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HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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A Home in Fiction
Geraldine Brooks
ABC Radio, 2011
Context:
A Boyer Lecture is a famous annual lecture sponsored and delivered on ABC Radio. Chosen
as she is considered a prominent Australian.
Personal: before she was a novelist she worked both as a journalist in Australia domestically
and as a foreign correspondent, often covering conflicts in the middle east. Her involvement
with and immersion in the lives of Islamic women and her journalistic writing about them is
one of her noted achievements (apart from her novel) –relates to reconciling of facts and
fiction
-recipient of the Man Booker Prize
-the power of literature shown through the eyes of a truly global citizen
-time when computers and digital technology is overshadowing literature for
communication, maths has a certain authority in explaining the world as opposed to
literature, rational outlook–why she is arguing for the value of literature in its power to
explore emotions
Audience:
The scope of the audience is national for these lectures
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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-often lectures given by historians, writers, politicians – those educated on humanities and
not necessarily maths and science
-but because she is an internationally renowned author the scope of her secondary
audience is quite large
-boyer lectures designed for an intelligent and well informed as its main audience
Purpose:
-to show why literature is needed in our society and the power it holds – we can learn from
it
-the speech itself shows how storytellers can have a role in national dialogue
-demonstrate her outlook: we have a shared quest for the full truth of the world –unifying
the goal of writers/scientists/mathematicians
-to argue for the role of literature in finding truths and impacting people
Significance:
Boyer lectures have an agenda setting power in academia and public comment for the
period around their release.
She had a prestigious career with the prizes she won
She comments on conflict she worked on as a correspondent such as in Somalia and the
Middle East – in some of these places conflicts are still continuing and the struggles of
Muslim women which she commented on –people are suffering injustice and mistreatment
due to poverty, conflicts that their voices can be brought to light through words eg. Syrian
conflicts –millions of dispossessed people without a voice
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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Ideas:
-we share a common attempt to get at the truth ‘maths is poetic’ and this is fundamental to
human nature and is all that is important
-there is distance between human experiences but despite that they have an essential
connectedness -‘consciousness is shaped by fear and joy…’
-vouches for literature though and its power because it has less authority in our society.
Maths has a special kind of authority in describing the world but her message is that
literature is equally important.
-her general rhetorical strategy is to discuss literature in a way that relates to the wider
world to show its universality as opposed to maths
-literature and history have a symbiotic relationship and are interconnected – fiction can
bring to light an authentic past human experience. Although it may be fictional the
oppressed voices ring true over time and don’t change. We can learn about our world
through literature and history, and history can shed light on the future. –link to Pearson,
Keating
-links to Atwood and Lessing – all show how language can become a vehicle for the
exploration of social issues and timeless human concerns and emotions
-her argument is that although times have changed we remain essentially the same and
every generation has its storytellers
-the idea of ‘truth’-fiction can be used to ‘expose’ the truth by giving voice to the oppressed
-the complexity of human experiences –with literature these can be brought to light
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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WHY IS LITERATURE SIGNIFICANT?
-universality –its ability to connect anyone as opposed to specialised knowledge, -revealing
universal human truths, a vehicle for exploring social issues and timeless human concerns
-its ability to explore different experiences and thus unify disparate human experiences –we
gain wisdom and improve our life
-giving voice to the oppressed –impacts our society
Values:
-value of fiction – it can be inspirational by triggering our imagination or showing an
alternate point of view
-the role of fiction writers in contributing to society – language has the power to shape
emotions, perspectives and understanding. It is an emotional and intellectual conduit.
-universal human truths/values – good link to other speeches
-love and its universality
-historiography – the problem with facts and fiction. The importance of historical revelation
– history reveals who and what we are regardless of time or culture.
-the ability to give voice to and give life to people and stories from the past
-effort, persistence at uncovering knowledge
ANALYSIS:
General:
-the speech has a cohesive anecdotal style – relates to idea of storytelling
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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-literary allusions to relate to her values – the importance of fiction
-beginning with anecdote, descriptive language ‘on a crisp autumn day’ –writerly
(suggesting her personal stake) juxtaposed with deliberate choice to retain mathematical
jargon ‘Singularities in Algebraic Plane Curves’ – positions the audience (humanities) to
relate to it the way she does and those uninitiated to maths do – confusion, rejection
-audience unfamiliar to the terminology – she characterises herself as in sympathy with
them
-quoting her notes ‘homomorphism is an isomorphism’ –audience experiences her
bewilderment at the lexis. Also conveys the eloquence of mathematics just like how
language can convey passion and eloquence, contrasting to her pre-established disinterest.
-‘it wasn’t that I understood her work but I understood her vision’ – mathematician
analogy, contrast between understanding and not understanding – ethos as she admits to
the audience that she too doesn’t understand the details
When she looked at the old maple beyond the lecture room window, at the great swoop
of bough arcing out from massive trunk, her consciousness overlaid a pattern on that
branch that was elegant and sensual. –emotive language relating to her purpose of
asserting the need for creative fictions - textual integrity. Need language for the audience
to have a sensual perception of these mathematical patterns not maths itself. Antithesis
between negative expectation and ignorance and imaginative engagement
‘I am sure though that our work, the mathematician’s and mine, is essentially the same’ –
personal pronoun to demonstrate her connection to the mathematician (they have
different methods but the same aim)
-‘I started hoping out for the woodshed’ – antithesis and reversal of allusion to Thoreau
creates humour – she is humble – ethos
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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- Another major theme and obvious value of Brooks’ speech is the problem that history
and ‘facts’ present the fictional writer and vice versa. This is buying into an obvious
allusion to postmodern claims concerning the imperial and empirical (facts vs creating
own truth). The discipline of history is invoked several times. –link to Pearson
‘why should a novelist need facts? Isn’t fiction fact’s antonym?’ ‘they are the
indispensable framework into which imagination can be poured.’ –rhetorical questions
‘to give the work a sense of authenticity’ ‘but the fiction must dictate the design’ ‘the
story must tell me what I need to know…when I come to a place where I need to know
something, only then do I go looking for it.’ -metabasis
-history – link to Keating. History is a way to find the oppressed voices which can rise in
fiction. Other people can understand historical mistakes and we can better our world.
