HSC Advanced English 2016: Discovery

Craig J - 12EnB

Area of Study - Discovery Practice Essay ‘The process of discovery matters more than what is discovered.” Do you agree? Argue your point of view, referring to ONE related text. Universally embodying the totality of human experiences shaping individual perspective, the process of discovery is the fundamental underpinning of ideological reassessment, key in facilitating the ultimate impact of a discovery to transform individuals and thereby expedite their journey to enlightenment which is not only confined to the self, but also society. Such discernible implications of the progression of discovery in catalysing metamorphosis are evident within Che Guevara’s 2003 memoir, ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, where we witness Che’s compassion towards the proletariat’s hardships condition his discovery of necessitated socio-political change and thus transform him from medical student into revolutionary humanitarian. Similarly, Tate Taylor’s 2011 film ‘The Help’ explicates upon white protagonist Skeeter’s estrangement from societal bigotry, which enforces her discovery of the entrenched prejudice towards African-American maids and impels her to work towards equality. Through the illuminations of hardship and political inequality, both texts preserve the process of discovery as a requisite for self-transformation in their edifying ramifications intrinsically linked to human purpose.

Human hardship predicates the process of discovery to enrich an individual’s understanding of their world and sanction the ultimate impact of discovery to incite transformation. This is perceptible within ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, where we witness Guevara’s interaction with his immediate environment engender sympathy to his discovery of poverty and expose the underlying compassion responsible for his catalysis into controversial figure and global icon, ‘Che’. A bildungsroman tale steeped in undertones of Cold War revisionism, the work’s structure as a pastiche of vignettes permeates a sense of development and intimacy through the evocative denomination “so we understand each other”. Che’s initial admiration of his cultural landscape is elucidated in “I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure …” to metaphorically channel his deeply anecdotal construct through the employment of first-person. Thus, the antecedent paradox “… a little more alone but a little more free” serves to companion his relaxed posture within his photos in Buenos Aries, exemplifying Guevara’s enrichment of self as his process of discovery. The gravity of his spiritual dilemma is thereby evident within the emotive rhetoric and personification of “not one single miserable blanket to cover themselves with”, juxtaposing Che’s interactions to the proletariat’s poverty with confronting parallels to his middle class upbringing to enforce his transformation. As such, Guevara’s biblicallike introspection “when the great dividing spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I will be with the people” is facilitated only through his natural development within his socio-political zeitgeist, ultimately asserting that the significance of discovery necessitates progression through human hardship to provoke nascent implications upon individual perspective.

Craig J - 12EnB

Furthermore, political inequality is equated within ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ to an instrument validating the process of discovery to instigate diplomatic appreciation within individuals and thereby precipitate the magnitude of discovery to ameliorate their potential in revolutionising their immediate society. Che’s physical expedition chronicles the progressive awakening of a political conscience, initially repudiated within Romanticised visions of “the scent of wilderness caressing our nostrils”, which espouses his oblivious disposition through personified, sensory imagery in accordance with ecclesiastical, Post WWII sentiment. This is suspended within vivid metonymy, where Guevara witnesses “communism gnawing at [their] entrails…”, expounding upon the interplay between burgeoning Marxist values of the era and innate capitalist agendas shaping his inner climate. Moreover, political facets inculcated through Che’s self-reflectivity and recurrent application of second person - “Conscious of his complete powerlessness, that he longs for a change”, denotes his emblematic self re-evaluation to reemphasise the propensity for gradual discoveries in enkindling insight toward’s one sense of political self. Therefore, the ensuing repercussions of Guevara’s ultimate discovery are explicitly underscored through high modality that “there must be a revolution” to sustain the enablement of discovery as a process to impart insight into his beliefs, most notably “Yankee Economic Imperialism”. As such Guevara’s powerful appreciation of liberal political views reassert the substantial importance of the process of discovery in stimulating self-actualisation as per supplanting the discovery itself.

Likewise, in Tate Taylor’s ‘The Help’, Skeeter’s transgressive experiences of civil unrest within 1960s Mississippi shape her persona and culminate in her discovery of prejudicial injustice confronting the domestic help, thereby actuating her desire to overcome racial discrimination and reasserts the process of discovery as the sine qua non superseding the discovery itself. Taylor’s cinematic reconstruction delineates parallels to ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, translating Che’s comfortable background into the contemporary mise en scene of Skeeter’s isolated mansion and sapphire Cadillac. Skeeter’s experiences with maid Constantine constitute the basis of her processual discovery, exposed within flashback through eye-level close up shot and egalitarian subtext to evoke pathos as she is urged to ‘do something big with your [life]’. Indeed, Skeeter’s ingress into Aibileen’s residence serves to propagate her resentment towards Jackson’s white populace - a low angle imposition of Skeeter upon Aibileen’s settee coupled with the filmic structure in media res substantiates parallels of Eugenia with her confidante, Constantine. Analogous to Che’s political awareness, Skeeter’s civil awareness of deep-rooted contextual legislation is represented symbolically through narration and closeup of Mississippi’s law book, thereby promoting her sarcastic comment of “… I’ll be on the lookout” to reduce Hilly’s proclamation that there are “real racists in this town” to but a display of dramatic irony. Therefore, Jackson’s vilification of the domestic help is enforced through swelling non-diegetic music and successive, transitional shots to portray discovery’s impact as necessitating personal experiences in a cumulative process.

Craig J - 12EnB

Overall, both ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ and ‘The Help’ possess an inherent predilection towards discovery in their resonating implications towards human agency. Through discovery as a progression through human hardship and political inequality, we recognise that the process of discovery as indispensable in fostering insight towards not only individual self, but also society, and thus superseding the impact of the discovery itself.