VCE English Section A: Exemplar Text Analysis Essay

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We’ll break down the process of how to interpret the question, identify key words and themes, and plan and compose your essay to effectively address the marking criteria.

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VCE English Section A: Sample Paper

Section A consists of a list of essay questions for each of the set texts on Text List 1. Although you study two of these texts in Year 12, you only write on one of them in the actual exam. You’ll always have a choice of two essay questions for each text. It’s entirely up to you which one you answer.

To demonstrate, let’s look at the two questions about the set text Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley, from the Sample Paper.

Which question to choose?

Both questions are worth 20 marks and you should attempt only one of them. This is a free choice, and neither question is designed to be harder than the other.

Bear in mind that the VCE is a closed-book exam. So, answer the question you feel best prepared to tackle without looking at the text or your study notes.

Let’s look at these two options and consider how we might choose between them.

The first option (5.i) states that a person “must” have compassion in order to be considered human. This wording introduces two themes: compassion and humanity.

• A high-scoring response would need to discuss both and indicate how they are linked. Importantly, you would need to consider whether compassion is a necessary part of the human condition.

The second question (5.ii) proposes a contrast between a beautiful natural world and an ugly “society” – presumably represented by more urban settings in the novel.

• A high-scoring essay would test this claim by considering instances in the novel where nature is shown to be ugly and society can be interpreted as beautiful.

It is important to structure your VCE English Section A essay around a clear argument: you must either agree with the claim or disagree.

Failure to tackle the question head-on will result in a lower mark.

Exemplar VCE English Section A Essay Response

Let’s look at a high-scoring response to question 5.i. Note that this response has been written under exam conditions (60 minutes).

The novel Frankenstein demonstrates that one must have compassion to be human.
Do you agree?

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein demonstrates the importance of compassion by contrasting its human protagonist with his inhuman creation. Shelley invites readers to question whether Victor or the Creature is more capable of compassion, and what this says about each character’s claim to be considered human. In her characterisation of Victor, Shelley presents a man whose ego and ambition override his natural humanity and suppress his capacity to feel compassion for his own creation. By contrast, while the Creature is capable of great cruelty, Shelley also presents him sympathetically by demonstrating his capacity to feel compassion. Ultimately, it is the reader’s humanity which is tested, as we are invited to feel compassion for both characters, despite their wicked and destructive actions.

Victor Frankenstein is an egotistical protagonist whose over-reaching ambitions cloud his ability to feel compassion. Frankenstein introduces himself to Walton as having been the “plaything and… idol” of his parents, implying that he was spoiled as a child and therefore lacks a strong model for how to parent well. This foreshadows the tensions which will exist in his relationship with the Creature, who is symbolically his child, but whom he immediately disowns. It is clear from his account that Victor constructs the Creature not out of love but from a desire to prove his scientific theories, meaning that he shows little compassion for how the Creature will experience a life he did not ask for. When he describes his scientific studies, Frankenstein exclaims, “what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!” The choice of the word “glory” connotes his self-serving motives, and the desire to be “invulnerable” echoes the implications of the novel’s subtitle – “The modern Prometheus” – in suggesting that Frankenstein sees himself as more than human, wanting to elevate himself to a godlike status by his power to give and sustain life. Shelley thus makes it clear that his motives are not born of compassion but of ambition. This characterisation is reinforced when he sources dead bodies from which to construct the Creature, stating, “a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life”. The coldly scientific tone demonstrates Frankenstein’s lack of compassion for the families of those whose graves he is robbing and whose bodies he is defiling. Recalling the Creature’s first moments of life, Frankenstein poses the rhetorical question, “How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?” Notably, his focus here is entirely on his own feelings, using possessive pronouns (“my emotions”) and derogatory language about the Creature (“the wretch”). Again, his sense of having accomplished something superhuman, by taking “infinite pains and care” contrasts with his failure to display the characteristic human quality of compassion for this new life he has brought into the world. Like his own parents, Frankenstein fails to rise to the responsibility of a parent by acting in the Creature’s best interests rather than his own. Thus, while Frankenstein is technically human, he fails to manifest the compassion which readers expect of him.

