Student’s response:
My comments:
- Take the time to unpack the author’s views, values and key concepts. Set up the paragraph with good analysis and insights.
- You need to demonstrate an ability to zoom in on key moments in the text that reflect the author’s concepts/views and values. Provide quotes, and show a deep analysis. If you can focus on some narrative devices, such as a symbol or two, then this will help your analysis. You need to be sharp and precise.
- Use the first text/character as a launch/base for comparison. Make some comparative comments with regards to the second text/character.
- Notice, I have split the long paragraph into two shorter paragraphs. This enables you to do a mini-comparative topic sentence to introduce/signpost the second character.
- Round off, with a sentence or two that summarises/ rounds off the discussion.
Both Michele (in the film “I’m not Scared”) and Robert (in “Shark Net”) defy their elders, which leads to considerable soul-searching and initiates a journey of self discovery. This defiance prompts a dilemma whereby both protagonists examine their relationship with authority figures and the values they espouse. For both, it takes a great deal of confidence and integrity to follow their individual, alternative path.) After considerable soul-searching, Michele defies his father’s warnings, ”If you go back they’ll shoot him, and it will be your fault” . Instead he ventures on his own journey to save Filippo from the kidnappers. He is motivated by his anger towards his parents, especially after overhearing details of their treacherous scheme and this leads to a change in his trust towards authority figures. He is also motivated by his promise to Filippo and vows to save his friend. During his escapade, he is shot in the leg by his father, which symbolically reflects the breakdown of his relationship with his parents and of authority in general.
Likewise, having a baby out of wedlock prompts Robert’s first significant conflict with his mother and her strict, conservative, religious values. His mother is contemptuous of his “promiscuous behavior” and Robert is made to feel like “the country’s most loathsome sex-pig”. It is the first time Robert, as an “ordinary loving son”, has defied his mother, “In my life I’d never defied my mother before”, and she becomes a “sudden stranger to me”. Her “furious grief, which is “more scornful than scorn” prompts his separation and, realizing, that he “didn’t know this woman any more”, he starts to tread his own path in life. Like Michele Robert loses his trust and respect for authority figures. Like Michele, he undergoes considerable soul-searching and is determined to take responsibility for his own family despite being young and inexperienced and despite the fact that he may end up “living in a one-room slum full of screaming kids”. Later he looks back, and realizes that “being a father and breadwinner made [him] more mature and responsible”. Hence, the defiance of both protagonists waged against controlling or treacherous parents, leads to significant turning points in their lives. Both develop the courage and confidence to take responsibility for their own actions and determine their own course in life.
The Tall Man and Freedom of the City: abuse of power/justice
Abuse of power and miscarriage of justice: Freedom of the City (Brian Friels) and The Tall Man (Chloe Hooper)
In Freedom of the City, and the The Tall Man, both Brian Friels and Chloe Hooper contend that those in a position of power conveniently stage-manage the respective trials in a way that supports their powerful and self-interested agenda. Justice is jealously guarded by those in a position of power and they use their position of influence to discredit or ignore arguments that would ensure a fair and reasonable trial for the “victims”. In particular, Friels depicts the judge’s “fact finding exercise” that occurs subsequent to the deaths of three supposed ‘terrorists” by the armed forces, as a biased affair that protects their official version of events. In this regard, The judge intently seeks to vindicate the army’s actions and magnify the threat of the three innocent protesters. Throughout the trial the judge assumes that the three protesters “openly defied the security forces” when they subversively occupied the momentous guildhall and wonders whether they were “callous terrorists” who planned the take-over weeks before or whether it was simply a “misguided scheme” that occurred on the “very day”. He excludes inconvenient questions such as the army’s failure to take alternative measures, such as an arrest, and the question of the accidentally, unlocked door to the guildhall. Likewise, the medical testimonies are also influenced by the questions asked by the judge. Although Dr Winbourne, a representative from the Army Forensic Department, cannot conclude beyond reasonable doubt that the victims fired first, he nevertheless concedes that this is a possibility.
Likewise Hooper also investigates the circumstances of Cameron Doomadgee’s trial on Palm Island that leads to the exoneration of the policeman, Chris Hurley. Just as Friels shows the unlikelihood of the three protesters gaining justice, Hooper also systematically shows throughout her report of the trial that “frontier justice had its own laws” and for this reason she doubts from the start that a jury would convict Hurley. Whilst the Police Union actively campaigns in defence of Hurley, key witnesses are dismissed during a legal process that is considerably confusing for members of the indigenous community. (“The Doomadgees had found the week’s legal proceedings confusing. They didn’t ask any questions of the lawyers, but when their supporters did, they nodded in agreement.” Unfortunately, Roy Bramwell, a key eye-witness who had noticed Hurley’s use of excessive force against Doomadgee, was not called to the witness stand because of his “drinking and inconsistencies”. Like the powerful judges, the media and the medical fraternity in Freedom of the City, Hurley, who does admit liability, also has the force of the establishment on his side. Hooper, like everyone else is “conscious of being eyeballed by the police” and identified derogatorily as “one of those”. Hurley’s defence lawyer, Robert Mulholland, is “theatrical and legalistic” and seeks to elicit sympathy for “whites doing it tough”. Contrastingly, Peter Davis, for the prosecution reveals that it was physically and medically impossible for Doomadgee to sustain his injuries, naturally or accidentally, and believes that it completely defies common sense for Hurley to dismiss any feelings of anger. “The notion that this accused could fall on Mulrunji with such force as to cleave his liver across his spine, and not remember falling on him at all” is completely illogical to this lawyer, but this is the conclusion reached, unjustly it seems, by the jury.
The individual versus the state: abuse of power and freedom of expression
Often powerful institutions control information and access to knowledge which creates conflict between the group and its members. Such Institutions often rationalise such control because of the need for security given an external threat. Often this occurs at the expense of an individual’s rights and freedoms. Ultimately conflict will arise as individuals are defined by their freedoms, and they may have to fight for their integrity and their rights. A recent example of this is the NSA’s attempt to secretly record communications of US citizens at the expense of their right to privacy. While the right to privacy is inferred in the USA’s constitutions, the NSA still wields their power and potential to create a completely secure and secret-less society. Powerful spokespeople believe that the institution is motivated by national security concerns, but this may trample on the constitutional and moral rights of their citizens. Edward Snowden’s fight against the state and in particular against NSA’s excessive surveillance powers, was for him, a matter of principle. He states that “the government has granted itself power it is not entitled to” and that he “does not want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity”.
Likewise, in an attempt to secure power, the Chinese Communist Government has been accused of trampling upon the human rights and freedoms of many citizens in Hong Kong. For example, booksellers in Hong Kong, who have allegedly been kidnapped for selling books that critique communist leaders, are being held in prisons in mainland China until they hand over client databases. They have been charged with the crime of sedition. These attempts by powerful institutions and governments to cling to power and protect their authority violate commonly valued freedoms. One specific bookseller Lam Wing-Kee warned Hong Kong citizens to resist. He said, “this is not my personal matter, this is about the human rights of Hong Kong people” . He said, “Hong Kongers will not bow down before brute force”. Evidently Wing-Kee was right as during the past year there have been frequent protests and one of the largest pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong because of the Chinese government’s attempt to subvert the elections in 2017. So when institutions practice their authority over individuals in a way that breaches the rights of individuals, there will inevitably be conflict.
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