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Table of contents:
PREFACE 1
Common Module: The Merchant of Venice 1
Module A: Keats and Campion 5
Module B: An Artist of a Floating World 8
Module C 11
Discursive 11
Creative 12
Reflection 13

PREFACE
My essays are conceptual essays, not thematic essays. Wat even doz dat mean? So
instead of restricting myself to a few themes, I’ve picked the most ubiquitous and
broadly applicable themes and linked a concept (such as identity
fragmentation/synthesis, contextual cycles, and liminal space). My tutor taught me this
form of essay-writing (here is her number if you require an English Goddess: +61 418
775 860), which enabled me to manipulate my essay to answer virtually all questions
since a lot of the fancy words are actually just placeholders for the question’s keywords.
If you are not a fan of conceptual essays because you don’t like
memorising/manipulating or prefer to know every single theme inside-out, then feel free
to steal analysis. Most of the analysis is original and good.

Common Module: The Merchant of Venice

Notes:
● “Shaping of individual and societal consciousness” and “contextually driven
ideologies” are placeholders → if a question is asking about how characters are
impacted by deception, you could change the thesis to “Composers represent the
role of individual and societal deception in fragmenting certain individuals,
resulting in their attempt to synthesise their social fractures through the human
condition.”
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● The essay is based on the formula that “initial problem → problem fragments
anomalous individual → anomalous individual reacts (generally antagonistically)
and attempts to reconcile themself”
○ For example, topic sentence 1 is saying that “disunity” between the two
secular groups of TMOV’s world is the cause of Shylock’s fragmentation.
However, disunity is once again a placeholder for anything a question
asks and the analysis can be easily tweaked to support it
○ Topic sentence 2 is Shylock’s reaction (through antagonism) to being
socially fragmented
○ Topic sentence 3 is demonstrating that only the human experience can
“heal” someone's social wounds, and I have used other characters to
diversify the analysis. This also works really well with most common
module questions, because they all want you to say something about the
power of the human experience
● Throughout the essay, I have tied in lines about the impact of TMOV on past and
present audiences, which is important as it ticks off one of the boxes in terms of
the rubric and elevates your essay
Paragraph Analysis

Composers represent the shaping of individual and societal consciousness through

contextually driven ideologies, ultimately highlighting the fragmentation and
attempted synthesis of individuals through human connection. William
Shakespeare’s comedy-tragedy play “The Merchant of Venice” (TMOV)
Intro demonstrates the tensions established in a sectarian society, highlighting the
perpetuity of bigotry across Elizabethan and 21st Century contexts. The
consequences of sectarianism are illuminated through the fragmentation of
anomalous individuals, resulting in attempts at synthesising their consciousness
through human connection. Ultimately, this engages the modern audience, inciting
reflection on the consequences of diminishing ideologically different identities and
the inherent potential of human intimacy.

TMOV represents the role of chauvinism in propagating disunity between secular

Christian and Jewish collectives, ultimately fragmenting individual consciousness
and prompting audiences to reflect on the destructive nature of prejudice.

The Renaissance movement challenged the Christian church’s traditional

perception of morals and values. Shakespeare establishes the chauvinism of
Elizabethan society through anti-Semitism directed at Shylock in dehumanising
bestial slurs such as “Dog Jew”, “Cur”, and biblical imagery in “Devil”,
dissociating him from society and fragmenting his consciousness because of his
contrasting morals and values, thus provoking an Elizabethan audience’s reflection
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#1 on religious prejudice.

Antonio’s diabolic denigration of Shylock, “The devil can cite Scripture for his
purpose”, exhibits a Neoclassical portrayal of man as flawed to highlight the
paradoxical nature of chauvinism since the devil is a common enemy in both
religious paradigms, thus demonstrating the futility of the disunity between these
contextually similar ideologies and inciting audience reflection on personal flaws.

Vilified with a tricolon of crude visual imagery, “You call me misbeliever,

cutthroat dog, and spit upon my jewish gaberdine”, Shakespeare underlines
the long-established structures of religious discrimination through dehumanisaiton
and “spit[ing]” on the historically sacred “jewish gaberdine”, illuminating the
universal human tendency to ostracise and subsequently fragment ideologically
anomalous individuals.

In his monologue, “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,

affections, passions?” Shylock reveals the paradox in sectarian disunity given
that all Venetian citizens share the human experience, highlighting his fragmented
consciousness through his despairing listing of common human qualities.

