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Music Mogul
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‘The journey is a voyage of discovery’
Discuss this statement with reference to your prescribed text, one text from the stimulus booklet and an additional text.
A journey is not merely a trip from point A to point B, most people don’t realise the true depth of a journey until they have reflected and learnt from the experiences that they’ve gained. A journey provides a person regardless of age, sex, race or religion with experiences and challenges from which they gain knowledge. A journey is a voyage of discovery. There are many contemporary texts that reflect this belief, such as Peter Skrzynecki’s poems from ‘Immigrant Chronicle’, Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s ‘The Town Where Time Stands Still’ and singer/songwriter Lior Attar’s ‘Building Ships’.
Peter Skrzynecki’s Poem ‘A Drive In The Country’ tells of the speaker’s experience when driving to a place by the name of ‘Blue Hole’. There, the speaker concludes that his journey is a one-way road and discovers that significant life choices can be made at the least likely of places, such as Blue Hole. At Blue Hole, the speaker reflects on life and notices simple things, such as ‘how leaves bent their ears to the ground’ and compares them to the routine life that he must lead. Simple objects, such as a ‘chain and rope’, remind the speaker of death and the inevability of his mortal life and create a juxtaposition against the beauty of nature, in turn creating a sense of irony, as the termination of his life is also part of nature. The speaker’s journey to Blue Hole causes him to realise that his life is destined to ‘run only one way’.
The poem, ‘Immigrants at Central Station, 1951’ also by Peter Skrzynecki, tells of the experience of an immigrant coming from an foreign country, to face a journey in an unknown destination and the anxiety or stress that is brought on by such a voyage. The poems opening alone, shows us a direct juxtaposition of the speaker’s new life, contrasted against the life they had rejected (living in Europe in the 1950s). The poem opens with; ‘It was sad to hear, The train’s whistle this morning at the railway station,’, on the majority of journeys the sounding of a train’s whistle would be shown in a positive light, however, the speaker feels as though they are like ‘cattle bought for slaughter’ just like the European Jewish citizens who had been taken by Hitler’s Nazi party to concentration camp, only to face death. Showing the audience of the poem that already, the speaker had been faced with new experiences. Throughout the poem, the speaker emphasizes a sense of confusion and uncertainty as to their destination which again, emphasizes the challenges brought on by the journey and the discoveries yet to be made.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s ‘The Town Where Time Stands Still’ provides for a greater understanding of physical, inner and spiritual journeys. The speaker states that ‘travelers throughout the centuries have threaded their baser motives of profit and pleasure with a subtler, and sometimes even unconscious, compulsion – the search for the genii loci’. The speaker believes that every journey may appear to have simple motives, such as that for profit or pleasure, but always, even if we do not realise, cause us to search for the centre of things or to gain a greater understanding of ourselves and our surroundings. The composer believes that it is always evident that we, the journeyer desire to make a discovery and do so by ‘seeking an external geography that will act on our internal psychology’.
Singer/songwriter Lior Attar’s song ‘Building Ships’ tells of a shock parting of two lovers which leaves the speaker with no choice but to return to land, representing safety. The metaphor of being ‘stranded at sea’, represents the sudden loss of the partner and the venerability which the speaker now faces. The ocean leaves the speaker with a sense of uncertainty, volatility and vulnerability. However, the speaker then acknowledges in the second verse the journey ahead which they must face. This verse expresses that the speaker is ‘moving slowly but he’s full of anger, that there’s no one to blame’, the audience however, is able to see the definite shift into acceptance that the speaker takes when he states that his love has been lost ‘to find new shelter’ and that he must return back to the ‘places he hurt’ in that he must return to a place of stability and that loneliness awaits, which shall bring a pain of its own. This journey causes the speaker to face the challenge of loosing a lover, only to discover that life will continue and become stable yet again.
In conclusion, it is ever-present that the undergoing of a journey does indeed provide the journeyer with new experiences and challenges which in turn create discoveries and provide knowledge.
