18. Student query about RANSOM

From: STUDENT B

To: barry

Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 7:27 PM

Subject: English

Hey Barry how are your holidays going? excited to go back to school?I just finished reading ransom and im suprised to say that i enjoyed it, the only thing that i got a little bit lost on is the referencing to the greek gods and how they can influence their lives. I was just a little bit confused and was wondering if you could clear that up for me.Thanks :)

Hi B:

I'm glad that you enjoyed RANSOM. I love it. I think malouf is a wonderful writer.
Generally speaking: the Greeks believed the gods - Zeus, Athena, etc etc - DETERMINED everything.
They didn't just INFLUENCE - they determined. When Achilles destroys part of Apollo's temple, close to Troy, that god was angry with him and wanted to repay him for his lack of respect...

It had been foretold - by one of the oracles - that if Achilles fought at Troy, he would not come back alive.

So - that "default" position for Greeks(humans) was a sort of FATALISTIC acceptance that they had no real say over what happened to them. [Centuries later, Shakespeare observed:
"As flies to wanton boys are we to gods - they kill us for their sport."]


We directly meet TWO gods in the novel:
The goddess Iris "appears" to Priam ... It is not clear [to us as readers - OR to Priam himself - whether he is dreaming, or imagining, or that the experience is "real" ... but Iris plants the seed in Priam's head that - just maybe - humans CAN affect their own fate. That life is NOT ruled entirely by gods ... that chance plays a big part. Now to Priam - and to the Greeks - this was unheard of. It was, in many ways, blasphemy. It was saying: The gods are NOT all-powerful as you once believed; humans can in fact SHAPE their own destinies.

Now Malouf leaves it up to us, as readers, to make our own decision:
Was Priam dreaming? Was Priam's unconscious self telling him these things? Was Priam in a trance and imagining it all? or did the goddess Iris actually speak to Priam?

With the other god who appears directly in the novel - Hermes - Malouf presents him as "real" ... we do not question whether he is there; we simply accept it. After all, Hermes is not just "seen" (and perhaps "imagined" ) by Priam; Somax converses with him too. And Hermes guides the old men to Achilles' tent without the guards seeing them...


In the mind set of the ancient Greeks (as in the mindset of modern Evangelical Christians) it was perfectly acceptable to believe that the gods (or in the case of modern Christians and Moslems) would speak directly to humans.
One of the Christian hyms goes:
He lives, he lives Christ Jesus lives today
He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way
He lives, he lives, his wisdom to impart
You ask me how I know he lives: He lives WITHIN MY HEART.


So ... you might say: if we believe in something strongly enough, then for us, it EXISTS ... it is REAL...

I think that Malouf was "playing" with the idea of a human at a PARTICULAR MOMENT when his way of seeing the world CHANGES ... Priam is certainly insightful about WHY he is going... he has a GUT FEELING that this is the ONLY way he can regain the body of his son...by sheddin all the appearance, all the trappings, all the prestige of his "CEREMONIAL SELF" - ie Priam the king - and being nothing more, or less, that a man, begging another man for the body of his son.

Greek tales told of heroes behaving heroically, and being aided by the gods. Priam went "godlessly" to Achilles, went as SIMPLY a man. Like Somax. No longer Priam, and much more like his childhood self, when he was Podarces ...

I hope that helped.

I hope you've had a great holiday and I look forward to seein you in less than a week now.

Feel free to follow up with any further questions.

Barry

17. Who is the REAL you? Are YOU real?

This is a really intresting video clip. It involves a philosopher talking about the concept of SELF.

http://www.youtubesnips.com/watch?v=GFIyhseYTWg

16. RANSOM: "Pages 60-80 have me stumped"

EMAIL: Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 Subject: RE: VCE ENGLISH 2012

hi Barry

I'm up to page 80 and the last 20 pages have stumped me, is it just Priam talking to Hecuba the whole time about how he wants to get hectors body back?

A

Hi A,
Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday - we arrived home from our week's hol down at Blairgowrie late in the afternoon, and I was a bit tired so took it easy last night.

