The Shipping News by Annie Proulx-Navigating the Global Hsc English Extension 1
Extension English 1- Assessment Task 2-The Shipping News-Task 2(a) Formal Response-By Henri Rutherford
Annie Proulx’s prose fiction novel ‘The Shipping News’ explores the complexities of individual’s navigation in our modern and increasingly globalised society. Proulx would agree with the statement ‘The global cannot be all bad nor the local all good. In our lives today, the two must coexist and we must learn to navigate both’, and her text provides evidence to this effect. The novel does not present the simplistic dichotomies of the global being negative and the local being positive, but instead focuses on characters navigation through both. Proulx demonstrates that these two different and often opposite sets of values can coexist in our lives and are both equally dependent on each other. The novel also explores individual’s responses to the changing realities of global culture, whether a retreat, an embrace, or a response in between these two polar extremes. Thus Proulx denotes the myriad of ways in which individuals can navigate their environment. Petal Bear, Agnis Hamm, Quoyle and Jack Buggit provide significant examples of this within their emerging global context.
Although the global can be bad, to try to isolate oneself from it can be detrimental to human existence. At the beginning of the novel the protagonist Quoyle, is portrayed as a dysfunctional human being living in the dysfunctional town of Mockingburg. The negative implications of the global on the individual are explicitly evident through Quoyle. Proulx rejects Quoyle’s way of navigating in this global setting, a self-imposed retreat which is evidently failing. This is his response to the changing realities of global culture, he chooses to attempt to isolate himself from global influence. Quoyle is looking to retreat to the local aspects of Mockingburg, but this local culture and community has been almost wholly disintegrated by global forces. His seclusion from the world around him can be
Annie Proulx’s prose fiction novel ‘The Shipping News’ explores the complexities of individual’s navigation in our modern and increasingly globalised society. Proulx would agree with the statement ‘The global cannot be all bad nor the local all good. In our lives today, the two must coexist and we must learn to navigate both’, and her text provides evidence to this effect. The novel does not present the simplistic dichotomies of the global being negative and the local being positive, but instead focuses on characters navigation through both. Proulx demonstrates that these two different and often opposite sets of values can coexist in our lives and are both equally dependent on each other. The novel also explores individual’s responses to the changing realities of global culture, whether a retreat, an embrace, or a response in between these two polar extremes. Thus Proulx denotes the myriad of ways in which individuals can navigate their environment. Petal Bear, Agnis Hamm, Quoyle and Jack Buggit provide significant examples of this within their emerging global context.
Although the global can be bad, to try to isolate oneself from it can be detrimental to human existence. At the beginning of the novel the protagonist Quoyle, is portrayed as a dysfunctional human being living in the dysfunctional town of Mockingburg. The negative implications of the global on the individual are explicitly evident through Quoyle. Proulx rejects Quoyle’s way of navigating in this global setting, a self-imposed retreat which is evidently failing. This is his response to the changing realities of global culture, he chooses to attempt to isolate himself from global influence. Quoyle is looking to retreat to the local aspects of Mockingburg, but this local culture and community has been almost wholly disintegrated by global forces. His seclusion from the world around him can be