Paper 1 Area of Study

Paper 1 Area of Study

Section I Question 1

Sample responses

Text one – Image

(a)Describe how the image depicts the idea of belonging or not belonging to a family. 2

Families offer a sense of belonging but can also be limiting. This is suggested by the image Family Sculpture by John Searles. The similarity in the head shapes which incline inwardly towards each other suggests a strong bond but the organic shapes and different colours of the bodies which seem to float away from the centre suggest a struggle against the constraints of belonging. The image therefore illustrates the paradox of belonging which gives a sense of unity but can also be restrictive.

Consider:

What are the visual techniques in the text? / How does each visual technique illustrate belonging? / How does each visual technique illustrate not belonging?

Text two – Nonfiction extract

(b)‘… I was more aware of our difference.’

Explain the speaker’s relationship with his brother.2

Here are three possible responses to this question:

Alternative response 1

From the first line of the extract the metaphor of standing outside a door makes the reader conscious of the speaker’s sense of exclusion from his brother. He develops this sense of difference with reference to each person’s physical appearance, their relationships and their speech patterns. The difference he felt was clear in the way each brother wore the same clothes, the persona looking like a “lost scarecrow”, while the older brother wore the clothes “with ease”. The brother had many friends while the persona was “solitary”. The brother adopted the Australian accent quickly while the persona spoke with “thick stumbling textures of Holland”.

Alternative response 2

The speaker in this extract is clearly feeling negatively about his brother and their lack of relationship. He defers to his brother but resents being made to wear his clothes, which make him feel fascination for his brother physically. He says he admires his brother and this is obvious in the explanation of his brother’s ability to play sport. He seems to feel some envy of his brother who had many friends and adopted the Australian accent quickly,while the persona was “solitary” and spoke with “thick stumbling textures of Holland”.

Alternative response 3

In the metaphor of standing outside a door, the reader is conscious of the author’s sense of exclusion from his brother. While he starts with a negative anecdote about his brother’s oppressive nature in handing down his clothes, the persona uses positive adjectives about his brother who wore his clothes “with ease”, “blended in” at school and had a “natural ability” at sport. This all suggests envy of his brother, and reinforces the statement that he admires his brother.

Consider:

• Does each response deal with the “relationship” sufficiently?
• Does each response appropriately link the answer to the concept of belonging?

Text three – Nonfiction extract

(c)‘It is Beth, not May or Phoebe, who understands my exile.’

How does this text portray friendship as an alternative source of belonging? 3

The family unit is often seen as the primary source of belonging but, in this extract, the persona makes clear that belonging can be about choice and often friends can better provide the support and understanding that is needed.The persona begins with arhetorical question about families expressed in the negative, followed by repetition of the adverb “too”. This immediately places family in a negative context as a unit that is stifling and filled with unspoken private meaning. In contrast, the friend Beth is “perfect”, described as having physically pleasing attributes and being “of one skin” with the persona. The two sisters May and Phoebe have shared experiences of guinea pigs and dogs while the persona was in a country “where even the moon is upside down”. There is a suggestion that they are very different ages. The relationship with the “blood sisters” is presented as a “struggle” and filled with “mismatched memories” and a “flood plain of incomprehension” which gives the persona a “wounded” feeling. The friend Beth, however, is understanding without needing to be spoken to.

Consider:

• This question requires you to discuss alternatives. What are the alternatives offered in the passage and discussed in the response?

• Does the response appropriately link the answer to the concept of belonging?
• What other techniques can you find and how do they develop the concept of belonging?

Example and technique / How does the technique illustrate belonging?

Text four – Poem

(d)‘This is the record of our desired life.’3

Explore the speaker’s attitude to the family photo album as a record of belonging.

Within the photo album that forms the title of the poem is contained a “record of a desired existence”. The use of the adjective (“desired”) is important as the poem is about the difference between the reality and the images that are contained in the album as a family maps out the life that they live. The speaker lists the formal occasions for photos (“weddings, graduations, births and official portraits”) but then follows with descriptions that highlight the falsity of the experience through such language as the word “rigid”, the exaggeration in the phrase “too buoyant”, the adjective “tinny” and the explanation of staged scenes and artificial beach. These words emphasise that the album is not about reality,but about the “desired” reality. In contrast, the speaker talks about “aimless nights”, “tears” and “brittle lost intentions” which fail to be recorded in the album of family life. The lack of importance of any family event is indicated by the enjambment and lack of capitalisation for each line, which reduces life events to a more prosaic but continuous level. Near the end, the use of the homonym “negative” (meaning both something that is not positive and the original image) is a further statement about the ambiguity of the realities we construct. Ultimately, what the speaker is telling us is that we make choices about the past that we belong to and the events that we share as a family and that the life we display to others is not always accurate or the full version.

Texts one, two, three and four – Image, Nonfiction extracts and Poem

(e) Analyse the ways distinctive perspectives of family and belonging are conveyed in at least TWO of these texts. 5

The extracts provided may each illustrate their own distinctive individual perspectives about family and belonging but they also similarly attack accepted notions of family as a positive and harmonious unit of belonging. Extracts two and three both deal with sibling relationships of different genders and extracts one and four look at the way the whole family unit operates. The three written texts are from the first person perspective while the visual text uses an abstract image to create a sense of family. In Like My Father, My Brother, Michael Sala shows the family as a competing and antagonistic unit leading to a “rage”, while Drusilla Modjeska suggests in Sisters that the family is a source of misunderstanding with “mismatched memories”, the sisters feeling “abandoned and bereft” and the persona feeling “expelled and exiled”. Sala speaks from the point of view of a younger brother whose grievances about being made to buy ill fitting hand-me-downs (“they never sat on me properly”) reflect an insecurity about being “solitary” and not fitting in with the wider community. Modjeska, in contrast, is the older sister and her experience is about a sense of exclusion from the younger sisters who are separated from her by physical and emotional distance.

In both the non-fiction extracts, friendship is considered a positive relationship but for Sala it is unattainable because of his personality, while for Modjeska friendship provides a meaningful alternative to “blood” sisters. Friendship is not a consideration in the other two extracts which focus on the family unit. The visual extract suggests through the outflowing shapes of the body contrasted with the intimate position of the heads, the delicate balance between the group and the individual needs in a family. The family portrait that emerges has an overall effect of unity just like the photos in the album, “the record of our desired life” in the poem “Looking in the Album”. Both these extracts deal with the image of family that we project to the world. There is a consciousness of the family as a construction that perpetuates the idea of people united and belonging together, “Pleasant, leisurely on vacations … showing / in our poses that we believed what we were told”. Memories become an integral part of the way we see the family unit in all the written extracts. In the poem we are told about negative memories of “brittle, lost intentions”, moments and the “wilderness of ourselves” where the individuals felt a lack of family bond. Negative moments are removed from the image of the family created in the album, which captures “formal times” and shows a perfect family with even children’s hair showing the “recent marks of combs.”

There is a tension between belonging and not belonging to family, which is evident in all four texts. There is also a clear assumption of the family unit as being the place where belonging is expected to take place. As we can see, however, in all the extracts, belonging to family can be a struggle.