Listening is always viewed as the easiest section in an EAL exam, however, it is also the easiest section for students to lose marks as many of them may carelessly misread the question and/or comprehensively fail to answer the question. I personally find listening really challenging as it requires you to concentrate on multiple things at the same time, for example, the characters’ main contention, emotions, tone shift, and the context of the recording. However, as long as you do more practice, you will soon be able to master the listening skills! Here are the 4 steps that you will have to know if you want to do well in listening!

1. Read the background information of the text

Use your reading time (15 minutes) wisely and spend around 2-3 minutes in the listening section. The background information of the text is extremely important as it tells you the context of the recording which can also give you a basic idea of the characters involved in the text and the content they will be talking about. From the background information quoted from the VCAA 2019 EAL Exam, you will be able to recognise the two characters (Sue and Joe) involved in the text and you can also relate their conversations to the garage sale.

“Sue lives in a small seaside town. She presents a regular podcast called Sue’s Local Stories for the local radio station. Today she is talking about garage sales with John, who has just moved to the town. A garage sale is a sale located in a person’s garage or in front of their house, where they sell their unwanted items.” - Background information of Text 2

2. Scan through the questions carefully

Look for the keywords in the question, such as the 5W1H (Who, When, Where, What, Which, How), the character names, and the number of points that needs to be answered in each question. READ THE QUESTIONS FOR EACH SECTION CAREFULLY. That’s the only piece of advice I can give you to avoid losing marks on careless mistakes. Usually, the questions in listening are quite straightforward and easy to follow. Hence, it is particularly important for you to understand what the question is actually asking and what you are expected to answer in order to secure full marks in that specific question.  

Examples of the 5W1H Questions

• Who is he referring to when he says “You”?
• When did he open his first bookshop?
• Where did he go after his graduation?
• What message is he trying to convey in his speech?
• Which phrase did he use to express how dry it was in the desert?
• How does he express his anger?

3. Note taking

You should be using the spaces provided in the exam answer booklet to jot down any key words and phrases that are related to the questions. Do not bother to fill in the answers on the answer line just yet, as you are very likely to get distracted, hence, it may increase the risk of missing the answer for the next question. Remember that your notes should be as concise and clear as possible so you will be able to write down the answers immediately once the recording stops.  

Examples of notes

Question 1: Which type of animal does Sarah think is cleaner? Give an example and comment on her delivery.

• Cat
• “MUCH MUCH cleaner” → emphasis
  

Question 2: How does Ryan show his feelings about plastic waste? Comment on his language choice and delivery.

• Exclaims → “putting sea life in a serious situation”
• Critical tone → emphasise the harm caused

4. Focus on the questions that you’ve missed

Bear in mind that you will have the chance to listen to the recording two times in total so please DO NOT stress if you miss out any answers or you are not sure about the answers after the first time. Highlight the questions that you have trouble with and focus on them when the recording is played the second time. 

If you have any spare time, I would recommend you to go through all your answers and check them in case you have any careless mistakes. Alternatively, if you are really confident with all your answers in the listening section, you could definitely start doing other sections in the exam, such as the Language Analysis and Text Response section.

Types of Questions you may get in Listening

In this section, I am going to introduce a few question types that can be seen in SACs and EAL exams. You will be able to perform well in all listening tasks if you do enough practices and are very familiar with these different questions:

• Support your answer with one piece of evidence from the text
• Give an example of delivery and language use to support your answer
• Give an example of the character’s indirect language
• What is the purpose of the text?
• Describe the character’s tone
• Describe the interaction between the characters
  

1. Support your answer with one piece of evidence from the text

This is a basic question type that can be seen in nearly every single listening task. It just means that you will have to quote a word or a phrase from the text in order to support your answer. Please ensure that your spelling is correct and the phrase that you quote is in the exact same wording as what the characters have said in the recording. You will only get the mark for your evidence if the above two rules are followed.

2. Give an example of delivery and language use to support your answer

You have to pay attention to the tone, pace and wording of the characters in order to answer this question. This kind of question is kind of tough, however, as long as you can memorise couples of examples of delivery, you will be able to answer this question effectively. 

Here are some examples of delivery and language use:

• Repetition — “No, no, no”
• Imperatives — “Do not do this…”
• Fast pace — “[quickly] What are we supposed to do now?” 
• Pausing — “But…”
• Place emphasis on words — “We have to STRIVE for our rights!”
• Increased volume
• Asking a question rather than making a direct statement
• Emphatic tone — “Do what I said!
  

3. Give an example of the character’s indirect language

An indirect language refers to an expression of the content of a statement in a longer or unclear fashion. It is often used in negotiation, diplomacy and in different types of embarrassing situations which can avoid the person from directly saying what he/she means.