Now - to the 20 pages that have you stumped.
Priam has:
a vision ?
an encounter with the goddess Iris?
a dream?
a hynogogic experience?
a moment of insight while in the disoriented space between sleeping and waking?
has an intuition?
[I think Malouf suggests all of these as possibilities, but settles on no single one as explanation, so as readers we are uncertain as to EXACTLY what has happened. But we do know it was a powerful experience, one that leads to clarity in Priam's mind.]

And Priam comes to a clarity about what he must do - an intuition. So he goes to his wife, Hecuba, to tell her.
The 'solution' is: He must strip himself of the trappings of his 'ceremonial self' - Priam as king. He must go to Achilles, not as a king, not in pomp and circumstance, not with all the implied power of a king, but as a man reduced to his bare essentials ... a man who is a father, nothing more, to beg the return of his son's body.

[Perhaps part of his intuition is that ALL men - all people - "wear" ceremonial robes, that all play out ROLES, and that BEHIND/ BENEATH/set apart from that ceremonial/OUTWARD self, there is an inward self. And that INWARD self is something we ALL share - even the great Achilles, the great warrior, the great jackal!]

Hecuba objects. "He will just murder you". [She refers to Achilles as a jackal - that most ignoble of creature, a creature with no mercy, no gentleness - a creature that tears away at the flesh of the dead, that survives on and by death and mutilation].
She sees Achilles as inhuman, a jackal, with no "human" core.

IMPORTANT: This distinction between "ceremonial self" (or outer self or persona) and the "inward self" is a key concept. Go back to the very opening, and we see it there - in Achilles two selves : the father/human farmer/warrior self that takes over when he is a boy of 6, and the 'eel-like"/ watery/ mother self that has been hidden for so long.

Malouf is touching here upon an important idea that psychology has been exploring too - the notions of MULTIPLE SELVES, and of the CHILD SELF as ONE of these selves.

Priam seeks to convince Hecuba that the ACTION he plans is the ONLY way - that only through a ransom of himself can he regain the dead body of his son.

He then tells Hecuba the story of his own life - and of how he 'lost' his child-self. The story concerns the mighty Hercules, half man/ half god. Priam has not always been Priam. He was once Podarces, son of a king. A child of around 6 [a parallel with Achilles]. His father's kingdom was under attack from Hercules. To protect the young boy, Podarces father had hidden him among the peasant children - living in squalor in the village. The war goes badly for Podarces (Priam's) father; Hercules is victorious.

Hercules wants to find the prince.
[It was common in those times to kill off the whole family of a king, so tehre would be no "rightful heir" to the throne. Even in the 20th century, this practice was still happening. When the Communists took over in Russia, the Tsar and his whole family were executed. The hanging of Saddam Hussein and the killing of most of his sons is perhaps another example.]

Priam tells Hecuba the story again ... of how Hercules told Podarces young sister that he would spare whoever the girl chose. This of course could have been a trick. Hercules could easily have been tricking her into disclosing where Podarces was. That is certainly what the young Podarces FEARED was the case.

But Hercules spared the child that the girl identified. He gave Podarces a new name - PRIAM - a word that means "ransom".


I hope that that makes that section of the book a little clearer.

I can't believe that we have only 11 days left till classes start.
Have a great last few days of break.

Regards

Barry

15. RANSOM: Section 5

The final section of the novel describes Priam’s return to Troy and the successful
completion of his mission, though there is nothing triumphal about this moment. In
the closing pages Malouf evokes a vision of the fall of the city, the destruction of its
culture and the dispersal of its people. In the most violent scene in the novel, the
death of Priam at the clumsy hands of Neoptolemus is portrayed as the ultimate
instance of the ugly horror of war, its brutalising logic and destructive inevitability.
Malouf provides brief images of the fall of a great city and the enslavement of its
people, a vision of Troy itself through the portents of its final transformation: ‘Off in
the distance, the hills towards Troy are just beginning to develop shadows on their
sides: their crests are already touched with gold’. (p.207)

This theme of transformation is continued in the final section with the character of
Priam; who through transforming back into an ordinary man, a father of a murdered
son, has also become a figure of legend, the protagonist of future narratives that will
recount his journey to the camp of the Greeks and his courage in facing the fearful
Achilles to ask for the slain body of his son: ‘Look, he wants to shout, I am still here,
but the I is different. I come as a man of sorrow bringing the body of my son for
burial, but I come also as a hero of the deed that till now was never attempted’. (p.209)

