The novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, written by Richard Flanagan, and the film The Railway Man, directed by Johnathan Teplitzky, portray the lives of POWs during and after World War II. Through the influence of first-hand experiences, both Flanagan and Teplitzky describe or visually represent the stories told to them of the POW camps. The protagonists of both the novel and the film are subject to their own memories, which take control of the small things in their lives. Where the female protagonists in both the novel and the film are subject to their gender are females and are under the control of the men around them. Through their contemporary lens, both Flanagan and Teplitzky present characters who are not in control of their own …show more content…
lives. Richard Flanagan and Johnathan Teplitzky both drew from the first-hand experiences of ex-POWs. Flanagan composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North in recognition to his father, Arch Flanagan, who was put to work by the Japanese Army to build the ‘Death Railway’. Arch Flanagan survived the war, along with stories of “the deaths of over 2,000 Australian POWs and many more Allied and Asian prisoners” (Goldsworthy, 1). These stories he told Richard, who over a twelve-year period, re-wrote them through his contemporary lens, to write his novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The protagonist of Flanagan’s novel, Dorrigo Evans, resembles the Australian war hero Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop, who before the war had attained his degree in medicine and […] was a lieutenant-colonel and became a legendary figure on the railway (Goldsworthy, 2). Although Dorrigo resembles Weary Dunlop, Flanagan also uses his father as an influence for the character, but Flanagan does state in an interview, “and Dorrigo Evans, the novel's main character, a doctor, is not my father, but me” (Penguin Books, 1). Johnathan Teplitzky, the director of The Railway Man, builds off the first-hand experiences from Eric and Patti for his film, he discusses the film with them in an interview, where Teplitzky stated, “a lot of what’s in the script actually came not from the book but from them directly, from our discussions with them and our other research” (Ryan, 1). Teplitzky, like Flanagan, is re-telling the POW camp stories from a contemporary lens, though instead of describing them through a novel, he visually represents them through film. The main protagonists of both Flanagan’s novel and Teplitzky’s film, Dorrigo Evans and Eric Lomax, are controlled by their memories of the line.
Dorrigo, post-war, at a barbeque, smells the meat,
but when he cut into it the meat was still not right and for a moment he was back there, heading across the camp […] As he came close to the ulcer hut, Dorrigo was enveloped by the stench of rotting flesh (Flanagan, 356-357).
Dorrigo is not even able to enjoy the smallest things, such as a barbeque, without having to remember horrible memories of the camps, he has lost control of his own life, and his own ability to shut out horrible memories of the camps. Eric Lomax suffers from P.T.S.D. and the first time we are shown this in the film is right after Eric and Patti’s wedding. There is a panning shot of Eric laying on the bed, with the diegetic sound of Patti’s shower running. The sound of the water triggers Eric’s P.T.S.D. and he hallucinates a Japanese officer coming into his room and taking him away to have water torture, where they pumped gallons of water into his lungs through a hose. Patti finds Eric crying on the floor, lying in the foetal position, (Teplitzky, 13:40 – 15:04). In both the film and novel, the composers have used the compositional feature of memory to demonstrate how the protagonists have lost control of the small things in their lives, in this case cutting meat, and the sound of a
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shower. Amy and Patti, the female protagonists of the novel and film, are subject to their gender stereotypes, which are the reason for them not being in control of their own lives. Amy is married to Keith for the majority of Flanagan’s novel, and for that majority Keith is portrayed as a nice, loving husband to Amy. But we find out that the marriage between Keith and Amy was the result of Keith’s feelings of responsibility towards her after he had forced her through an abortion. The pregnancy was the result of a one-night stand between Amy and Keith. Ironically, Amy wanted to marry so the child would not be a bastard, whereas Keith only wanted to remove the baby and afterwards married Amy out of guilt (Man, 17). “After the abortion, when guilt took hold of Keith and his mind turned to marriage, Amy was too undone and too lost to make any decisions” (Flanagan, 161).
Amy was under the control of Keith before and during their marriage. She had wanted the child, but Keith did not, therefore the child had to go. Patti, after seeing for the first time Eric’s P.T.S.D. symptoms, goes to Finlay to ask about what happened, offering her help for Eric. But Finlay only responds with “I’m sorry I can’t help you play Florence nightingale, a lot of men went through something you can’t even imagine, you’re going to have to let us just get on and cope with it” (Teplitzky, 26:08 - 26:19). Patti came to Finlay, wanting to help Eric, but Finlay, rejects her help, as she is a woman, and cannot understand what the men went through in the war. Both Amy and Patti were subject to their gender to the men around them, and were not in control of their own lives, rather they were told what to do by the males around
them. The composers of the novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the film The Railway Man were influenced by first-hand stories from ex-POWs during the composition of their text/film. They both created characters who are not in control of their lives through the feature of memory, displayed through the male protagonists, who suffer horrendous war flashback, triggered by smells or sounds. As well as through gender stereotypes, demonstrated through the female protagonists, who are under the control of the social patriarchy around them, telling them what they can or cannot do, and what they do or do not understand. Flanagan and Teplitzky, through their contemporary lens, have created characters who suffer by not being in control of their own lives.
