Creating And Presenting – Year 12 English
These are some fine examples of year twelve English work by Gabi Tribe, Sarah Van Es and Ben Kampschoer
Dear Joe,
Today I’ve been diagnosed with de Clerambault’s Syndrome. A week of testing and psychological poking and prodding, they’ve found what’s “wrong” with me. De Clerambault’s syndrome! I’m sure you know what it is, Joe? With your extensive science background? Not only that, you know almost everything, Joe!
De Clerambault’s Syndrome, Psychoses Passionelle, is also known as Erotomania. A psychological condition, in which the sufferer is under the delusion that a certain person is in love with him or her. Typically, the object of this delusion is of a higher social class than the sufferer and is merely an acquaintance- at most- in reality .
I listened, I took in the words. They didn’t link, they didn’t make sense. I let them wash around in my brain. They swirled and churned, still, I could not understand it. Suddenly, it all connected! They had mistaken our passionate love, my mission from God, His task, for a mental disorder! They had put a psychotic label on our love! Ha! Oh how I laughed when I realised. I laughed and laughed, I couldn’t stop. Didn’t that send the nurses running with the meds! But I don’t care, Joe. It doesn’t matter that they cannot understand our bond, our perpetual love. We are the only ones who can feel it, and we are the only ones who have to.
So we’ve been forced apart. See what love does, Joe? This is a test from God, a test to see if I have succeeded in His mission. He is testing me, and how far I will go to bring you to his love. My love. I have had to sacrifice my freedom to prove myself. Well in this test, our test, we won’t fail Joe; we won’t. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder?’ It’s true, Joe. In our time apart, I have grown fonder! I think you have too? I’m sure you’ve been thinking of me, wondering where I am, what I’ve been doing with my time. I’ve been thinking of you, too. I know, it’s only been a week, but it feels like an eternity without you. We’ve been apart over seven days now! Can you believe it? A day without you seems a day wasted. So, I have to settle with my memories and dreams of you, of us, and build strength from these.
You’ve left me with a wound, and no use of my right arm. But don’t worry Joe, I deserved it, it’s a small price to pay for my horrible intentions, I deserved a thousand bullets in my arm. I don’t know what I was thinking! Now I am left with a reminder of your love, how you saved me. When I feel my arm throbbing, the blood pumping through my veins, I feel alive with love. Soon, the flesh will heal, and I will be left with a deep scar. A permanent reminder of your affection!
It’s an ugly place, this institution. Bland, sterile, confined. Nothing like the comfort of our home, Joe! Today I’m writing to you sitting inside in large, blank recreation room, at a steel table with matching chairs. A reflection of this cold place, where I am surrounded by cruel and delusional people. But don’t worry, Joe, because I think of you and it warms me. I can feel your love running through the ground, it vibrates through the furniture, it makes me withstand these arduous times. Your love is being carried on the breeze to me. You keep finding ways to contact me, to send messages to me, despite our distance. Only we know that you don’t need pen and ink to speak to me. Our little secret!
Well, Joe. Once again I must leave you, and I thank you, again, for your love, and for saving me. You see, now I am suffering in return for my reckless attempt your life, and then mine. So let us pass this test with flying colours, and come out with a belief and faith, and love in God. And remember, Joe; faith is love.
Jed
I have written his piece in the context of the effects on reality imposed by changes in his emotional, physical and environmental state, and applied it to the character of Jed. This is to explore Jed’s reality, what impacts it, and how. I felt a good time to explore and exploit this was when Jed’s environment changes drastically (from having freedom to being locked away in a mental institution), his physical state has changed (being separated from Joe, his loss of use of one arm, being pushed back into society and interrelating with people), and his emotional state has changed (being diagnosed with de Clerambault’s syndrome, his recent attempted suicide and attempted murder). I decided to write after these events, to explore the immediate changes in Jed’s reality. We could take a basic conclusion from the letter Jed writes to Joe in the appendix 2 of the changes in Jed’s reality, but it was written after three years of separation from Joe, and there was a large gap between the attempted suicide and that letter being written. It was vague, and I felt you had to assume what the effects of the earlier mentioned events were, and how these had affected Jed’s reality, without clarifying how or why. I decided that an immediate letter would be appropriate, showing the instant effects of drastic changes in Jed’s life to his reality.
I have written this in the form of a letter to Joe, as Jed frequently does throughout Enduring Love. Letters are the way in which Jed communicated most effectively, and descriptively, which gives us a decent insight into him and his reality (including his goals, morals, etc.) A letter is the only way Jed can communicate with Joe (although the institution holds the letters, to prevent Joe from further distress), which fits well into the story without seeming discordant. In the letter, I had made it the first letter Jed sends to Joe since being admitted into the institution, and I wanted it to portray Jed’s immediate emotions and reality, and its changes. `
In the letter I have written, the tone I have used frequently is elation and excitement, because Jed is quite excited and happy because he has found reason in his admission to an institution, and feels close to God, and closer to succeeding in his ‘task’. The purpose of this tone is to show that the attempted murder, suicide attempt, etc, had an effect on Jed, but he twisted that reality to suit himself and apply to his religiosity and personal beliefs. An example of this is when Jed refers directly to Joe, usually in a term of adoration (‘you know almost everything, Joe!’). The frequent-use of exclamation marks portray Jed’s emotion, which is used to emphasise the tone of the piece. Jed twists reality, no matter how dire or inappropriate, and seems to create delusional positives from them.
