English Essay
How is conflict represented in Winton and Foulcher’s work?
In Time and Tide by Tim Winton, and Martin and the Hand Grenade by John Foulcher, a range of complex ideas and techniques are used to create an atmosphere of inner conflict, and physical conflicts that can arise as a result. Winton looks at the conflicts of wasteful human use of the ocean to further their own economic wants and needs, and in extension the effect that this has on him. Foulcher explores the effect that conflict within a classroom can have on the students involved, and in the composer himself. While both are set in different times and places, both composers similarly conclude that the effects of human beings on their surrounding can lead to change and growth, in both the texts and the responders.
Inner conflict is explored throughout Time and Tide as Winton recalls, through memories, the decay of his personal image of the ocean by the very people he grew up around, and even by himself. The piece begins with Winton using visual imagery to recall his view of the ocean as a positive concept, “peered down into the turquoise blur to see wild mobs of silver trevally ride”, and also makes the reader feel as if they are recalling the same memory as him. As the text progresses, more negative adjectives are introduced as Winton realises how carelessly people treat the ocean, such as “gross”, “choking” and “dead”. The juxtaposition of humans doing horrible things but describing them as enjoying themselves doing it, “men in beanies and seaboats cheerfully tore blubber” and “thousands of blowfish on the wharf where children had stamped them playfully to their death”, makes Winton’s point that human beings treat the sea with “a kind of thoughtless contempt”. He also uses personal pronouns, “We took and took and took”, to show that he also feels partly responsible for the damage being wrought upon his own childhood playground. Through Winton’s use of powerful visual imagery and juxtaposition, we are
In Time and Tide by Tim Winton, and Martin and the Hand Grenade by John Foulcher, a range of complex ideas and techniques are used to create an atmosphere of inner conflict, and physical conflicts that can arise as a result. Winton looks at the conflicts of wasteful human use of the ocean to further their own economic wants and needs, and in extension the effect that this has on him. Foulcher explores the effect that conflict within a classroom can have on the students involved, and in the composer himself. While both are set in different times and places, both composers similarly conclude that the effects of human beings on their surrounding can lead to change and growth, in both the texts and the responders.
Inner conflict is explored throughout Time and Tide as Winton recalls, through memories, the decay of his personal image of the ocean by the very people he grew up around, and even by himself. The piece begins with Winton using visual imagery to recall his view of the ocean as a positive concept, “peered down into the turquoise blur to see wild mobs of silver trevally ride”, and also makes the reader feel as if they are recalling the same memory as him. As the text progresses, more negative adjectives are introduced as Winton realises how carelessly people treat the ocean, such as “gross”, “choking” and “dead”. The juxtaposition of humans doing horrible things but describing them as enjoying themselves doing it, “men in beanies and seaboats cheerfully tore blubber” and “thousands of blowfish on the wharf where children had stamped them playfully to their death”, makes Winton’s point that human beings treat the sea with “a kind of thoughtless contempt”. He also uses personal pronouns, “We took and took and took”, to show that he also feels partly responsible for the damage being wrought upon his own childhood playground. Through Winton’s use of powerful visual imagery and juxtaposition, we are