2012 Comparative Study

bbzlilkim

I am fallen into a deep hole every second I stare at the computer screen And I feel like it is JUST my school that does this 3 text in combination as I have searched the depths of the Internet and Social networking sites and whatnot for help and sample answers just to give me a boost on the essay. I do higher level and my teacher is expecting quite a lot from us, also I have a sample answer paper but it is on theme and issue and that is of no use to me as I am doing general vision and viewpoint and it does not contain the texts that I am studying. However it is useful as it is composed finely on 6 A4 pages but like I said it is useless , being on theme and issue so I was just wondering if anybody could give me a hand with this stupid comparative study thing. The 3 texts that I am doing are Girl with A pearl earring by tracy chevalier, Hamlet by shakespeare and inside im dancing by damien O' Donnell. I am getting frustrated with it. I know what I am ought to write as the main body and whatnot but I just cant seem to start it, like I have got and Introduction and beginning but I just can get my answer to flow with my beginning. HELP.! :eek:

Stewie Griffin

Has your teacher given you any suggestions as to what to base your body paragraphs on?

J_E

I did Hamlet, Inside I'm Dancing, and Kite Runner last year. If I can find my English notes I can give you one of my answers on GV&V.

Really though, any GV&V sample answer should be a good starting point for you to base one on. You need to think for yourself and not just learn an answer in your head. Analyse the texts critically yourself and connect viewpoints and the author's ideas and how they convey them in a piece.

bbzlilkim

Cydoniac wrote: »

I did Hamlet, Inside I'm Dancing, and Kite Runner last year. If I can find my English notes I can give you one of my answers on GV&V.

Really though, any GV&V sample answer should be a good starting point for you to base one on. You need to think for yourself and not just learn an answer in your head. Analyse the texts critically yourself and connect viewpoints and the author's ideas and how they convey them in a piece.

I would be ultimately grateful if you could I just need a sample so I can understand the way in which I am to do it. Thank You.:)

bbzlilkim

Stewie Griffin wrote: »

Has your teacher given you any suggestions as to what to base your body paragraphs on?

No We only practiced once, and my mock is coming up this week and I am on the verge of falling off an iceberg, Metaphorically...
I just need an example of one in order to write mine. I know what I can write for the main body but like I said previously I just don't know how to let the beginning flow into my main essay.

Stewie Griffin

To be honest, if you know the topic you are discussing in each body paragraph, 95% of your problems are sorted. If I understand you correctly, then trying to link the opening paragraph to the body of the essay is a relatively minor problem.

What's the topic of your first BP? Is it the Opening of the texts?

reux_

Hey, I found these notes on GVV and Literary Genre on Dancing at Lughnasa, Girl with the Pearl Earring and Billy Eliot. They were posted originally on:
http://www.allhonours.ie/answers/topic/11865