I structured the letter similar to one of Jed’s previous letters (pg. 93). I opened the letter with Jed explaining to Joe that he had been diagnosed with de Clerambault’s, and how absurd he found it. Then, in the body, I refer to Jed’s location and surroundings, his present feelings and thoughts. I then refer to Joe sending ‘messages’, a common theme of Jed’s, and then close with a paragraph on how hard it is to say goodbye. In relation to language I’ve tried to write in the same descriptive, emotional style as Jed. There are also rhetorical questions sprinkled throughout it, a technique used in previous letters by Jed to position Joe to agree with him, and suggest certain answers.
The audience I have selected to write for is the same as Enduring Love, predominantly young adults and adults. Therefore, I kept the language and style as similar as possible to the original text. In this piece, I hoped to have successfully explored the way extreme changes in Jed’s environment affect his reality.
Gabi Tribe
In Enduring Love, no one reality is fully reliable.
Enduring Love cleverly portrayed three equally fascinating realities that really caught the reader’s attention. Jed, Clarissa and Joe each portray a different reality with different levels of reliability. The degree of reliability depends on the person they were, their ability to comprehend, their availability, mental state and of course the situation and how, either directly or indirectly, involved they were.
Placed on a continuum, it is obvious that Jed’s reality would be at the lower end of the scale, least reliable. Jed suffered from the psychiatric condition, De Clerambault’s syndrome, making him suffer the delusion that he and Joe were meant to be together. Jed was unable to see that Joe and Clarissa were happily married and in love. He also came up with distorted reasons and interpretations of simple actions Joe made, such as touching the bush and opening the curtains. He tried to make messages come from them. Jed’s reality can’t be completely discounted though and he isn’t completely unreliable. There are credible things that can be physically checked such as his family and past.
Moving further up the scale of reliability towards where Clarissa would lie, her reality is more reliable than Jed’s but less reliable than Joes’s. Clarissa constantly has a second hand view on the situation between Jed and Joe. She didn’t have any direct contact with Jed; everything she knows she gets filtered through Joe. She reads the letters and hears of some phone messages but is sceptical towards Joe and his constant encounters with Jed. Although Clarissa does try to support her husband, it is just out of loyalty to him. Eventually though, loyalty runs out and Clarissa is left confused over why her husband has gone to such extremes, purchasing a gun to get rid of Jed. Her reality is still quite clouded by these personal issues between her and Joe that have emerged from his issues with Jed.
Joe would be placed at the top of the scale as most reliable, yet he’s still not fully reliable. Joe carried with him a lot of emotional baggage and was directly involved with Jed’s taunts and delusions. He felt quite threatened by Jed and his distorted reasonings behind simple actions Joe had made, for example, Joe touching the bush and opening the curtains. Jed would extract messages from these actions and it totally confused Joe. John Logan’s dramatic and tragic death also deeply affected Joe. He was continually fighting the guilt of letting go of the rope first, unsure of whether he did or not. Struggling to come to terms with the confusion these events brought, made Joe’s version of reality unreliable as well.
The synergy of these three realities leaves the readers seeing each point of view and combining them to make their own reality. The blend of Jed, Clarissa and Joe’s stories create a whole story that compensates for the lack of credibility each separate reality holds. Each character is important to the story as without each, the story would lose a whole lot of meaning. So, even though each reality on its own is not fully reliable, the combination of them all creates a reality that is plausible for the reader.
I chose to do my piece in an expository essay form to help explain my point of view that no one reality is fully reliable. Using the continuum enabled me to give an overview of where I would place the three main characters between least reliable and most reliable and then create an overview of structured points to make it easier for the audience to interpret each character’s inabilities to expose a reliable reality. I also felt that it would be more appropriate for the context that I was aiming to write in.
I used a more formal tone as I felt it was necessary for the context of the text. It was needed to portray a thorough examination on each character and their reality. I tried to use a slightly less sophisticated style of writing than what Enduring Love contains to make it easier for the reader to interpret the points I made. I did this by not using much descriptive text like McEwan did, rather I used concise points. The reader needed to think about the points made against each character so they could then compile the thoughts and create their own reality on Enduring Love.
I felt that I needed to use Joe, Clarissa and Jed’s realities to capture the different levels within Enduring Love. Through writing this piece I have learnt there are a lot more layers to Enduring Love than I first understood. With all Jed’s interpretations of Joe’s movements and then how it affected Clarissa and Joe’s home life. My piece is both a compilation of my thoughts and interpretations and evidence of each character’s realities flaws.
