Shoe Horn Sonata Distinctive Visual

Distinctively visual texts use a variety of techniques to convey the experiences during the war. In John Misto’s 1996 play ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ which is about women nurses enduring Japanese POW camps, such distinctive experiences as power and survival are shown through techniques like lighting, projecting image, sound, symbols, dialogue and body language. In Kenneth Slessor’s 1942 poem ‘Beach Burial’ he also comments about survival in war and the power in distinctively visual ways through particular words. He relies upon adjectives, personification and the use of imagery to describe the suffering. In Nick Ut’s photograph from 1973 ‘The Napalm Girl of Trangbang’ which is about the Vietnam war and these children being soaked in napalm being burnt, the distinctive visual experiences of truth and trauma of are being shown through the use of vectors and shading. The distinctive experience of survival is shown in Misto’s play, The Shoe-Horn Sonata. Misto uses distinctively visual techniques such as sound, lighting, symbols and voice over to allow us to understand the concept of survival. In a scene the soldiers yell out ‘jump for it! ‘Jump for it’ which conveys a sense of urgency and fear of what the Japanese are doing if they don’t listen. This shows the theme of survival and power that the soldiers have. During this scene the technique of sound is used. The piercing yells and the sound of the woman jumping into the water impacts the audiences understanding of what exactly is going on and how they should respond to this. Later in the scene the use of irony from Bridie when she says “ the woman who had jumped were floating quiet well- but that was because all of them were dead”. Visually, the irony shows the theme of survival for Bridie and Sheila as they hadn’t jumped yet and it also represents the truth. This depicts the characters experience as one that was of hardship and struggle, living constantly in