Priam has transformed himself from a king into a man and hence into a hero of mythic stature through story. Priam returns to Troy and feels his homecoming now as a state of ‘exultant well being’. This state is short lived in the novel as the focus immediately shifts to Achilles’ vision of the son’s murder of Priam, a symbolic act of patricide in which Achilles
experiences the eternal shame of its violence and absence of dignity: ‘And for him
the misery of this moment will last forever; that is the hard fact he must live with.
However the story is told and elaborated, the raw shame of it will be with now till his
last breathe’. (p.214) The central human importance of story becomes the novel’s
final image with the figure of Somax under the misshapen sycamore recounting the
stories of the fall of Troy and that image prefiguring the central role of all storytellers in human culture, of Homer himself and epic poems such as the Iliad.

14. RANSOM Section 4

With the assistance of Hermes, Priam and Somax enter the Greek camp unhindered.
Priam is ushered into the mess hut where Achilles has been sitting in the isolation of
his grief. Achilles feels the presence of Hermes and immediately becomes sensitive
to a transformation of being (‘He has moved into his mother’s element’). He
experiences a vision, at first mistaking Priam for the ghost of Patroclus, and then
more profoundly for his own father Peleus (‘Father?’); thus transporting Achilles back
in time to a clear vision of his father who he has not seen in nine years, the same
amount of time he has not seen his own son Neoptolemus. This is a telling moment
of misrecognition, in which Priam comes to stand for the figure of all grieving fathers,
Achilles included, who experiences the deep sensations of a son’s yearning for his
father, his double sense of loss, embodied now by the father of the man he has killed
and refused an honourable burial.

As he has planned, Priam addresses Achilles in plain language, something he has
been assisted in by hearing the earlier stories of Somax. Priam’s appeal addresses
Achilles as both a son and a father, evoking the inevitable mortality that sees time
pass in the natural ebb and flow of generations between fathers and sons. Achilles is
moved by Priam’s request (‘Beyond this old man who claims ... to be Priam, King of
Troy, hovers the figure of his father, which is too immediate in Achilles’ mind, too
disturbing, to be pushed aside’), and perhaps due to what he experiences as the
‘dreamlike quality’ of the moment, in which he ‘feels immobilised and outside time’,
accedes to Priam’s wishes. Achilles is, however, also overcome by another vision,
this time an apocalyptic one in which he sees the death of Priam at the hands of his
own son Neoptolemus — a revelation that also contributes to his ultimate act of
mercy and expiation of his own grief and guilt.

Achilles makes plans for the transfer of Hector’s body and watches entranced as a
group of women wash and prepare it for the journey back to Troy. The description of
this transfer has clear signs of Achilles anticipating his own death and the shared
fate that joins him to Hector. Priam leaves Achilles’ camp with a new sense of
wonder at the reality of the man, not the fearsome figure of the vengeful warrior,
intuiting that there is an understanding to be gained of his enemy that might avert the
fate of his people and city. Achilles farewells Priam with an offer of help at the
moment when the walls of Troy will inevitably fall. Priam answers with a fateful
caution of Achilles’ own impending death.

13. RANSOM: Third section

Structurally, Section III is the dramatic centre of the novel, yet it is also the ‘quietest’
most serene section of the narrative. Priam and Somax journey to the camp of
Achilles, a journey that might have been expected to present great challenges or
obstacles to be overcome in epic fashion. In keeping, however, with Priam’s original
vision the journey is described as an entirely ordinary affair, leading Priam to ponder
on the nature of ordinary reality. This section is notable also for the role that Somax
plays as a story-teller of the most ordinary, even mundane realties as with his
description of the making of the griddle cakes which becomes almost allegorical in its
evocation of humble work and the sustaining pleasures of honest labour. As Somax
tells the story of how the pikelets came to be made, Priam is transported into the
world of his subjects, a universe he appears to have very little acquaintance with.
The details of this story come to be seen as completely in keeping with Priam’s
vision of approaching Achilles, not as a king, but as a father. Somax’s story
expresses his own pride and pleasure in the work of his daughter-in-law who is
sketched in language akin to that of a still life portrait:

‘It’s a real pleasure to watch the batter bubbling and setting and turning a golden
brown, as you can see, around the edges. The lightness comes from the way the
cook flips them over. Very neat and quick you have to be. The daughter-in-law, she’s
a good girl, uses her fingers — it’s a trick you have to learn — and if she happens to
burn them she pops her fingers into her mouth ...’. (p.119)

Priam listens intently to this story as it transports him into another sphere, the sphere
of ordinary experience, a world fundamentally different to the one he usually inhabits.
The details of ordinary life come before him as so many reminders of what it is to be
human, water, fish, birds and insects: ‘They were not in the royal sphere. Being
unnecessary to royal observance or feeling, they were in the background, and his
attention was fixed always on what was central. Himself’. (p.122) The formality of his
royal identity is what Priam watches melt away, the ‘world of ceremony’, as he listens
first to Somax/Idaeus recount the details of common experience; then, more
dramatically when he hears of the death of Somax’s two sons, which constitutes an
important narrative counter weight to the story of Hector’s death and the mission
they are on to retrieve his body. The stories Somax tells of his own family have
nothing of the epic quality of the siege of Troy that afflicts the Royal House of Priam,
but the details he evokes of injured children conveys a simple colloquial power that
entrances Priam. Somax speaks in a colloquial voice that examines the nature of
filial and paternal bonds, the very heart of Priam’s quest. Somax explains that when
he left that morning his daughter was running a fever:

To tell the truth, sir, just at the moment she’s a worry to me. If I’ve been a bit absent
at times, and wrapped up in my own thoughts, it’s because I’ve been thinking of her,
poor soul, as you do, sir, when they are all that’s left of your own blood’. (p.130)
Somax/Idaeus expresses the very human qualities of filial devotion, pain,
compassion, selflessness and care which have consumed Priam, who, up until this
moment has struggled to find an opportunity to express them himself. This story of
the sick daughter gives way to more haunting memories of the death of sons, ghosts
of the past that continue to torment Somax and force their way into stories. The
chronicles Somax describes about the deaths of his sons, is contrasted with the epic
scale of the death of Hector. However, these are presented as equally affecting for
the narrator telling the story. Whether it is the death of a hero on the plains of battle
or in the mud attempting to free a cart the shared feeing is one of profound sadness
and regret, of inconsolable longing that is the abiding legacy of a father who has had
to bury his son. Somax speaks in a language that deeply affects his listener,
confirming the justice of his vision and the rightness of the mission he has embarked
upon. Yet Priam also comes to understand that the nature of Somax’s connection to
his sons is one of a ‘violent intimacy’ that he has never known:
‘Did he regret these human occasions, and the memory of them that might have
twined his sons more deeply into his affections and made his relationship with them
more warm and particular?’ (p.138)

For the remainder of their journey Priam and Somax are joined by a mysterious
guide who appears suddenly in the guise of a Greek soldier but is unmistakably a
god, Hermes, sent to guide them to the camp. They pass through a region that has
been transformed: ‘The landscape they were entering was one of utter devastation’.
(p.155) Just prior to entering the Greek camp Priam experiences a moment of almost
divine inspiration when he realises that the young god has been addressing him as
father:

‘Now with the play about to begin in which he was to represent ‘the father’ — and in
a way he had never until now attempted — he was moved by the invocation of the
sacred tie, and took it, from a god’s lips, as an endorsement and blessing’. (p.161)
This endorsement foreshadows the climactic encounter with Achilles and focuses
what has been the principal dramatic concern of Section III.

12. RANSOM: Second section

In counter balance to Achilles, Malouf introduces Priam, King of Troy, who has
witnessed the death and desecration of his son, Hector. Priam is a character who is
also consumed with grief, Hector being one of many sons he has lost in the war with
the Greeks. Priam is initially portrayed as a character who embodies the city, as the
king he is Troy itself, its personification. Hector’s death provokes in Priam
apocalyptic dreams of the destruction of the city: ‘The grief that racks him is not only
for his son Hector. It is also for a kingdom ravaged and threatened with extinction...’.
(p.40) Priam is subject to haunting visions of the destruction of his city and its
people; acutely sensitive to his own role as the sacred embodiment of their history
and culture, his status is that of a ceremonial figure, more than a man, he is
effectively confined within the ceremonial function of his title and, therefore,
experiences a dislocation from the world of human particulars, including his own
family. At one point Priam confesses to uncertainty as to the exact number of
Princes, his own sons.