Here are some examples:

“Oh… well… I am just browsing”

"Ummm… I am still thinking about it”

4. What is the character’s main argument?

In order to answer this question, you will have to pay attention to the standpoint of the character and be able to find the strongest point raised by him/her in the text. That’s why you have to read the background information of the listening task carefully and deliberately before you actually start looking into specific questions. This will enable you to have a basic idea of the character’s viewpoint towards the issue. Besides, the aim of this question is to test your understanding towards the text and your ability to interpret the character’s reasonings. Therefore, I would recommend you to focus on how the character is structuring his/her argument in order to help you to find the strongest argument. Bear in mind that your answer will have to be precise in order to secure full marks. No marks will be awarded to you if your answer is vague and not straightforward.

5. Describe the character’s tone

Here are some examples:

• Outraged tone — “Can you stop?”
• Astonished tone — “Wow!”
• Nostalgic tone — “I missed my hometown”
• Patriotic tone — “I am proud to be an Australian.”
• Amiable tone — “Nice to meet you.”
• Encouraging tone — “You can do it!”
• Accusing tone — “How could you make that mistake!”
  

You can also read through 195 Language Analysis Tones if you want to learn more tone words in order to drastically improve and expand your vocabulary. You are encouraged to memorise tone words as you will be able to apply them on your Language Analysis section as well!

6. Describe the interaction between the characters

Words to describe positive interactions:

• Genuine
• Direct
• Smooth
• Efficient
• Intimate
• Friendly
• Caring
• Polite
• Kind

Words to describe negative interactions:

• Disrespectful
• Awkward
• Tense
• Strained
• Defensive
• Unpleasant
• Sarcastic
• Damaging
• Unfriendly

For more resources on the Listening Exam and VCE EAL, check out The Ultimate Guide to EAL.

Contents

1. Summary

2. Characters

3. Themes

4. Symbols

5. Sample Essay Topics

6. A+ Essay Topic Breakdown

Station Eleven is usually studied in the Australian curriculum under Area of Study 1 - Text Response. For a detailed guide on Text Response, check out our Ultimate Guide to VCE Text Response.

Summary

“Twenty years after the end of air travel, the caravans of the Travelling Symphony moved slowly under a white-hot sky.”

When you think about post-apocalyptic science fiction stories, what kind of thing comes to mind first? Maybe an alien invasion, Pacific Rim style monsters perhaps, and almost always the mad scramble of a protagonist to stockpile resources and protect their loved ones from the imminent chaos and destruction—these are tropes which are tried and tested in this genre.

What mightn’t come to mind as immediately is a story about a travelling Shakespeare troupe wandering the North American continent decades after the actual apocalypse has struck, which is exactly the story that Mandel tells in Station Eleven.

While post-apocalyptic tales tend to focus on the action around the impact of a fictional disaster, Mandel’s novel speaks to the attitudes and characteristics of people which drive any action that occurs. She interrogates central questions about human society, inviting readers to consider what human qualities can endure even an apocalypse, what qualities are timeless.

Characters

A tale of two timelines: part one

“…once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.”

Part of the novel’s ambition is that while it’s set 20 years after the apocalyptic Georgia Flu, it constantly reaches decades into the past to search for meaning. In particular, the novel’s central character is Arthur Leander, an actor whose death coincides with the breakout of the Flu. Tracing his origins from obscurity to fame, Mandel juxtaposes his philandering and untrustworthy behaviour with repeated attempts to be a better person, or perhaps just be more true to himself, before his death. We’ll eventually see that many of his actions have consequences years into the future.

Arguably equally important in legacy is his first wife, Miranda Carroll, whose comics lend the novel its title. Take this with a grain of salt—she’s kind of my favourite character—but the time and energy she invests in the Station Eleven comics are arguably the most valuable investment of the novel. Her comics survive her in the years following the Flu, and are a source of escape and purpose for others just as they had been for herself.

Both of these characters come into contact with Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo and journalist who regularly follows Arthur though his career, photographing Miranda in a vulnerable moment before her divorce, and booking an interview with Arthur years later as he plans to leave his second wife Elizabeth Colton. We see Jeevan struggle with his purpose in life throughout the novel, though it can be said that he ultimately finds it after the Flu, when he is working as a medic.

Finally, there’s Clark Thompson, Arthur’s friend from college who remains loyal, though not necessarily uncritical, of him all throughout his life. As the Flu first arrives in America, Clark is just leaving for Toronto, but a Flu outbreak there causes his flight to be redirected to Severn City Airport, where he and others miraculously survive in what will become a key setting of the novel.

A tale of two timelines: part two

‍“I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.”

All of this finally puts us in a position to think analytically about characters in the ‘present’ timeline, that is, 20 years after the Flu. We experience the present mostly through the perspective of Kirsten Raymonde, a performer who survived the Flu as a young child. Because she was so young when it happened, many of the traumas she experienced have been erased by her mind, and she struggles to piece together what she lost in a quest for identity and meaning, largely driven by her vague memories of Arthur. She travels with the Travelling Symphony with others such as Alexandra, August and the conductor—they have collectively adopted the motto, “survival is insufficient.”