Therefore, TMOV reveals the role of chauvinistic religious discrimination in

catalysing the fragmentation of individual consciousness, inclining the individual to
antagonistic endeavours.

Individual fragmentation by contextually driven ideologies initiates attempted

synthesis of the psyche through antagonism as a means of catharsis, which
paradoxically further disintegrates consciousness.

Shylock’s desire for Antonio’s “pound of flesh” symbolises his vengeful yearning
as an outlet for his ostracism to compensate for the social flesh wounds he
endured, thus illuminating attempts at restoring social fractures through
antagonism, providing modern audiences with insight into the dangerous tenacity
of a fragmented consciousness.

This is reinforced through stage directions of Shylock “sharpening” and

murderously wielding his knife, which visually conveys unmerciful and
uncontrollable yearning for revenge and loss of conscience to evoke fear in
#2 audiences, underlining the consequences of fragmenting an individual’s
consciousness through contextually driven ideologies of xenophobia.

Shylock’s merciless court monologue “The villainy you teach me I shall

execute”, provides audiences with hidden insights, revealing to Elizabethans how
the othering and non-Christian treatment of Shylock by Christians has, instead of
causing mere social fragmentation, paradoxically further disintegrated his
consciousness, fueling him to reciprocate the same villainous actions but “better
the instruction”, eliciting audience reflection on the flaws of their milieu by
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relaying the dangers of retribution.

Antonio’s paradoxical transformation of Shylock into the “Dog Jew” he once

deemed him has exacerbated Shylock’s antagonism and further fragmented his
consciousness, as symbolised by bloodthirsty “Fangs” in “Since I am a dog,
beware my fangs”. Shylock’s zoomorphism of himself to a terrifying dog
represents the internalisation of his endured oppression and his relegation on The
Great Chain of Being, elucidating to modern Audiences the profound effects of
xenophobia on fragmented individuals in intensifying their antagonism.

Thus, TMOV portrays a fragmented individual’s attempts of synthesis through

antagonism, ultimately resulting in further social fracture and conscious
disintegration.

Ultimately, Shakespeare demonstrates how individual consciousness can be

synthesised through the various avenues of the human experience, compelling the
audience to reflect on the power of human connection to restore social fractures.

Shylock’s desperate plea, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”, utilises a
rhetorical question and evocative language to elicit empathy from the audience,
thus displaying Shylock’s attempt at synthesising his social fracture by depending
on common human experiences between himself and his oppressors.

Shylock speaks emotionally of his late wife when discovering that her ring was
traded for a monkey by his daughter, “I would not have given it for a wilderness
of monkeys”, utilising hyperbole to establish an intimate human connection with
his wife, highlighting his attempt to minimise the impacts of his oppression through
love and remembrance to synthesise his fragmented consciousness.
#3
Displaying distress over losing his daughter through intense anaphora in “Why,
there, there, there, there! A diamond gone”, Shylock compares his daughter to
a metaphorical diamond to highlight the pricelessness of his paternal bond and his
frustration over having lost his valuable daughter due to his fragmented
consciousness, thus championing the power of compassion, love, and paternity to
synthesise an individual’s consciousness.

Situational irony in, “The will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead
father”, reveals that Portia has her consciousness limited to the will of her dead
father, but desires to synthesise her own consciousness by acquiring the autonomy
to pick who she loves and marries with freedom during an era of feministic social
suppression, illuminating the potential for human connections to synthesise her
own consciousness, ultimately educating Renaissance audiences and providing
women with more freedom.
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Though Antonio is portrayed as prosperous, his self-reflexivity at the beginning of

the play, “I know not why I am sad”, conveys that despite his wealth he is socially
fractured. Through hyperbolic anaphora in, “My purse, my person, my extremist
means lie all unlocked to your occasions”, Antonio demonstrates his
willingness to compromise his wealth to establish loyalty and brotherhood with
Bassanio, thus reinforcing the importance of human connection to restore social
fractures.

Therefore, Shakespeare establishes avenues of human connection as the only

medium for synthesising fragmented consciousness, instilling audiences with a
new understanding of the utmost importance of human connections for oppressed
individuals.