Ruth Fowler is Matt’s wife of many years and the mother of Matt’s three children: Steve, Cathleen and the now murdered Frank. Ruth can’t come to terms with Frank’s death and is haunted at all times of the day, whether at home or out in the town shopping and running errands, “She was at Sunnyhurst today getting cigarettes and aspirin, and there he was. She can’t even go out for cigarettes and aspirin. It’s killing her” (108). This quote is a symbolism of her mental state. The anguish of just seeing her son’s killer on the streets with freedom is more than Ruth can mentally comprehend. Ruth continually applies emotional pressure to her husband with comments and allusions to why the killer is sti...
Through her emotional breakdowns and extensive grief, Ruth Fowler provokes her husband into committing homicide in order to appease her. During the weeks after the death of their son, Matt Fowler sees the pain and torment his wife goes through dealing with the fact that their son’s killer still walked the streets not persecuted for his crime. When talking to his friend Willis Trottier about his family after a night of poker, Matt Fowlers affirms, “She can’t even go out for cigarettes and aspirin. It’s killing her. […] Every day since he got out. I didn’t think about bail. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about him for years. She sees him all the time. It makes her cry” (Dubus 2). In Matt Fowler’s recount, he describes his wife as being perpetually afflicted by the presence of their son’s killer, and he even goes further to claim that Richard Strout’s existence is resulting in the deterioration of Ruth Fowler’s health and wellbeing. Although it is too late for Matt Fowler to protect his own son, he feels obligated to guard his wife from the suffering inflicted by presence of their son’s murderer. Because of this marital responsibility brought about by Ruth Fowler’s teary performances, Matt Fowler kills Richard Strout in an effort to end his wife’s emo...
Ruth Fowler is Matt’s wife of many years and the mother of their three children: Steve, Cathleen and the now murdered Frank. Ruth cannot come to terms with Frank’s death and is haunted at all times of the day, whether at home or out in the town running errands, “She was at Sunnyhurst today getting cigarettes and aspirin, and there he was. She can’t even go out for cigarettes and aspirin. It’s killing her” (108). This quote is a symbolism of her mental state. The anguish of just seeing her son’s killer on the streets with freedom is more than Ruth can mentally comprehend. Ruth continually applies emotional pressure to her husband with comments and allusions to why the killer is still able to roam freely while their son cannot, “And at nights in bed she would hold Matt and cry, or sometimes she was silent and Matt would touch her tightening arm, her clinched fist” (112).
Between the time period they took place in and the plots they tell, the film “Life Is Beautiful,” and the memoir “Night,” have a lot in common. The authors tell of similar events, yet they also manage to make their stories have numerous differences. Some of these differences vary around the way each of these stories are told. Others differences focus on the relationships between
This leaves Mel feeling confused and helpless. His feelings of animosity and venomous hatred for his ex-wife are in direct conflict with his original self- evaluation of both being capable of understanding, and engaging in that enigma known as true love. Mel is, in many cases, the Ed of his ex-wife. Whereas Ed engaged in the violent act of dragging Terri throughout the apartment by her ankles, Mel describes, with almost childlike delight, how he has fantasized about playing the starring role in her murder.
Susan and Mathew have a distant relationship because he focuses on patty the four-year-old home school education and almost loses Susan. Susan a teacher notice the interest her husband has in the child and is fears patty is too active with education and has less interaction with her peers also she pokes holes in her diaphragm to keep from having children. Nathan finally understands the obsessive behaviors he has over patty’s education and allows patty to be a child, therefore he focus more on his marriage. Lastly, they rekindle relationship and had another child. Susan and Nathan love one another, consequently, communication played enormous partake in their reconciliation.
Angela’s personal relationships with the people who should be important in her life appear to be dysfunctional or nonexistent and offer her no support. Angela’s relationship with her mother, Sarah, is described as being dysfunctional as Sarah is reported to continue to be angry towards Angela for getting pregnant. Sarah’s anger about the situation has caused her to keep Adam’s father, Wayne, out of the picture. Both Wayne and Sarah could be good support systems for Angela; however, neither appear to be so. Angela’s relationship with her father, another potential support system, is nonexistent leaving Angela alone to deal with motherhood in her teenage years on her
In Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, we see a piece of history being slightly rewritten. Whitehead was able to give the reader a visual of how mentally and physically the slaves were affected. We are given a glimpse of what they call freedom and the reality of freedom in the 1800s through eyes of the protagonist Cora.