Through the story, they are pursued by the prophet, later revealed to be Tyler Leander, the child of Arthur and Elizabeth who survived and grew up in the decades following the Flu outbreak. A religious extremist, he becomes the leader of a cult of fanatics who amass weapons and conquer towns by force. Both Kirsten and Tyler pursue the Station Eleven comics, quoted above—they each possess a copy, and resonate strongly with the struggles of the characters created by Miranda.

(CW: suicide) Also important is Jeevan’s brother, Frank, a paraplegic author who was writing about a philanthropist in the last days before his death, whereby he kills himself so as to give his brother a better chance of surviving. While he isn’t a particularly major character, his writing on morality and mortality (quoted with the first batch of characters) are symbolically and thematically important.

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

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Themes

Part 1

“That’s what passes for a life…that’s what passes for happiness, for most people…they’re like sleepwalkers…”

These characters already speak to some of the major themes that formulate the novel. On one hand, Mandel explores various meanings of contemporary or modern civilisation. We live in a technology-driven age where constraints of time and space mean less than ever before. For example, people are mobile through space thanks to airplanes and telephones, and the internet means that any and all information is available to anyone, all the time. Mandel constantly looks back at this society and describes it in terms of our technology: for example, “the era when it was possible to press a series of buttons on a telephone and speak with someone on the far side of the earth.” On one level, she comments on how many of these minor miracles are taken for granted in our every day lives.

On another level, these elements of society also give rise to the culture of celebrity in our lives, as high-profile figures are put under increasing pressure to maintain appearances at all times, and lead increasingly ‘perfect’ lives as a result. These were pressures that Arthur struggled to live up to, and his “failed marriages” accompanied his career at all stages. The flip side of this is that people who follow celebrities, such as Jeevan, lead increasingly emptier and more vacuous lives—and Jeevan is well-aware of this, telling Miranda that he doesn’t seek a greater purpose in life beyond making money. This lack of purpose, this ennui, is something that tints much of society through the eyes of Mandel.

Another major theme which the lives of these characters start to explore is the value of art as a source of purpose. While civilisation is portrayed as fragile and meaningless, art—in all its forms, including creating, reproducing, performing and consuming—is a way for people such as Miranda to understand, process and escape their lives. This theme is arguably the most important, as it tethers different parts of the novel together; even after the apocalypse, people turn to art as a way of understanding and connecting to others as well as to themselves.

Part 2

‍“The more you remember, the more you’ve lost.”

Inevitably with this genre, survival and mortality are major themes, as massive populations of people have died and continue to die due to the impacts of the Georgia Flu. To some extent, survivor’s guilt motivates many to search for a deeper meaning to their survival, hence the motto of the Symphony. It also drives them to turn to art as we’ve explored, since bare subsistence isn’t enough to give their lives the meaning they desire. Maybe this is what it means to be human.

On the other hand, the Flu also turns others to religious extremity, as is the case with Elizabeth, Tyler and the rest of their cult. This speaks to broader ideas about faith, fate and spirituality—are there greater forces out there who manipulate events in our world? Certainly, there are enough coincidences in the novel for this theory to be valid; even just Kirsten and Tyler both having copies of Station Eleven and both acting under the influence of Arthur is so coincidental.

However, perhaps the most important theme here is memory. Mandel ultimately puts this as the central question to readers: is memory more of a blessing or a burden? Is it preferable to remember everything you’ve lost, or be ignorant of it all? I’m not sure she really answers this one, to be honest. Various symbols—and even the constantly shifting narrative perspective—evoke the epic sense of loss in the apocalypse, and yet encountering characters like Alexandra, who never really knew what the internet was, makes you rethink that loss; perhaps it is better to have experienced the internet at all.

Symbols

‍“People want what was best about the world”

There’s a category of symbols in the novel that represent memories of technology. Consider the discarded phones and credit cards in the Museum of Civilisations, all mementos of what the world lost. Note that, given Mandel’s ambivalent commentary about modern society, not all that was lost is bad—the credit card embodies the materialism and consumerism that drive our world today, and shedding it may be construed as a form of liberty, in fact.

It is airplanes, however, that serve as the greatest reminder. Their sudden disappearance from the sky becomes a constant reminder of how the world changed, and people still look up in the hopes of seeing an airborne plane; they cling onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, all of this can somehow be reversed. The last flights of the human race—pilots attempting to return home to be with their loved ones—are also made in hope, though their outcomes are consistently unclear.

In this sense, airplanes can also be seen as a source of fading hope, or rather, despair. For one, it was the very mobility afforded by planes which caused the Flu to spread around the world so rapidly. Now, confined to the ground forever, they represent the immobility of humans in the present. They also take on meanings of death, and in particular, the final airplane that landed at Severn City Airport, quarantined with people still on board, represents the difficult decisions that have to be made in order to survive. The mausoleum plane also pushes Tyler further into religious extremism, as he reads the bible to the now-artefact in an attempt to justify the deaths of everyone on board.

