Coral Away Essay

In Michael Gow’s play ‘Away’, a story of families in the 1960’s and how they come to embrace each other’s differences through gaining self-knowledge. Through identifying the context of act 3 scene 2, as well as the relationships between characters and the reasons behind them, as well as the stylistic devices used by Gow to share a message with his audiences that, even today, an audience can relate too. By analysing quotes from the scene to support conclusions, the purpose of this scene will be identified and a greater understanding the theme of self-knowledge in this scene will be formed.

Set in the Australian summer of 1967, Michael Gow’s Away is an elaborate play which explores the ideas of self- discovery and change. Through the war affected nation, three families, each from different social classes, depart on an iconic Australian holiday to the beach. In the play, Gow utilises the characters to demonstrate that going away physically is intrinsically linked to their mental developments. With the help of references to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer night’s Dream, Away uses Gwen and Coral to show the significant psychological changes made by the characters during holidays to the coast. Tom throughout the play acts as a catalyst for the change in other characters and is associated with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Michael Gow’s “Away” is an Australian play, set in the summer of 1967-68, in a time of great social and political change. “Away” tells the story of three families, each from different social classes, living in suburban Australia, as they each embark on their own holiday, attempting to escape their underlying personal issues. Immigrants Harry and Vic love their adopted country but are constantly faced with their son, Tom’s, terminal illness, while Jim and Gwen fret over their daughter Meg’s blossoming independence and her friendship with the socially unsuitable Tom, and Roy is unable to console a grief–stricken Coral over the death of their only son during the Vietnam war. Although each family is completely dissimilar, the theme of love remains

The death of Coral’s son has caused an emotional breakdown as she cannot accept her son’s death. Moreover, Coral has lost her social identity and tends to struggle to find a connection with anyone, as she “can’t think of anything to say” (Act 2, Scene 2). Her husband, Roy, is annoyed by her bizarre attitude and this causes Coral to lower herself to the behavior of a naïve child “I’ll be good! I’ll improve!” When Coral does begin to speak, it is presented as very expressive and mournful. Her tone is filled with emotion as she is constantly “wiping away tears”.

Gow uses tragedy to express the effect the grief and loss The Vietnam War had on the families of soldiers. Throughout the start of the play, Gow portrayed the character of Coral as depressed. In Act 2 Scene 3 Gow alludes to The Vietnam War, and the effect it had on the families when Roy (Corals husband) says, “We are not the first people in the history of the world to lose a son in war.” To allow the modern audience to understand the effect that The Vietnam War had Gow portrayed Coral as depressed. Throughout Act 2 Scene 3 a juxtaposition is used with Coral continuously being referred to as “Kim Novak”. Today’s Australian audience would not know who Kim Novak is. Kim Novak was a gorgeous American Actress in the 1950’s. Harry alludes to an old Chinese phrase, “The Chinese don’t believe in being too upset when someone dies. That would mean you thought they’d died too soon and what they’d done up till then didn’t amount to much.” in Act 4 Scene 1, when referring to Tom’s illness; cancer of the blood. Gow uses this phrase as a way of explaining to the modern audience the beliefs that the people in the 1960’s stood by.

“Away” is a historical play written in 1988 by Michael Gow. Away reflects to the central ideas, values and conflicts of Australia in 1967-68. The central ideas embrace outsiders, family conflicts and grief and loss which affected families in the play and in the time. Gow uses three main families to convey the message of the play. The use of language and stylistic devices influence the way Gow has been able to speak to the modern Australian audience. In the play, Gow is able to speak to the modern Australian audience with the clever, complex use of allusion. The modern audience would have to do research to understand the allusions in the play however on a superficial level the audience is still able to enjoy the central themes and ideas of the play.

In terms of plot, the movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is extremely true to the source material. It still tells the story of a young girl who grows unappreciative of her real family and finds a magical door in her new home that leads to a better, fantastical version of the family she has now. The creepiness and scary moments are also true to form, with this world being only a copy of the real world, created by the Other Mother in an attempt to trap Coraline forever. The quest to rescue the three ghost children is almost exactly the same, with two of their souls being found in Miss Spink and Forcible’s theater and Mr. B’s circus. But since the movie added a scene in which an enticing garden is used as an item to gain Coraline’s trust in the Other Mother’s fake world, one of the ghost souls was placed in this location instead. Another major difference between the book and the movie is the addition of the character Wybie. He acts as a source of inside knowledge about The Pink Palace and helps kill the Other Mother’s hand at the climax of the movie, while in the book Coraline gathered her information about her home from her parents as well as Miss Spink and Forcible, and killed the Other Mother’s hand by tricking it rather than crushing it. The use of stop motion animation was also a benefactor in bringing this terrifying story to a visual format, as stop motion tends to look uncanny and unsettling at times. Both works are masterpieces of writing and storytelling, and

Michael Gow's play, "Away" expresses the idea of going through changes and receiving help from people around you. The key characters of the play experiences change and renewal as a result of their relationships with others ad the summer vacation. Coral and Gwen is two characters that undergo the most changes throughout the trip. Coral manage to moved on from her's son death while Gwen changed from a snobby person to a person who is more understandable. Tom is one of the critical character that help Coral and Gwen realised their issues and surpasses it. The play showed lives of people and their own struggle during the 60s and how they overcome it.

Firstly let us consider conflict. In each act of the play, we see the overpowering desire to belong leading to a climax of conflict

Ruth’s character reminds us that the process of producing the play within the play is about finding a deeper, more real reality. For characters such as Ruth and Roy, the play is about creating an escape from their reality within the institution, such as characters like Zac whom “can’t stand real things”. For other characters such as Julie, the mental institution surrounds them, but performing the play allows them to break free from reality. Through producing the play, Lewis explores what is ‘real’ and what is ‘normal’, Nowra introduces the concept that the two concepts contrast with each other. Nowra concluded the play with Lewis’ narration. Turning off the lights sets the realisation of the brief tails of their lives given by Lewis, which are powered by reality and not a pristine ending, as life continues to happen.

The conflict of the Haisla people's spirituality and modern "white washing" of their culture has a major influence on Eden Robinson's novel Monkey Beach. The protagonist Lisa struggles to understand her spirituality and her family often dismisses any hint of spirituality. Lisa finds herself connected to nature but is does not fully understand why, leaving her to contemplate there meaning or existence by herself. Robinson’s use of allusion and imagery illuminate many key themes and implicit meanings throughout the passage.

The Battle of Coral Sea was the first major sea battle between allied fleet forces, including those of the United States and Australian Navies, and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II. Pivotal in terms of allied naval fleet operations during the war, the Battle of Coral Sea was also the first naval battle that featured opposing air craft carriers in close proximity to each other, resulting in air battles initiated by sea, rather than from traditional land bases. The following provides relevant details.

changing attitudes toward life and the other characters in the play, particularly the women; and his reflection on the

To begin with, in this play the author unfolds family conflicts that involve its characters into a series of events that affected their lives and pushed them to unexpected ways.

However, many fisherman are unable to catch as many fish as they used to, so they are increasingly using cyanide and dynamite in fishing, which further degrades the coral reef ecosystem.[6] This perpetuation of bad habits simply leads to the further decline of coral reefs and therefore perpetuating the problem. One solution to stopping this cycle is to educate the local community about why conservation of marine spaces that include coral reefs is important.[7] Once the local communities understand the personal stakes at risk then they will actually fight to preserve the reefs. Conserving coral reefs has many economic, social, and ecological benefits, not only for the people who live on these islands, but for people throughout the world as well.