Priam has a vision in which he converses with the goddess Iris who suggests to him
that his fate is not merely to be a puppet of the gods and that as a man he can affect
his own destiny by recognising the powers of chance — a blasphemous suggestion,
but one that gradually liberates Priam’s conception of himself. In this vision Priam is
transformed, no longer the embodiment of the grandeur of Troy, but simply a man,
seated on a cart, beside a driver, with the collected treasures of Troy behind them.
Priam understands instantly, instinctively what this vision means and what he must
do. The symbolism of the ransom touches something deep within him, as we later
learn from Priam himself; both his name and his fate are the result of a much earlier
ransom.

Priam informs his wife, Hecuba, of his vision and his consequent decision to travel to
the camp of Achilles to seek the ransom of their dead son’s body. Hecuba too is
portrayed as a figure consumed with grief as she gives voice to the atrocities she
has witnessed in war. Hecuba expresses a mother’s suffering as she must
remember the experience of childbirth while her dead son lies mutilated on the plains
outside the city walls. Malouf develops the dramatic contrast between war and
creation, the maternal instincts of Hecuba and the illogical destructiveness of war.
Hecuba’s memories of carrying her unborn children are removed from Priam’s own
recollections of his children which are uncertain and ill defined. Hecuba’s particular
recollections anticipate those of Somax when he recalls the deaths of his own sons
in all their specific detail and vividness.

Hecuba is frightened by Priam’s plan to ransom their son’s body and, in an attempt
to assuage her fears, Priam recounts his own narrative of chance and redemptive
transformation: ‘You know my story ... You must have heard it a hundred times as a
child in your father’s palace’. (p.63) Priam then tells the story of Podarces, son of
Laomedon, King of Troy. As a child Priam/Podarces witnessed the earlier siege of
Troy and the death of his father. The child prince hides among a group of beggar
children who will be enslaved by the city’s conquerors; in yet another instance in the
novel of the dualities of self and of the transformation into otherness, the prince
becomes a beggar. The story of Podarces incarnates the theme of chance as he
only narrowly escapes the fate of spending the rest of his life as a slave by the
chance reunion with his sister Hesione who has been promised her ‘choice’ by
Heracles, conqueror of Troy. When she chooses her brother, Heracles renames him
Priam: ‘ … the price paid, the gift given to buy your brother back from the dead. So
that each time he hears himself named, this is what he will recall ... And in the
secrecy of his own heart, that, for all the high titles the gods may heap upon him, is
the life he will go on living day after day till his last breath’. (p.74)

It is not only being renamed that affects Priam so profoundly but another sensation
that evokes the importance of story: ‘I had experienced something I could not unexperience and would never forget. What it means for your breath to be in another’s mouth, to be one of those who have no story that will ever be told’. (p.75) Thespectre of enslavement is not the worst fate that threatened the child Podarces, but to have become one of those numberless masses who are denied the consolation of having their individual stories known. If the victors write the narrative of history, Priam has experienced the fate of the losers, to be erased from the narrative, to have become anonymous, forgotten. The symbolism of the ransom becomes central to the narrative as the ransom allows Priam to transform himself for a second time in his life — on this occasion, to transcend the trappings of his royal ceremonial self, a role that has become something of an emptiness: ‘Only I know what it costs to be
such an object. To rattle about like a pea in the golden husk of my ... dazzling
eminence’. (p.78)

