impacting people

Significance:

Boyer lectures have an agenda setting power in academia and public comment for the

period around their release.

She had a prestigious career with the prizes she won

She comments on conflict she worked on as a correspondent such as in Somalia and the

Middle East – in some of these places conflicts are still continuing and the struggles of

Muslim women which she commented on –people are suffering injustice and mistreatment

due to poverty, conflicts that their voices can be brought to light through words eg. Syrian

conflicts –millions of dispossessed people without a voice


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Ideas:

-we share a common attempt to get at the truth ‘maths is poetic’ and this is fundamental to

human nature and is all that is important

-there is distance between human experiences but despite that they have an essential

connectedness -‘consciousness is shaped by fear and joy…’

-vouches for literature though and its power because it has less authority in our society.

Maths has a special kind of authority in describing the world but her message is that

literature is equally important.

-her general rhetorical strategy is to discuss literature in a way that relates to the wider

world to show its universality as opposed to maths

-literature and history have a symbiotic relationship and are interconnected – fiction can

bring to light an authentic past human experience. Although it may be fictional the

oppressed voices ring true over time and don’t change. We can learn about our world

through literature and history, and history can shed light on the future. –link to Pearson,

Keating

-links to Atwood and Lessing – all show how language can become a vehicle for the

exploration of social issues and timeless human concerns and emotions

-her argument is that although times have changed we remain essentially the same and

every generation has its storytellers

-the idea of ‘truth’-fiction can be used to ‘expose’ the truth by giving voice to the oppressed

-the complexity of human experiences –with literature these can be brought to light


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WHY IS LITERATURE SIGNIFICANT?

-universality –its ability to connect anyone as opposed to specialised knowledge, -revealing

universal human truths, a vehicle for exploring social issues and timeless human concerns

-its ability to explore different experiences and thus unify disparate human experiences –we

gain wisdom and improve our life

-giving voice to the oppressed –impacts our society

Values:

-value of fiction – it can be inspirational by triggering our imagination or showing an

alternate point of view

-the role of fiction writers in contributing to society – language has the power to shape

emotions, perspectives and understanding. It is an emotional and intellectual conduit.

-universal human truths/values – good link to other speeches

-love and its universality

-historiography – the problem with facts and fiction. The importance of historical revelation

– history reveals who and what we are regardless of time or culture.

-the ability to give voice to and give life to people and stories from the past

-effort, persistence at uncovering knowledge

ANALYSIS:

General:

-the speech has a cohesive anecdotal style – relates to idea of storytelling


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-literary allusions to relate to her values – the importance of fiction

-beginning with anecdote, descriptive language ‘on a crisp autumn day’ –writerly

(suggesting her personal stake) juxtaposed with deliberate choice to retain mathematical

jargon ‘Singularities in Algebraic Plane Curves’ – positions the audience (humanities) to

relate to it the way she does and those uninitiated to maths do – confusion, rejection

-audience unfamiliar to the terminology – she characterises herself as in sympathy with

them

-quoting her notes ‘homomorphism is an isomorphism’ –audience experiences her

bewilderment at the lexis. Also conveys the eloquence of mathematics just like how

language can convey passion and eloquence, contrasting to her pre-established disinterest.

-‘it wasn’t that I understood her work but I understood her vision’ – mathematician

analogy, contrast between understanding and not understanding – ethos as she admits to

the audience that she too doesn’t understand the details

When she looked at the old maple beyond the lecture room window, at the great swoop

of bough arcing out from massive trunk, her consciousness overlaid a pattern on that

branch that was elegant and sensual. –emotive language relating to her purpose of

asserting the need for creative fictions - textual integrity. Need language for the audience

to have a sensual perception of these mathematical patterns not maths itself. Antithesis

between negative expectation and ignorance and imaginative engagement

‘I am sure though that our work, the mathematician’s and mine, is essentially the same’ –

personal pronoun to demonstrate her connection to the mathematician (they have

different methods but the same aim)

-‘I started hoping out for the woodshed’ – antithesis and reversal of allusion to Thoreau

creates humour – she is humble – ethos


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- Another major theme and obvious value of Brooks’ speech is the problem that history

and ‘facts’ present the fictional writer and vice versa. This is buying into an obvious

allusion to postmodern claims concerning the imperial and empirical (facts vs creating

own truth). The discipline of history is invoked several times. –link to Pearson

‘why should a novelist need facts? Isn’t fiction fact’s antonym?’ ‘they are the

indispensable framework into which imagination can be poured.’ –rhetorical questions

‘to give the work a sense of authenticity’ ‘but the fiction must dictate the design’ ‘the

story must tell me what I need to know…when I come to a place where I need to know

something, only then do I go looking for it.’ -metabasis

-history – link to Keating. History is a way to find the oppressed voices which can rise in

fiction. Other people can understand historical mistakes and we can better our world.

