15th August 2017

Significant Connections

The Nature Of Survival

 

The following four texts demonstrate the idea of survival in different ways. The 4 texts I used were “Touching The Void” directed by Joe Simpson, “127 Hours” directed by Danny Boyle, “Rabbit Proof Fence” directed by Phillip Noyce and “Life Of Pi” directed by Ang Lee. all of these texts showed ideas of survival. Watching these films I learned that in survival situations different people go different ways about surviving such as Joe Simpson, one of the methods of survival for him was to set goals to get to certain distances in a limited amount of time. And Aaron from 127 hours he felt he needed to get out of the rock or people would not think of him as a hero. This is a really important lesson that shows people will do almost anything to survive.

 

“Destroy what destroys you”

 

The nature of survival is shown in the film “Touching The Void” directed by Joe Simpson. The first aspect of survival is that sometimes we must take risks to survive. This is shown when Joe Simpson’s axe slips as he is descending down a ice wall making him fall and shatter his right knee. The only way for Joe to get down the mountain is for Simon to tie two of the ropes together and lower Joe 300 feet at a time. The text states “in effect we were now roped together with one 300 foot line, which would halve the time spent digging belay seats and double the distance lowered.” This shows that if the men had not risked going down the mountain using the ropes they would still be suck where Joe shattered his right knee. We also have to take risks to survive in the real world as well and not just physical survival also things like mental or social survival.  

 

A second aspect of survival is that we need to make quick decisions this is shown when Simon is lowering Joe down the side of Siula Grande. Joe falls into a huge crevasse and gets caught inside, the crevasse is too deep for Joe to touch the floor and he is too far away from the wall to put it his ice axe in the wall and take the tension off Simon. Simon held Joe’s full body weight for almost a hour until Simon cut the rope “I was being pulled off the mountain. The seat moved beneath me,” “The knife!” The thought came out of nowhere. “Of course the knife. Be quick,come on get it.” this shows that Simon had to make quick decisions otherwise he would’ve got pulled down the mountain with Joe.”I was actually pleased I was strong enough to cut the rope… I was still alive because I had kept it together right up to the last moment.”

 

127 Hours

 

The nature of survival is shown in the film “127 Hours” directed by Danny Boyle. The first aspect of survival is that you need to have a good attitude towards survival. Aaron shows at the start of the film that he thinks he is too good and that he has no respect for what he is about to do, he shows this by not telling anyone where he is going. While he is mountain biking to the destination he acts really over confident “guide book says 4 and a 1/2 hours to the big drop rappel, I aim to take 45 minutes off that” along the way he meets 2 young girls walking along the trail when he is with the girls he acts like he is the man the whole time. Aaron shows how confident and arrogant he is when he is recording himself, he speaks really loud and everything he says is very cocky. When Aaron is running through a canyon he drops down a gap he uses a unstable rock to hold him up but the rock slips he falls down to the bottom of the canyon. The rock falls with him and wedges his hand against the side of the canyon wall. He tries his hardest to move the rock off his arm or somehow pull his arm out from under the rock but nothing he tries works, he tries many thing such as a pulley system to try lift the rock off but it fails, but Aaron does not give up he is afraid that if he doesn’t get out alive people wouldn’t think of him as a hero. We see this when he is pretending to have an interview with himself “now is it true that despite, or maybe because you’re a big fucken hard hero, you didn’t tell anyone where you were going?” Then he replies “uh… yea that’s absolutely correct.”

 

  

 

Rabbit proof fence

 

The nature of survival was shown in the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” directed by Phillip Noyce. The first aspect of survival that was shown in the film is Molly’s skill of reading the weather. This helps the girls when molly is told to “take the bucket out” she walks outside and sees that a rainstorm is coming and she sees this as a chance to escape she goes inside and asks the girls to leave with her “come on, get your things. We are going. Going home to mother.” Gracie and Daisy are both worried about Moodoo tracking them down and putting them in the boob but molly reassures them that he won’t find them, and that the rain will wash their tracks away “he not gonna get us. We will just keep walking and the rain will cover our tracks”

 

Life Of Pi

 

The nature of survival is shown in the film “Life Of Pi” directed by Ang Lee. The first aspect of survival that was shown in the film is Pi’s skill of adapting to his surroundings. This is shown when the family decide to pack up their zoo in Pondicherry and move to Canada via boat. During the trip they encounter rough seas that cause the boat to sink. During the sinking all of Pi’s family members down but Pi just manages to escape alive. Pi manages to get onto a lifeboat but when he opens the cover he is greeted by a bengal tiger named Richard Parker along with a zebra with a badly broken leg a hyena and an orangutan. The hyena attacks and kills both the zebra and orangutan but shortly after gets killed by the tiger. After all of this Pi is now stuck on a small lifeboat with a fully grown bengal tiger. Pi then has to learn to live with the tiger, instead of trying to kill the tiger or leave it behind Pi tries to live with the tiger and keep him alive. He does this by sharing his emergency rations and cans of water with Richard Parker he also starts to fish for food as well and shares the catchings with Richard Parker. Pi realises if he wants to survive on the boat with Richard Parker then they both need to learn to work around each other and that Richard Parker would need to be tamed. using the fish a whistle and the tigers extreme seasickness his advantage Pi managed to tame the tiger enough for them both to live on the same boat. “I had to tame him. It was at this moment I realised this necessity.”  

 

Throughout the four texts I have been studying I have gone over what extremes people will do to survive all the people in these texts have the same main goal and that is to survive just in different circumstances. After learning about these texts I have learnt to always be determined and never give up on what you want. Because the all of the people in the texts I have written about did all of these things, they were determined and not ready to give up and this helped all of them to survive their near death experience.   

Join the conversation! 1 Comment

  1. Shea, in the first week of Term 4, you will be given time to finalise your “Significant Connections” assessment. Key areas to strengthen:
    1) Complete your analysis of your four texts.
    2) Include a short overview at the beginning of your assessment, outlining the topic of your essay and the texts that you will discuss.
    3) Each of your text points should conclude with what the reader/viewer learns about your theme: the nature of survival.
    4) Some comparisons need to be made between texts.
    5) Please read through your assessment carefully out loud, to find the punctuation (capital letters, full-stops and quotation marks), word, spelling and sentence errors. You need to tighten-up the accuracy of your assessment, overall.
    – Quite a bit of work to do in the final time provided, Shea.

    Reply

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