Winton (In the shadow of the hospital)

Question 1

Hospital Q1

Answer 1

Winton’s realisation of the traumatising nature of hospitals to children is seen in “The opaque windows had threads of steel in them, as if the patients were captives, in the long, open, ward with its ranks…”, The use of the extended metaphor harrowingly comparing the patients to captives conveys how petrifying the hospital environment was to individuals, and how we are motivated to empathise for the “captives’’ though also behave fearfully due to the prison like nature of hospitals

Question 2

Hospital Q2

Answer 2

However Winton realises how the institutionalised nature of society can bring people closer together within “In the lee of a hospital the social camouflage slips away and what’s usually disguised is on display, Where else do people bear their own narratives so openly?” Using the rhetorical question, Winton causes audience reflection on how various social constructs and norms disappear in times of conflict displaying how humans behave empathetically in hard situations due to a lack of freedom.

Question 3

Hospital Q3

Answer 3

Winton comes to accept the methods of the hospitals and their effectiveness in “They brought him home the next day. From that hospital” The cyclical motif of the hospital conveys the complexity of human nature, despite despising hospitals and their institutionalised nature originally, Winton, motivated by his dad’s survival to embrace them.