Then, the authors switch to the past story of Bishop family in Braintree, along with tragic death of Amy 'sibling, Seth. The structure of this essay help readers better understand the psychological development of a young girls Amy Bishop, and the external influence has created an Amy Bishop today. After the death of Seth, Keefer mentioned about the lack of mental therapy, counseling or absent of Psychiatric evaluation, and most important, the over protection of Judy, Amy’s mother, to avoid her child from being in jail. Amy did not receive enough mentally help, and a heavy psychological shadow has created a mental defect later in her life. "Amy continued to eat meals in the kitchen where her brother had die, and to walk past his bedroom with old woodworking project bore the chiseled letters S-E-T-H.” This quote is very important, because imagine if you were Amy, and living in an environment that is always reminiscent of the worst memories! It will ruin anyone's soul. In later investigate, Amy said that she felt stress, hallucinations, and "hear the voice" off and on, but her family did not aware of such changes. This detail is similar with other mass shooting in the United States, the lack of sophistication to recognize the "walking bomb." The purpose of Keefer's essay is to look at the past of a mass shooter, we can understand their motives, and
Strangers on a Train is one of Hitchcock’s most well-known films. It is typically analyzed in terms of the ways that the two main male characters interact. According to many film critics, homosexual attraction between Bruno and Guy is one of the premises of the film. This may be the case, however, many of these film critics fail to consider the minor characters of the film: the women. Specifically, they fail to analyze the influence of these women on the development of the male characters and to interpret the message Hitchcock is trying to portray about women, especially those with qualities typically not associated with women.
Amy states, “I’ll do any or everything to get a baby” (77). Her eagerness leads her to seek solace in another man, Holland Winchester. This adulterous affair results in an ill-conceived child. Billy is not a trouble-making man until trouble finds him shortly after he discovers the affair between his wife and Holland. Billy asks Amy angrily, “Whose child is it?” (116) and he eagerly waits for Amy’s reply. Amy replies Billy, “It’s my child, Billy. But it can be ours if you want” (118). After hearing this, Billy truly doesn’t know what to do and he takes a promise from Amy that she will never be with Holland again. Thus, though Billy is angry at his wife at one moment, he doesn’t want to loose her wife, so he compromises the situation. Moreover, Billy also tries to understand Amy’s situation and remembers how Amy chose him to be her husband regardless of his abnormal leg. Figuring out all situation, Billy forgive his wife and accept her child as his own. Thus, Billy is a good man who understands and loves his wife and becomes a hero for his
People always like to refer to themselves as “independent”. Independence may seem like a great ideal in modern society, but in a post-apocalyptic world, a sense of dependence is unavoidable. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs help us to understand what people depend on. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, survival of the boy and the man is due to their dependence on their human nature and ability to support one another.
A Tale of Two Cities Essay Throughout history, the powers of love and hate have constantly been engaged in a battle for superiority. Time and time again, love has proven to be stronger than hate, and has been able to overcome all of the obstacles that have stood in the way of it reaching its goal. On certain occasions, though, hate has been a viable foe and defeated love when they clash. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens presents several different power struggles between love and hate.
The Middle Passage (or Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) was a voyage that took slaves from Africa to the Americas via tightly packed ships. The trade started around the early 1500s, and by 1654 about 8,000-10,000 slaves were being imported from Africa to the Americas every year. This number continued to grow, and by 1750 that figure had climbed to about 60,000-70,000 slaves a year. Because of the lack of necessary documents, it is hard to tell the exact number of Africans taken from their homeland. But based on available clues and data, an estimated 9-15 million were taken on the Middle Passage, and of that about 3-5 million died. While the whole idea seems sick and wrong, many intelligent people and ideas went in to making the slave trade economically successful.
When Amy turned nine years old, her father left the family. This drove Amy to pursue in music, but also hurt her mentally. She attempted suicide att 10. She began to cut her wrists to relieve herself from her troubles. She then took the advice of her grandmother to go to theatre school for a start in her career. Amy begin to train at Susi Earnshaw Theatre school. While attending, she started to write and record music with a neighborhood friend, Juliette Ashby. They created a short-lived music group called “Sweet & Sour”. Music was a way to keep her from thinking about her father, but Amy couldn’t handle the pressure. She began to smoke marijuana and started to get tattoos and care little about what she did anymore. Amy attended Susi for four years, then decided to seek full-time training at Sylvia Young Theatre school. Months later she got to appear in an episode of “The Fast Show” a 1997 tv series. Her disrespe...