These symbols highlight the jarring difference between the world before and after the Flu, but on the other hand, there are also symbols which connect the two worlds; the importance of print cannot be underemphasised here. Anything that was printed—photographs, comics, TV guides, books—are all enduring sources of knowledge and comfort for Flu survivors, and basically become the only way for children born after the Flu to remember our world, a world that they never actually lived in.

Sample Essay Topics

The following essay topics are extracted from our Station Eleven Study Guide: A Killer Text Guide:

1. “First, we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.” Characters from Station Eleven who die with the Georgia Flu are immortalised in memories, also greatly influencing events two decades later. Discuss.
2. Explore the perspectives offered in Station Eleven regarding survival.
3. How does St John Mandel highlight the degree of losses caused by the Georgia Flu?
4. Kirsten and Tyler are more similar than they are different. To what extent do you agree?
5. The use of shifting narrative perspective in Station Eleven is crucial to its storytelling effect. Discuss.‍
6. Station Eleven suggests that beauty can be found in unlikely places. Do you agree?
7. Some forms of technology have been rendered unusable in Station Eleven’s Year Twenty—discuss the new purpose/s of these forms of technology.
8. The memories of characters in Station Eleven’s Year Twenty have been distorted over time. Is this true?
9. It is impossible to feel any sympathy for the prophet. To what extent do you agree?
10. “God, why won’t our phones work? I so wish I could tweet this…just chilling with Arthur Leander’s kid at the end of the world.” Station Eleven is a critique of modern society’s obsession with celebrity. Discuss.
11. How do various forms of art play a central role in Station Eleven?
12. Fame and anonymity are shown to be equally intoxicating in Station Eleven. Do you agree?‍
13. Station Eleven demonstrates that events that seem insignificant can have remarkable consequences in the future. Discuss.
14. Throughout Station Eleven’s various timelines, innocence is always inevitably lost. Is this a fair statement?
15. Arthur Leander and his son are equally contemptible yet tragic at the same time. Do you agree?

Head over to our Station Eleven Study Guide for more sample essay topics, so you can practice writing essays using the analysis you've learnt from this blog!

A+ Essay Topic Breakdown

Whenever you get a new essay topic, you can use LSG’s THINK and EXECUTE strategy, a technique to help you write better VCE essays. This essay topic breakdown will focus on the THINK part of the strategy. If you’re unfamiliar with this strategy, then check it out in How To Write A Killer Text Response.

Within the THINK strategy, we have 3 steps, or ABC. These ABC components are:

Step 1: Analyse

Step 2: Brainstorm

Step 3: Create a Plan

Have a watch of this video to see how we broke down an essay topic:

[Video Transcript]

Although this is something that might be a little more text-specific, the main takeaway of today’s video is to be flexible in how you mentally arrange a text’s plot. This is especially handy in stories that are non-linear, so stories that flip between perspectives or timelines, as this one does. Being across a text like this will give you greater flexibility in putting together your ideas. I think this might be clearer if I just show you!

In the meantime though, let’s have a bit of a chat about the text.

Station Eleven is Emily St John Mandel’s take on the tried-and-tested sub-genre of post-apocalyptic science fiction. Only, her attempt doesn’t actually explore new forms of technology, nor the immediate action-packed grab-and-dash that we normally associate with an apocalypse. Instead, she takes us two decades down the track to look at how human society has changed as a result. She also highlights some elements of society that are eternal and timeless, that survive and persevere no matter what.

Today’s topic is:

Despite his virtues, Arthur Leander is essentially a bad man. Do you agree?

If you’re familiar with what we do at LSG, you might be familiar with our Five Types strategy. Basically, it’s a method for students to group categorise prompts into types, and by doing so, you get an immediate idea of how to approach an essay question and some things that you must include, along with things you mustn’t.

And out of the 5 types, this prompt is character-based, through and through. It poses us the difficult task of deciphering the ethics and morality of an individual in the text. Immediately, if you write on this prompt, you must know Arthur pretty damn well! It pays to be strategic — if you don’t know Arthur all that in a SAC or exam, pick another question if possible.

The key words in this one are fairly self-explanatory. You’ve got “virtues” on the one hand, which basically refers to being good or having good morals, and “bad man” on the other. What’s important is how we define them in the context of the essay, so we need to consider the ways in which Arthur is both virtuous and bad and make sure these are clear in our intro.

Also, the prompt is suggesting that Arthur Leander is ‘bad’ at his core, because of the word “essentially.” This is the part where there’s a little bit of room to challenge, since there is a lot of evidence that might suggest he isn’t all bad.

Before we dive into the plan, you might want to pause here for a minute and write down what you find to be Arthur’s top two virtues and worst two flaws. Go on, do it!

For me, I think that he’s ambitious and determined in his career, and he can be kind to others in his personal life. However, he also has a philandering or womanising side, and can be neglectful of his family and friends. I would also consider whether or not his legacy was favourable, unflattering, or mixed. Did he leave behind more positivity in the world, or less, when he died?

Let’s arrange this into paragraphs.

