CM: Human Experiences

Question 1

Thesis Statements

Answer 1

• Whilst stories, along with experiences, do reflect the paradoxes, anomalies and inconsistencies in human nature, their main function is to inform, warn and entertain across communities.
• Winton’s recounted experiences inspire me to be fearless and to stand out from the crowd, rather than mindlessly follow society’s expectations.
• Experiences affect us emotionally in many cases rather than logically and when we respond emotionally, behaviours become unpredictable. This causes the paradoxes, anomalies and inconsistencies in human nature.

Question 2

Havoc: A Life in Accidents Topic Sentences

Answer 2

• Winton’s essay ‘Havoc: A Life in Accidents’ has demonstrated to me the unique identities exposed by traumatic experiences.
• Winton challenges our assumptions and beliefs by illustrating his story or extreme events to support his idea that human exp/havoc will happen, we just don’t know the outcome.

Question 3

Havoc: A Life in Accidents Quotes

Answer 3

• Question ‘When you’re safe you think you know yourself, but in extremis who are you really?’
• Metaphor ‘a state of seamless predictability - a life without wildness - is a king of sleepwalking.’
• Colloquial language, ‘afterwards, despite the happy outcome, you are of course a fucking mess.’
• Series of short sentences: ‘They’re havoc’s vanguard. They fascinate me. I respect them. But I dread them too.’

Question 4

Twice on Sundays Topic Sentence

Answer 4

Tim Winton’s essay ‘Twice on Sunday’s’ assists us in understanding diverging factions and individuals through his reflection on himself and his religious ring.

Question 5

Twice on Sundays Quotes

Answer 5

• alliteration ‘sleepy, resentful rabble’
• ‘improve themselves and to be of service to something larger.’
• still goes to church ‘in company, for solitude.’
• ‘camaraderie, the simple happiness, the kindness, the sharing, the pleasure of something to do every night in a town where there was nothing to do.’
• vignette of George Wilson. ‘he’d never actually seen a human soul but his best guess was that mine was about the size of my fist.’
• Alliteration/metaphor ‘Story is the beast of burden, the bearer of imaginative energy.’
• Alliteration ‘I still couldn’t say what God was, but I had an inkling as to what He was about, and that was love and liberation.’
• ‘I do regret the fact that every time I argued my corner I shamed them for things over which they had no control.’

Question 6

The Wait and the Flow Topic Sentences

Answer 6

• Winton successfully and captivatingly demonstrates the significance of surfing and the ocean in his life. Although surfing seems to be a ‘completely pointless exercise’, Winton describes how it is essential to him in his essay ‘The Wait and the Flow’.
• Winton’s essay ‘The Wait and the Flow’ provides me with motivation to continue to be the anomaly in the beach landscape despite common behaviour.

Question 7

The Wait and the Flow Quotes

Answer 7

• ‘We surfed with a sense of kinship with each other and with the sea that marked us out, if only for a while.’
• Juxtaposition ‘The wider culture expects you to hurl yourself at the future. Surfing offers a chance to inhabit the present.’
• Collective pronoun: ‘we spoke a lingo not even our parents understood and not all of it was hippie nonsense.’
• Short sentence ‘It’s a buzz.’
• Metaphor ‘When I was lonely, confused and angry, the ocean was always there, a vast salty poultice sucking the poison from my system.’
• ‘Surfing unlocked the artist in me.’
• ‘The wait and the flow have become a way of life.’
• Question ‘What’s the point? And I didn’t know how to answer.’

Question 8

The Demon Shark Topic Sentences

Answer 8

• Stories expose paradoxes in human behaviour in order to attempt to warn us of future risk. Winton’s essay ‘The Demon Shark’ reveals our inhumane treatment of sharks due to our irrational fear based on the media’s overemphasis of shark attacks.
• Winton has inspired me to have the integrity to acknowledge people’s hypocrisy in their unfairly condemning attitudes towards sharks in his essay ‘The Demon Shark.’

Question 9

The Demon Shark Quotes

Answer 9

• Shark descriptions/metaphors ‘savage shadow’ ‘wraiths’ ‘fearsome predator’ ‘otherworldly creature’ ‘living shadow’ ‘demon’ ‘white death’
• Implicit accusation ‘When it comes to sharks, fear equals money.’
• Question ‘But the endangered shark? By and large nobody cares.’
• ‘The removal of sharks from humane consideration gives humankind licence to do the unspeakable.’
• Sharks are a ‘keystone species, so when they disappear, the rest of the ecosystem goes haywire.’
• ‘A world without sharks will eventually become a world without people.’
• Finishing sentence: ‘We need to expand our common knowledge and reform our attitude to these beautiful and misunderstood creatures while there’s still time.’
• question ‘Why did God make sharks? … To sell newspapers.’
• ‘the demonisation of sharks has blinded us, not just to our own savagery, but also to our casual hypocrisy.’
• ‘fun’, ‘variable’ and ‘multifaceted’ species. ‘I’ve had more fun with sharks.’

Question 10

In the Shadow of the Hospital Topic Sentence

Answer 10

Winton’s essay ‘In the Shadow of the Hospital’ invites us to view hospitals differently in distinct individual contexts.

Question 11

In the Shadow of the Hospital Quotes

Answer 11

• Hospital in different circumstances: ‘shelter’, ‘place of deliverance’, ‘bulwark against chaos’, ‘otherworldly sanctuary’, ‘citadel of hygiene and expertise’, ‘miracle factory’, ‘trouble’, ‘descent into the netherworld’, ‘gauntlet of horrors’, ‘lurid tableau’ ‘24-hour soap opera’
• Rhetorical questions ‘What if he didn’t come back? What if he came home a stranger again?’
• Simile ‘As if the patients were captives.’
• Simile ‘It was like being a very old man, feeble, confused, at the mercy of others.’
• ‘The place had its own microclimate.’

Question 12

Barefoot in the Temple of Art Topic Sentences

Answer 12

• Our assumptions are challenged in Winton’s essay ‘Barefoot in the Temple of Art’ as he revisits a museum a second time with an adult perspective and we are encouraged to see the museum differently with the passing of time.
• In ‘Barefoot in the Temple of Art’, Winton makes an unassailable argument for the powerful impact of culture on people’s ambitions, feelings and thoughts.

Question 13

Barefoot in the Temple of Art Quotes

Answer 13

• Personification ‘I arrived at her door sweaty and barefoot, a scruffy nine-year-old interloper from the western frontier.’
• Short sentence ‘I took heart.’ From Henry Moore’s ‘Draped Seated Woman’
• ‘There seemed to be no limit to what people could think of, and that was a giddy feeling.’
• First entered ‘barefoot and cowering’ Simile ‘I strode out of the place like a man in boots.’
• ‘There was no single experience that made me want to live by my imagination, but I don’t doubt the pivotal effect this visit had.’
• ‘The temple of art no longer spurns the young and uninitiated.’