In the extracts Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham they create many ideas such as racial inequality and responsibility about society and home life through the use of narrative conventions such as emotive language, point of view and symbolism. In Crow, Nowra uses the narrative convention of emotive language to convey the idea of racial inequality. An example of this is when, “A black fella can’t own property. ” This is blatent discrimination against Aboriginal people in Australia.
It shows how Aboriginals were thought of being less important or valuable then white Australians. Another example in the extract is “It’s illegal for blacks and whites to marry! ” this shows again how black and white Australians are not seen as equal, they are not the same. Nowra successfully conveys the idea of racial inequality in the extract. Another idea from the texts is responsibility shown in the extract from The Hours written by Cunningham. He conveys the idea through the use of the point of view and symbolism.
The use of point of view in the extract, from the mothers point of view, it helps to convey the idea of responsibility by showing what the responsibilities of the mother are to her child. In the extract it gives an overall view that the mother has a hard time with looking after the child by herself. In the extract is says,” she will do all that’s required,” meaning that she realises that it is her responsibility to look after this child and to make sure that he lives in a safe and welcoming environment.
Cunningham also uses symbolism to convey his idea of responsibility across to his audience. In the extract it states that the mother has difficulty looking after one child and yet she is pregnant with another one, it makes the reader think that the mother doesn’t know what she’s doing or how she’s going to cope with two children. Another example is when it states, “ she lights up a cigarette,” soon followed by,” is it bad for the new baby, her getting so little sleep. ” these statements so close together in the text makes you think that she is more self-centred than previously thought.
She asks if getting little sleep is bad for the baby while she is smoking which is proven to be harmful to unborn children. It makes you see that she is really asking if getting so little sleep is bad for her own benefit and not the baby’s. In the two texts, Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham many ideas such as racial inequality and responsibility are conveyed with the use of conventions. I believe that these ideas are successfully conveyed throughout the two texts.
In the extracts of Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham the authors present many ideas such as racial inequality and responsibility about society and home life through the use of narrative conventions such as emotive language, point of view and symbolism. Try to be more specific in the thesis. In Crow, Nowra uses the narrative convention of emotive language to convey the idea of racial inequality. An example of this is when, “A black fella can’t own property. ” This is blatant discrimination against Aboriginal people in Australia.
It shows how Aborigines were thought of as being less important or valuable then white Australians. Another example in the extract is “It’s illegal for blacks and whites to marry! ” this shows again how black and white Australians are not seen as equal, they are not the same. Nowra successfully conveys the idea of racial inequality in the extract. But which words are emotive? What is your response to that inequality : do you approve of it? Why or why not? Another idea from the texts is responsibility shown in the extract from The Hours written by Cunningham.
He conveys the idea through the use of the point of view and symbolism. The use of point of view in the extract, from the mothers point of view, it helps to convey the idea of responsibility by showing what the responsibilities of the mother are to her child. In the extract it gives an overall view that the mother has a hard time with looking after the child by herself. In the extract is says,” she will do all that’s required,” meaning that she realises that it is her responsibility to look after this child and to make sure that he lives in a safe and welcoming environment.
Sure, but does she embrace that responsibility or resent/resist it? Search the language. Cunningham also uses symbolism to convey his idea of responsibility across to his audience. In the extract it states that the mother has difficulty looking after one child and yet she is pregnant with another one, it makes the reader think that the mother doesn’t know what she’s doing or how she’s going to cope with two children. Another example is when it states, “ she lights up a cigarette,” soon followed by,” is it bad for the new baby, her getting so little sleep? these statements so close together in the text makes you think that she is more self-centred than previously thought. She asks if getting little sleep is bad for the baby while she is smoking which is proven to be harmful to unborn children. It makes you see that she is really asking if getting so little sleep is bad for her own benefit and not the baby’s. and how do you feel about that? In the two texts, Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham many ideas such as racial inequality and responsibility are conveyed with the use of conventions. I believe that these ideas are successfully conveyed throughout the two texts.