By contrast, the Creature is initially portrayed as inhuman, yet later shows the ability to feel compassion which invites readers to question whether he is not, in a moral sense, more human than his creator. Frankenstein refers to his creation as a “demoniacal corpse” and calls him “Devil” when they meet on Mont Blanc, yet the Creature attempts to reason with him. During this confrontation, the Creature makes it clear that he feels betrayed and abandoned by his creator, exhorting Frankenstein to “Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind.” The high modality language and imperative tone convey the Creature’s deep emotional hurt, while his talk of “duty” demonstrates a more compassionate understanding of the responsibilities people owe to one another than Frankenstein has shown. On the other hand, the Creature’s compassion may be simply rhetorical – he has, after all, killed William as an act of revenge, showing no compassion for this innocent boy. As the Creature begins to take on his creator’s worse qualities, taking upon himself the right to decide who lives and dies, so Frankenstein begins to show great compassion for other human beings – especially Elizabeth and his family. He recalls how, “torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.” Here, we see a belated recognition of his responsibility. The tricolon “remorse, horror, and despair” captures the depth of his empathetic suffering, while the word “unhallowed” connotes a recognition that his behaviour has been not only wicked but irreligious. Frankenstein appears humbled by the consequences of his actions, but this does not develop into a sense of compassion for the Creature. Instead, he once more rejects him, even as the Creature appeals to him to act like a parent, saying, “I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my devoted head.” This language of “entreating” and “devotion” frames the Creature as a supplicant, wanting to experience compassion from his creator, even after he has committed terrible crimes. This is a strikingly human moment, since the reader infers that the Creature could easily choose to kill Frankenstein, but chooses instead to counter his “hatred” with “devotion”. Strikingly, Frankenstein is moved by the Creature’s appeal, recalling, “I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution.” His willingness to listen to the Creature’s account represents a turning point in the novel. Were he to forgive the creature, make amends and genuinely commit to creating a mate for the Creature to live with, the possibility exists that no one else would die and Frankenstein’s humanity might be saved by an act of supreme compassion and forgiveness. The Creature asserts, “I am malicious because I am miserable” – the alliteration making this simple sentence pithy and memorable – but Frankenstein proves unable to accept or believe this. His compassion has limits. Thus, the contrast between Frankenstein and the Creature reveals that neither character wholly lacks compassion, but neither is capable of sufficient compassion to overcome their desire for vengeance. As such, both are flawed and human in their behaviour and attitudes, even if neither can fully accept this of the other.

Shelley’s novel tests the humanity of its readers by presenting two central characters who are deeply flawed yet who each deserve some measure of compassion. Frankenstein initially presents himself as a hubristic scientist who would challenge God himself for the power to create life. Yet, the very fact that he is making this apparently honest confession to Walton suggests he has made a serious attempt to atone for his faults – which have, in the end, cost him everyone and everything he cares about. Despite his arrogance and initial cowardice, running from the Creature rather than caring for and supporting him, Frankenstein also displays strong moral qualities, including his enduring loyalty to Clerval (“beloved friend!”) and his genuine love for Elizabeth, with whom he hopes to experience “quiet and freedom”. His conviction that the Creature should be brought to justice for the murder of William and the hanging of Justine is not without merit. Similarly, the Creature is shown to be capable of great wickedness, which challenges the reader’s ability to feel compassion for him. The most extreme case is the murder of Elizabeth, which Frankenstein, using superlative language to emphasise his creation’s cruelty calls, “the destruction of the best hope and the purest creature on earth”. In Frankenstein’s account, the Creature later tells him, “we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred”, a claim which may be taken both literally, referring to the journey across the ice, and figuratively as a metaphor for a purgatorial journey, since both characters essentially inhabit a hell of their mutual making. Yet, despite all this wickedness, the reader must still feel some compassion for the Creature – as Walton seems to do in their final encounter. Amid his claim to posthumously forgive Frankenstein, the Creature recalls, “still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this?” The question – though rhetorical – is in fact directed at the reader. Shelley requires us to examine our own consciences to recognise the essential humanity in the Creature’s appeal.

The novel Frankenstein represents compassion as a desirable human quality, but one which many humans – notably the protagonist – often lack. At the same time, the example of the Creature demonstrates that compassion is not a uniquely human trait. The events of the novel reveal that compassion must be nurtured, especially by parents, and practised even in circumstances where one is tempted to turn instead to vengeance and hatred. When he fails to show compassion for his creation, Frankenstein dooms the Creature and his own family; likewise, a failure to show compassion on the part of the Creature enables him to carry out his murderous vengeance and prevents him from ever becoming fully human. Ultimately, the novel tests the reader’s own humanity by exhorting us to feel compassion for both these flawed and conflicted characters who, between them, represent both the worst and the best in human nature.

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