Bruce Dawe Poetry - Please help (1 Viewer)

Danoz The Great

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Hey, I'm doing Bruce Dawe Poetry for the elective dialogue.

We got these four questions on each of the poems to answer for some holiday homework:
1. What is the subject matter of the poem?
2. How is dialogue used by Dawe?
3. What characters are used to demonstrate the concern of the composer?
4. What is Dawe saying about the values of society in this particular context?

For the poems "Enter without so much as knocking" and "Pleasant Sunday Afternoon" I'm pretty right, I've answered the questions for them.

However, for the other poems....
"Big Jim": I'm struggling with question two - I don't see any dialogue in the poem! :confused:
"Up the Wall", "Weapons Training" and "Bedroom conversations": I have no idea what these poems are on about.
I think "Bedroom Conversations" is about mothers giving their daughters the talk about puberty and stuff, but I thought the same thing about Weapons Training, so maybe i'm just perverted or something

Could people give me some help with them? It'd be much appreciated!!!
 

sNiPeR_24

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Up The Wall is about the stresses of motherhood and the irony of how the men of the house do nothing to help.

Weapons Training is about the advice given from an officer to new military recruits and the stark reality of what soldiers must face in wartime.

Bedroom Conversations is about a mother and daughter who are both concerned with their appearances, but don't dare speak to one another about it. The mother makes attempts at talking, but the daughter seems uninterested.
 

Danoz The Great

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Thanks lee! Sorry I couldn't come to your party. I have a bone to pick with Dibbzy, he didn't tell me and he said he would. It's like he didn't want me to come!

Don't tell him I said that though!
 
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sNiPeR_24

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That's alright about the party, Danoz, don't worry about it :p

I just finished doing all the homework on the Bruce Dawe texts and ended up writing 3,500 words or 9 pages of information on it, hahaha! Maybe I overdid it a little bit?
 

urpicnic

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Hey!

I've been tutoring a friend of mine on the poetry (I just graduated as an English Major) and I've got to say the chosen text is rather confusing, so I totally understand and sympathise.

Weapons Training is meant to be read as though the speaker is a drill sargeant who is training his young cadets (that includes you in the conversation) with regards to how to attack your enemy and be as fearless as possible. He does this by challenging them with his power and with abusive phrases, to desensitise them before they step out on the battlefield.
Up the Wall is all about a husband and a wife who are quite fed up with the way their lives turned out. The husband thinks his life is too quiet, like a boring light-hearted discussion, while the wife suffers through the turmoil of having such agonising children and is finding her petty crises tedious. Thus she is 'Up the Wall'.
A Bedroom Conversation (which, by the way, you are rather close to think its a puberty talk) is just young daughters trying to talk to their mother about some sensitive profound and important issues, such as existence, self worth, maybe even puberty, but the dialogue fails on both parts. Both mother and daughters are hesitant. Mum is hesitant because she cannot seem to break through the surface of their imaginings and the daughters because they seem lost in themselves and come to realise how small they are in the scheme of things.
Big Jim is much like a biography of Jim's life, a man who was big in size as well as character. Interesting to note that in the last lines, the biographer says that noone could size up Jims 'pride of life' although he tried to do just that throughout the entire poem. There are many ways that dialogue is used in Big Jim- the way Jim interacts with his beer, as though it were a person and an enemy, and (2) the way the biographer tries to convey the life of Jim, speaks of him endearingly and tries to epitomise him as a true-blue and noble Australian.

There is no point in discussing what is going on in the poem or what the dialogue physically is, unless you do two things:
1) you discuss what you experience through the language of the dialogue
2) you provide examples
You must prove to your marker (who by the way is NOT out to get you, but to give you as many marks as possible!) that not only have you read the text and know what the poet has written, but that you know what the poet is doing, how the language of the dialogue affects your experience of the text and BACK IT UP with examples. Examples are crucial. The more you have, the better!

Good luck everyone!
 

Nood

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Hey!

I've been tutoring a friend of mine on the poetry (I just graduated as an English Major) and I've got to say the chosen text is rather confusing, so I totally understand and sympathise.

Weapons Training is meant to be read as though the speaker is a drill sargeant who is training his young cadets (that includes you in the conversation) with regards to how to attack your enemy and be as fearless as possible. He does this by challenging them with his power and with abusive phrases, to desensitise them before they step out on the battlefield.
Up the Wall is all about a husband and a wife who are quite fed up with the way their lives turned out. The husband thinks his life is too quiet, like a boring light-hearted discussion, while the wife suffers through the turmoil of having such agonising children and is finding her petty crises tedious. Thus she is 'Up the Wall'.
A Bedroom Conversation (which, by the way, you are rather close to think its a puberty talk) is just young daughters trying to talk to their mother about some sensitive profound and important issues, such as existence, self worth, maybe even puberty, but the dialogue fails on both parts. Both mother and daughters are hesitant. Mum is hesitant because she cannot seem to break through the surface of their imaginings and the daughters because they seem lost in themselves and come to realise how small they are in the scheme of things.
Big Jim is much like a biography of Jim's life, a man who was big in size as well as character. Interesting to note that in the last lines, the biographer says that noone could size up Jims 'pride of life' although he tried to do just that throughout the entire poem. There are many ways that dialogue is used in Big Jim- the way Jim interacts with his beer, as though it were a person and an enemy, and (2) the way the biographer tries to convey the life of Jim, speaks of him endearingly and tries to epitomise him as a true-blue and noble Australian.

There is no point in discussing what is going on in the poem or what the dialogue physically is, unless you do two things:
1) you discuss what you experience through the language of the dialogue
2) you provide examples
You must prove to your marker (who by the way is NOT out to get you, but to give you as many marks as possible!) that not only have you read the text and know what the poet has written, but that you know what the poet is doing, how the language of the dialogue affects your experience of the text and BACK IT UP with examples. Examples are crucial. The more you have, the better!

Good luck everyone!
I'm doing bedroom conversations for English and I got no clue about the techniques used.
I don't think ill get a reply due to replying after 13 years.
 

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