Unit 3 AOS 1

Question 1

Womanhood/Gender Expectations quotes

Answer 1

1. “I make no apologies for being egotistical.”
2. “A woman is but the helpless tool of man—a creature of circumstances.”
   3, “as men, in this world, are “the dog on top”
3. “Why did not social arrangements allow a man and a maid to be chums”
4. “Because the social laws are so arranged that a woman’s only sphere is marriage,”
5. “The girl must surely be ill or she would never act as you describe.”
6. An actress—a vile, low, brazen hussy!”
7. “The rubbishing conventionalities which are the curse of her sex will bother her soon enough.”
8. “opportunity, not talent, was the main requisite.”

Question 2

Love/Marriage quotes

Answer 2

1. “Why, oh, why, would they not love me a little in return! Certainly I had never striven to be lovable.”
2. “You’re ugly, you’re ugly and useless; so don’t forget that and make a fool of yourself again.”
3. “Love!” I retorted scornfully. “There is no such thing.”
4. “I never intend to marry.”
5. “You will find that plain looks will not prevent you from gaining the friendship love of your fellows—the only real love there is.”
6. “Now, speak to the girl who wears your engagement ring, for I’ll degrade myself by wearing it no more.”

Question 3

Australian Bush/Landscape quotes

Answer 3

1. “How flat, common, and monotonous the scenery appeared after the rugged peaks of the Timlinbilly Ranges!”
2. “Weariness! Weariness!”
3. “All were weary, all but the sun.”
4. “Next morning rain started to fall, which was a great
   God-send, being the first which had fallen for months, and the only rain I saw during my residence at Barney’s Gap.”
5. “We received a great many letters from Gertie… but they grew shorter and farther between as time went on.”

Question 4

Identity/Belonging quotes

Answer 4

1. “what it means to be forced to exist on an alien sphere of society”
2. “I was woefully out of my sphere.”
3. “Why was I ugly and nasty and miserable and useless—without a place in the world?”
4. “Arrah, go on, ye’re only tazin’!” I retorted.”
5. “I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a child of the mighty bush.”
6. “He spoke as usual in his slow twangy drawl,”
   7.“Being misunderstood is one of the trials we all must bear.”
7. “I thought of a man and his wife at Possum Gully. The man was blear-eyed, disreputable in appearance, and failed to fulfil his duties as a father and a citizen. The woman was work-roughened and temper-soured by endless care and an unavailing struggle against poverty. Could that pair possibly be identical with this?”
8. “The little record was a perfect picture of the dully narrow life of its writer….drearily monotonous account of a drearily monotonous existence.”

Question 5

Class/Wealth/Poverty quotes

Answer 5

1. “[The Italian migrants] made mother nervous, and she averred they were not to be trusted, but I liked and trusted them.”
2. “We felt the full force of the heavy hand of poverty”
3. “she uses them big words wot you couldn’t understand without bein’ eddicated.”
4. “The professions at which I felt I had the latent power to excel, were I but given a chance, were in a sphere far above us,”
5. “If you can’t stand the stink of that bloomin’ chow, miss, just change seats with me.”
6. “Better be born a slave than a poet, better be born a black, better be born a cripple! For a poet must be companionless —alone!”
7. “Bravely you jog along with the rope of class distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you; a few more generations and you will be as enslaved as were ever the moujiks of Russia.”
8. “The heavy work told upon my gentle, refined mother. She grew thin and careworn, and often cross.”
9. “on account of her poverty, mother had been too proud to keep up communication
   with her.”
10. “He was an utterly ignorant man, with small ideas
    according to the sphere which he fitted, and which fitted him;”

Question 6

Ambition/Pride/Aspirations quotes

Answer 6

1. “It was as a climbing plant without a pole”
2. “I longed for the arts.”
3. “This was life—my life—my career, my brilliant career!”
4. “My ambition was as boundless as the mighty bush in which I have always lived.”
5. “The restless throbbings and burnings that hope unsatisfied brings”
6. I could see my life, stretching out ahead of me, barren and monotonous as the thirsty track along which Harold was disappearing.”
7. “Career! That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended.”
8. “There never was any sympathy between my mother and myself. We are too unlike. She…possessed of no ambitions or aspirations not capable of being turned into cash value.