In Enduring Love, no one reality is fully reliable
Sarah Van Es
Tolerance of differences between people is a prerequisite for man’s survival
How often have you seen or heard something you don’t agree with but held your tongue? How many times have you put up with someone else’s viewpoint to keep the peace? We as social beings are forced to tolerate many views and actions that we do not share or agree with, and our ability to continually do this is a significant reason why we have survived so successfully to this date.
Showing tolerance does not require an individual to see another person’s side of the argument, showing empathy towards them, nor is does it require feigned expression of interest towards groups or practices that are genuinely disapproved of. Tolerance does not demand acceptance. To tolerate something is to put up with it, to turn a blind eye.
In the past we have all had to show toleration in some form, but there has always been a select few intolerant individuals who will continually challenge others’ views and naively ignore the general consensus. Even though there have been many cases where these people have been more than correct, you only have to imagine what it would be like if people were not able to show a minimal amount of tolerance. We would undoubtedly struggle to cooperate.
Take war for example, it is often common for thousands of lives to be lost in religious or political conflicts due to differences of opinion. If people could tolerate other people’s religious or political views and perhaps favour a more universal standpoint it would often be possible for such conflicts to be prevented.
In the modern world there is also a sense of obligatory tolerance which comes from our social contract. The social contact provides us with the safety of civil rights in return for subjecting ourselves to civil law or political authority. Continually intolerant behaviour can be seen as a violation of this contract, and although we are allowed the right of rebellion against the contract, punishment is often needed for such violators. The social contract demands tolerance of others in order to maintain peace in society.
People’s tolerance levels are dependent on a number of factors. Religion, location, gender and age will all affect someone’s ability to tolerate different situations and events. Individual perceptions will also change tolerance levels, what is tolerable for one person can be intolerable for another, simply due to the fact that they have perceived the same information differently.
Furthermore, situational variables can cause a normally tolerant person to be irritated by something they would normally ignore. An example of this would be an individual becoming intolerant of someone else simply because they’ve had a rough day or are under considerable stress. From this we can conclude that people’s tolerance levels are continually changing with the environment around them. People can learn to become more tolerant through increased knowledge or exposure, or less tolerant through over exposure or ignorance.
To complicate this, the modernisation of the world has also demanded an increase in tolerance levels as a measure of conflict prevention. As cities become bigger and more multicultural, we will undoubtedly be more exposed to people and practices that we might find intolerable. The same can be said for the internet and television, where almost any content, no matter how offensive, can be found.
Tolerance is a highly essential requirement of sustainable human existence. Tolerance helps to prevent serious conflict whilst still allowing people to voice supporting or opposing views. If we lived in a world without tolerance we would all be in continual disagreement and it would become highly unlikely that we could live cohesively at all.
Reflective Commentary
This piece was chosen to explore the topic of tolerance under the context “whose reality?” Tolerance levels would undoubtedly be affected by someone’s reality so this piece seemed relatively simple to write. It would as allow room for my own opinions to be incorporated, an exercise I usually enjoy.
I used a reasoned tone for most of the piece and included some strong assertive statements to emphasise important points that I made. An example of this would be the opening sentence of the concluding paragraph which states, ‘Tolerance is a highly essential requirement of sustainable human existence.’ This sentence uses no evidence to back the statement, as this has been provided in previous paragraphs; it only acts to leave a lasting impression of my views on the audience.
This piece was aimed at a generally adult audience, with possible interests in concepts such as the social contract or anthropology. As the concepts discussed are reasonably complex, this speech may prove boring to younger listeners. Its desired impact is to show in detail how tolerance is essential in creating and maintaining harmonious human existence, hopefully provoking discussion on the topic. This piece also managed to provide the audience with an example of the wide spectrum of topics that can be explored under the context “whose reality?”
Further links with this context can also be made. The structure of this piece is similar in tone and style to that of the science pieces written by Joe in the novel Enduring Love. Although this wasn’t highlighted in my initial aim for piece, its incorporation has helped to provide a basis for the language style of the piece and for the scientific and philosophical ways in which my views were presented.
I wrote my piece in speech format not only because it was specified in the prompt, but also because I thought all the information I had would be easy to express in such a format. I also tried to make my piece semi-formal, which would keep it more appealing to the audience because the content would be easier to discuss. In speech writing it is preferable to keep the sentences and ideas as concise as possible, a characteristic which was very important in writing this speech; it would allow maximum information to be delivered accurately and clearly without having to tediously pad out ideas, also suiting the required length of the piece.
I believe this piece is highly successful in achieving its intended impact on the audience. I managed to put forth all relevant opinions I had, both succinctly and clearly. Improvement could come with further research and the inclusion of hard evidence to justify all statements I made.