“A reader can feel uncomfortable with certain aspects of the cultural context presented in texts.”

Compare the extent to which aspects of the cultural context that you encountered, in at least two texts on your comparative course, made you feel uncomfortable.

Feedback and comment: H2. Well done, this is an excellent essay that addresses the question really well. You have used comparing words very well throughout the answer, and you have demonstrated a broad vocabulary. The area that could be improved upon here is the paragraphing, which you have lost some marks for in coherence. Your first comparing paragraph is too long, and you needed to split that out. Be mindful that a new thought or comparison requires a new paragraph. P 19/21 C 18/21 L 18/21 M 5/5 Total: 60/70

Corrected by an SEC examiner. You may also like our Complete Guide: H1 Leaving Cert English

I felt very uncomfortable with aspects of the cultural context presented in two of the texts I studied, the play “Sive” by John B. Keane and the collection of short stories “Young Skins” by Colin Barrett. I was less uncomfortable with the overall cultural context presented by the film “Lady Bird” by Greta Gerwig. In this answer I will focus on three areas of the cultural context that made me uncomfortable, namely the power structures and barriers in each cultural context that do or do not lead to human fulfilment, the obsession with social status and the prevalence of violence.

In “Sive” the titular character is utterly powerless to influence her own future, she has no agency. Nanna Glavin comments that she lives in a cultural context where, “My own grandchild is for sale like an animal”, while Thomasheen states that he, “Will not rest happy till he has a halter on her(Sive)”.Such a restrictive cultural context made me feel uncomfortable and this discomfort was very similar to the discomfort I felt when I studied “Young Skins”. Just like Sive, the character Bat from the story “Stand Your Skin” was also trapped in an unfulfilling life. At one stage in the story he watches a Daddy Long Legs, unable to escape drowning in a sink, “Describe a flustered circle, trapped” Likewise, the character Teddy in the story “Bait” cannot escape his status as a, “Flunky”, a “sidekick” and “an adhesive creep”. Both cultural contexts made me feel uncomfortable as they were cultural contexts that inflicted misery on young people in particular. Each text used the imagery of entrapment to capture how the cultural context controlled, demeaned, dehumanised and offered little hope to the central characters. The trapped insect, a metaphor for the lives of so many characters in “Young Skins”, the image of halter and the animal about to be sold, in Sive” eloquently communicated to me how both contexts were deeply unpleasant. I felt even more uncomfortable about the cultural context of “Sive” as the restrictions on Sive’s freedom were external, concrete, completely out of her control(The power of her Aunt and Uncle), while in contrast the powerlessness of the characters in “Young Skins” was often internal, a kind of internal paralysis brought on by a stifling cultural context. In stark contrast, I felt a lot more comfortable with the cultural context of “Lady Bird”.”Lady Bird” manages to escape a social setting she finds stifling and restricting. At the start of the film she expresses her desire to, “Go where culture is, like New York”. Unlike, the characters from the other texts discussed above she achieves her goal, she has the power to escape, forge her own path in life, she has agency. This cultural context was a lot more appealing to me as it was full of possibilities, allowed personal freedoms, encouraged agency.

Start a new paragraph here. All three cultural contexts I studied were marked by social snobbery and were contexts in which characters felt judged and demeaned because of their social status. As a result I found all three made me feel uncomfortable to one degree or another. Sive is constantly looked down upon because of her status as the child of an unmarried mother. Mena viciously demeans her by telling her, “You have no name… you are a bye child, a common bye child- a bastard”. In “Young Skins” the character Dympna Devers, in the story “Calm with Horses”, is similarly constantly demeaned due to the fact that he is a traveller, “the taint of his tinker lineage” leads to disgusting rumours that, “He fucked his own beautiful sisters”. Both Ccultural contexts are marred by brutal biases, they are both contexts where characters are dehumanised, disrespected and viciously insulted because they are judged inferior and of a lower social status. Thus, both contexts made me feel deeply uncomfortable as people were not judged by the content of their character.

The cultural context of the film is also one where snobbery and obsession with social status makes characters feel uncomfortable. Marian is acutely aware of the relative poverty of her family in comparison with many of Lady Bird’s friends. When Danny tells her that, Lady Bird always says that she lives on the wrong side of the tracks” the medium camera shot of Marians pained expression powerfully communicates her sense of hurt and shame at her low social status. While I certainly feel uncomfortable with any cultural context that makes anyone feel inferior, I did not feel as uncomfortable as I did while experiencing the other two texts. Danny’s comment was a throwaway line, it did not have the viciousness for example of Mena’s comment to Sive. Thus, while Sive’s inferior status is constantly, openly and cruelly focused on, in contrast Marian’s discomfort is mostly an internalised inferiority complex. The cultural context of the film is not nearly as openly prejudiced as that of the play and book.

Start a new paragraph here. Finally, the cultural context of “Sive” made me feel uncomfortable due to the sexual violence inflicted on the titular character. Seán Dota sexually assaults her on the lonely boreen and a traumatised Sive tells her Grandmother, “He made a drive at me! He nearly tore the coat off me.” The fact that Nanna Glavin minimises her horrific experience by telling Sive that she will find, “that men are that way” illustrated to me how such sexual violence is both commonplace and accepted in this cultural context. The cultural context of “Young Skins” made me feel even more uncomfortable as violence against women was even more brutal. In “Calm with Horses” Fannigan sexually assaults a fourteen year old Charlie Devers while in “Stand your Skin” Nubbin Tansey assaults the mother of his child and “Beat her to a pulp, cracked a bottle over her skull.” While the graphic nature of this violence against women disturbed me more deeply than the limited, but unforgivable violence in “Sive” at least the characters who learn about this violence in “Young Skins” are rightly horrified, and Arm goes so far as murdering Fannigan at the urgings of Charlie’s horrified uncles. Thus, in “Young Skins” violence against women occurs but is unacceptable to the vast majority of characters, in contrast, in “Sive” such violence occurs but is accepted. As a result neither cultural context appeals to me. I found the contrast between the film and the other two texts refreshing. The only violence referenced in the film is Marian’s horrified account of how her son Miguel witnessed a stabbing outside Sac High School and as a result she was determined to send her daughter to Immaculate Heart High School. Thankfully, unlike many of the female characters in “Young Skins” and “Sive”, Lady Bird never has to worry about her personal safety. As a result I was a lot more comfortable with the cultural context portrayed in the film.

In conclusion, the cultural contexts portrayed in both the play and the collection of short stories made me feel very uncomfortable due to the restrictiveness of the social settings, the widespread nasty prejudice and the violence against women in particular. In contrast, the cultural context of “Lady Bird” did not make me uncomfortable as it allowed agency to the characters, prejudice was not as virulent and violence was not as widespread.