Short Story Rationale (rough idea) - The Boxer

The aspects of journey that I will be exploring in my short story are physical and inner journeys. The protagonist of the story is a young boxer who joined the Jimmy Sharman boxing tent to learn how to defend himself. The setting is the return to his home town for the local show. The Boxer has learnt about himself though the many fights he has had. The concept of journey in my story is that life is a circle and you have the option to either repeating the journey or going down different path. I will represent the concept of journey in the story through having a linear structure and the setting will be in the boxing ring. The techniques used will be a flashback to the boxer’s childhood and imagery of the boxing ring. The attitudes unpinning the story that is you have control of your own journey.

My Daddy's a Diver Short Story Review

My Daddy’s a Diver meets the short story genre requirements well except in a few areas, an example being that it is only written from one perspective and it doesn’t have a balance of showing and telling in the story. The story does meet many of the short story genre requirements, one being that the story is based within a 24 hour period. Another example is that it has a restricted setting which is the ocean and their home. The story was a restricted number of characters; the father, the daughter and the fish. The purpose of the story is to evoke feelings of love, loss and companionship. The story connects on an emotional level with the reader, the emotions it arouses in the reader are sadness, pity, hope and love.  An example of how the uses language effectively is “lifting its seal he let the seawater in, bathing his face, easing the sadness,” this effectively shows how strongly the dad feels about the loss of his wife and the burden of grief he has been left with. The values that underpin this text are love and the importance of having a partner to share your life with. The type of journey evident in the story is inner journey.  This is shown by the realization of the father from the death of his wife that there can be hope and redemption of the new life and love from his daughter.  The story is very effective as it has strong imagery of loss but loss is also represented in the killing of the fish’s companion. The story also is effective as it shows the value of love one has for their partner in life and that love is such a previous thing and must be cherished.

Unpolished Gem Homework Part 3 – What does this section say about “Journey”? Justify your response by referring to the text and quoting from it.

In the third part of Alice Pung’s novel, Unpolished Gem it represents the concept of ‘Journey’ through the text as it highlights the physical journey and also shows the inner journey they take as well. In the beginning of this section, Alice describes her family’s achievement of finally having their own ‘great Australian dream’ come true and how her family see immigrants who just arrived in Australia starting to take their own journey. Alice refers the ‘Great Australian dream’ in this section which is the desire to own a large house and to have decent or well paying job.  Alice’s family in the section seem to have ended their journey in reaching their ‘Great Australian Dream’ as they are moving into their new house. The physical journey conveyed in this section  is the physical moving into their new house, which also has  inner journey aspect of making their dreams come true from when they first moved to Australia. Alice subtly conveys the aspects of inner journey in this section by using several different angles. Many layers of meanings are shown  in her inner journey, example from the text being, “Gone were the days of where a one-dollar plastic brown vinyl coat a birthday present from the government.” This sentence from the text makes the reader look deeper back through her life, like how her family were once immigrants to Australia and how their attitude has changed since then. Alice and her family watch new immigrants arrive like they did once before, but they feel pity, guilt, resentment and have a different understanding. They now understand how to integrate into society by trying to remove the stereotype about Asian’s and peasantry and how they have lost the amazement they once had. Another angle of inner journey Alice expresses in the text is about the pressures she had as a child to be successful for her parents as they work so hard for Alice to have a better life. The text shows this pressure Alice feels as a child, “parents killing themselves with dangerous chemicals just so you can live a comfortable life, there no comfort within” (p.136). This section explores the physical and inner journeys Alice’s family have been through to build their life in Australia.