Preview

"A Property Of the Clan" by Nick Enright: Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
523 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"A Property Of the Clan" by Nick Enright: Analysis
“A Property of the Clan " unravels the death of a teenage girl at an underage drinking party and explores how the youths handle the situation.

"A Property of the Clan" is not light entertainment, or an easy play to read. It deals with an ugly and disturbing subject, but does so in a thoughtful and sensitive way, acknowledging the brutal reality of violence against women as an unfortunate experience in life. The plot of “A Property of the Clan " is about teenage violence that existed within Australia at the time; an example is that the language and actions teens make are very abusive throughout the play when ever they drink alcohol. The play contains many themes that involved the lifestyle of Australian youth including; Surf culture, mateship, teenage rebellion, peer pressure and partying (Underage Drinking and Drug use). However, A Property of the Clan” centralises on the idea of Mateship, where you are put into a position to do the right thing or betray your friend. Jared is to choose either do the right thing and tell the police who the murderer is or to keep the secret. With supporting themes such as teenage rebellion where the person opposes their parents command, peer pressure is when you are forced to do something because people are basically abusing you to do so otherwise you will be unpopular. Also the theme of partying is quite important to the Australian youth culture, compared to other countries. Australian teens tend to underage drink and abuse drugs more. It also explores the diminished responsibilities of people under the influence of alcohol and the dire consequences of actions linking to the events in “A Property of the Clan”.

" A Property of the Clan's" targeted audience should be about 17 years old and over, whether a less mature person can understand and explore their own ideas and experience or as an adult (or parents) can further understand the surrounding culture their children are in due to the sensitive content. The main characters from

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The need to belong is a fundamental need within all of humanity, and has played a key role in society since the beginning of time. The novel by S.E Hinton, ‘The Outsiders’ conveys this need and the yearning to feel social acceptance within us all. ‘The Outsiders’ comments on this inherent part of humanity through its realistic portrayal of teenage gang life, centering on the dependency of the gang members to feel a sense of inclusion and support from their gang.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Charlie Bucktin Quotes

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ‘In this coming of age story, Charlie must question his conventional notions of what is right and wrong as he navigates small town morality, racism and hypocrisy.’…

    • 726 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Guglielmo Marconi is to the telephone pole as the Wright Brothers are to the airplane. Both of the people noted were inventors of great items, though they hadn’t invented the ideas of their works. Off of the subject of inventions, this essay will discuss a strange subject. Are great men hard to understand? In the book “The Chosen “ by Chaim Potok, Mr. Malter makes the statement “Great men are difficult to understand” in regards to Reb Saunders. This statement could also be associated with the Wright Brothers, the creators of the first controllable airplane. Their motives for wanting to abandon their humble, and comfortable lives, to compete in a race to create the first airplane will never be completely explained. All great people, including the Wright Brothers, are hard to understand.…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mary Lawson's Crow Lake

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The novel, Crow Lake, by Mary Lawson portrays a family that suffers from the great tragedy of when the Morrison parents are unexpectedly killed in an automobile accident. This tragedy created a great change of lifestyle to the seven year old protagonist, Kate Morrison, her older brothers, Luke and Matthew, and her younger sister, Bo. After the accident, the remaining of the Morrison family greatly attempts to prevent the family to be separated and sent to relatives. This novel is wisely written and very compelling, it greatly relates to the children who are experiencing bereavement, and provides an excellent study of the effects of deaths of parents.…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Havoc Movie Analysis