‘as a result of that fiction I no more believe in writer’s block than in panel beater’s block
or hairdresser’s block’ – analogy that creates humour. Compares writing to a detailed craft
but one that is not only for intellectuals, it has political and everyday uses and so it is
universal which is why it is so important.
‘writing may aspire to art but it begins as craft. Words are stones and the book is a wall’ –
writing metaphor. ‘your wall will stand up straight and true’ – inclusive pronoun
implicating audience in extended metaphor. Writing is something that care must be taken
into therefore it has value. Same point as being compared to a trade –a universal language.
‘the important thing is the effort’ – high modality. The value of ‘effort’ – the way the
persistence at finding knowledge is important no matter what the discipline –something
that unifies them
‘my second book, Foreign Correspondence’ – anecdote showing how she is qualified to
speak on the topic of fiction due to her past experience , she personally understands the
power of literature– ethos
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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Link to Lessing – the invocation of a silenced voice –‘the questions nagged at me until I
started hearing voices’ ‘something similar has happened in all of my novels. Someone
rises up out of the grave and begins to talk to me’ – idiomatic language – appealing to
audience
‘the voices that speak to me are the voices of the unheard’ – repetition of the voices (get
better technique)
‘If one definition of home is a destination, then I have reached it at last, as a fiction writer
who draws inspiration from the past and nourishes it with experience garnered as a
foreign correspondent.’
-the central metaphor of ‘home’ - She shows how fiction is an important way of reaching
this home, as much as fact.
On her experiences as a foreign correspondent ‘you try to clear the cache…You can’t drag
and drop your memories into the void’ (wisdom has an emotional cost)– computer
metaphor – showing how humans have emotions unlike computers so fiction etc. is just as
important type of knowledge as it plays on emotions as other logical/analytical subjects
such as maths. The cold, calculating nature of the computer contrasts to the deeply
emotional connection between literature and human memory. Fiction generates wisdom.
Contemporary language to relate to audience.
For weeks, months the stones lay scattered’ –extended wall metaphor -Also highlighting
her own personal difficulties to demystify the idea of intellectual writing – as this speech is
broadcast nationally they could have been apathetic. Also shows how language relates to/is
accessible for everyone
What is the price of experience, asks the poet William Blake. Do men buy it for a song? Or
wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his
house, his wife, his children. Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the wither’d field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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-allusion to William Blake – someone whose writings transcended his immediate location as
he never left London – links to universal human values (TI – allusion to fiction writer, and
significance). The audience also relates to the simplistic language. Juxtaposition of
computer metaphor and literary allusion – computer culture marginalises the literary
canon/overshadows literature now and so she is relating to her literary audience. It cannot
deal with emotions whereas fiction can.
‘I believe fiction matters. I know it has power. I know this because the jailers and the
despots are always so afraid of it’ – anaphora of personal pronoun ‘I’ – the power of fiction
she has discovered relating to her experience as a foreign correspondent. They fear it
because it has power, it gives people new knowledge and ideas, but don’t realise the power
it could give them.
15 year old Palestinian ‘because he told me he loved English books I tried to bring him a
copy of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea…the jailers would not allow it’ – anecdote
and literary allusion – linked to textual integrity. Link to Lessing with the power fiction has
shown in the way it provides opportunity to the dispossessed
‘Austrian author Ernst Hans Gombrich describes the business of writing about the past.’ –
allusion to author and historian associated with ‘Bildung’ which values the way art and
literature reflects wider issues of culture instead of focusing on aesthetic experience – TI –
this is an apt reference as this is what Brooks believes – that what is important between the
disciplines is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding not the differences in the ways
they get there. ‘writing about the past…is like lighting a scrap of paper and dropping it
into a bottomless well’ –analogy shows how when history/facts are not clear we need
fiction to bring these voices from the past to light as their experiences can shed light on the
future –link to Pearson.
‘every generation has its Once Upon a Time’ – idiom relating to literature– shows the
universality and enduring power of words
HSC English – Advanced – MODULE B - Critical Study of Texts – Sample Essays – Speeches - Geraldine Brooks – ‘A Home in Fiction’
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‘as Henry James asserts, with a consciousness different from ours, a consciousness formed
when more than half the things that make our world did not yet exist for them?’
-allusion to Henry James a literary critic affirming realism as it can create characters who are
recognisable to the reader – relates to her purpose
‘you can move the furniture about as much as you like: the emotions of the people in the
room will not change’ – analogy –throughout time we have universal emotions which is
why storytelling is universal.
‘Consciousness is shaped by fear and joy, hatred and tenderness’ – listing of different
emotions suggest a wide gamut of human experience, summed up by her vast travels and
realisation of the myriad of human experiences. It is universal human consciousness that
literature can explore and connect different people through, even over time.
ENDING – ‘This is what I know. They loved, as I love. And that is as good a starting point
as any.’ –bringing disparity of the list to a personal conclusion unifying human experience
throughout time and place.