General vision and viewpoint
Subject matter that reveals a bright or dark outlook
Dancing at Lughnasa: DAL reveals a bleak outlook because of the subject matter it focuses on. The text focuses in part on the modernisation of Ireland. This reveals a dark outlook in life as many in the text struggle to adapt to this, such as Agnes and Rose who lose their knitting jobs because of the opening of a nearby knitting factory, reflecting the transformation of Ireland into a modern, economized country. Many in the country, unused to such a way of life, struggle to deal with this, such as Agnes and Rose who cannot work in such conditions. With no money as a result of their labour lost to the more effective factory, they are forced to leave, emigrating to England, where they likewise struggle. Michael finds Agnes dead and Rose in a hospital for the destitute twenty-five years later, indicating that modernization is not effective and beneficial to all – while it has contributing to turning our country into what we are used now, modernization left behind many who were used to life before its conception.
Girl with a pearl earring: The text focuses on the fictional circumstances in which the famous painting, ‘The Girl with the Peal Earring’ was painted. However this involved much hardship for the protaganist Griet. She was forced to leave home to work a a servant girl in the painter Johannes Vermeer’s household due to her family’s difficult financial circumstances caused by her father’s becoming blind due to an accident. In the Vermeer household she must endure the taunts of one of the daughters, Cornelia. Even when she comes close to some form of happiness, as Vermeer notices her interest in his paintings, Cornelia ruins this as when Griet poses for one of Vermeer’s paintings with Vermeer’s wife’s earring she tells Vermeer’s wife, who is outraged, which eventually forces Griet to leave the household.
Billy Eliot: The text focuses on Billy’s family challenging his personal desires. Billy wishes to dance ballet, but must do in secret due to his father wishing him to take boxing lessons. When Billy’s family find out he is using money for the lessons to dance ballet instead, when his dance teacher tells them about an audition Billy should attend in London, they forbid him from his passion, meaning that Billy must then dance in secret to satisfy his desire.
Characters that share a particular vision of life.
Billy Eliot: We see characters challenging their obstacles in BE, which reveals a bright outlook. Billy challenges the beliefs of those around him, his family, and continues to chase his dream, to dance in Swan Lake, even when he is forbidden to. When his dance teacher comes to his house to tell his father that Billy missed his dance audition, his family fear about the perception others will have Billy and forbid him to dance. However this does not deter Billy who continues to dance. Even in the face of opposition from all around him in his familial surrounding, the young Billy will never give up his dream, which is hearteneing.
Girl with a pearl earring: Despite the hardship she endures, Griet is determined and does not bow down to her difficult situation, which can be linked to her coming from the working classes. She endures leaving home and working as a maid: as she begins to earn money she becomes independent. Soon Griet even begins to love her lifestyle in the Vermeer household. Similarly she is not affected by Cornelia’s troubling her, which is evidenced by her later secretly performing tasks for Vermeer, which Cornelia then uses to contribute to her exit from the household.
Dancing at Lughnasa: Kate attempts to challenge her obstacles in DAL, but this reveals a dark outlook. She attempts to bring Jack for walks each day in the hope that he will return to normal, return to the church, and go back to saying mass, as his paganism challenges her Catholic faith. However she cannot overcome this obstacle: Jack is too intertwined and fascinated with the working of paganism, proven with the death of the rooster near the text’s end, which it is presumed Jack strangled. The text thus shows that even when a character challenges their obstacles, often they cannot and will not be overcome.
Aspects of life texts concentrate on
Dancing at Lughnasa: DAL focuses on growing up, as we view Michael doing so in the play, which reveals a dark outlook. The drama suggests that to grow up one must sever ties with and depart from those who raised and nurtured them in childhood. However in the text this creates tragedy, as it merely increases the fragmented nature of the family that is created initially by the escape of Rose and Agnes to England. Michael’s withdrawn nature from the rest of his family during the play foreshadows his leaving and he admits that when it was time to leave he was happy to, hinting again at the need to do so if one wants to grow up: he does not show much regret at his departure’s contribution to the decline of his family, which compounds the tragic nature of this as it suggests he will not return, nor does he hold a desire to.
Girl with a pearl earring: GP focuses on the sociology of seventeenth-century Netherlands. Again a dark outlook is revealed, as some are inferior to others according to circumstances and beliefs. This is the case for Griet, the protaganist, because of two reasons: class and religion. She is from the working class, which places her economic difficulty and leads to her working for the Vermeers to earn money to alleviate the difficult financial situation her family are in. It is suggested in the text that those who adopt the Catholic faith are better off than those who choose the Protestant faith also: the middle-class (and better-off) Vermeers’ household is decorated with Catholic paintings, while Griet’s working class family are Protestant.
Billy Eliot: The focus here is on the family. Even though, as shown, Billy’s family do not approve of his dancing, they are still supportive in general. On numerous occasions in the text Billy’s father is seen embracing his sons. It must not be forgotten also that Billy’s father pays for his boxing lessons. This shows that despite there being problems and disagreements in the family, there is love present also. This makes the film quite realistic in its portayal of a family as it shows the underlying love and support that is always present in a functional family, even if problems do surface occasionally.
Impressions created by closing scenes of texts
Billy Eliot: In BE there is resolution. Billy’s father eventually accepts Billy’s personal freedom and allows him to dance ballet, bringing him to London himself for auditions. At the end of the film it is shown that this has provided him with his dream, as he dances in Swan Lake. This shows that problems can be overcome, with perseverance.
Girl with a pearl earring: Ten years after she leaves the house, Griet is called back to the house upon Vermeer’s death, at the text’s conclusion. She is now a butcher’s wife, having married Pieter. She is told by Catharina that Vermeer left the pearl earrings she wore to her in his will. However the hierarchical structure of the world of the text, which places Griet at the lower end of life through numerous viewpoints, still affects her as she realises that she is not of high enough class to wear them – she could not wear them as a maid, and likewise she cannot wear them as a butcher’s maid. She ends up pawning the earrings for twenty guilders. Even at the text’s end Griet is still inferior, and there is little suggestion that this will be removed, even if she married to Pieter the butcher. The lack of resolution for this obstacle, caused by such a powerful moment with the return of the earring, is disheartening - we should also remember her family’s earlier attempt to force her to marry Pieter, due to his steady income, suggesting that Griet still is controlled and out-ranked by others.
Dancing at Lughnasa: They do not stay together: rather the family disintigrates. Uncle Jack dies soon after the end of the text. Michael leaves, telling us that when he had the opportunity, he was glad to leave the family home in Ballybeg. Rose and Agnes escape to England, but Michael finds them in England years later and it is revealed that they struggled after leaving Ballybeg, with one sister dying poor and the other in the final stages of her life in a home for the destitute. The final scene of the text, with the family together at the end, is more poignant than happy, as we realise that this is the last time they will ever be together, with several members of the family already planning their escape.
Literary Genre
Different text types
Girl with the pearl earring: The text here is a novel, which means that the audience have a certain amount of power in the presentation of the text. Despite description from the author, the audience has the defining say on how the characters, events and where these are (the setting) appear in their minds. It is up to each reader how the setting of the text, the Netherlands, exactly looks. He or she will decide how the characters appear, such as Griet. It is up to them to decide what the area of Delft looks like, and how the episode where Griet is summoned by Vermeer’s wife to give an account of the incident where she posed for a picture wearing her earrings took place. Is Griet openly intimidated, or frightened? It is up to the reader to decide, as is the case throughout the novel.
Dancing at Lughnasa: This is a drama. Here the emphasis on performance rather than reading as with Austen’s novel above. Unlike the novel where the reader can picture what occurs, Friel’s play shows us firsthand the happenings of the play. For example, he or she views what the five sisters look like, how they dance in the scene where Marconi works and emits music, as well as where they dance in the house – they will view four sisters dancing together in the kitchen, while also seeing one dance off by herself temporarily, spiritually the confines of the home momentarily. This does not need to be described, as the audience sees such events as if they were happening in real life before them.
Billy Eliot: BE is a film. This means that it can tell its story in far more a sophisticated and advanced manner. For example, the film can move the story to different places in relatively short spaces of time (even instantaneously), which often sharply contrast from each other, such as Durham county and London, which allows Billy to travel to the audition in London in a short space of time and allow the storyline to continue cohesively without slowing or even stopping the plot with an unimportant detail as the whole journey from Durham to London. Furthermore this does not require much explanation, as the view of these places alone makes it obvious to the audience that the film has switched locations. In the other text types shown this could not be achieved as easily, as in a novel it would have to be mentioned – the journey to such a location, or at least the description of the new place would need to be devoted page space. Elsewhere, in a drama the set would have to be altered in some way to acknowledge the new place, or the characters would have to make some mention of it.
Broad differences in genre
Billy Eliot: The text is largely heartwarming. Focus is on Billy’s family challenging his personal desires and his unyielding attempts to dance as he wishes regardless of obstacle or circumstance. This determination is seen consistently throughout the novel. Firstly he dances in secret, so as to avoid telling the truth to his family, in particular his father, as he knows they will disagree as his desire for Billy to box has already been revealed with his paying for boxing lessons and declaration that boxing is ‘what boys do’. Later, when Billy’s dance teacher informs Billy’s father of the dance audition Billy should attend, due to his talent, Billy must then dance in secret due to his father’s forbidding him to dance. He does so until his father accepts his passions, showing heartwarmingly that his attempts have been worthwhile.
Dancing at Lughnasa: The tale is tragic. This is seen with such focuses as the modernisation of Ireland. This reveals a dark outlook in life as many in the text struggle to adapt to this, such as Agnes and Rose who lose their knitting jobs because of the opening of a nearby knitting factory, reflecting the transformation of Ireland into a modern, economized country. Many in the country, unused to such a way of life, struggle to deal with this, such as Agnes and Rose who cannot work in such conditions. With no money as a result of their labour lost to the more effective factory, they are forced to leave, emigrating to England, where they likewise struggle. Michael finds Agnes dead and Rose in a hospital for the destitute twenty-five years later, indicating that modernization is not effective and beneficial to all – while it has contributing to turning our country into what we are used now, modernization left behind many who were used to life before its conception.
Girl with the pearl earring: There is a difference in GP as the text is told bleakly, as it focuses on the fictional circumstances in which the famous painting, ‘The Girl with the Peal Earring’ was painted. However this involved much hardship for the protaganist Griet. She was forced to leave home to work a a servant girl in the painter Johannes Vermeer’s household due to her family’s difficult financial circumstances caused by her father’s becoming blind due to an accident. In the Vermeer household she must endure the taunts of one of the daughters, Cornelia. Even when she comes close to some form of happiness, as Vermeer notices her interest in his paintings, Cornelia ruins this as when Griet poses for one of Vermeer’s paintings with Vermeer’s wife’s earring she tells Vermeer’s wife, who is outraged, which eventually forces Griet to leave the household.
Different settings
Dancing at Lughnasa: Here the setting is the Irish rural village of Ballybeg. In Ballybeg, as it typical for most rural Irish villages, everyone knows each other and most if not all of the happenings in the village. The result is that despite the play focusing solely on the Mundy household, anything that happens in the household is known of in the village, meaning that there is a plausible link to the outside world, even if the play only features the single setting of the Mundy home. This contributes to the plot as it means that Jack’s pagan ways, even if confined to the Mundy household, have a sizable impact on the family. We can presume this causes Kate to lose her position as teacher because the church had control of the school she worked in (she mentions discourses with the parish priest, over school matters, showing them to be involved in the running of the school). It is suggested that Jack’s newfound pagan ways and refusal to return to the Church he left for Africa contribute to Kate’s dismissal, perhaps as retribution for the Church, or their non-willingness for a teacher with pagan links (Jack) to hold a prominent role in the school that they run. This can thus be seen as one reason for her eagerness for Jack to return to his position as priest.
Billy Eliot: The setting for much of the film, Durham county during the miner’s strikes, influences the text significantly. It is due to these strikes that the ballet class loses its place of practice and must dance in the gym. This is where Billy is taking his boxing lessons and is prompted into dancing by a dancer and the dance teacher, and learns of his love of ballet. The setting can be seen to contribute in other ways as the striking could symbolize and prompt other characters’ standing up for what they believe in, such as Billy’s dancing despite his family’s disagreement and forbidding of this.
Girl with the pearl earring: The setting is seventeenth century Netherlands. This world plays a part in the text as it is a world ordered by hierarchy. Those in the working class in this world are in far worse circumstances than the middle class. Even though the middle-class Vermeers are not rich, as they rely on the sales of Vermeer’s paintings, they are not plunged into difficult financial trouble when he does not paint as they can rely on his patronage. On the other hand, when Griet’s father loses his sight in an accident, the working-class family suffers severe financial constraint, which forces Griet to work as a servant girl in the Vermeer household, leading to her being painted by Vermeer.
Structural features – narrative pattern
Dancing at Lughnasa: The story is told chronologically, with variations. The story is told from the past, as an adult Michael looks back to the final summer the entire Mundy family were together. His memory does begin with the introduction of the Mundy girls and the return of Michael’s father and progresses forward until the conclusion with all members of the family united in the house but there are alterations within this story. There are temporal changes, with flashbacks and jumps forward in time to fully complete the story, which does depend on hearing what happened outside the time the drama records. One such detail is the revelation that Agnes and Rose died in London after their escape from the Mundy household: this adds more poignancy to the final scene as we see that the two were perhaps best off in the Mundy household, the place they were planning to escape from.
Billy Eliot: The text told in a linear fashion, with one variation. At the text’s end there is a fast forward into the future at the end to see Billy as a professional dancer in Swan Lake. This is used to show that Billy’s actions throughout the film were worthwhile. Despite all the hardship he endured during this time in his adolescence, fighting against his family’s will to try to make his dream a reality, we see that he was right to: at the text’s end, as an adult, Billy is living his dream.
Girl with a pearl earring: The text is told in a linear fashion, from beginning to end, as is conventional. It begins with Griet’s working in the Vermeer household, and follows her servitude there. We are initially shown her first impressions, such as the focus on the many Catholic paintings, but later see her grow into her role and even love it. The text shows the growth of the protaganist as she then gains independence, caused in part by the payment for her work. Later we are shown her secret work for Vermeer and eventual posing for his paintings, which leads to her leaving the house in the aftermath of the pearl earring incident. The text concludes when she returns to Vermeer’s household after his death, to receive the pearl earrings from his will, which she eventually barters for twenty guilders. This is all shown as we would expect to view it in real life, in a progressive manner, with us not knowing the outcome of the story until it has concluded.
These examples show what we have said about these paragraph topics, how they either show the cultural context of texts (their unique worlds), or the general vision and viewpoints of texts (their outlook – either bright or dark). What we will show now is what will happen in the exam: you are going to go into the exam with material you have studied, such as above, and will have to use it to answer a question that will come up, that you will never have seen before. What you have to get used to is using material you have studied to answer any question that is asked of you, in a suitable manner so that you not only answer the question but satisfy the marker that your answer is sufficiently applicable to the PCLM marking scheme. Below we have shown how to use the same paragraph topics and examples mentioned to answer two different questions. Note how not only are the paragraph topics and examples the same in both answers, but so is the structure of both, which as shown in the first set of notes conforms to the PCLM marking scheme. The only thing that changes in the answers is how the paragraph topics are said to answer the question (at the beginning of each paragraph), nothing more.

Canard

My opening paragraph for theme and GV+V is always "The texts I studied/will examine are The Kite Runner (KR) by Khaled Hosseini, The Constant Gardener (CG) directed by Fernando Meirelles and Purple Hibiscus (PH) by Chimamanda Adichie. The theme/GV+V is ____ and I will examine how this theme/GV+V is conveyed in each text through the x, y and z evident throughout the story" or something to that effect - I might only examine two of them if its an (a) / (b) part question for example. Then you do a paragraph on x, where it is seen in each text, then y, then z, then tie it all at the end with basically the introduction. Dont forget to use comparative language too!

You could write PE for Pearl Earring, H for Hamlet and IID for Inside I'm Dancing too - thats what KR/PH/CG are for in mine, saves time and space when writing

kirstymc

Also doing Girl with the Pearl Earring and Inside I'm Dancing - it seems impossible as have found no one else comparing both!

And General Vision and Viewpoint is a killer.