Distinctively Visual Flashcards
Distinctively visual elements are conveyed through:
- context
- audience
- form
- imagery
- symbolism
- language
In a Dry Season
Henry Lawson
What does the distinctively visual mean
How the composer uses their texts to demonstrate the conventions of textal forms, language modes and media shape meaning
Instruction
“Draw a wire fence and a few ragged gums, and add some scattered sheep running away from the train. Then you’ll have the bush all along the New South Wales western line from Bathurst on” - makes the audience imagine / relate to the story
Plural
“The railway towns consist of a public house and a general store, with a square tank and a school-house on piles in the nearer distance” - demonstrates how all of the towns are similar, uniform, same, monotony
Sarcasm / irony
“The only town I saw that differed much from the above consisted of a box-bark humpy with a clay chimney, and a woman standing at the door throwing out the wash-up water” - not really a town
Dark humour
“Death is about the only cheerful thing in the bush” - bush is so harsh and boring
Symbolism
“I thought he was mad, and was about to attack the train, but he wasn’t; he was only killing a snake” - snake is a symbol of evil
Humour / unexpected paradox
“The least horrible spot in the bush, in a dry season, is where the bush isn’t” - implies the bush is all horrible
The Drovers Wife
Henry Lawson
Vernacular (everyday language, conversation language)
“Yer wanter go out back, young man, if yer wanter see the country. Yer wanter get away from the line” - emphasises the stereotypical view of people in the bush
The Loaded Dog
Henry Lawson
Simplistic comedy
“Dave got an idea” - leads to curiosity, possibility, entices the reader to read on, set apart from the paragraphs and makes you want to read it - draws you in - distinctively visual in the way that it is set out
Hyperbole
“Big enough to blow the bottom out of the river” - image of how extreme/dangerous it was
Extended metaphor
“Big black young retriever dog or rather an overgrown pup” “tail that swung around like a stock-whip” - image of a cute, innocent dog that could do no wrong and this dog is extremely strong
Repetition
“Four footed mate” “two-legged mate” - emphasises how close these mates were with the dog and again gives the innocent appearance as nothing is going to happen between these mates
Migrant Hostel
Peter Skrzynecki
Alliteration
“Sniff suspiciously in the sickly smothering atmosphere of the summer sunrise” - not a coincidence, small slides into the camp, mimicking through sound
What is it about?
- tells us how they lived when they first came to Australia
- first place they stayed in Australia
- didn’t really feel welcome
- started doubting if they would ever be able to make a life for themselves
Sentence fragment
“And bolted” - use of action words builds tension and again creates mystery as you try to figure out why he bolted
Hyperbole
“Comings and goings” - emphasises how people kept coming and leaving that people may not have even noticed that they were there and then they were gone
Onomatopoeia
“Hissing and spitting properly” - gets you to visualise/ emphasise the loud, frightening sound of the cartridge
Connotation
“Sudden departures” - wasn’t planned for and it was very uncertain and out of their control
Sentence length and symbolism
“They could never explain any more than the dog, why they followed each other, but so they ran, Dave keeping in Jim’s track in all its turnings, Andy after Dave and the dog circling round Andy - the live fuse swishing in all directions and hissing and spluttering and stinking” - the length of the sentence symbolises how long they were running for and how they didn’t stop
Alliteration
“By memories of hunger and hate” - the h sound is harsh and evokes the harshness of wartime experiences and prejudices
Simile
“Jim swung to a sapling and went up like a native bear” - shows how fast and easily he managed to escape from Tommy, at least for a little while
Simile 1
“Nationalities sought each other out like a homing pigeon” - shows us that people were so desperate to find some kind of belonging so they would stay with people of the same nationality with hope that they may have similar stories
Personification and hyperbole
“Bushmen say that the kitchen jumped off its piles and on again” - exaggerates / demonstrates just how powerful the cartridge really was
Sensoral imagery
“Barrier at the main gate” - physical barrier that prevents migrants from having their own lives in Australia
Simile 2
“Rise and fell like a finger” - reinforces the image of the barrier rising and falling to let certain people through
Simile 3
“We lived like birds of passage” - suggests that he is stuck in a situation out of their control - birds travelling towards a destination - no sense of belonging in a state of transition - recurrence of birds in the poem creates a motif