Well done for dealing with the texts in a clear structure. Your analysis for both stayed at the superficial level. If you say the playwright used “emotive language” then find an example of it, analyse its meaning and explain your response- that’s what the question demanded. Generic conventions can be used in many different ways to construct different ideas within any for of text. In the extracts of Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham, they use the generic conventions of point of view, symbolism and emotive language to present the ideas of inequality and right versus wrong.
In Crow, Nowra uses the narrative convention of emotive language to convey the idea of inequality through his use of racial stereotypes from Australia where the extract is set. An example of this is when, “A black fella can’t own property. ” This is blatant discrimination against Aboriginal people in Australia. It represents how Aboriginals were thought of being less important or valuable then white Australians. This also represents when white Europeans came to Australia and pushed them off their land that was rightfully theirs. Another example in the extract is “It’s illegal for blacks and whites to marry! this shows again how black and white Australians are not seen as equal. Nowra successfully conveys the idea of racial inequality in the extract through his use of the narrative convention emotive language. Another type of inequality shown in the extract from The Hours written by Cunningham is gender inequality. He conveys the idea through his use of symbolism. His use of symbolism in the text to create the idea of gender inequality is obvious when the woman’s husband “pats her rump”. This is as if she is a trophy for the man. This shows that the woman’s husband thinks less of her.
Also the fact that he is the one who goes out and works to provide for the family conveys the traditional value that dads work and mums stay home to look after the kids. The use of symbolism is used successfully by Cunningham to create the idea of gender inequality in the text. Another example of gender inequality is in the extract from Crow by Nowra. The main gender stereotype is that men are manly and women are feminine, but in the text the man is drinking a drink that is stereotypically for women and the woman is drinking a man’s drink. [Jimmy comes out with a glass of beer of beer for CROW and a gin and tonic for THOMPSON]. ” This shows that Crow is drinking a beer while Thompson is drinking a gin and tonic which goes against gender stereotypes of what males and females drink. Another example is “[Blowing the froth off her beer] Don’t like froth. ” This again shows a male behaviour shown by the female character again challenging gender stereotypes. In the text, The Hours by Cunningham, the idea of right versus wrong is created through his use of point of view to show the mothers view on her upbringing of her child.
On the outside the way the mother is constructed makes it seem as if she is doing the right thing for her child and her unborn baby. This is presented when she says, “She will not go upstairs and return to her book. She will remain. She will do all that’s required and more. ” This makes the reader think that she is a good mother to her child and is responsible in the way she look after him. However Cunningham also puts in the line,” She lights up a cigarette……. She was up until after two reading. She touches her belly – is it bad for the new baby, her getting so little sleep? This makes the reader see that she is asking if sleep deprivation is bad for the baby when she is smoking which is medically proven to be bad for an unborn child. The reader is now positioned to view the mother in a way which shows that she is selfish and more caught up in whether or not she’s healthy instead of her unborn child which is being hurt with every breathe of smoke she inhales. In the two texts, Crow by Louis Nowra and The Hours by Michael Cunningham they present the ideas of inequality in the form of both racial and gender inequality and also right versus wrong.
These are created through the authors use of the generic conventions emotive language, symbolism and point of view in the texts. These conventions used successfully convey the ideas throughout the text to the audience. Reflection~ Weaknesses- one weakness in the essay was my use of vocabulary. Throughout the essay there were multiple chances for me to use more sophisticated language but I didn’t and used broader or less sophisticated words which took away from the overall intelligence of the essay. Another weakness was the examples used.
The marker picked up on this as he points out in paragraph one where I used an example for emotive language but didn’t actually point out what the emotive word was in that example and didn’t say which emotion it provoked. This caused the point to not be carried across to the audience as successfully as it could have been if I had done that. Corrections- I have tried to make the corrections which the marker has told me to do. I fixed up all the grammar and spelling mistakes and also making the sentence structure better throughout the essay.
In the form of explaining points better and making the intent clearer I rewrote the paragraphs to make sure that everything was conveyed clearly and made sense. I also changed a lot of the vocabulary throughout the essay to make it more sophisticated and more educated in the arguments it made. Another correction that I made was that I took out the idea of responsibility because I thought that the points made about it were weak and didn’t convey the message that I wanted it to. I replaced it with right versus wrong because it was better used with the texts given and created a stronger argument for the essay.
