Cold Enough for Snow Essay Guide (HSC Common Module)

1Introduction

Today, we’ll be looking at Jessica Au’s novel Cold Enough for Snow (2022) in the updated HSC Texts and Human Experiences Module. Below is an unpacking of the new syllabus description for HSC Common Module and how we can link this to the ideas in the novel.

From NESA: “Students deepen their understanding of how texts represent individual and collective human experiences. They examine how texts represent emotions and qualities related to these experiences. By responding to a range of texts, students explore how texts provide insight into emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences. They explore the ways texts represent identity, culture, acceptance and growth, invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions. Students explore how texts can represent the tension between agency and conformity in our human experience, while examining the paradoxes of motivation and behaviour. Through critical and creative responses to texts, students consider the ways that texts encourage them to reflect personally and challenge their assumptions about the nature of human experience.”

Important things to note:

• individual and collective human experiences
• emotions and qualities related to these experiences
• emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences
• identity, culture, acceptance and growth
• invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions
• tension between agency and conformity
• paradoxes of motivation and behaviour
• texts encourage students to reflect personally and challenge their assumptions about the nature of human experience

2Links to the human experience syllabus

A key tip to answer questions for the Common Module is to analyse how the composer’s portrayal of the human experience has allowed them to ______, or, alternatively, invites the responder to ______.

Also, a common pitfall is to focus too much on themes, e.g. language, nature. When doing your paragraphs, make sure to focus on what the HUMAN EXPERIENCE is rather than thematic concerns.

3Applying the syllabus to Cold Enough for Snow

• Individual and collective human experiences: The narrator undergoes individual experiences of navigating her memories and understanding art, literature and her worldview. She also has shared human experiences of discovery with her mother as they venture through Japan and slowly mend their relationship. Additionally, she has shared experiences with her sister as they understand how they can’t connect to their roots in Hong Kong.
• Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: Cultural displacement is highly prevalent in the novel, from her mother’s displacement in Australian suburbia and suppression of stories that preserve her cultural heritage, to the narrator’s sister’s experience in Hong Kong at her grandfather’s funeral, to the narrator’s inability to communicate fully with her mother due to their language barriers. Additionally, emotions of frustration are revealed when the narrator is unable to align her mother’s views on art with hers and their inability to connect. Other emotions are of awe towards art, how the literary canon and paintings can inspire new worldviews and allow the narrator to recognise the elusiveness of self-actualisation. The power of memories is also prevalent, as the narrator goes into various vignettes that shape her perception of herself and the world.
• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: The narrator undergoes an intellectual experience through interacting with her lecturer, where she realises that her overly reductionist view of literature should be relinquished in place of an understanding that literary meaning is elusive and meant to be pondered on rather than categorised within strict boundaries. Additionally, through interacting with Laurie and his father, she recognises that art comes spontaneously. She also reflects on her understanding of her mother’s cultural experiences of being displaced from her motherland in a foreign, Western society.
• Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: The narrator recognises her dual cultural identity and increasingly understands and empathises with her mother’s displacement, leading to personal growth of improving her connection to her culture and her mother. She also accepts that the meaning of literature is not always concrete, but something to be pondered upon.
• Tension between agency and conformity: The narrator uses her insight into literature and her immersion into Japanese culture and art as a way to define her personal agency away from the generational expectations of her culture. She oscillates between her desired agency and the pressure to conform, reflected by her repression of her past similar to previous generations.
• Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour: While the narrator wants to reconcile her growing emotional separation from her mother due to cultural dissonances, she also exhibits patronising behaviour during the trip, e.g. organising the itinerary and pushing her artistic interests onto her mother who isn’t able to comprehend its significance. Additionally, she fervently wishes to appreciate art and understand how to create more evocative literature but eventually understands through engaging with Laurie and his father that it is better to let inspiration and art come to her naturally rather than chase it.

4Final thoughts

Want personalised guidance on your Cold Enough for Snow essay? Contact us today!

Keep exploring