'A short story exploring the power of nature through Brooke (a teenage girl)'s perspective after her father dies from a tragic accident. As she tries to continue living, she makes a startling discovery.
Full Description:
This task was created to “explore one of the common themes investigated in the key texts studied this semester. The creative should update these themes to a contemporary context and consider perspective, audience, and purpose carefully”. The texts studied in class were based around the theme of the natural world versus colonisers. In my story, I explored this theme and was inspired by the texts studied in class, particularly Lawson’s 1892 short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’ and Weir’s 1975 film ‘Picnic-at-Hanging-Rock’. I wanted my writing to highlight the environmental damage that humans do and to raise the thought that nature is a powerful force that we should be respecting as it is capable of fighting back. By setting my creative in a modern time, I could help the reader feel connected to the story and characters by referring to things like COVID-19 and emails, thus making the story’s conclusion more dramatic and personal. When writing this story, I decided that I wanted to use a nature motif, thus creating an undercurrent of how the natural world has influenced us in so many ways. I chose to call my character Brooke as this is a name that comes from nature. Additionally, all the similes I used were referencing something in nature; “like a lion knows its Savannah”, “…eyes like a flood” and “like a woodpecker”. Motifs assist in reinforcing the theme of the story and so by constantly linking back to the environment, it shows the close relationship that humans have with nature. As these are the only vivid descriptions that I used, it helps the reader subconsciously start to think about nature.
Photo Bibliography: A clump of trees standing with numerous other trees cut down n.d., Photograph, Washington State University, viewed 11 October 2022, https://news.wsu.edu/news/2022/08/04/scientists-urge-preparation-for-climate-endgame/
