Encountering Conflict

1
Encountering Conflict

• A punchy preparation for pondering the potentials
  and possibilities of producing and perusing
  pugnaciousness in prose

2
Context less about text ...

• OK so we know that the path to success in the
  Context is through the core texts ...
• ... And in our case, that means The Crucible and
  The Secret River.
• But this is NOT a text study, were less
  interested in the themes, relationships,
  constructions and cultural influences than in
  what the writers show us about conflict, and how
  they do this.

3
The Crucible

• Arthur Miller was one of Americas biggest-name
  playwrights from the 1940s through to the
  mid-90s. He wrote two towering successes,
  critically and artistically Death of a Salesman
  and The Crucible.
• The Crucible was Millers response to events that
  wracked America during the 1950s, when fear of
  Communism was rampant. A Congressional Committee
  (into Un-American Activities), headed by
  Senator McCarthy, began to investigate whatever
  links people might have had to Communism.
  Suddenly, anyone who had had any connection to
  the evil of Communism was not suspect, but
  guilty.
• Miller saw the parallels in this paranoia and
  that which had swept the small Puritan community
  of Salem Village, nearly 300 years earlier.

4
Salem Village ... Is a crucible

• Metaphor The fire burns hot, scorching the base,
  impure substances to nothing, leaving only the
  purest metal ...
• Characters as embodiments of conflict
• Fear ... of evil of the unknown of anyone
  different of ones own weaknesses of
  consequences Parris, Proctor, Hathorne, the
  girls, Elizabeth Proctor
• Greed ... for power for land for security
  Putnam, Hathorne
• Ambition ... for political office for
  marriage for sex Hathorne, Parris, Proctor,
  Abigail
• Jealousy ... of others good fortune of
  possessions of position Anne Putnam, Thomas
  Putnam Parris
• Ignorance ... Lack of knowledge lack of
  understanding the whole village Hale

5
A play is a crucible

• Recipe Collect together a cast of characters,
  stir at times forcefully mould and meld with
  each other and occasional infusions as required
  place in a large hall and add an audience. Add
  tension, nerves, anticipation and suspense. Cross
  fingers and await outcome.
• Strategies
• Dialogue
• Vox vocis of scriptor Millers explanations
  of the history and the characters gives both
  direction to the way we see the
• Analogy (history)
• Characterisations and relationships

6
The Secret River

• The Secret River is Kate Grenvilles
  sort-of-bio-might-have-been. She began to write a
  family history, but the story of Solomon Wiseman
  ended up being told in a factional way, about
  Will Thornhill.
• Try http//adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020561b.ht
  m
• Thornhill is transported to the colony of New
  South Wales after his sentence of death was
  commuted. His wife Sal, and their first child
  Willie, accompanied him. He had been a
  lighterman in London, and pretty much made a
  living in the same way in New South Wales.
  Thornhill grabbed some land along the Hawkesbury
  River, along with others who found Sydneys
  confines too constricting. Thornhill had been
  born into conflict, with Englands grinding
  poverty, but in a way, this was a good
  apprenticeship, as one view of his success in
  Australia might say that he learned well how to
  become an oppressor, rather than be oppressed.

7
A secret conflict

• Secrecy There are many ways in which naked
  conflict or aggression is merely the tip of the
  spear ... The rest is the society which enshrines
  a philosophy of conflict the culture that frames
  it and the institutions that carry it out.
• The Secret River, in a sense, reveals how
  contagious and pervasive are these things.
  Transportation from one social context to another
  simply made the expression of the conflict more
  virulent, more ... violent.
• What impact does repression, or suppression have
  on the nature of a conflict?
• What do the person-to-person conflicts show, in
  relation to the greater social clashes?
  Thornhill/Sal Blackwood/Smasher
  Thornhll/Whisker Harry Thornhill/Dick

8
The Secret River and the
isms of conflict

• Racism
• Ways of seeing black is somehow wrong,
• Imperialism (esp. cultural imperialism)
• Colonialism
• Paternalism (or patriarchy)
• Capitalism (loosely! Dog-eat-dogism, really)
• Grab-ism (obsession with ownership as power)
• Communication
• (The Lieutenant Kate Grenville)

9
Concepts and conflict
Developing a stance

• You need to have devoted enough time exploring
  what the core texts have to say about conflict
  that you have your own ideas. You might agree
  you might see elements of the way the text youre
  using deals with conflict in your own life and
  experiences you might challenge the perspectives
  or outcomes offered in the core text.
• In total, you have to produce three writing
  projects (one in Unit 3 one in Unit 4 one in
  the exam) that express (or show) a view (or
  some views) about the nature of encountering
  conflict.
• Developing an opinion is a pretty good starting
  point knowing what you want to say to people is
  half the battle!

10
Wont you stand by me ...?

• Try to work out a stance. Means point of view.
  Opinion.
• A useful process is to ask yourself questions
  about encountering conflict. One often leads to
  other questions, the answers to which can lead
  you to a better understanding, or a more coherent
  or complex view.
• For example, how often are we presented with
  conflict as a battle between good and evil?
  (Think Star Wars or the Harry Potter series of
  films and books) Is this distinction helpful? Can
  we say that most often where conflict arises,
  one side is good the other bad? Is this
  duality all that common? What happens where
  there are not just two sides, but several?
• Answering these will give you a few ideas about
  how you see conflict through some of the ways
  its presented to you.

11
Writing

• What sort of writing?
• What sort/s of writing do you find best or
  easiest?
• What formats, focuses, styles or parallels can
  you extract from the core texts?
• What processes to generate the pieces?

12
To write, you have to be a writer ...
Man, like some days, this job fully sucks
But what comes after The, o Muse?

• Theres a theory going around that says before
  you can write, you have to be able to go into
  this fully mystic wicked trance and some sick
  little dude with wings wearing a sheet kind of
  floats into the scene and, like, tells you what
  to write ...
• Rubbish. You have to write. Thats it.
• Pen. Paper. Word processor. Typewriter, Thumbnail
  dipped in tar ...
• G.O. Stop when finished.

13
(Con)Text extenders

• Sub-cores Omagh, and The Line Martin Arch
  Flanagan
• Films
• Mississippi Burning All Quiet on the Western
  Front (book film) Oh what a lovely war The
  Odd Angry Shot Guilty by Suspicion Kramer v
  Kramer The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith (book
  film) Bridge over the River Kwai Cry Freedom
• Novels
• The Savage Crows Robert Drewe The Div ine Wind
  Gary Disher Capricornia Xavier Herbert The
  Road Cormac McCarthy