Wind In The Willows, Urgent Helpp Needed

[chichi]

i can't find the discovery, obstacle and change in The Wind in the Willows. if anyone has any analysis of the text or the elements of the IMAGINATIVE journey in that text, please email me ( sexy_kyprea@msn.com ), please this is urgent, thanks heaps guys x

[chichi]

does anyone have any ideas? by elements of the imaginative journey i mean the catalyst, speculation, discovery, obsatacle n change..... which i dnt seem 2 c much of on this site!! please please help me out

[Riviet]

I do physical journeys but i would suggest to consider the preparation for the journey, the listing of all the tools/materials in the text but it is a little hard to relate to imaginative journey. Maybe you could say that journeys should/always include preparation for the itinery. That's all i can think of.

[Gryphondarks]

That's one way to approach it, Riviet, but then you could just end up short-changing yourself because talking about the preperation for the journey is quite... well, boring. Plus you want to make some pertinent points about the journey ("themes", as such) and there wouldn't be much scope for that if you focused on the tools for the journey's preperation (though it certainly is a point to make).

Okay, so when I did this text I first considered it on its own terms - that is, a journey per se, not just imaginative or physical. I would suggest you tease out some 'themes' from the text (ie, what are this text's main concerns - companionship, etc). Not only will it help you make sense of the text, but you also will have things to compartmentalise your technqiues/quotes within (that is, you could have several themes up your sleeve to match differet essay questions - in fact, past exam questions are a great source of 'themes'). Chichi, you mentioned a couple of things -

Discovery: I suggest you treat this as what *you* the reader discover about the journey, simply because in the extract in the stimulus booklet, the journey hasn't actually begun!

Obstacle: Well this one's relatively easy because one could argue that the whole extract talks about the obstacles to the journey - eg. Toad's enthusiasm ("straddling and expanding himself") vs. the Rat ("most mistrustful"), who is almost the antithesis of the journey. There are plenty, plenty more quotes in there to highlight this point; throw in a few technqiues and you're almost there. Bút don't forget, it's not enough to just say okay there's an obstacle to this journey. So what? You *must* indicate *what* that obstacle signifies in this particular journey; lead to something bigger - for instance you could say here that Rat's attempts to hinder Toad signify that journeys are fueled by competetion, the need to express personal supremacy over one's peers. Obviously that's but one of many examples you could come up with.

Change: this doesn't have to be addressed explicitly - I know it can often be easiest to think of it as a formula (discovery + obstacle + change, or something), but I would be suggest (for this text, at least) to avoid tackling the notion of "change" head-on. Talk instead about the subtleties of character (evident by Grahame's characterisation - these are the techniques) that impact on the journey (even the very inception of the journey, as in this text).

Hope that helps...

[Dr_Doom]

Gryphon, what type of themes would wind in the willows have?

[Gryphondarks]

Yes, I thought someone would ask that... I'm sorry, but I think it's really something *you* have to come up with after you've considered the text quite thoroughly for yourself. I know it sounds daggy but seriously, it took me quite a while before I came up with what I felt was the "answer" to the text... See, I reckon it's really crap if someone just says this is what a text means and you just follow that in all your essays. But if you ask me what is the *nature* of these themes, then I could answer you. What I mean is that you've got to come up with something more than just 'companionship'... I gave one example already: Rat's attempts to hinder Toad signify that journeys are fueled by competetion, the need to express personal supremacy over one's peers. So your theme (and thus the argument you put forward in your essay) could be that journeys are merely a psychological tool used by the travellers to attain an inflated sense of self. I say that almost as a joke, but that's how it should be done - take the ordinary 'companionship' and turn it into gold, get very complex and sophisticated. But the beauty of it is that you only ever need to use the same examples as you would as if you were talking about 'companionship', but now it sounds so much more sophisticated!

[Riviet]

The theme that i perceived in this text was to learn to break out of your comfort zone and to experience new things and grow from the journey that you undertake.