Conclusio TMOV is a perfect demonstration of how individuals fragmented by the spite of

n contextually driven ideologies resort to revenge as an outlet, but ultimately depend
on human connection to synthesise their fragmented consciousness.

Module A: Keats and Campion

Notes:
● This essay is the only one that’s actually thematic, but it still can be easily
manipulated to answer any question, since I have covered every single theme
pretty much
● My structure is two chunky-boi paragraphs, alternating all Keats then Campion
● Resonance is in the foreground (as it should be), but there is also dissonances
as well

Paragraph Analysis

Through time, composers inevitably criticise or glorify contextual ideologies in order

to engage their contemporary audiences. Both John Keats’ Romantic poetry and
Jane Campion’s 2009 Postmodern biopic “Bright Star” resonate through their
embrace of negative capability to explore contextually boundless human
Intro conditions. Keats’ evocative poetic form accepts philosophical uncertainty and
dissents Enlightenment tenets, elevating Romanticism to reveal spiritual truths
through nature and art. Campion recontexualises Keats’ poetry for a pragmatic
21st Century audience, taking Keats’ negative capability off the page and filming it
as intimately-imagined moments to continue the conversation of prevalent
contextual values.

Keats’ artistry, in the form of his Romantic poetry, captures the beauty of nature
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within negative capability, ultimately unlocking spiritual truths. Campion reimagines

this artistry through a Postmodern naturalistic cinematic lens, utilising it as a
medium for entertainment as well as social commentary on prevalent aspects of
the human experience.
Artistry & Written during the major decline of his health, Keats’ To Autumn explores the
nature phenomenological experience by capturing the season’s fruitfulness, labour and
inevitable decay through idiosyncratic senses.

Keats embraces negative capability through apostrophes in “Where are the

songs of Spring?”, invoking the sense of sight to communicate the speaker’s
attraction to Spring’s rebirth.

The temporal dissonance, evident through the varying lengths of time that the
poem elapses, serves to highlight that only nature and art will prevail against the
constant force of time, emphasising Keats’ awareness of death when writing To
Autumn, and thus utilising nature to reveal the spiritual truth of mortal transience.

The symbolism of fruit in “To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells”,
conjures the sensation of sight and taste to represent the bounty of Autumn,
furthering Keats’ exploration of the range of phenomenological features to capture
the beauty of nature.

The pastoral imagery of nature thriving on a lifeless building in “fruit vines that
round the thatch-eves run”, highlights Keats’ Romantic preoccupation with
nature, establishing it as a counterpoint to futile human endeavours, provoking
audience reflection on their materialistic pursuits.

Campion employs a distant framing to reduce the stature of the characters amidst
the backdrop of repetitive housing and clothing lines all within nature, thus
diminishing human activity to imply the insignificance of mortal endeavour.

Campion begins the film with an extreme close-up of what the audience
misunderstands as skin, which turns out to be cloth upon zoom-out, agreeing with
Keats’ spiritual truths on the fragility of the human body, whilst also establishing the
motif of feminine art through sewing.

Romanticised cinematic appropriation of Keats sitting in a tree amongst a backdrop

of nature cinematically reveals Keats' brooding tendencies, capturing how his
artistic creative brilliance arises from observations of the natural world.

Thus, Keats’ poetry captures the beauty of nature to reveal truths about the nature
Link of existence, whilst Campion reimagines Keats through cinema for modern
audiences.

Keats’ idealistic poetry elevates Romantic tenets to establish his yearn for immortal
legacy and love in the metaphysical world, whereas Campion embraces realism in
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examining love and death physically, but preserves Keats’ Romanticism which is
unbound by context.

The self-reflexive nature of When I Have Fears emphasises the immortalisation of

Keats through the everlasting nature of his poetry.
Love, death
& Keats’ allusions to Fanny in “fair creature of an hour!” and “Of unreflecting love!” if
immortality prophetic of their ultimate romantic shortcomings, highlighting the despair that
accompanies romantic desire due to the inevitability of death.

Keat’s desire to “harvest” his potential like “full ripened grain” is subverted when he
is harvested by death, this duality elevating Romantic values of nature and
imagination to establish Keats’ desperation for success.

The anagnorisis relating to Keats’ romantic and vocational success, “to

Nothingness do [they] sink”, establishes the futility of these mortal pursuits,
however, the abruptness of Keats’ words make readers question his sincerity. This
also establishes the irony of the poet persona to audiences, as ultimately Keats is
immortalised through his art.

Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thou art presents Keats’ cognisance of his
own mortal limits.

Keats’ invocation of the bright star creates an ethereal atmosphere which appeals
to the contextual notion that the “artist is the visionary”, elevating his imagination to
divine inspiration to reveal spiritual truths to the audience.

The alliteration of “st” sounds in “Star” and “Steadfast” connote the star with
steadfastness because of the phonetic similarity.

However, the personification of the star imbues it with human qualities through the
Romantic tenet of imagination, allowing for comparison of this “Bright star” to the
speaker with the oxymoron “sweet unrest”, creating a metaphysical duality of the
star’s permanence and state of “Eremite” loneliness, which can be compared to
our own human condition’s fleetingness.

Campion’s incorporation of butterflies are indicative of her naturalistic

mise-en-scene which embraces Keats’ appreciation for nature. Shots of Fanny
capturing these fragile creatures connotes capturing time, representing both Keats
and Fanny’s desperation for permanence and consummation. However, Campion
demonstrates realism through the close-up shots of dead butterflies,
foreshadowing Keats’ imminent death “If I don’t hear from him”, and highlighting
the transience of life.

The final scenes of the film also work to immortalise Keats by demonstrating the
loss experienced as a consequence of his death, as the aerial shot of Fanny
walking through the winter landscape reciting Bright Star demonstrates the
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everlasting nature of Keats’ poetry. The multisensory experience of the consistent

midshot and lack of non-diegetic sound focuses the audience on Fanny’s
breakdown in this intimate moment. The breathlessness Fanny feels and physically
inhibiting Fanny from retreating to her room parallels the final days of Keats’ life
dying from tuberculosis, suggesting an eternal bond between the pair.

Therefore, Keats’ idealistic poetry conveys his yearn for everlasting legacy and
Link love, whereas Campion embraces realism in examining love and death physically,
but preserves Keats’ Romanticism which is unbound by context.

Module B: An Artist of a Floating World

Notes:
● This is a conceptual essay and the concept is “cycles” and “liminal space”
○ From paragraph 1 to 3, I run through how:
■ 1: generational conflict is a confirmation of the different contextual
cycles, and furthermore how the old generation’s “cycle” is expired
because we live in a more progressive, ideologically evolved world
(a cycle represents this, because if you belong to a cycle you don’t
want to leave it...you just want to remain in it because it’s
comfortable, like Ono does; we will all one day grow old and make
fun of the young generation, it’s just human nature)
■ 2: this paragraph just highlights how older individuals are then
struggling--in terms of their identity--and are a stuck in a liminal
space between their traditional values and young generation’s
values
■ 3: this paragraph demonstrates Ono’s attempt to understand the
younger generation and “escape” from his old contextual cycle,
which of course is highly impeded by his fallible memory
Concept Analysis

Intro Every individual inhabits a transient contextual cycle which will eventually expire
with the conception of a new generation of ideologies, leaving these individuals in
a liminal space between the past and the present to reflect on their fragmented
identity. Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1986 novel “An Artist of the Floating World” (An Artist)
encapsulates the upheaval of societal paradigms as a result of the generational
shift post World War II, influenced heavily by the societal flux induced by
Thatcherism in the late 1900s. Ishiguro captures the struggles of individuals
caught between the past and present contextual paradigms, and presents a
Postmodern-unreliable portrayal of self-reflection involved in attempts to restore
fragmented identity to connect to the world more broadly.
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Generational Ishiguro highlights the necessity for conscious evolution of thinking by establishing
conflict a tension between the outdated old generation and the new generation’s cycle of
thinking, mirroring Japanese identity fragmentation from post-WWII political shifts.

The repetitive dialogue between Ono and his grandson Ichiro about “the Lone
Ranger” reveals the presence of generational divisions symbolic of modern ideas
gradually homogenising traditional Japanese culture. Moreover, Ichiro’s apathy for
traditional Japanese “Samurai warriors” represents the transience of the old
generation’s contextual cycle and symbolises the common youth behaviour of
ideological evolution, demonstrating to readers the forever forward-moving nature
of civilisation.

The young Japanese generation’s resentment at the old generation’s poor choices
during the war is evident in Enchi’s bitter criticism, “We all know now who the
real traitors were”, whereby subverting the traditional Japanese respect to elders
and using the collective pronoun “We” Enchi highlights the timeless theme of
intergenerational conflict, which ultimately fragments individuals whose ideologies
align with that of the past.