‘The journey is a voyage of discovery’
Discuss this statement with reference to your prescribed text, one text from the stimulus booklet and an additional text.
A journey is not merely a trip from point A to point B, most people don’t realise the true depth of a journey until they have reflected and learnt from the experiences that they’ve gained. A journey provides a person regardless of age, sex, race or religion with experiences and challenges from which they gain knowledge. A journey is a voyage of discovery. There are many contemporary texts that reflect this belief, such as Peter Skrzynecki’s poems from ‘Immigrant Chronicle’, Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s ‘The Town Where Time Stands Still’ and singer/songwriter Lior Attar’s ‘Building Ships’.
Peter Skrzynecki’s Poem ‘A Drive In The Country’ tells of the speaker’s experience when driving to a place by the name of ‘Blue Hole’. There, the speaker concludes that his journey is a one-way road and discovers that significant life choices can be made at the least likely of places, such as Blue Hole. At Blue Hole, the speaker reflects on life and notices simple things, such as ‘how leaves bent their ears to the ground’ and compares them to the routine life that he must lead. Simple objects, such as a ‘chain and rope’, remind the speaker of death and the inevability of his mortal life and create a juxtaposition against the beauty of nature, in turn creating a sense of irony, as the termination of his life is also part of nature. The speaker’s journey to Blue Hole causes him to realise that his life is destined to ‘run only one way’.
The poem, ‘Immigrants at Central Station, 1951’ also by Peter Skrzynecki, tells of the experience of an immigrant coming from an foreign country, to face a journey in an unknown destination and the anxiety or stress that is brought on by such a voyage. The poems opening alone, shows us a direct juxtaposition of the speaker’s new life, contrasted against the life they had rejected (living in Europe in the 1950s). The poem opens with; ‘It was sad to hear, The train’s whistle this morning at the railway station,’, on the majority of journeys the sounding of a train’s whistle would be shown in a positive light, however, the speaker feels as though they are like ‘cattle bought for slaughter’ just like the European Jewish citizens who had been taken by Hitler’s Nazi party to concentration camp, only to face death. Showing the audience of the poem that already, the speaker had been faced with new experiences. Throughout the poem, the speaker emphasizes a sense of confusion and uncertainty as to their destination which again, emphasizes the challenges brought on by the journey and the discoveries yet to be made.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s ‘The Town Where Time Stands Still’ provides for a greater understanding of physical, inner and spiritual journeys. The speaker states that ‘travelers throughout the centuries have threaded their baser motives of profit and pleasure with a subtler, and sometimes even unconscious, compulsion – the search for the genii loci’. The speaker believes that every journey may appear to have simple motives, such as that for profit or pleasure, but always, even if we do not realise, cause us to search for the centre of things or to gain a greater understanding of ourselves and our surroundings. The composer believes that it is always evident that we, the journeyer desire to make a discovery and do so by ‘seeking an external geography that will act on our internal psychology’.
Singer/songwriter Lior Attar’s song ‘Building Ships’ tells of a shock parting of two lovers which leaves the speaker with no choice but to return to land, representing safety. The metaphor of being ‘stranded at sea’, represents the sudden loss of the partner and the venerability which the speaker now faces. The ocean leaves the speaker with a sense of uncertainty, volatility and vulnerability. However, the speaker then acknowledges in the second verse the journey ahead which they must face. This verse expresses that the speaker is ‘moving slowly but he’s full of anger, that there’s no one to blame’, the audience however, is able to see the definite shift into acceptance that the speaker takes when he states that his love has been lost ‘to find new shelter’ and that he must return back to the ‘places he hurt’ in that he must return to a place of stability and that loneliness awaits, which shall bring a pain of its own. This journey causes the speaker to face the challenge of loosing a lover, only to discover that life will continue and become stable yet again.
In conclusion, it is ever-present that the undergoing of a journey does indeed provide the journeyer with new experiences and challenges which in turn create discoveries and provide knowledge.