Question 7

Maturity/Growth quotes

Answer 7

1. “I do not for an instant fancy myself above the M’Swats. Quite the reverse; they are much superior to me. Mr M’Swat was upright and clean in his morals, and in his little sphere was as sensible and kind a man as one could wish for. Mrs M’Swat was faithful to him, contented and good-natured, and bore uncomplainingly, year after year, that most cruelly agonising of human duties—childbirth, and did more for her nation and her Maker than I will ever be noble enough to do.”

Question 8

Religion/Belief quotes

Answer 8

1. “There was no God. I was an unbeliever.” p66
2. “Old Nick will have me anyhow,”” p184
3. “Oh that a preacher might arise and…a Christian religion, which would abolish the cold legend whose center is respectability”
4. “to curse God and die—I would leap at it eagerly.”
5. “Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ?” “Sure, yes; he’s got something to do with God, ain’t he?”

Question 9

Curiosity/Love for Learning/ Power of The Arts quotes

Answer 9

1. “I am afflicted with the power of thought, which is a heavy curse.” p30
2. “In the narrow peasant life of Possum Gully I had been deprived of companionship with people of refinement and education who would talk of the things I loved; but, at last!” p92
3. “Joe Archer—who talked literature and trash with me.” p170
4. “I was keenly disappointed that none of them had a piano, as my hunger for music could be understood only by one with a passion for that art.” p316
5. “The ecstasy of a man of fine, artistic,mental caliber…would be completely wiped out in comparison to the utter soul-satisfaction of M’Swat when drinking in the items of that list.” p297

Question 10

Family/Relationships/Friendships quotes

Answer 10

1. “I hope you are like your mother.” This prospect discomfited me.”
2. “She no more understood me
   than I understood the works of a watch.”
3. “And I fell asleep thinking that
   parents have a duty to children greater than children to parents,
   and they who do not fulfil their responsibility in this respect are
   as bad in their morals as a debauchee,”
4. “With aunt Helen,
   however, I was content anywhere,”
5. “He was my hero, confidant, encyclopedia, mate, and even my religion till I was ten. Since then I have been religionless.”
6. “when I arrived I thought you
   and I would have been great friends; but we have not progressed at all. How do you account for that?”

Question 11

Power quotes

Answer 11

1. “There is no good in the world…Those who have the heart to help have not the power, and those who have the power have not the heart.” p67
2. “The harness seemed to be scattered everywhere.” p183
3. “He offered me everything—but control.” p375
4. “Few dared argue with Mrs Bossier.” p112

Question 12

Quotes from pre text

Answer 12

1. “keeps talking to us even if it says different things to successive generations”
2. “as one of the early works of feminism.”
3. “the book is true to Australia - the truest I ever read.”
4. “Do not fear encountering such trash as descriptions of beautiful sunsets and whisperings of wind.”

Question 13

Titles

Answer 13

• A lifeless life
• Possum Gully left behind, hurrah!
• One Grand Passion

Question 14

other ideas to talk about

Answer 14

• Federation
• Suffragette Movement
• Unreliable Narrator
• Letters
• Intertextuality (Adam Lindsay Gordon, Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson)

Question 15

Minor Character Quotes

Answer 15

Harold - “It doesn’t matter, Syb. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”
Aunt Helen - “But, comparatively speaking, her life was wrecked. She had been humiliated and outraged in the cruelest way by the man whom she loved and trusted.”
Frank Hawden - “I was disappointed when I saw you had no pretensions to prettiness”
Gertie - “Pretty little peacemaker!”
Everard - “would be a sin to rob Sybylla of the brilliant career she might have”
“His foster-mother was no end proud of him, and loved him as her own son.”
MSwats - “I was followed by the children through the dirtiest passage into the dirtiest room, to sit upon the dirtiest chair,”
Horace - “and it is not much worse to have nothing to sell than not be able to sell a thing when you have it.”
Jane Hazelip - “They let the women work too hard. I never see such
a tired wore-out set of women.”

Question 16

Intertextuality Quote

Answer 16

“The restless throbbings and burnings that hope unsatisfied brings” - Adam Lindsay Gordon poem