Ishiguro’s first-person narrative form through Ono’s self-reflexivity exposes him in,
“I have not taken personally...the frequent signs of bitterness he has
displayed towards my generation”, showcasing the unapologetic,
results-oriented mentality of the old Japanese generation, reflecting Imperialistic
ideas and behaviours.

Ishiguro captures the old generation’s cultural disillusionment as Ono narrates:

“using a dark brown crayon, he drew...a row of boxes--which soon became a
skyline of city buildings.” The crayons connote the youthful desire for cultural
updates and The symbolic imagery of modern reconstruction depicts the
consequences of globalisation on heritage and tradition, whilst the innocent
crayons connote the role of youth in building a new future, providing readers
insight into how globalisation can eradicate important old traditions.

Therefore, Ishiguro highlights the necessity for society to ideologically evolve and
the tension this causes between the old and new generation.

The Ishiguro portrays the asphyxiating struggle of his obscurant narrator Ono, who
individual exists in the liminal space between the contextual paradigms of the past and
struggle to present but is anchored to neither, reflecting Ishiguro’s personal cultural identity
change crisis migrating from Japan to England at the age of five, wanting to clench onto
Japanese traditions.

This is demonstrated through Ono’s apathetic hyperbole, “Every day there

seems to be a report of someone else killing himself in apology”, revealing
his turmoil as his generation suicides in apology whilst he evades revisiting the
past to avoid conjuring the guilt of his actions. In turn, this further fragments Ono’s
identity, entrenching him in the liminal space between the past and present.
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Ono’s self-reflexivity when personifying war-ravaged buildings in, “I remember

wondering to myself as I walked past those shattered buildings if they
would ever again come back to life”, is pathetic fallacy for his shattered identity,
but highlights his evasion of revisiting the past and restoring his social fractures.
The later reconstructions of these buildings symbolise the necessity for Ono to
abandon his old ideologies to connect with the new generation.

During the miai, Ono feels as though the Saito family are scrutinising him to see if
he agrees with the newly established democratic society as Dr Saito questions
him, “Don’t you think so, Mr Ono?”. Ono must connect with the new
generation’s ideologies for the success of his daughter’s marriage, but perceives
their paradigm as an intrusion into his past traditions and artistic endeavours, thus
representing Ono’s struggle in this liminal space, and provoking readers to reflect
on their position between the two characters.

Thus, Ishiguro captures Ono’s struggles as he is caught between two contextual

dissimilar paradigms and unwilling to come to terms with his past to join the new
generation’s cycle of thought.

Role of Ishiguro embeds the postmodern notion of unreliable narrative form to capture
memory Ono’s self-reflexive attempts to restore his fragmented identity and assimilate into
the new generation, ultimately revealing to readers how the fallibility of memory
acts as an impediment to successful reflection.

The oneiric imagery with which Ono recalls how his “memor[ies] merge with the
sounds and images from all those other evenings” foregrounds the
fragmentary, limited nature of memory, establishing the difficulties of
self-reflection.

Ishiguro uses Ono’s artistic analogy, “I cannot recall any colleague who could
paint a self-portrait with absolute honesty”, to compare the imperfections of
portrait artists with the functionings of the memory to highlight the universal
human tendency to misremember or misinterpret the past.

Ono’s unreliable narration captures his fallible memory at the ceremony for the
deceased soldiers where Ono thinks that Suichi states that “[those who do not
take responsibility show] the greatest cowardice of all”, a phrase mentioned
earlier by Miyake. Ishiguro captures the consequences of Ono’s intentional or
unintentional misremembering, preventing him from successfully reconciling his
past actions and breaking away from his old contextual cycle to assimilate into
modern society.

Ono’s inability to reconstruct his identity is also underlined in his unreliable

narration, “I am often reminded by...something someone may say of the
rather high esteem in which I am held”, which directly conflicts with Setsuko
saying her “Father was simply a painter”, asserting how Ono’s fallible memory
is an impediment to him reconstructing his shattered identity.
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Therefore, Ishiguro encapsulates Ono’s attempts to restore his fragmented

identity and connect with the new generation’s paradigms, illuminating the flaws of
human memory in presenting the past.