The response to Priam’s plan among the members of the Trojan court, his remaining
sons and daughters, is to attempt to dissuade their father from venturing on such a
dangerous mission. Malouf depicts the social divisions within the court as the effects
of a decade of war. Helenus, Cassandra, Deiphobus, Polydorus and Priam’s other
children represent a divided family who give expression to their own dislocations
within the larger culture of the city, but also their distance from the king himself. This
lack of intimacy is expressed through their inability to understand what is motivating
their father, his profound need to transcend his own role as king and act as a father:
‘You ask me to stand, as I have always done, at a kingly distance from the human,
which in my kingly role, as you say, I can have no part in. But I am also a father.
Mightn’t it be time for me to expose myself at last to what is merely human?’. (p.85)
Priam explains to the assembled court why he feels so profoundly impelled to move
beyond his sacred and ceremonial role, to enter the terrain of the merely human as
the necessary act of a father and how strongly this is tied up with his own feelings of
mortality, this quality which distinguishes human experience and consciousness.
Finally, it is Priam’s account of how deeply felt is his need to experience this
consciousness of his own mortality and identity that silences the objections of the
court. Arrangements are then made to satisfy Priam’s wishes, at first unsuccessfully
when the king is presented with transportation befitting his royal status, not the
simple mode he requested. After Priam’s angry rejection of a royal chariot this
mistake is quickly corrected; and the carter Somax with his two mules, Beauty and
Shock, is enlisted to accompany the king to the camp of the Greeks. Before the end
of this section there is another important moment of transformation in which the
humble carter Somax is transformed into the King’s herald Idaeus.

11. RANSOM: WAR and the TREATMENT of the DEAD

In The Iliad Homer describes Archilles' behaviour after he has killed Hector in one-on-one battle: he ties a rope around Hector's feet and then drags his dead body through the dirt, around and around the city of Troy. It is an act of desecration. Hecuba, Priam's wife and Hector's mother, describes Achilles as a jackal; she, like the other citizens of Troy, are appalled by Achilles' barbarous act.
In Ransom, Malouf also recreates the scene. The scene is pivotal to the plot of the novel; it is what prompts Priam to undertake something no man had undertaken before.

Today's newspapers and current affairs programs are full of commentary on a recent atrocity in Afghanistan involving US troops. Here is an examples:

US marines video sparks criminal investigation

Lisa Millar reported this story on Friday, January 13, 2012
Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes)
Alternate WMA version MP3 download
A video allegedly showing US marine soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters has sparked a criminal investigation. It's been condemned by US officials who are concerned it could lead to a backlash in Afghanistan against its troops.

EMILY BOURKE: A criminal investigation has been launched into a video apparently showing American marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. US officials including Hillary Clinton have condemned it as disgusting, deplorable and against American values. The US is concerned it could spark a backlash in Afghanistan against its troops and damage early attempts at brokering talks between the Taliban and other warring parties. North America correspondent Lisa Millar reports.
LISA MILLAR: The footage is brief, its ramifications unknown. The camera moves into place while four men in marine uniforms stand urinating on three dead bodies.(Sounds from video)Whoever who posted it on the internet included details of the sniper team and its battalion.The military is checking its authenticity but the reaction from senior officials like Hillary Clinton appears to confirm there's little doubt.
HILLARY CLINTON: Condemning the deplorable behaviour that is reflected in this video. It is absolutely inconsistent with American values, with the standards of behaviour that we expect from our military personnel and that the vast, vast majority of our military personnel particularly our marines hold themselves to.
LISA MILLAR: Several investigations are already underway.
HILLARY CLINTON: Anyone, anyone found to have participated or known about it, having engaged in such conduct, must be held fully accountable.
LISA MILLAR: From Afghanistan there was reaction on behalf of the international forces from General Adrian Bradshaw.
ADRIAN BRADSHAW: These actions do not represent the values of the vast majority of coalition forces who serve their nations honourably. Such behaviour betrays the core values of every service member here representing 50 nations of this coalition.
LISA MILLAR: While it raises questions about training and supervision the video could also impact on early attempts for reconciliation with the Taliban.While that policy has its critics the White House spokesman Jay Carney says there has to be a political solution in Afghanistan at some point.
JAY CARNEY: But it is, it is, coexists with our military campaign. It is in fact our military campaign that has set the conditions for initial reconciliation discussions that we hope will begin taking place.
LISA MILLAR: The Taliban is quoted as saying the video won't impact on planned peace talks because they were at such an early stage. The US says those talks needs to be driven by the Afghan government.
ILLARY CLINTON: I think all of us are entering into it with a very realistic sense of what is possible. And that includes of course president Karzai and his government which after all bear the ultimate responsibility and the consequences of any such discussions.
LISA MILLAR: A senior US diplomat is due in the region this weekend for more talks with Hamid Karzai. This video is unlikely to help any of those discussions. This is Lisa Millar in Washington for AM.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Video shows US marines urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan - PM 12.01.12
NATO stops Afghan prisoner transfers over torture, ABC News, 07.09.2011
On patrol in Helmand province, 7.30, 06.06.2011
Waterboarding helped find bin Laden: CIA chief, ABC News, 04.05.2011
US to deploy extra 1,400 marines to Afghanistan, ABC News, 07.01.2011
New Abu Ghraib photographs send shockwaves through Arab world, PM, 16.02.2006
Two prisoners dead in custody in Afghanistan: Pentagon, The World Today, 15.12.2004

