Drovers Wife + in a Dry Season

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, is an enticing, but soul-wrenching novel that perfectly conveys the precise conditions of a cold, desolate world, in which one feels utterly isolated. McCarthy does not hesitate to go into detail about powerful or foul events within the plot. He says exactly what he means, and can effectively incorporate forceful interactions between the characters and each other, as well as characters and their given environment. By using the literary devices of symbolism, imagery, and theme, McCarthy handcrafts a novel with such eloquence and grace that such a bleak and miserable world is perhaps a seemingly beautiful one.

Robinson Crusoe is a man who was lost in the world, stuck at home with his parents, he was expected to be a lawyer, but his heart longed for the sea. Crusoe eventually left home, without telling his parents what he planned. After several voyages, all of which were seemingly “unlucky,” he is shipwrecked on a desert island and is forced to survive with only bare necessities. Many people consider him a hero because of how he dealt with his misfortune. Some people believe that Robinson Crusoe is a likeable and admirable character, but others disagree. Robinson Crusoe is not a likeable or admirable character for three reasons: he is self-absorbed, he lacks emotion, and he is hypocritical.

Owen and Frost convey extreme experiences and feelings very powerfully and evoke it in a way for us the reader to imagine clearly. In Disabled, Owen conveys the image of death very vividly with immense use of imagery writing 'He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,' this darkness is referring to the sense that the soldier's life is interminable to him now. Owen is trying to tell us that this soldier's life has been cut short by the war and that he cannot be the same individual he was perhaps five to ten years earlier. Another example of strong imagery in Disabled which conveys extreme experiences and feelings is the good use of visual imagery where he writes 'Legless, sewn short at the elbow.' This powerful phrase gives us the reader an image of the soldier seated in a wheelchair with no legs as well as part of his arm 'deattached', this image being emphasised by the words 'Legless' and 'sewn short'.

How each character’s relationship relates to native Australians grows for better or worse throughout the novel. The novel also shows how Grenville has incorporated each personal lifestyle and how it co-exists with the other. The novel incorporates past and modern views about each society and brings to attention controversial issues about Australia’s convict past and how Aborigines are being ostracized for their way of life and skin pigmentation.

Distinctively visual texts aim to manipulate the we perceive images critically affecting our interpretation of events and people we meet in our lives. Distinctively visual techniques are utilised in the ‘Run Lola Run’ directed by Tom Tykwer and the picture book ‘Red Tree’ written by Sean Tan. The way the distinctively visual is shown throughout these texts is through the use of motifs, different angle shots, colours, lighting and reading paths. These techniques aim to show the important themes in both texts such as time, hope and love.

The ideals, attitudes, values, and beliefs of an individual are consistently altered by the discoveries uncovered in everyday life. Discoveries are confronting and provocative and engender renewed perceptions of individuals and others. The 1986 play ‘Away’, by Michael Gow highlights the retrospective revelations among three Australian families who are dislocated and brought together by a storm where they make new discoveries about themselves and others. Gow explored the significant themes of reconciliation, restoration, realisation, acceptance, and self-knowledge throughout the ‘Away'. William Ernest Henley’s 1888 poem, ‘Invictus’ explores the process self-discovery through the ability to portray courage in the face of death and to remain unconquered by indignities. Michael Gow’s play ‘Away’ in conjunction with William Henley's poem, ‘Invictus’ evidently portrays the fact that an individual and their perspectives can be modified by revelations present in their lives.

Mark Strand’s poem, “Poor North” depicts the life of a married couple facing countless struggles during a harsh winter. It tells of a man working in an unsuccessful store while his wife sits at home, wishing for her old life back. The way the wife copes with her sadness is both intriguing and perplexing. She misses her old life, even though it is described to have not been special; however, the wife may be a person who never feels satisfied or fulfilled by the external world due to internal conflict. Despite the wife’s obvious misery, she stays by her husband’s side and they stroll in the cold together, bracing the wind. As a means of escape from life, she peers into her past in order to find hope in the present.

In his novel, The Divine Wind Garry Disher engages his reader and persuades them to consider the ideas of friendship, prejudice and love. In the pressure pot of the racially charged Broome, Western Australia during the testing times of the second world war, Disher encourages his readers to connect to the characters by using recurring and universal themes. Through the effective use of literary techniques such as narrative structure, characterisation and setting, the novel encourages and develops the audience’s understanding of the testing, slippery state of friendship, the ever-present prejudice in this society, and love in its different kinds.

The use of ironic imagery discharges an emotive, personal tone which in turn persuades the reader to empathise with Hughes as he was "dumbfounded afresh" by Plath.

Notwithstanding their partner’s contempt of reading and writing, both the father in “The Boat,” and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” continue to search for reprieve through their respective books and diary.

Starkfield’s desolate and snowy environment unveils the difficulty of everyday life under harsh conditions in an outdated society. **EXAMPLE** In the novel, the crops of Ethan Frome’s farm in Starkfield barely paid for his wife’s medical expenses and after years of working he did not even save enough for a single train ticket to leave the town. Both of his parents eventually lost their lives due to poor health from the bitter climate. The lack of transportation and modern healthcare in the already undesirable surroundings of Starkfield caused numerous burdens and obstacles in Ethan’s life. During the time in which the novel takes place, factory and farm labor often consisted of unreliable, hazardous machines in unpleasant working conditions. The economically disadvantaged worked for hours through physically demanding situations to make ends meet, often resulting in the deterioration of their health. Without modern conveniences in healthcare and safety offered by a prospering town, taking responsibility for a family stands as a challenge for the working

Isolation from society can evoke a deep loneliness and self-reflection. The poem "The Wife's Lament" from the Exeter Book expresses the desolation of exile. The dominant theme is the contrast of a happy past and a bleak present of isolation. The anonymous author of "The Wife's Lament" uses setting, tone, and conflict to develop the theme of great loss. He/she augments a situation in which meditation on life's past joys is the only redemption in a life sentenced to confinement. “The Wife’s Lament” is an excellent example of nostalgia, resentment of the present, and hopelessness about the future.

The first reason that Robinson Crusoe is an admirable character is because he devotes himself to growing his spiritual life. First, he asserts, “My duty to God, and the reading scriptures, which I constantly set apart some time from thrice every day.” (Defoe

In the beginning of the book, Robinson Crusoe runs away from home to get on a ship. Then, when he was on his way to Canary Island, his ship was bombarded by pirates, who took him hostage. Finally, after two long years,

‘Shadow’, ‘stain’, ‘struck’, ‘scalded’, form a semantic field of darkness representing the sinister figure of war in Lament. These words help build the atmosphere and create a guttural tone conveying feelings of anger and affliction, almost like a cacophony of lines, resembling the harsh and discordant roars of the battlefield. Correspondingly, Duffy also uses vocabulary like ‘explode’, ‘pain’, ‘nightmare’, ‘tears’, to transmit feelings of grief and discomfort to the reader. However, Duffy expresses her feelings through the persona of a photographer in the third person, where his reactions to the photos are described. Contrastingly, Clarke is more direct, as she laments in the first person for a list of animals and people hurt in the