Conclusion Ultimately, An Artist illuminates the perpetual evolution of societal ideologies and
the timeless existence of intergenerational conflict, providing insight into the
struggles of individuals belonging to the order generation who are in a liminal
space where they must attempt to reconcile their pasts in order to escape into the
new generation’s cycle.

Module C

Discursive
How often do you think about the past?

A few nights ago, I slipped into a reverie sitting slouched at the silent dinner table. I dragged a
waterlogged crescent-sliced onion in random paths across my oily plate, forming trails of
emulsion. My mother broke the silence with a Middle-Eastern-parent platitude:
“So, still wanting to do law?”
My brother looked up. “I’m not really sure about it. I mean, in the past I always wanted---”
“I wanted to be a football player in the past,” my father intervened with a chuckle, “You’ve
grown up now. Why does the past matter?”

It is unclear to me why my father was so dismissive of luxuriating in the past. Perhaps there is
some friction between the progressiveness of our society and the desire to look into the past.
This attitude is rarely disputed and seems to be embedded in the fabric of our society. Even
Buddha famously says, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the
mind on the present moment.”

If our individual identity is a construction of the past, then why are we conditioned to seldom
reflect on memories? After all, engaging in reflection can enable us to explore our memories
and develop an appreciation of our growth. Peeling back the layers. Won’t this give us direction?
Well, maybe reflecting on the past is dismissed because it’s more complicated than simply living
in the present. Effective reflection can be difficult - our past can be painful and our memory can
be fallible, perhaps why there is little advocacy for it.

When plunging into memories, feeling drowned and overwhelmed is completely normal. Think of
it as peeling an onion, starting from the brown papery epithelial, unveiling new layers, each
subsequent one thicker and more complex, as are deeper memories. Very quickly your eyes will
start to complain, they will beg you to stop peeling. In revisiting the past, it’s almost guaranteed
you will reunite with bad experiences and this can be a barrier to effective reflection. In The
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Karate Kid (2010), Mr Han is trapped in a vicious cycle of repairing - then smashing the car that
his wife and son died in, desperately attempting to reconcile the past through reflection. This
tragic experience eventually breaks him, his eyes tear and he ceases to peel the onion any
further.

Another possible impediment to successful reflection is the innate fallibility of our memories.
Whether intentional or unintentional, we can misremember or misinterpret memories to better
suit our desirable identity, as opposed to coming to terms with the past. This is like the
protagonist of An Artist of the Floating World, Masuji Ono, who boils his onion before peeling it.
Accepting the guilt of his past actions will compromise his ideal identity, therefore Ono skews
the past. Maybe this won’t make his eyes tear, but its layers will transform into indistinguishable
mush. Sure, there is no more pain - but is it really worth the compromise? Although reflection
seems easier, Ono prevents himself from reconciling the past, remaining entrenched in outdated
ideologies.

So perhaps our society is justified in being dismissive of the past. Reflecting is incredibly difficult
as much as it is worthwhile. We might be better off simply concentrating on the present. A
society that wants to colonise Mars and stop viruses and recover nature from the impacts of the
past. A society that likes apples and oranges and mangoes. Sweet things with a single layer of
flesh. Not bitter onions.

“Why does the past matter?” is now clearer to me. The past can matter for you, but it also
doesn’t have to.

Whether you peel a little, boil it, look at the core, or ignore it altogether.

Creative
The warm aromas of dinner march out of the kitchen and camp nearby to listen while I sit tall at
the mahogany grand, shoulders dropped and arms relaxed. My nose investigates these
pleasant guests. Simmering beef. Cooked onion. It is my favourite dish, traditional beef-stuffed
onion. My mother’s steady chopping is like a metronome, guiding my fingers as they jog
up--then down--the keys, warming up for the marathon which is to follow.