10. And YET ANOTHER special post: The GAP RESOURCE

The GAP Resource

Sometimes, persuading people to do what we want is just a matter of being cute. But at other times, PERSUADING people is hard work. Not only that, we are bombarded by the attempts of others to PERSUADE us: buy this, join me in this campaign, do this, don't do that.

The GAP Resource is aimed at helping you with the USING LANGUAGE TO PERSUADE secttion of the VCE English course. This page will contain a detailed list of the contents of the blog. To access the blog, click on the link below:

http://thegapresource.blogspot.com/
CONTENTS

28. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 22: Workplace Bully...
27. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 22. Teenage mums a...
26. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 21.
25. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 20: SCHOOLS FUNDING...

24. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 19: Needle Exchange...
23. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 18. GAY MARRIAGE
22. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 17. More on Youth S...
21. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 16. Japanese Whali...
20. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 15. Occupy Melbourne...
19. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 14: Australia's...
18. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 13. ABORIGINAL DEAT...
17. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 12: GAMBLING & HE...
16. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS: 11. ALCOHOL and B...

15. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 10: CARBON TAX DEB...
14. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 9: GENDER ISSUES
13. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 8: GLOBAL WARMING
12. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 7: DRUG TESTING OF...
11. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 6: CANNABIS USE I...
10. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS: 5. Breast Implants...
9. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 4. Youth Homelessnes...
8. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS 3: YOUTH SUICIDE
7. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS: 2. ABORTION
6. ORAL PRESENTATION TOPICS: 1. CORRECTIVE RAPE
5. ORAL PRESENTATION: CHOOSING YOUR TOPIC
4. What does this section of the exam look like?
3. More about METAPHOR
2. Analogy & Metaphor
1. Welcome to the GAP Resource

9. VERY SPECIAL POSTING: LINK to the GPS

Like the freeway, like the World Wide Web, our brains carry lots of traffic... lots of BITS [or bytes] of information. It's very hard to keep track of everything that's going on.

When we're driving, it helps to have a good Melways, a good roadmap - or even a GPS. It's the same with writing. With so much traffic - so many bytes of information - running through our minds, it's easy to get confused. That's why I've added this LINK. This link takes you to my GPS site for writing.

G = GRAMMAR

P = PUNCTUATION

S = SPELLING

Sometimes, when I'm giving you feedback, I will refer you to a particular posting on the GPS. Please make use of this LINK on those occasions - or just browse around and learn a bit more about English grammar, punctuation and spelling.

http://barrysgps.blogspot.com

CONTENTS

14. More on Sentence Fragments
13. Sentence fragments
12. And some more on TAUTOLOGY
11. Tautologies: Try your hand at spotting them
10. A Dead Corpse Watches a Soccer Game…
9. Proper Nouns
8. The half brothers of punctuation: colon and sem...
7. It's rather, somewhat, quite ... cluttered
6. If ... Subjunctive Mood in English
5. Metaphor: Spice Girls explode onto the stage
4. SPELLING MATTERS
3. WRITING - DOs and DON'Ts
2. Spelling Demons: ITS and IT'S
1. Welcome to the GPS

8. Whose Reality? A video introduction

This clip presents some key philosophical ideas about the attempts that humans have made to understand the notion of reality.

Don't worry if it doesn't make complete sense to you at the beginning. Watch it, make notes, ask question, think about the two approaches to reality that it presents.