Paragraph one

Arthur is flawed in the way he treats others, manifested in his inconsiderate actions, misogynistic tendencies and raising of Tyler.

I think it’d be hard to argue that Arthur is a flawless character whom it would be unfair to call “bad.” We know that Arthur was unfaithful, and many saw his life as being “summed up in a series of failed marriages.” We know that he treats women as interchangeable objects rather than as people, not only his wives but also his childhood friend Victoria. We also know that he neglects his children, missing Tyler’s birthday for work, as well as his friends, with his increasingly disingenuous and strained relationship with Clark.

In terms of mentally rearranging elements of the story, it might be worth noting here how his bad traits manifested in his son, Tyler. Making a connection between these two timelines may help us realise that in many ways, Tyler is just a more perverse version of his father—he too treats women like possessions, and doesn’t really have a family so much as a community of followers.

Paragraph two

Arguably, Arthur’s selfish traits stem from his Hollywood fame, career and lifestyle.

Fundamentally, he was never this flaky, unreliable person before he was swept away by fame. From a young age, he was determined that he was “going to be an actor and…going to be good,” and the drive with which he pursues this career is undoubtedly virtuous and admirable. Along the way, he offers Miranda a way out of her abusive and one-sided relationship, validating her own “pursuit of happiness.”

So looking at the ‘bookends’ of Arthur’s life, it can be argued that he’s actually essentially a good person. Before Hollywood taints him, and after he realises how much he has been tainted, Arthur does actually demonstrate a lot of virtue.

Paragraph three

However, overall, Arthur leaves behind a positive legacy that reflects that despite his shortcomings, he is fundamentally a good man who has been tainted by immoral habits and attitudes.

Here, the discussion surrounds Arthur’s legacy—is he remembered as a good person? In what ways does Arthur live on? The photographs that Kirsten finds along her journey depict Arthur shielding Miranda from the paparazzi and spending time with his son, and these are lasting memories of his virtues which haven’t been destroyed by the Flu. Consider also the “whispers” and “glances” that plagued him during his life, and we can’t help but wonder what kind of man he would’ve been in a world with less people and less scrutiny.

And there you have it! Hopefully, you can see what I meant at the start about rearranging bits of the book. For example, these photographs belong in Kirsten’s timeline and are discovered through her point of view, but there isn’t any reason why you can’t connect them to elements of Arthur’s character more broadly. Also, even just by looking at the start and end of Arthur’s life without the middle changes how we interpret him as a character. It’s this kind of flexibility that will serve you well in this text study.

If you'd like to see an A+ essay on the essay topic above, complete with annotations on HOW and WHY the essays achieved A+ so you can emulate this same success, then you'll definitely want to check out our Station Eleven Study Guide: A Killer Text Guide! In it, we also cover themes, characters, views and values, metalanguage and have 4 other sample A+ essays completely annotated so you can smash your next SAC or exam! Check it out here.

Extra Resources

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

The Ultimate guide to VCE Text Response

How To Write A Killer Text Response Study Guide

How to embed quotes in your essay like a boss

How to turn your Text Response essays from average to A+

5 Tips for a mic drop worthy essay conclusion

Are you an EAL student worrying about the listening component of the new study design?

Are you worried? If you are, fear not, I am here to help!

Here are some extremely useful tips that I have acquired from completing both Japanese and Chinese listening exams. They are very applicable to the EAL exam and will hopefully make you feel more confident about this new component!

1. As EAL students we are allowed to bring bilingual dictionaries into the exam, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT! You will be amazed at how useful your dictionary can be.
2. Use your reading time efficiently! Take a close look at your listening tracks’ questions! Search your dictionary for tricky vocabularies that are embedded in the question. Make each second count!
3. Look out for the key question words! If you spot “when” and “why” in the question, then you know for sure that you need to listen out for location and time!
4. Pay attention to the tone.
5. Take note of any adjectives, phrases and words that express the character’s (in the listening track) thoughts, feelings and concerns.
6. There is a space in the exam paper for you to take notes, USE THAT SPACE! Write down all the key information you can possibility hear from the track! According to the examiner’s report those students who wrote notes in the space provided tend to score much more higher than those who don't.
7. Don't waste time wondering what the track just played! Listen carefully for the next sentence, missing out on one piece of information is better than two!

Misconception

Some of you out there might be thinking “Listening is easy! I just need to write down the correct answer, it's a piece of cake.” Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for EAL listening or any VCE Language listening SAC or exam. The VCAA examiners will look at the accuracy of your answer, grammar and spelling. They even look at how well you phrase your response!

If you are aiming for a perfect listening response you MUST take a look at my breakdown of the examiners’ marking criteria!

Marking Criteria

For the listening component of the exam/SAC the examiners (and your own teachers) will be marking your answers base on TWO main points

1. Your ability to understand and convey general and specific parts of the listening track
2. Your ability to convey information accurately and appropriately

• Appropriateness of vocabulary
• Accurate use of grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Are you feeling more confident for the VCE EAL Listening section with a couple of handy hints in your pocket? I hope you are! Give it a go, it is not as scary as you think!

