We See Little of Sissy Jupe in the Novel Obsolete)

8/9/2019 We See Little of Sissy Jupe in the Novel Obsolete)

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Year 12 English] VCE units 3 and 4

F SOMETHING IS HIGHLIGHTED IN YELLOW IT HAS ALREADY BE SENT FOR

MARKING OR IS IN A SEPARATE DOCUMENT!

Update: everything has been sent or separated! This document is obsolete!

Richard III

Not everyone in the play is as foolish as Richard believes him or her to be

how accurate are Richards judgements?

Richard, the cunning and critical protagonist of Shakespeares Richard IIIrellies on his

mental discernment for swift rise to the English throne. His ability to subdue his enemies

xemplifies his sagacity. The audience can assume that he takes those he can overcome

as a comparative fools. The soundness of this judgement reflects in his success in

emoving them from play. In the same way, the shortness of his reign as king reflects in

he inaccuracy of his judgement following his crowning. Mostly everyone in the play is

as foolish as Richard first considers them to before his kingship. His judgement evidently

oon degenerates though and members of the royal court are quick to trump his mind for

t. It is Richard who finally plays the fool in his namesake play.

The Duke of Buckingham acts as Richards co-conspirator as he ascends to the English

hrone. When his primary use has expired, Richard dismisses Buckinghams request for


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his earlier promised reward. He says: I am not in a giving mood. Richards

unconcerned and then ferocious mood indicates that he does not consider that

Buckingham may pose him a threat upon for insulting his hard work by denying his

equest. The text implies that the king has rationalised the situation and takes

Buckingham and as a fool in contrast with himself. As the play proceeds it is revealed

hat Buckingham has greeted Richmonds mobilised naval forces on Englands shores.

Because Buckingham has an intricate knowledge of Richards kingdom, he is particularly

dangerous ally of the sovereigns enemy. Richard took Buckingham as a harmless fool

only to have his judgement proven precariously wrong. We may speculate that his ascent

o the throne proved his undoing due to the comparison of his use of Buckingham before

and after the coronation. Until claiming the crown, Richard was consistently able to

mplicate and utilise Buckingham in his schemes. Afterwards, his failing was so great as

o lose Buckingham to the enemy. Richards judgement was sounds prior to becoming

king, whilst sketchy afterwards.

This proposition is further evidenced by Richards judgement of the foolishness of King

Edward IVs wifes family. Although Richard does not clearly consider them foolish, this

s implied by the minimal political attention he gives them. He does not consider them to


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be a threat and thus considers them foolish. He seems to prove correct in his judgement

his time. He is able to dispose of Rivers and Gray without much trouble. While Lady

Gray is identified as markedly intelligent, she is powerless to stop Richard III and

perhaps this reflects in atleast foolish relative to himself. Consistent with his dealings

with Buckingham, his judgement and insight prior to his rise to kingship is refined and

accurate.

The accuracy of Richards judgement wanes as the play progresses. As a scheming and

agacious contender for the throne he is successful in his ability to judge peoples

wisdom. This reflects in his success in manipulating them. During his reign he is far less

uccessful and this indicates that his judgement has taken a turn for the worse because of

t. The accuracy of Richards judgement of how foolish people are is realistically

variable.


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Richard III

For all its emphasis on power, much of the play is actually concerned with

powerlessness.

n what ways is powerlessness important in Richard III?

note: Ive double spaced my lines and left a margin on the right so that it will be easier

for you to comment if you print this out. You can also go to [Insert comment] and

omment in red if you are marking this on the computer. Would you be able to send me

back a copy of this with your comments via email or can I collect a printed copy with

omments from you when the school year starts? Thank you!

Powerless is important to Richard III in that it establishes setting, context, characters

haracter and acts as a narrative device. Shakespeares play concerns itself with

powerlessness in two ways being the minimal power allocated to woman and children

aswell as the powerlessness of all those subservient to their lords in the feudal political

ystem. This essay will explore how powerlessness is emphasized so much in Richard III.


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Woman and children are subservient to the men of Richard III. They exert only a passive

nfluence with woman coercing those close to them in positions of power and children

xerting only political influence on royal statesmen. Richard exploits the vulnerability

Lady Grays female stereotype for using her power to weave malicious words into the ear

of the king. This allows him to label them as villains. The underlying concern of the court

hat the queen may exert such a diplomatic force on their king implies that this is usually

he domain of female counterparts of those in power. As such, even though Lady Gray

holds such a theoretically powerful position as queen, her power is really filtered through

her husband. She is indeed powerless on our own. This is further emphasised by her

weakness at countering Richard once he has checked the his frail brother. The

powerlessness of females in Richard III is important to establishing the diplomatic setting

of the court and for allowing for Richards deceptions and his enemies responses to be

more realistic and dramatic.Just like Lady Gray the princes who are children and also

elatively powerless. Their power is derived from the courts political use of them aswell

as genuine care for them as family members. Richard fakes kindness and playfully teases

he two princes during their stay in the castle. When the youngest prince says: give me

your dagger Richard is initially taken back, revealing his natural distaste for the prince

and his unwillingness to give up his possession. He is quick to compensate for this by


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esting and offering his sword to the boy instead. Shakespeare tries to make the audience

aware that Richard is trying to demonstrate that he is good uncle in the presence of the

oyal court. In contrast, other members of the court appear jolly and genuinely intrigued

by their visit. However, the only power the princes exert over their extended family is of

patronising value. Just like with the females of the play, the princes power is not their

own. They are powerless, with the emphasis on power being that exerted on others for

heir own inclinations.

The powerlessness of the political prisoner Clarence is important in establishing the

dominating power of the king. His imprisonment and sanctioned death at the mere

ignature and inclination of the king shows that the kings power is almighty and

unmatched by even the next highest ranking individual. His brothers, the once powerful

prince, became powerless at the Kings stead. This feature made Richards assent to the

hrone even more impressive. It was shown that it would be exceedingly difficult for

anyone, no matter how high in rank, to claim kingship out of the natural order. If the king

at any time suspected that Richard was so evilly natured he could easily have had him

xecuted. This is important to Richard III as Shakespeare set out to highlight Richards

deceptive cunning which is central to the play.


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Woman and children were importantly powerless in their own right since it allowed

Richards exploits story to be told in impressionable way that was realistic for the times.

Under the Tudor regime, Shakespeare was expected to conform to the ruling Elizabethan

ulers version of history. By putting Richard in a bad light, the Tudors would be seen in

a better one. It was important therefore that Richards brilliantly evil mind was

accentuated by his own implied powerless by comparison to his brother by his other

brother Clarence being locked up by the authoritative king. The impression we have of

Richard is relevant to this construct and thus very important to the play. Powerlessness, in

Richard III compliments power and it allowed Shakespeare to establish the play that he

ntended.


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Whos Reality

We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are


for you to comment if you print this out. You can also go to [Insert comment] and

omment in red if you are marking this on the computer. Would you be able to send me

back a copy of this with your comments via email or can I collect a printed copy with

omments from you when the school year starts? Thank you!

Authors are in the business of creating convincing fictional realities. They themselves are

nterwoven into the reality that they critique. They perceive, interpret, comprehend and

finally communicate their messageswithin the same illusionary confines that they

nvestigate in their fictional worlds. Furthermore, their readers interpret these constructed


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ealities differently. This is the heart of the Whos Reality? context as implied by the

question posed to students. This discussion is particularly relevant to Robert Drewes

memoir The Shark Net. The indiscriminate tragedies that take place in the authors

hildhood community form the basis of his writing. Drewes book suggests that we do

not see things as they are, but rather that we them as we are.

The faculties of perception are restricted by biological limits. Assuming that there is an

xternal objective reality, we only can sense this partially because our eyes, ears, nose,

ongue and skin can only tell whats there to the best of their ability. If a person has been

blind their whole life they will not be able to comprehend that there might be a world

more than their own four senses perceive in their immediate time and space. In contrast, a

person with full eye sight will be able to tell that there is a much fuller world to be

perceived. Similarly, there are an infinite number of elements of perception which are

naccessible to humans. Reality is certainly far more complicated than we can even

perceive, let alone make sense of. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we

are. We see things as much as we are able to perceive them.


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At another level, what we do perceive may very well be raw illusion. We are not simply

onfined in perception by incomplete sensory information, but also by the potential for

hat sensory information may be illusionary. While it may be considered that intangible

oncepts such as an false belief about something is a something and thus constitutes

eality, it is more useful to consider that this is merely an illusion an impression of

eality which very well may implicate that illusion into as a sort of part reality. The

parable of the "blind men and an elephant" may help to explain this. In this story, each

blind man felt a different part of an elephant (trunk, leg, ear, etc.). All the men claimed to

understand and explain the true appearance of the elephant, but could only partly

ucceed, due to their limited perspectives. In this way, they perceive may both be

onsidered reality or illusionary. For the purposes of this essay such a will be considered

an illusionary fragment of reality. We may also consider the allegory of Platos cave, an

analogy used in the Republic to discuss the validity of the reality we perceive. The Greek

philosopher imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their

ives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things

passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows.

According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He

hen explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and


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omes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as

he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the

prisoners. Similarly, we may see something and believe it to be what is, when really, it is

ust a shadow of its true self. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.

We see things as well as we are able perceive them.

The way we make sense of our perception is governed by our prejudices and the meaning

we illicit from this raw data. Assuming that a beings perception of reality is perfect, they

must still contend with the limits of mortal insight. The weaknesses in the rational of

mortal humans is often brought to light and highlighted when the powers of an

ndividuals objective rational and logical deduction are compared. In the fictional

adventures of Sir Arthur Connell Doyles famous detective Sherlock Holmes, the

brilliance of the protagonist reflects is unequal to those he shares his perceptional data

with prior to forming a conclusion. Whilst he may be able to conclude a case based on the

vidence presented to him, another person cannot. Since the abilities of the mind are

perfectly relative and multi-faceted and as long as there is conflict of any sort (assuming

again an objective, singularly perspected and deterministic reality) it may not be said that


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humanity has reached the truth on any afore ascribed issue. We do not see things as they

are, we see things as we are. We see things as well as we are able to draw insight them

Ungovernable feelings, emotions and memories predicate how we interpret sensor

nformation. Although this subjectivity may skew the accuracy of our interpretations, it is

vitally important our humanity. We can use such subjectivity to make assumptions and to

predict and extrapolate trends for which we have incomplete detail. This distinguishes us

from machines. We are more adaptable at the cost of inaccuracy. If you were to be told

hat a former murderous criminal was to service your car at a repair shop, you might feel

a negative bias towards him. By implicating his criminal nature into your judgment, you

might believe that he will do a poor job in fixing your car; Although mechanical skill and

riminality have no direct bearing on one another, a chain of assumptions means that you

may make a subjective decision. This self determined illusion is inseparable from our

human nature. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. We see things as

accurately we are able to negate out subjectivity in relation to them.

Shared realities that are both perceived and understood in the same way may yet be

ommunicated differently. This may be overlooked as it may be assumed to be a limit

detached by the assumption of perfect perception and insight. However, differences in


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ommunication are established due to physical rather than mental impairments and

personal idiosyncrasies. Another related problem also lies in the dependency of the

ecipient of the information to follow through the process of perfect perception and

nsight themselves. Imagine the eloquent Barrack Obama making the very same speech

as Jesse Jackson . Even if they apply the very same perception and insight into the same

ask as one another and follow through with a speech of the same content, a powerful

distinction will emerge. Jesse Jacksons has the physical impairment of a cleft lip and

palate which affects the clarity of his speech. He may not be able to communicate reality

as well as Obama. These limitations in communications are relevant at higher levels of

understanding as well. The capacity for an entity to comprehend reality as it is, is

estricted due to the tie between communication and perception. If a sentient plant is

aware of physics behind quantum mechanics, whatever knowledge that plant has is

presumable inaccessible to all other forms of life who cannot harvest that knowledge. If

eality by its components, then it is beyond even ideal perception as the information is not

being transmitted to be received.. We do not see things as they are, we see things as we

are. We see things as fully as we are receptive of it.


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The Shark Net illustrates the nature of human reality after the family has moved away

from Melbourne. When Dorothy Drewe has arrived safely in Perth with her children and

perked up she is able to recount the incident involving the one-legged drunken man

p.28) with some humor. She waves round an imaginary crutch and makes the story

amusing so that her husband and friends laugh (p.31). The impression she gives of the

ncident now is quite different from the way she experienced it at the time when [her]

mouth tightened and she looked like she was going to cry again (p.28). Now, Dorothy

presents herself as a woman who is composed and happy and who was equal to the

ituation she faced in Kalgoorlie.

The members of her family would have perceived the event in alternative ways. Each of

hem had independently interpreted the event and finally, she communicated a subjective

ecollection of the encounter. The reality of the event became a highly subjective

xperience as she progressed through the stages of perception, insight and

ommunication and attempted to make sense of her reality. She did not see things as they

are, she saw things as she is. We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.

Written Explanation


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The Shark Net helped me develop my arguments and idea relevant to the Whos Reality

ontexts. The idea that reality is subjective as implied by the context will be the focus of

my piece in response to prompt that We do not see things as they are. We see them as

we are. My position, as inferred by my essay is on the affirmative and that that this is the

product of the limits of our perception, insight and communication/communicability. I

have incorporated outside material into my response including drawing on idea from

philosophy, psychology and literature.

The language and English choices of the Shark Net were not taken into account when

forming my expository piece. The casual narrative style though was not appropriate to an

xpository piece written.

made informed decisions on language and context-related thematic choices removed

from the texts. This included emulating the writing patterns of 18th century German

Emmanuel Kant whose writing style I find more accessible than alternatives. The content

of my essay met my purpose which was to further develop my own understanding of

eality and to have it reviewed and critiqued by an established professional.


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Hard Times

We see little of Sissy Jupe in the novel, yet she is powerfully significant


for you to comment


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Sissy Jupe is not only an individual in Hard Times, but also a virtue. Dickens intends her

o represent the embodiment of innocent fancy and resilient humanity. Although we see

ittle of Sissy in the novel, she plays very important roles that are vital to the books

hematic development and narrative progression. That would be the picture of what was

very pretty and pleasant, and I wouldfancy... said Girl number 20.

Dickens emphasis on the importance of fancy is Sissys invitation to the forefront of the

novel. She is firmly entrenched in the fertile soil of Slearys belief that. People must be

amuthed, Thquire, thomehow... They cant be alwayth a working, nor yet they cant be

alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. Says Sleary. Sissy studied

under Gradgrinds rationalist educational system and was given particularly educational

attention by the Imminently Practical. Even though she does not successfully complete

her education, she becomes a happy and successful adult. She is more fulfilled and

motionally developed than her counterpart Louisa who suffers from an emotional

breakdown in her adulthood. Sissy is integral to the narrators stance on the issue of fact

and fancy. She is powerfully significant in the way that she illustrates the validity of the

Slearly philosophy and the invalidity of the Gradgrind alternative.


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Dickens uses Sissy to pronounce the contrast between Louisa and her youngest sister

ane Gradgrind. Because Sissy raised her, Jane is a happier little girl than her older sister.

Oh what a beaming face you have Jane cries Louisa to which she replies It must be

Sissys doing This comment is clearly great in significance. This represents a critical hit

o the foundation block of Gradgrinds philosophy of fact and. Sissies influence allows

he narrative to progress and facilitates Dickenss criticism of the inadequacy of a

utilitarian society. Dickens is indebted to Sissy as a tool for which he achieves his

narrative aims.

Sissy Jupe is an important character in Hard Times. Irrespective of how much she

features in the book, the effect she has over the general story, other characters and the

narrators message makes her a central character. Dickens allocates a great deal of value

o her person and the resulting literary value is significantly powerful.

Documents

We See Little of Sissy Jupe in the Novel Obsolete)