Module C: Elyse Popplewell. Mark: 19/20. Trial.

The experience of a landscape is never identical between any two people.

Landscapes can evoke experiences and great significance for the individuals experiencing
them. Colm Toibins Brooklyn and Tim Wintons Distant Lands both represent the notion of
how a landscape can affect an individual and their experiences.
An individuals perspective of their landscape may be conditioned by their attitudes
towards the values and limitations. Brooklyns Eilis, for the most of her life, had experience
the conservative culture of Irelands Enniscorthy. She had expected that she would find a
job in the town and marry someone, and give up the job and have children. The repetition
of and emphasises the way that Eilis life was mapped out into linear stages. The third
person narration also indicates that this was a limitation of the landscape that not only Eilis
accepted. She expected that she would have the same friends and neighbours and the
same routine in the same streets. The listing syntax emphasises the chronology of life in
Enniscorthy, but Eilis only shows compliance, no resentment. The rooms in the house on
Friary Street belonged to her, she thought. The word choice of belonged indicates the
possessiveness and pride that Eilis had in Enniscorthy, but Eilis shows compliance, no
resentment. The imperfect tense in, She knew that her mother would be awake too,
listening for every sound highlights the ongoing presence of the mother in the Enniscorthy
landscape. Eilis had a pleasant experience of Enniscorthy and did not resent limitations in
the landscape, like her mothers constant attentiveness.
Alternatively, only the old National reminded the girl that her mother was there in
Distant Lands. Fat Maz had an experience of her landscape in the quiet newsagency very
different to Eilis in Enniscorthy. She felt relieved whenever her parents went home for
lunch and left the shop to her. The word choice of the verb relieved indicates the
release of tension that Fat Maz experienced when her parents briefly left her landscape.
An individuals experience of their new landscape is determined by their attitude
towards their original landscape and how significant it was to them. When Eilis moves to
Brooklyn, she experiences challenges not presented to her in Enniscorthy. Toibin represents
Eilis homesickness by juxtaposition differing levels of fulfilment and using anaphora when
Eilis recalls Enniscorthy, as all a solid part of her, nothing here [Brooklyn] was part of her.
This is a testament to the significance of Eilis experience in the Enniscorthy landscape.
Ironically, in her new environment of originally advertised freedom, she felt as though she
had been locked away. Toibin describes Eilis experience and homesickness as a new
feeling that felt like despondency. The third person limited omniscient narrator assists in
allowing a responder to understand the experience of her new landscape.
The third person limited omniscient narrator also aids a responder in understanding
the literary representation of a landscape in Distant Lands. The narrator reveals that before
Fat Maz meets the Pakistani Man, she felt herself getting fatter every day. The
introduction of the man changes her landscape and she accepts the change in the hope that
it will bring her a positive experience. She shrugged and smiled to show the man that she
did not mind. The visual imagery indicates the willingness of Fat Maz to accept her new
landscape because the banality of her past landscape was a negative experience and of little
significance.
The significance of a landscape may not be realised by a singular event, but through
observing the delicate details of minutiae. Eilis recalls delicate memories of her
remembered landscape in Enniscorthy. Toibin uses this as a testament to the significance of
Enniscorthy. She could picture her mother taking out her Basildon Bond notepad and her
envelopes and setting out to a write a letter with nothing crossed out. The visual imagery
represents the vividness of which Eilis is recalling her mother in this landscape. She also
recalls the air, the light, the ground. The repetition of the as a definite article indicates
the significance of the landscapes minutiae. Similarly, an unembellished writing style
represents the way Eilis recalls the most basic of memories, unique to her landscape, like
the food she ate there and the clothes she wore. The minutiae is unique to a landscape
and is very significance for someone recalling their experience of a past landscape.

The girl they call Fat Maz realises that the minutiae of her current landscape is
what was so significant to her experience. The paperback book that the man reads becomes
an intensely meaningful motif and metaphor for a symbolic object that causes her to
speculate about imagined landscapes outside of the newsagency and distant lands. The
imagery of the mans Nescafe hands is very significant to the landscape because it would
have been prohibited in her past landscape. Her dad was a racist who would have thrown
him out. Now, she was happy. The narrator uses the temporal connector to show the
very significance of her experience in the new landscape because she hadnt felt this tacit
understanding with anyone before.

Conclusion I used:
The experience of a landscape is conditioned by the attitude and perspective of the
individual. Landscapes can be intensely significant to an individual, as was the landscape in
Enniscorthy to Eilis and the introduction of the man to the newsagency in Distant Lands. The
experience of a landscape is unique to an individual and can be very significant.

Possible conclusion I should try use next time:

The experience of a landscape is conditioned by the attitude and perspective of the
individual. Landscapes can be intensely significant to an individual, as was the landscape in
Enniscorthy to Eilis and the introduction of the man to the newsagency in Distant Lands. A
landscape can be very significant in terms of shaping the perspective towards another
experienced landscape. However, this significance may only be appreciated through
observation of minutiae that characterises a landscape uniquely. Both Brooklyn and Distant
Lands are testament to the significance of landscapes and the experiences they offer.