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Whether you consider yourself a Frankenstein expert, or someone who is a bit taken back by the density of the novel and Shelley’s writing, do not fret! Below I will outline 3 tips which, will hopefully give you a clearer perspective on how to approach writing on Frankenstein! Let’s get started!

1. ALWAYS TRY TO TALK ABOUT SHELLEY’S CONCERNS

Since the book was set during the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic era, Shelley essentially used Frankenstein as a vessel to criticise and warn readers against many of the values upheld during her era. It’s therefore crucial that you address this!

The late 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century were exciting times for science and exploration. Shelley’s two main protagonists, Walton and Frankenstein, both passionately sough to discover what had previously been hidden. Walton wanted to be the first to find a passage through the Arctic Circle; Frankenstein wanted to be the first to create manmade life, to uncover the mysteries of Nature.  Both men claimed to be desirous of benefitting humankind but both wanted glory more. This obsession to win accolades for their discoveries will destroy Victor, and turn Walton for a while into a hard taskmaster over his crew.

Juxtaposed against these two characters is Henry Clerval. Clerval, too, has an inquiring mind but he also cares about humanity, family and friends. He represents the balanced human being who is sociable, compassionate, intelligent and loyal to his friends. Victor’s ability to reanimate the dead, to bring to life his gigantic Creature using the newly discovered electricity, makes him a genius but also a monster. In his inexperience he botches the work producing a hideous and terrifying creature with, ironically, initially all the virtues of the ideal man of he world. Repulsed by his amateurish handiwork, Victor abandons his creation, setting in place the vengeance that will unfold later.

Try to ground any response to Shelley’s text in the enormous enthusiasm for new discoveries and new geographic phenomena that attracted lavish praise for those who went where others feared to tread. It was this praise that drove Walton and Frankenstein to exceed reasonable expectations becoming reckless and careless of the consequences of their actions.

2. ALWAYS TRY TO DRAWS LINKS AND CONTRAST DIFFERENT CHARACTERS AND THEMES!

Walton, Frankenstein and the Creature are interconnected in so many ways – whether it be their isolation, ambition, desire for companionship, desire for vengeance or the Romantic values they share. I’ve also noted that it is also really easy to connect themes in Frankenstein as the tragic story-arc of the novel is built upon many different causes. What I mean by this is that there is a clearly define relationship between isolation, ambition and vengeance (and ultimately tragedy) in the sense that isolation is what led to the brewing of unchecked ambition which essentially causes the resultant tragedy.

Take Frankenstein for example: having left his loving family and friends, who provided him with love and companionship for Ingolstadt, there was no one to hold him back from his natural tendencies towards unchecked ambitions, leading him to creating the monster who out of spite towards society kills all of Frankenstein’s loved ones, leading them towards the desire for mutual destruction. Being able to see these links and draw them together will not only add depth to your writing but it also arms you with the ability to be able to deal with a wider array of prompts.

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3. ALWAYS TRY TO LOOK FOR MORE NUANCED EXAMPLES AND DISCUSSIONS!

While Walton, Frankenstein and the Creature can be discussed incredibly thoroughly (and by all means go ahead and do it), but it is also very important to consider the novel as a whole and talk about, if not more thoroughly, on the minor characters. While characters such as the De Laceys, villagers and the rustic in the forest can be used to highlight the injustices brought upon the creature and people’s natural instincts of self preservation and prejudice, innocent characters such as Elizabeth and Justine can be used to emphasise the injustice of society and the consequences of unchecked ambition and isolation.

Henry Clerval (like previously mentioned) can be contrasted against Walton and his best friend Frankenstein to show that as long as we have a balanced lifestyle and companionship, ambition will not lead us to ruin. Characters such as the Turkish merchant can also have parallels drawn with Frankenstein in telling how our selfish desire and actions, born out of inconsideration for their consequences, can backfire with great intensity. Lastly the character of Safie (someone I used a lot in my discussions) can be compared and contrasted with the Creature to show the different treatment they receive despite both being “outsiders” to the De Laceys due to their starkly different appearances.

Mentioning these characters and utilising these contrasts can be monumental in showing your understanding of the novel and by extension, your English analytical ability.

[Video Transcription]

