HSC Common Module: Gwen Harwood Essay Guide

Today, we’ll be looking at Gwen Harwood’s Poetry 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 each of the poems.

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 (you need to mention the composer’s impact on the audience/responder at least 2-3 times throughout each body paragraph e.g. Harwood inspires audiences with her reconciliation with mortality or Harwood prompts the audience to question the reductionist views of death

Links 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 eg gender roles. When doing your paragraphs, make sure to focus on what the HUMAN EXPERIENCE is rather than thematic concerns. 

Now let’s have a look at how human experience applies in each of her poems:

The Glass Jar by Gwen Harwood

• Individual and collective human experiences:  the child is the individual while his parents form the collective. He is attempting to preserve his innocence against the corruption of the adult world, seeking the idealistic yet naive hope to contain his sun-lit desires into a glass jar. Yet, his discovery of his parents’ carnal desires confront him psychologically and emotionally, leading him to feel alienated and pressured to conform to a matured worldview. Ultimately, he is forced to reconcile with this renewed understanding of the world.

•  Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: The human experience of maturation is accompanied with emotions of despair, betrayal and jealousy. Yet, Harwood promotes that being able to reconcile with this changed worldview is inevitable and crucial for inner peace. 

• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: The child undergoes an emotional experience of recognising a matured, adult perspective of the world which disrupts his childhood innocence.

•  Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: The child’s innocence is fractured by witnessing his parents’ actions, and while initially jealous of his father and feeling betrayed by his mother, he ultimately undergoes personal growth and accepts a matured perspective of the world.

•  Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: Harwood challenges our assumptions of a child’s relationship with his parents, presenting the child’s complex reaction to witnessing his parents’ intimacy. 

•  Tension between agency and conformity: there is a tension between the child’s repulsion at his parents’ intimacy which he initially refuses to conform to. His desperate use of the glass jar as a preservation of his childhood innocence reflects his attempt at maintaining agency. Ultimately he comes to terms with a matured perspective of the world.

•  Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour:  Initially, the child has faith in preserving the “glass jar”, a symbol of his idealism.  Yet, paradoxes in his worldview arise through the tension between his nightmarish visions of corruption and his childhood innocence. When confronted by his parents’ intimacy, his worldview is irreversibly challenged and he realises that he needs to reconcile with his matured awareness. 

The Violets by Gwen Harwood

• Individual and collective human experiences: the persona undergoes an individual experience of reminiscing the past which alleviates her present desolation. She undergoes a shared experience with her parents in her childhood as they go through the seasons.

•  Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: yearning for the past where childhood innocence was nurtured by her parents. Memories renew her view of life and allow her to accept ageing and mortal existence. 

• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: She undergoes the emotional experience of recognising how childhood memories and nature can provide solace for the desolate present. She also presents lived experiences of childhood innocence and defiance of natural laws.

•  Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: She undergoes personal growth when recognising that childhood memories and nature prompt her acceptance of mortality. 

•  Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: Harwood prompts responders to see how the natural world can inspire newfound reconciliation with mortal anxieties.

•  Tension between agency and conformity: Her childhood memories reveal her naive self as dismissing natural boundaries eg trying to walk on water. Yet as she ages, she recognises existential limitations and ultimately conforms to the natural cycle of life. 

•  Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour:   the persona has a strong connection to the past, yet this paradoxically leads her to recognise how time progresses incessantly, leading to her reconciliation with the concept of mortality and ageing in the present. There is contrast in her attitude towards nature in the present, where she sees it as bleak, whereas it is flourishing in her past memories.

At Mornington by Gwen Harwood

• Individual and collective human experiences: this poem reveals the persona’s individual experience of immersing into her childhood memories of her in nature, being unaware of its immensity. She goes through a shared experience with her friend in their acceptance of inexorable aging. 

•  Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: preoccupation with mortality and aging, the passage of time that is enhanced by reminiscing memories of childhood. 

• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: She undergoes the emotional experience of recognising that she was oblivious to mortal danger in her youth, and presently, she is increasingly fearful of death.

•  Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: Despite her mortal anxieties, she undergoes personal growth by recognising that connection with others and with nature can inspire her acceptance of mortality. 

•  Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: Harwood inspires us to recognise how connections with others, memories and nature can help assuage mortal anxieties.

•  Tension between agency and conformity: She struggles to gain agency from the looming notion of death, yet ultimately triumphs it through reconnecting with nature and reminiscing on memories. 

•  Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour:  despite being presently aware of mortality, the narrator was oblivious to the mortal danger of nature in her childhood. Ultimately through connecting with nature and her interactions with her friend, she is able to accept her inevitable mortality.

Father and Child by Gwen Harwood

• Individual and collective human experiences: in part 1, the persona undergoes an individual experience of guilt upon killing the owl. This leads her to transition from childhood innocence to maturity. In part 2, the collective experience between father and child is showcased as they navigate their memories and choose to appreciate her father’s legacy and accept morality and ageing.

•  Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: human quality of seeking maturity and power over nature is highlighted in part 1, which is ultimately met with emotions of guilt and remorse when the persona recognises her hubris. In  part 2, emotions of apprehension towards mortality are presented, and Harwood reveals how human qualities of empathy and supportiveness resolve these fears. Memories are used to assuage any fears of mortality.

• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: Harwood presents lived experiences of the child’s callous actions leading to a loss of innocence and remorse, and the role reversal as she takes care of her ailing father and uses memory to bond with her father.

•  Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: The narrator undergoes personal growth as she recognises her actions in Part 1 were callous and hubristic. In Part 2, she grows by recognising that her father’s mortality is inevitable and accepts it through reminiscing with her father about past memories. 

•  Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: she invites responders to recognise that memories can help reconcile with imminent mortality. She also challenges assumptions about childhood innocence through the persona’s callous killing in Part 1. 

•  Tension between agency and conformity: In part 1, she does not conform to childhood innocence by rebelling against her father and shooting the owl. In Part 2, she reconciles with the notion of death. 

•  Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour: In part 1, the child wishes to gain maturity by killing the owl, however, is paradoxically exposed on how shortsighted and naïve her plans were. In part 2, the persona attempts to guide the father’s experience of aging yet, the father paradoxically comforts the persona and ultimately their shared experience prompts a reconciliation with the concept of temporal progression and mortality.

A Valediction by Gwen Harwood

• Individual and collective human experiences: She undergoes an individual experience of determining what the ultimate love is, along with her experience of engaging with literature to guide her musings. While she wishes for a shared experience with her lover, she ultimately reconciles with their temporary farewell.

•  Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: Human emotions of love and balancing the extremes of physical connection and spiritual bonds are detailed in the poem. Memories are contained in literature which initially comforts her yet her understanding of the enduring nature of her love leads to newfound emotions of self-assuredness.

• Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: The narrator undergoes an intellectual experience of using John Donne’s poetry to guide her approach to love, being reassured by his message that love transcends physical distance. Yet, through contemplating historical figures such as Lou Salome and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, she realises the need to moderate love to balance both its spiritual and physical needs. 

•  Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: Initially, the narrator is saddened by her physical separation from her lover yet after contemplating historical figures, she accepts their distance as merely temporary and determines her own version of ideal love, leading to personal growth. 

•  Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: She prompts readers to understand what makes love meaningful. She challenges our assumptions that Donne’s literary legacy is paramount, instead, she diverges from this and pursues her own moderated definition of love. 

•  Tension between agency and conformity: Rather than conforming to social expectations of pure women, she determines that transcendental love requires both physical satisfaction and spiritual connection. She does not view Lou Salome as promiscuous, instead learning that love needs to have physical intimacy too. 

•  Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour: Initially, the persona uses literature as a source of consolation or her farewell, yet she ultimately moves on from it when understanding what the ultimate form of love is. Also, she gains independence and self-assuredness that the farewell is merely temporary as her love is deep.

The Sharpness of Death by Gwen Harwood

•       Individual and collective human experiences: the poem outlines an individual experience of the persona pleading with death and then appreciating how nature and fulfilling relationships with her lover can ultimately prompt her to reconcile with the notion of mortality. Harwood also reveals how humanity’s desire to decipher mortal existence is a collective experience amidst philosophers throughout history. 
•       Emotions and qualities related to these experiences: Emotions of apprehension dominate in the first part where the persona pleads with death to avoid it. Yet through the philosophers’ futile attempts to rationalise death and her discovery of fulfilling life experiences, she faces death with courage and quiet acceptance. 
•       Emotional, intellectual, physical, cultural and lived experiences: The narrator seeks guidance from philosophers yet realises from this intellectual experience that their reductionist views of death are unable to reconcile her mortal anxieties. Ultimately, she undergoes the emotional experience of connecting with nature and recognises that its ability to heal the spirit triumphs death.
•       Identity, culture, acceptance and growth: The narrator’s existential crisis as she fears the inevitability of death is ultimately reconciled as she realises nature’s rejuvenating qualities and undergoes personal growth as she accepts mortality. 
•       Invite the reader to see the world differently, and challenge assumptions: she challenges our assumptions that death is bleak by presenting nature as a way to assuage these fears. She inspires us to see how nature can renew one’s worldview.
•       Tension between agency and conformity: Rather than conforming to the reductionist rationalisation of death that is perpetuated by historical philosophers, the narrator agentically seeks a renewed understanding of death through appreciating nature’s vitality.
•       Paradoxes of motivation and behaviour: The persona initially is fearful of death and attempts to flatter death but paradoxically admonishes it right afterwards, revealing her conflicted attitudes towards mortality, seeing it as escapable yet inevitable simultaneously. Ultimately, the persona reconciles with her previous apprehension of death through recognising that fulfilling life events make the idea of death’s inevitability less fear-inducing.

Beyond Metaphor by Gwen Harwood

Please see here for a detailed analysis for this poem.

Curious to learn more? At JP English, we provide Year 12 students with detailed notes on the prescribed text’s main ideas, context, links to the rubric and form, sample exam questions along with sample essay paragraphs written by state rankers. Additionally, Year 12 lessons are strictly text based and range between 3-6 students so that each student gets detailed support for their school assessments. School assessment help is provided both during class time and outside of class time through our free online marking service. We regularly update our materials so you get the latest exam tips based on our years of experience helping HSC students excel.