Related Change

I have chosen to link the text Saving Private Ryan with The Door by Miroslav Holub, and The Murder Of Ackroyd with Burnt Offerings by Flacco, from the stimulus booklet.

I linked these texts as Saving Private Ryan is similar to that of The Door, because both dwell on the changing of worlds, perspective and self. Saving Private Ryan deals with the actual changing, the effects it causes and the regrets of change, Whereas The Door deals with resisting the change, the benefits of the change and the regrets of not changing. Saving Private Ryan presents the soldiers entering into the New World, arriving at Omaha beach, and the pains/obstacles of the change, the death of comrades and ultimately staying alive. Like said earlier in Part Two, the characters discuss their situation and regret ever coming to the war. The Door incorporates the idea of new and exciting things, with the line “Maybe outside there’s a … or a magic garden”, and regret for not doing so, as showed in the line “even if there’s only the hollow wind … at least there will be a draft”.

I linked the other two texts, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd and Burnt Offerings, because they both deal with the consequences of changes in circumstances. In The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd the circumstances change and James Sheppard has to change in order to keep the circumstances as same as possible, whereas in Burnt Offerings the activist has to change the circumstances so as to stay the same as possible, i.e. in one piece. In The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd Sheppard tries to keep his life the same as before Mrs. Ferrars commits suicide. But to do so he has to change himself, he has to become a killer and abuse the trust of all those around him, and ends up becoming someone completely different in trying to remain the same. To a lesser extent, you can see how in Burnt Offerings the activist tries to do the exact opposite, he tries to change the circumstances of the trees in the forest and ends up with some very physical changes.

My understanding of the concept of “change” has been altered, or shaped, by the reading of my chosen texts. The original idea I had of “change” was physical and personal/environmental change. I used to think that changes could only be what is written or put obviously forward by the text, the idea of changing circumstances or values having any impact on the “change” of a text was beyond me.