‍
Hey guys, I'm Lisa, welcome back to Lisa's Study Guides. Today, we're going to be talking about Frankenstein and breaking down an essay topic for it. So in the past, I've done plenty of videos looking at different types of essay topics and breaking them down by looking at keywords and then going into the body paragraphs and looking at those ideas. This time round, the takeaway message that I want you to leave with is understanding what types of evidence you should be using inside your body paragraphs. Specifically, I wanted to talk about literary devices or metalanguage. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein uses so many literary devices that it's impossible to ignore. If you are somebody who is studying this text or other texts that you use and are heavily embedded with literary techniques, then it's really important that you don't just use dialogue as part of your quotes, but actually reading between the lines. I'll teach you on how it's not just about finding dialogue, which you include as quotes inside your body paragraphs, but reading between the lines, so looking at literary devices like metaphors, symbols, imagery, so let's get started.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein constitutes escaping critique of the prioritization of scientific advancement over human welfare and relationship. Dr. Frankenstein is fascinated with science and discovery, he is consumed with the idea of a new and more noble race by stitching up dead body parts from a cemetery. He feverishly works away at his experiment until one day the creature is born. Frankenstein is horrified at the living thing he has made and completely rejects the creature, leaving it without a parental figure. The creature is left alone to look after himself. He educates himself and on repeated occasions tries to approach people in society, however, is rejected every time because of his monstrous appearance. As a result, the creature becomes enraged at humanity and Frankenstein's unfair treatment towards him and consequently exacts revenge on Frankenstein and his family.


The essay topic we'll be looking at today is, Our sympathies in this novel ultimately lie with the creature. Discuss. So in previous videos, we've looked at keywords, how to identify them and how to define them. Since it's pretty straightforward for this essay topic, I thought I would skip that part and then go into the more nitty gritty with the body paragraphs. But, if you are unfamiliar with these steps, then I'll link them in the card above and also in the description below so you can have a look at how I went ahead and did the keyword section in my planning, now back to the prompt. Unequivocally within Frankenstein, Shelley portrays sympathy as spread throughout the text through depicting the creature as innately human through his desire for relationship and the challenges he faces at the hands of the prejudice enlightenment society he's born into, Shelley elicits sympathy for his situation. However, through the notable absence of the female gender throughout the text, Shelley portrays those silent within society as most deserving of sympathy.


So, with this in mind, here are the potential paragraphs in response to this prompt. Paragraph one, Shelley's depiction of the creature as innately human motivates support for his challenges at the hands of a prejudice society. The action of the creature to open his dull yellow eye, symbolic of his nature as a human being alongside a green wrinkled on his cheeks, with one hand stretched out, indicates his simple desire for paternal connection. Through constructing the creature's actions as innately human Shelley acts proleptically of the inequitable experiences the creature will experience throughout the structural architecture of the text. And through doing so, depicts his character as worthy of support.


Similarly, through the metaphor of fire, Shelley explores the duality of progress and innovation of which the creature desires. The fire, one that gives light as well as heat, yet also causes a cry of pain, indicates the hardships of the creature in his isolation, whereby, his forced to withdraw from his desire for education. Upon viewing himself in a pool, the creature becomes "fully convinced that I was in reality [a] monster" with the consequent sensations of despondency and mortification granting the reader the opportunity to sympathize with the creature in order to indicate the intensely negative social prejudices that are inflicted upon the creature.


So you can see that we've looked at symbols of the creature's nature and the metaphor of fire to support our topic sentence. Using literary techniques is what's going to make the difference between you and another student who might be saying the same thing. Why? Because when you look at literary devices, it means that you're reading just beyond the lines, just beyond what's in front of you. You're now introducing your own interpretation, so you're looking at fire and thinking about what that means in connection to the text, and why Mary Shelley would use the term of a fire and revolve her discussion around that. So let's see how we keep doing this in the next body paragraph.


Paragraph two, Shelley indicates the significance of relationships as a key element of human nature that the creature is denied, motivating affinity from readers. In replacement of human relationships, the creature rather seeks comfort within the natural world. The metaphorical huge cloak that the creature takes refuge within indicates this, illustrative of an ecosystem, the forest allows the creator to surround himself with life. The subsequent attempts to "imitate the pleasant songs of the birds" reveals the desperate urge of the creature for companionship as he is abandoned by the paternal relationship represented by Victor Frankenstein, which forms a core of human relationships. Again, here we've discussed the metaphorical huge cloak and its connection with the forest, I strongly encourage you to have the goal of discussing at least one literary device per body paragraph. And no, there is no such thing as talking about too many literary devices because it's really just about whether or not your argument is concise and whether or not you're backing that up with evidence.


Paragraph three. However, it is Shelley's depiction of the submissive female sex within Frankenstein that becomes most deserving of sympathy. Each female character is characterized as passive, disposable, and they're serving a utilitarian function, namely as a channel of action for the male characters within the text. Notably, the complete lack of absence of Margaret Saville, functioning only as an audience for Walton's letters exemplifies this. Margaret's role within the text is simply to enable Walton to relay the story of Frankenstein and as such were the most necessary character of the texts whilst the most distant. This ironic dichotomy enables Shelley to exemplify the difficult role of the female within society, arising sympathy from the readership. Here, even the purposeful emission of a character is discussed as a language technique. So, this type of literary device definitely tops the cake because you're literally looking at what's not even there. That's definitely reading between the lines.


