Part 3- AOS: DISCOVERYYou will be asked to respond to a question related to the AOS: Discovery. In your response you will be required to make reference to the text studied and at least two related supplementary texts. This is an extended written response. It may be an essay or another form of writing such as a speech.

Set text: WRACK

LINK: overall message- the purpose of discovery is to find the truth and yet this is not possible. The nature of what may be discovered is uncertain. The ultimate discovery proves to be an absence of certainty or absolute truth. There is no ultimate discovery, only personal responses and perceptions of the moments that take place in the continuum between life and death.

Discovery highlights the physical risks, the mystery and the uncertainty involved in any journey of exploration.

The combination of a variety of narrative voices in WRACK ensures that readers are aware that this text has been deliberately constructed with a certain purpose in mind.

The amalgamation of historical, reflective and creative prose ensures that the novel’s structure mirrors the overall thematic concern with the unknowable nature of truth and discovery.

By adopting this structural technique, Bradley attempts to avoid producing a text with one dominant point of view.

Non linear, kaleidoscopic narrative. No one unified voice (reflects idea of no ONE truth) Structural technique established in prologue and maintained throughout novel.

Concepts of discovery/ commentary

Discovery involves risks and overcoming fears, and the possibility that what you discover may not be what you were searching for in the first place.

Bradley toys with the themes of reliability and authenticity of historical fact and historical documentation. He encourages the reader to believe that the event did indeed take place and that official documents should be no more reliable than storytelling. Authentic documents should be under scrutiny.

Nothing is certain, but everything is possible

Theme: time can distort fine line between fact and fiction

Australia’s past used by Bradley to comment on discovery. Not all discoveries are intended whilst others can be ‘designed’ or deliberately ‘sought after’

Discoveries can be falsified. History recognizes that false discoveries were used to deceive and that maps can be unreliable.

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Some discoveries are ‘hidden’ ‘kept ‘secret’ and are ultimately ‘lost’ in the past.

Pg 44-50David is searching for meaning and he wants these mysteries solved. He is literally and symbolically driving through darkness in search for answers.

Themes of uncertainty, loss and discovery : Impossible to discover what another person is really thinking about

Some things are buried, not dead

Truth is relative to the individual David will get caught up in Kurt’s testimony partly because he wants to believe what he hears and partly because it will answer in many ways give meaning to his existence.

The uncovering farm machinery instead of the ship and lack of concern by police to identify the dead body is a small significant comment on the fact that some discoveries can be disappointing and worthless. The desire to discover, to find, can end in disappointment.

David no longer cares if his search has become an ‘obsession’, if there is no conclusive evidence, all he needs is faith, a belief that it exists. David does not allow reason and evidence to become barrier to discovery.

David is haunted by Tania’s ghost and again Bradley shows how the past is ever present in future

Tania’s scent has been tattooed to David’s skin. David’s past is not buried; it is still close to his emotional surface and is overshadowing his life. His need for the ship is a way of dealing with the force of his grief

Pg 86-96 The path to discovery can be unclear and complicated. David’s search has

become a ‘labyrinth (web) of mirror’, a tangle of ‘snaking lines and maps’, ‘scraps of evidence’ and David is like a ‘blinding man’ trying to find his way.

Discovery benefits knowledge and understand, but also allows us to navigate the future “to see beyond our passions”

Discoveries in WRACK: Possible discovery of Aust. By Portuguese Kurt’s possible discovery of shipwreck David’s discovery of Kurt and his story David’s rediscovery of Claire Kurt’s discovery of Fraser and Veronica’s relationship Fraser’s discovery of Kurt and Veronica’s relationship Claire’s self discovery Kurt’s discovery of music

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Veronica’s self discovery and realization of her love for Kurt.

Techniques:

The significance of the ship is buried somewhere in the sand dunes becomes a metaphor throughout the narratives for the shifting and uncertain nature of both historical and personal truth.

Discoveries- inconclusive and simply more pieces in a puzzle which [he] can never complete

The motif of discovery is extended beyond the search for a Portuguese wreck, but for characters like David and Kurt, the ship becomes an obsession to give their life shape and meaning.

David uses his search for the ship as a way of subliminating his grief for Tania (dead wife), while Kurt has the memory of the ship as a place of refuge and shelter.

The shipwreck becomes a metaphor for the wreck of people’s lives and how relationships can become obsessive and damaging

The structure of Kurt’s narrative suggests that David is ‘avoiding everything’ Pg 211 by hearing what he wants to hear and reconstructing Kurt’s narrative to suit his purposes.

The imagery of ‘cutting’, ‘bleaching’ and ‘slicing’ suggests the often brutal and painful process that needs to be undertaken to isolate truth.

Bradley uses the metaphor of a mirror to describe the sand as it will indeed become a mirror into which the characters must look, not only in an attempt to uncover the mystery of the ship but also the mystery of themselves

Structure: novel blurs the distinction between the two by juxtaposing the past and present, history and fiction.

Pg 9-11 Shifting sands- metaphor of truth

Truth, like sand, cannot be pinned down and conclusively mapped.

The wave’s flow- symbol of overlapping and interconnected nature of past and present.

The word ‘echoes’- impact of past on present and future

All discoveries pointless? What is the role of the author if there is nothing to ‘expose’, nothing to ‘find’?

Linked to the idea that there is no one answer to find- no conclusion. Narrative often prefaced with ‘might’, ‘perhaps’, ‘may’

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Images of the heat of the sun and the intensity of the light ‘glaring from every angle’ can be seen symbolic of David’s state of mind, as he wants to uncover what lies beneath the surface.

The language: ‘shifting’ ‘uncertain’ reinforces the novel’s preoccupation with lack of absolute truth and the constant process of discovery that characterizes people’s lives.

Maps as a metaphor for what the novel is about

Maps symbolic of the novel’s structure. A combination of different narrative voices, like a combination of different maps, may enrich our understanding of a particular event or place.

Pg 189The moonlight only partly reveals Claire’s figure. Despite their physical intimacy, David is till unsure of what Claire is thinking and felling. The emotional and psychological life of the individual is another frontier to be explored. Everything in the novel is shrouded in half light, secrets and suspicion.

Glossary Chimerical: unreal and fancifulDemarcation: limit or boundaryCharlatan: A person who falsely claims to have special knowledge or skillsShrouded: masked, cloaked, covered.

Useful quotes

William Townsend: This discovery of ours must remain a secret, locked close as this journal pg 6

James Bradley: …or maybe the truth is not what lies beneath the sand but the sand itself, always shifting, never certain, so that once we cut away that which we cannot be sure of we are left with nothing but space and echoes. Pg 9

Anne: we both know what we’ve found out over the last few months, that there’s no ship here to find…Jesus, maybe it was never here, the point is that it’s not here to be found and we both just have to accept that. I have, so why can’t you? Pg 82

Kirkly: The answer is that the Portuguese were never here, that the maps are a mirage, and that those who make these claims for them are either gullible, or worse, should know better. Pg 125

“how to tell this story, where to begin? Perhaps it begins in a storm, the wind whipped sand cutting deep into a child’s skin, bullying him, driving him, pushing him deeper into the darkness, this unkindness of win a purification…” Tone: uncertain, insecure, unsure, no direction, possibilities. Author voice.

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