Here's my answer to a bread and butter (generic) module B question and if history repeats itself, then the hsc question will be very similiar. It's a solid band 6 response, but not special enough to get the 19-20.
“Texts are not containers for meaning, but rather vessels which responders use to make meaning.” Discuss this statement with reference to your text.
Today, texts are no longer assumed to have a single ‘correct’ meaning as New Critics assumed, as what meaning is made from each text is dependent on the contexts in which the texts are created, set and received. However, responders with an appreciation of these contexts are often able to enjoy a richer and more satisfying experience in reading the text. In any case, all texts must be examined from multiple perspectives before meaning can be made from all aspects of the text. These points can be demonstrated through analysis of the different ways in which Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet can be interpreted.
Cloudstreet is a postcolonial novel written and read in the postcolonial era so it particularly lends itself to a postcolonial interpretation. It engages postcolonial readers through the examination of issues related to the fact that Australia is a colony. Winton particularly focuses on the issues regarding national identity such as Reconciliation.
Winton sets the social milieu early in the novel by describing the history of the Cloudstreet house as symbolic of the cruelty of white Australians towards the indigenous population. The house was owned by a widow who at the request of the local Anglican priest, takes in and attempts to ‘domesticate’ a group of Aboriginal girls by forcibly imposing the ‘white’ way of living. The eventual suicide of one of the girls symbolises the trauma and suffering experienced by the stolen generation while the widow’s reaction of forcing the rest of the girls to stare at the “twisted death snarls of the poisoned girl’ shows the tyranny of the widow’s paternalistic brand of racism. By bestowing blame on both the selfish widow and the Church, Winton argues that the blame for the stolen generation must not only be placed on a group of individuals, but on the coloniser’s society as a whole.
Postcolonial texts are aware of the fragmentation related to the colonising process. Cloudstreet explores the journey from fragmentation to unity on a number of levels. For example, after Quick Lamb pulls the body of the Nedland’s monster’s son out of the river, he realises that “that’s [the dead boy] Harry’s face, that’s my boyhood face… that’s Fish’s face.” This leads him to abandon the binary oppositions such as good and evil which he was brought up believing in and realise that the Nedland’s monster is no different to himself: “it’s not use and them anymore, it’s us and us and us.” Through this, Winton indicates that in order for Reconciliation to occur, we must stop thinking of reconciliation in terms of “us and them” but rather as the unification of “us and us”
The black fella is an important character in catalysing the various reconciliations which occur throughout the novel. Like Fish Lamb, he provides guidance and advice to the other characters on a spiritual level. For example, he encourages Quick to return home and Sam to not sell the Cloudstreet house: “Places are strong, important.” By delegating the black fella such a pivotal role, Winton acknowledges the fact that Aboriginies are the “spiritual” owners of the land so they must play an integral part of in any roadmap to Reconciliation.
Cloudstreet portrays Winton’s view of national identity through language as well as content and form. The combination of a narrative epic structure with Australian idiom and rhythms such as “Shouldn’t youse be at school” and “Oh, ya mays well” gives the novel a distinctively Australian feel. Through this Winton indicates that Australia should have its own national identity, separate from the British colonisers. In fact Winton goes as far as degrading the colonisers to make this point. This is communicated in his description of Rose as someone who “ just hated Australians who tried to be English (though she figured it was reasonable for a Pom to try to be an Australian – at least there was a future in that).”
Whilst a postcolonial reading offers many insights into the text, it does not adequately make meaning from some aspects of the text. For example, critic Lekkie Hopkins acknowledges that Winton’s treatment of issues relating to social class fails to conform to his drive from fragmentation to unity.
From a Marxist perspective, Rose’s rejection of Toby Raven for Quick symbolises a triumph of the innocent, the unsophisticated and the pure over materialism and intellectualism, both of which are seen as potential agents of corruption. Toby, an aspiring member of the socially elite and affluent class, is characterised as selfish and snobbish. He attempts to show his intellect by describing Perth “As the largest isolated country town in the world trying to become the most cut off city in the world” but this partonising description only creates the impression that he is the one who is “isolated” from mainstream society, which Winton portrays as the working class.
Through applying multiple literary theories to a text such as Cloudstreet, it becomes clear that texts are indeed vessels in which responders shape meaning, rather than simply a container for a single meaning. Whilst some readings may be able to extract ‘more’ from a text due to contextual similarities, all readings are fragmentary in that they shed light on some aspects of the text but neglect others. Thus multiple readings need to be applied in order to discover all the text has to offer. The fact that Cloudstreet is so rich and satisfying when read from multiple perspectives pays tribute to the novel’s textual integrity.