‘as a result of that fiction I no more believe in writer’s block than in panel beater’s block

or hairdresser’s block’ – analogy that creates humour. Compares writing to a detailed craft

but one that is not only for intellectuals, it has political and everyday uses and so it is

universal which is why it is so important.

‘writing may aspire to art but it begins as craft. Words are stones and the book is a wall’ –

writing metaphor. ‘your wall will stand up straight and true’ – inclusive pronoun

implicating audience in extended metaphor. Writing is something that care must be taken

into therefore it has value. Same point as being compared to a trade –a universal language.

‘the important thing is the effort’ – high modality. The value of ‘effort’ – the way the

persistence at finding knowledge is important no matter what the discipline –something

that unifies them

‘my second book, Foreign Correspondence’ – anecdote showing how she is qualified to

speak on the topic of fiction due to her past experience , she personally understands the

power of literature– ethos


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Link to Lessing – the invocation of a silenced voice –‘the questions nagged at me until I

started hearing voices’ ‘something similar has happened in all of my novels. Someone

rises up out of the grave and begins to talk to me’ – idiomatic language – appealing to

audience

‘the voices that speak to me are the voices of the unheard’ – repetition of the voices (get

better technique)

‘If one definition of home is a destination, then I have reached it at last, as a fiction writer

who draws inspiration from the past and nourishes it with experience garnered as a

foreign correspondent.’

-the central metaphor of ‘home’ - She shows how fiction is an important way of reaching

this home, as much as fact.

On her experiences as a foreign correspondent ‘you try to clear the cache…You can’t drag

and drop your memories into the void’ (wisdom has an emotional cost)– computer

metaphor – showing how humans have emotions unlike computers so fiction etc. is just as

important type of knowledge as it plays on emotions as other logical/analytical subjects

such as maths. The cold, calculating nature of the computer contrasts to the deeply

emotional connection between literature and human memory. Fiction generates wisdom.

Contemporary language to relate to audience.

For weeks, months the stones lay scattered’ –extended wall metaphor -Also highlighting

her own personal difficulties to demystify the idea of intellectual writing – as this speech is

broadcast nationally they could have been apathetic. Also shows how language relates to/is

accessible for everyone

What is the price of experience, asks the poet William Blake. Do men buy it for a song? Or

wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his

house, his wife, his children. Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,

And in the wither’d field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.


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-allusion to William Blake – someone whose writings transcended his immediate location as

he never left London – links to universal human values (TI – allusion to fiction writer, and

significance). The audience also relates to the simplistic language. Juxtaposition of

computer metaphor and literary allusion – computer culture marginalises the literary

canon/overshadows literature now and so she is relating to her literary audience. It cannot

deal with emotions whereas fiction can.

‘I believe fiction matters. I know it has power. I know this because the jailers and the

despots are always so afraid of it’ – anaphora of personal pronoun ‘I’ – the power of fiction

she has discovered relating to her experience as a foreign correspondent. They fear it

because it has power, it gives people new knowledge and ideas, but don’t realise the power

it could give them.

15 year old Palestinian ‘because he told me he loved English books I tried to bring him a

copy of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea…the jailers would not allow it’ – anecdote

and literary allusion – linked to textual integrity. Link to Lessing with the power fiction has

shown in the way it provides opportunity to the dispossessed

‘Austrian author Ernst Hans Gombrich describes the business of writing about the past.’ –

allusion to author and historian associated with ‘Bildung’ which values the way art and

literature reflects wider issues of culture instead of focusing on aesthetic experience – TI –

this is an apt reference as this is what Brooks believes – that what is important between the

disciplines is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding not the differences in the ways

they get there. ‘writing about the past…is like lighting a scrap of paper and dropping it

into a bottomless well’ –analogy shows how when history/facts are not clear we need

fiction to bring these voices from the past to light as their experiences can shed light on the

future –link to Pearson.

‘every generation has its Once Upon a Time’ – idiom relating to literature– shows the

universality and enduring power of words


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‘as Henry James asserts, with a consciousness different from ours, a consciousness formed

when more than half the things that make our world did not yet exist for them?’

-allusion to Henry James a literary critic affirming realism as it can create characters who are

recognisable to the reader – relates to her purpose

‘you can move the furniture about as much as you like: the emotions of the people in the

room will not change’ – analogy –throughout time we have universal emotions which is

why storytelling is universal.

‘Consciousness is shaped by fear and joy, hatred and tenderness’ – listing of different

emotions suggest a wide gamut of human experience, summed up by her vast travels and

realisation of the myriad of human experiences. It is universal human consciousness that

literature can explore and connect different people through, even over time.

ENDING – ‘This is what I know. They loved, as I love. And that is as good a starting point

as any.’ –bringing disparity of the list to a personal conclusion unifying human experience

throughout time and place.

hsc english advanced module b - critical study of texts

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