I start to play a youthful Mozart tune, the soft sound filling me with warmth, and carrying my
mind into reverie. I imagine the little legs of a boy swinging back and forth as he plays this same
piece, accompanied by the same smells camping nearby, while a hidden voice behind the tall
piano counts the rhythm from the kitchen. I escape the trance and look over the piano into the
kitchen, as my mother starts dicing raw onions for the Shirazi salad. I quickly sense the sharp
shards of microscopic glass pierce my sight and my eyes command me to rub out the intruders.
As I reopen my eyes, bursts of random intense and colourful lights fill my vision, and I see
glimpses of the little boy appear again. He sits at the piano, but his legs are not joyful this time,
and the voice from the kitchen is impatient: “Again! Don’t stop until you play it perfectly, then
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play it perfectly again.” Onion and knife in each hand, she uses her sleeve to dry her eyes, then
continues to chop. The boy continues playing the Chopin nocturne, but his finger missteps and
he awakens the wrong note, who cries and ruins the passage, then goes back to sleep leaving
the boy to restart from the previous bar. After many repeats, he plays the entire passage
correctly, then repeats it with apathetic eagerness, only to fail. His head drops and his eyes tear,
but it is unclear whether frustration or onion is the culprit.

My reflection is disturbed by my mother. “Love, can you play that Chopin nocturne you
used to play when you were little?”

As I grabbed out my old book, the smell of beef-stuffed onion drifted me back into reverie like a
helpless dandelion in the wind. This time the little boy had stopped practicing, and he rested his
cheeks on the keys, making a print of his face into the cold ivory snow. Hopelessly twisting his
hair and paralysed with thought, he wondered why he chose to play the piano, the only
glimmering of hope being beef-stuffed onion for dinner.

Occasionally, when I reflect on the segments of my musical journey, I remember my mother’s

guidance and support, and my olfactory friends who camped nearby to spectate my playing. I
remember the shards of onion rain which masked the painful tears of failure. But my fallible
mind struggles to recall why I chose the piano, whether I had another passion, and whether it
was my mother who merely imposed her love of piano on me.

I start caressing the piano’s keys, and as every note weaved together the warm and content
voice in Chopin’s nocturne, I realised that perhaps my memory’s layers--mushed and
indistinguishable like beef-stuffed onion--was preserving the two things I love most in life: my
mother and my piano.

Reflection
Note: I used one reflection and changed the quotes depending on whether it was
creative or discursive. It worked since both my creative and discursive use the same
major literary devices (extended metaphor, allusions, anecdote).
My creative “Onion” endeavours to elucidate why reflecting on the past is often overlooked in
our society by illuminating the dilemmas which arise due to the painful past and the fallible
nature of memory. I engaged with Geraldine Brooks’ brilliant use of anecdote, metaphor and
allusion in crafting “A Home in Fiction”.

Brooks opens her speech with an anecdote that doubles as introducing the topic and connecting
with the audience on a personal level through a first-person conversational tone: “A few years
ago, on a crisp autumn day in Cambridge Massachusetts...”. I similarly start my discursive with
an anecdote from the dinner table in the first person, “A few nights ago, I slipped into reverie
sitting slouched at the silent dinner table...”, inviting the audience into my personal life and
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building an instant connection before introducing the topic of my discursive through my father’s
rhetorical question in the anecdote, “Why does the past matter?”.

Brooks employs extended metaphors to reveal her purpose in more memorable ways, such as
the extended metaphor of swimming in “I know now that it is a beautiful world, but I also know
that I can’t live there. If she has lungs, I have gills. I swim in a sea of words”, which beautifully
conveys her appreciation of mathematics as a form of expression whilst also establishing her
“Home in Fiction” and desire to swim in literature. I followed in Brooks’ footsteps, crafting an
extended metaphor of an onion as a representation of the reflection process: “I like to think of it
as peeling an onion...unveiling new layers, each subsequent one thicker and more complex, as
are deeper memories”. This enhances my piece as I can communicate information about
reflection through a familiar and memorable medium that will “[keep] on affecting the audiences
long after the first reading”.

Brooks also includes contemporary allusions to make her points more appealing to wider
audiences by drawing in from the world around her. For instance, Brooks alludes to the
newspaperman Damon Runyon in “Runyonesque”, drawing comical comparisons between her
boring early career as a journalist and Runyon to render her point more resonant with the
audience. I also enriched the reach of my discursive’s ideas through contemporary allusions to
global concerns and collective human goals in “A society that wants to colonise Mars and
prevent diseases and recover nature from the impacts of the past”, in order to resonate my
discursive with a wide range of audiences and thus make my points more appealing.

Thus, by drawing from Brooks’ stylistic choices regarding anecdote, extended metaphor and
allusion in “A Home in Fiction”, I have been able to enhance my piece’s purpose in exploring the
perspectives on revising the past in our society.