Frankenstein is a very complex novel, and sometimes that's what makes it a difficult text to study. But, it lends itself to many unique interpretations and it's heavily dressed with heaps of literary devices or metalanguage, however you want to call it. So, that's what makes it an absolutely fantastic text for high school students to study. If you wanted to find out more on how to nail a Frankenstein essay, then I'll link you to my blog just down below, because there are definitely more tips there to help you excel in this particular text. Thank you so much for watching, and especially even if you're not studying this text, I hope you've been able to take something away from this video. And I'm confident that you have because talking about literary devices is definitely a topic that isn't necessarily the fore front of discussion in classrooms, and it's something that a lot of people struggle with. So, I hope you are able to walk away with a new goal in sight in order to improve your English essays. So, I will see you guys next time, thank you so much for joining me, see you guys soon. Bye!

Metalanguage is language that describes language. The simplest way to explain this is to focus on part 3 of the English exam – Language Analysis. In Language Analysis, we look at the author’s writing and label particular phrases with persuasive techniques such as: symbolism, imagery or personification. Through our description of the way an author writes (via the words ‘symbolism’, ‘imagery’ or ‘personification’), we have effectively used language that describes language. For a detailed discussion, see What is metalanguage?

Character

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• False protagonist
• Secondary character
• Supporting character
• Major character
• Minor character

Genre

• Adventure
• Comic
• Crime
• Epistolary
• Fantasy
• Historical
• Horror
• Mystery
• Philosophical
• Political
• Romance
• Satire
• Thriller

Form

• Non-fiction
• Novel
• Novella
• Plays
• Poetry
• Short stories

Language form

• ProseIambic pentameter
• Blank verse
• Free verse

Narrative mode

• First person view
• Second person view
• Third person view
• Third person objective
• Third person
• Third person omnipresent
• Third person limited
• Alternating narrative view
• Stream-of-consciousness
• Linear narrative
• Nonlinear narrative

Narrative tense

• Past
• Present
• Future

Plot

• Anti-climax
• Climax
• Conflict
• Denouement
• Dialogue
• Exposition
• Subplot
• Trope-cliché
• Turning point

Setting

• Culture
• Historical
• Geographical
• Social
• Dystopia
• Utopia

Other literary techniques

• Active voice
• Allegory
• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Ambivalence
• Ambiguity
• Antithesis
• Antonyms
• Bildungsroman
• Characterisation
• Cliffhanger
• Colloquialism
• Complex sentence
• Compound sentence
• Connotation
• Context
• Denouement
• Diachronic
• Dialect
• Dialogue
• Elision
• English (American)
• English (Australian)
• Enjambment
• Epilogue
• Epiphany
• Euphemism
• Flashback
• Flash forward
• Foreshadowing
• Formal
• Hyperbole
• Idiom
• Imagery
• Informal
• Irony
• Juxtaposition
• Lamb
• Metaphor
• Meter
• Mood
• Morphemes
• Motif
• Neologism
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Paradox
• Parody
• Passive voice
• Pathos
• Periphrasis
• Personification
• Positioning
• Prefix
• Prologue
• Rhetoric
• Rhythm
• Simile
• Simple sentence
• Slang
• Soliloquy
• Stereotype
• Symbols
• Synonyms
• Tautology
• Tone
• Tragedy
• Vernacular

Hey everyone! This is Part 2 in a series of videos I will release on VCE Study Guides. The content goes through the sample VCAA Chickens Range Free article which you can find here. Feel free to analyse it yourself, then check out how I’ve analysed the article!

I’m super excited to share with you my first ever online tutorial course for VCE English/EAL students on How to achieve A+ for Language Analysis!!!

I created this course for a few reasons:

Language Analysis is often the key weakness for VCE English/EAL students, after my workshops, students always wish we had spent even more time on Language Analysis, many of you have come to me seeking private tuition however since I am fully booked out, I wanted to still offer you a chance to gain access to my ‘breakthrough’ method of tutoring Language Analysis,I am absolutely confident in my unique and straightforward way of teaching Language Analysis which has lead to my students securing exceptional A graded SAC and exam scores!

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struggles to identify language techniques?

finds it difficult to identify which tones are adopted in articles?

has no idea explaining HOW the author persuades?

finds it difficult to structure your language analysis essay?

becomes even more unsure when comparing 2 or 3 articles?

feels like your teacher at school never explained language analysis properly?

prefers learning when it’s enjoyable and easy to understand?

wants to stand out from other students across the cohort?

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Be able to successfully identify language techniques in articles and images

Be able to successfully identify tones adopted in articles and images

Be able to analyse a single article or image

Be able to analyse 2 or more articles and/or images

Be able to apply your new skills coherently and clearly in essay writing

You will be able to accurately describe HOW an author uses language to persuade

You will be able to plan and write a language analysis essay structure (single article/image)

You will be able to plan and write a language analysis essay structure (2 or more articles/images)

You will understand common pitfalls and how to avoid these in language analysis

Be confident when approaching your SACs and exam

Know exactly what examiners are looking for and how to ‘WOW’ them

Know how to distinguish yourself from other students

Have unlimited help in course forum from myself and other VCE students

You will become a better VCE English language analysis student!

To find out more, you can check out the full details of the course here!

See you in the course!