Hey guys. Welcome back to Lisa Study Guides. So, right now, it's in the middle of December,
and I know that most of you should have finished school by now, and you're enjoying your school
holidays. Because it is summer holidays, and most people aren't really studying right now,
this is for the truly keen beans, the people who are reading the text before the school starts,
which, by the way, you should be doing. I'll pop that video in a card up above and so if you are
studying Burial Rites, then this video is for you. If you're not, as always, it doesn't really
matter because the type of advice that I will be giving would definitely be relevant to any text,
because it's more about your thinking and how you actually go around approaching essay topics.
Burial Rites is about this girl called Agnes, and she is the last person in Iceland to be sentenced
to the life sentence. This book covers the last few months of her life, living with these people
who she's sharing her story with. She has been sentenced because she has murdered Natan. And
although we first initially hear that she has murdered this guy, when we start to hear her
story develop, that's when we start to see that there are shades of gray. That she did have reason
behind what she did, and you can start to feel quite sympathetic towards her. At the same time,
though, and this is what today's essay question will be about. There's a lot to do with the
patriarchy. Agnes being not just a woman, but an intelligent woman, was something that was
looked down upon, and people were scared of that. That's just to give you a little bit of context
so that we can start this essay topic. Today's chosen essay topic is, women have no
power in Burial Rites, the patriarchy dominates their lives. To what extent do you agree?
The first step, as always, is we look at keywords. What are the keywords here? To me, they are women,
no power, patriarchy and dominates. These words really stand out to me, and these are the words
that I feel are necessary for me to focus on in order to answer this prompt properly.
The second step that I do is I define keywords. So what I do here is I try to understand what the
keywords mean and also their implications. Women, as our first keyword, it's easy just to say, "Oh,
women includes this character and this character." But we can start to think about more so the
implications as well. So don't just think about the major characters like Agnes and Margret,
but also think about the minor characters like Sigga and Rosa. No power. So to me, no power
means to lack freedom. It's not necessarily no power like you know I'm not strong and this is
why we need to actually define the words because many words have multiple connotations or they
have multiple meanings. So you need to figure out, "Okay, how am I going to find this word
so that I've got the right focus for the rest of my essay?" This is silly, but what if you,
halfway through your essay, went, "Holy crap, power could also mean electricity, and I didn't
talk about electricity." So electricity is not part of Burial Rites, but it's just something to
get you thinking. You know you don't just want to dive straight into the essay, assuming you
know what the keyword means and what it entails. Actually spend time to define it, so that it's a
lot clearer for you, too. So I've also added that no power means a lack of power compared to men.
So Because it is a patriarchy, the fact that they have no power is very much sort of linked
to the fact that it's male-induced. The third one is a patriarchy, so a male-dominated
society, which means that an analysis of male characters is also required to fully understand
male and female interactions. If you have an essay where you only talk about the women, then you're
maybe only answering it 50%. To really add extra value to what you're saying and to really solidify
your points, talk about the men because everyone influences each other one way or another.
The last thing is I would also add, to what extent? When a prompt says,
"To what extent?" to me, it means that some sort of challenge is required here. It's probably not
enough if I just completely agree with it because it's only suggesting that the extent does end
somewhere and that you need to go beyond it. My third step is I plan out key arguments. So
this is how I'm going to break down this essay prompt. I am going to do two body paragraphs
where I agree and one body paragraph where I disagree. So this should mean that I'm
only agreeing to a certain extent. So my first body paragraph is yes, under
male authority, the women are robbed of freedom and power. My example for that would be Agnes,
who is the protagonist. She is a woman who's being sentenced to death for murdering Natan,
more about him later, and, as a result, society condemns her and she's robbed of her identity
and freedom. "Everything I said was altered until the story wasn't my own." The metaphor of a story
represents her being stripped of her experiences and identity, and instead replaced with how others
think of her, whore, madwoman and murderess. My second body paragraph would be another
agreement, but this time I'm going to focus on the men. In this second body paragraph,
my argument is men hold exploitative power over women. One, Natan, the person who was murdered,
toys with all his whores, demonstrating male dominance in 1820s Iceland. All his workmaids
are stranded, shipwrecked with nowhere else to go, highlighting women's hopelessness in
changing their situation. Additionally, there's Blondal.So Blondal is a government authority and
he's torn when commanding Lauga, Lauga, not too sure how to say that. You guys let me know. "I'm
sure you would not question me," which is also another example of women's subordinate status.
The third one is one where I disagree. Here will be that there are rare instances of female
empowerment in the novel. The first one will be Rosa, the poet. So Rosa has an affair with Natan,
but Kent praises Rosa and she's described to be a wonderful woman and beautiful. Rosa
transcends patriarchal structures, as she is assertive, headstrong, going against
social codes in an act of female empowerment. The second one will be Agnes. Her storytelling
and ability to express what she is inside allows her to gain a voice in the patriarchal world that
has silenced her. Through her storytelling, she asserts her self-worth and dignity and despite
the fact that she has been locked down, she is being treated like crap by the men,
her ability to hold herself strong and to be able to face her death with dignity means that with
some sense, at least from within, that sense of empowerment has not been completely diminished.
That's it. I wanted to keep this video short and sweet,
give you enough information so that you can go off on your own and start using these skills.
I want you guys to comment down below, let me know how I can improve these segments. So
as you can see for the first time, I have an animator, and the reason why I wanted
to do this was because I wanted to be able to deliver the information to you guys in a more
creative way that was entertaining and something that was easy for you guys to absorb as well.
So let me know. You know, do you guys want me to go into more detail? Is short and sweet good? What
should I do? I'm here for you guys. So if you let me know, then I can absolutely make sure that I do
my best to make sure that the changes that I make to my future videos are based on your feedback.
Just to put this out there, shamelessly, if you guys are studying Burial Rites and this
was helpful for you, then I'd encourage you to go ahead and check out the study
guides that I co-wrote with two other amazing girls. I wanted to thank Vivian,
who did the part on Burial Rites. So if you like this way of breaking down the prompt,
then this is the type of information that you'll find really helpful. There's heaps
of fully annotated A-plus essays in here so it's not just like reading an essay and just looking
at it and going, "Okay, so that's an A-plus essay. Awesome." No, we actually tell you
guys why they are A-plus essay is what's been done really well because they are fully annotated.
And not just that, but we have heaps of high-scoring essays and lower-scoring
essays so you can compare against the two and understand you know what do I need to do next
in order to step up? Or what is it that I'm doing that the higher graded essays are doing better? So
I'd highly recommend this. It's based on the VCE Study Design, and it's got over 20 text on the
study design. I'm super proud of it. Oh really exciting news! It's also in
bookstores. So it's in JP Books, Lilydale Books, Teacher Superstore, and also academic and high
school bookshops. So if you're close to any of those, then I'd love it if you could go ahead
and support your sister. Let the bookstores know that they're actually stocking me for a reason.