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages

    -Peer relationships throughout this movie seem to be the most important aspect of these teenagers lives. They are all trying to impress each other and one up each other. The teens have a lot of high risk behavior that has put them in many dangerous situations. For example, when the trend traveled to East Los Angeles in the early morning to buy marijuana from a hispanic gangster, Hector, that they did not even know. By the end of the drug deal Toby was on his knees, peeing pants, with Hector having a gun pointed to his head threatening to kill him. Allison ended up bailing Toby out of this extremely dangerous situation. This scene was a prime example of the significance of teenagers moral development, high risk behaviors,…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the story develops the boy’s life deteriorates. Even though he was top of the class in school, he had to repeat a year as he lost interest in school and began drinking. When he went on his hockey trip, he was spoiled by “one of the better families” (31) which showed him of all the things he couldn’t have. This is when he began his drinking on a regular basis. He broke into the theatre, after breaking…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At first the young teen represents immaturity. Hitting her sisters with a brick when she gets angry shows how strong her resentment is and how the way she deals with it is immature. She resents the fact that she is different and her sisters make fun of her. It is apparent that she isolates her self from her immediate family because she always stays with her grandma.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Amy Tan’s novel of conflicting cultures, The Joy Luck Club, the narrators contemplate their inability to relate from one culture to another. The novel is narrated by and follows the connected stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Jing-mei, one of the daughters, has taken her mother’s place in a weekly gathering her mother had organized called the Joy Luck Club, in which four women would gather to gamble together to help each other. Through use of many different perspectives and concise diction, Tan reveals her theme of building bridges between cultures and generations and the revelation that tragedy shapes us. In The Joy Luck Club, Tan’s deceptively simple yet dramatic…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Coming from an average suburban upbringing, the protagonist of the story displays identity confusion based on his own background and the actions and influences of his peers as well as the media of the time. In a setting as quiet as the town, sheer lack of excitement was enough incentive to go out and get into mischief for him and his peers. The “nature” of their actions were, to him, human nature in the…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Teenagers are shown in a variety of texts to be, violent, disrespectful, disruptive and corrupt. S.E. Hinton’s novel ‘The Outsiders’ reveal teenagers to be juvenile delinquents who are violent and whose only interest is remaining faithful to their gang and its members.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After accidentally throwing a book at his teacher, he was told to leave the reservation so he wouldn’t lose hope. As a result of leaving, Junior lost his best friend, gained a new friend, had an identity problem and now he feels to blame for the deaths of his sister. After leaving the reservation, Juniors sister mary got married and moved to Montana. Furthermore, Mary lived in a trailer home with her husband. After drinking so much one night Mary and her husband knocked out in their bedroom. Therefore, someone left the stove on and as a result of that, mary and her husband burned to death. Mary's dream was to write a romance novel but because she lost hope, after Junior left the reservation mary ran off to live her romance novel. At the funeral, Junior ran into the woods where he saw rowdy crying, “It’s all your fault… your sister is dead because of you left us. You killed her” (211). As Rowdy ran deeper into the woods, “I had killed my sister” (211). Afterwards Junior was starting to lose hope but his friends at Reardan gave him hope by standing up for him when he walked into class late. In conclusion, even though Junior left the reservation, lost his best friend, gained new ones, had an identity problem and blamed himself for the death of his sister Junior had a bright future…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Property of the Clan

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A property of the Clan is a realistic proportional of young Australian culture. The under age drinking, the slang and swearing, the biff and the beach going life is all features of Australian youths. It also shows the gender differences in Australia.…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Girl Underground

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Bridget believes that her parents are deep down good people. She has a close knit family and even though they run an illegal import business and her brother Gavin is in jail for shoplifting, she believes her family are good and they care for each other. This raises the important theme of what is morally right from wrong. Bridgets parents are good people but they are cheating the government. They do have good morals as they believe that their son being in jail is ‘fair cop’ and he deserves it for doing the wrong thing. But, technically they are criminals themselves.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sixteen Candles Sociology

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the film “Sixteen Candles” shows the power of social groups and cliques during adolescence. The image of women and the standards and stereotypes they are held to play a big role. It depicts the power cliques and social groups have during teenage years. This film allows many to rethink how their high school experience, even those who have recently graduated can relate to this high school experience in 1984.…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many of the concepts relate to psychology, and the fact that these kids are in the stage of adolescence. First off, one of the main concepts that I saw in this movie is that all of the kids showed the use of “false selves.” This is where an adolescent tell lies about themselves that they want people to believe so they think better of themselves, because “the other kids will never find out.” They lie a lot about their background and many other things such as their virginities which is a major thing in younger kids’ lives that decides whether they are a “prude” or a “slut.” Another concept that I saw, is the influence of peer pressure. These kids went through a lot of peer pressure in this movie including when the kids were talking about themselves, and wanting to know things about each other. One example is when the other kids, mainly Allison, pressures Claire to tell the others about her virginity. The final concept that I saw in this movie is the presence of a need for social acceptance. Many of these kids try to impress the others by telling lies and trying to act cool, whether it is John being a jerk to all the other kids, or Andrew bringing John to the ground to act cool. All of the kids somehow displayed their need for social acceptance. Overall I thought that this movie was a great…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays