What goes in a body paragraph?

Overall theme = Anything worth having is worth fighting for

1: devaluation of marriage
2: the manipulation of truth to serve personal interests
3: society taking freedoms we do not protect
4: those in power becoming corrupt

 Opening sentence states your first connection:

While we forget that anything worth having is worth fighting for, our society seems to
continually diminish the value we put on marriage, and this is explored in numerous texts.

 Evidence from your first text, supporting the above claim:

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, she crafts a society where people no longer
marry for love or for themselves, but are paired with someone society deems a suitable
mate. This is due to the restructuring of society since “fertility rates plummeted” and a
radical religious group took power in America, and renamed their new society Gilead. Girls
as young as fourteen are given to a young man in a mass wedding ceremony at the
“Prayvaganza,” with required attendance from all women. Our current view of marriage is
then twisted and distorted, as the roles of those involved and the reasons for marriage are
changed. The husband’s role is to work, and the wife is to oversee the housekeeping, but
this new society is built on sexual control, and forcibly adds another woman to the equation.
The handmaid’s “sole purpose” in life is to be fertile, and produce the husband’s offspring
for the wife to raise, but the wives often despise their handmaid’s for this. ”She’d like me to
be pregnant though, over and done with and out of the way, no more humiliating sweaty
tangles, no more flesh triangles under her starry canopy of silver flowers.” In taking the right
of a married couple to have exclusive sexual relations, the state has further broken the
institute of marriage and what we now believe it should stand for; love, friendship,
partnering, sacrifice for another, and happiness.

 You then need to respond to this. Bring in the author’s

perspective/rationale/influence/context + your own analysis about this that links to your overall
topic:

Margaret Atwood herself knows what it is like to have a marriage broken, as she went
through a divorce after being married five years. This would have changed the way she
viewed marriage, and influenced her to write about this destruction of the legal, personal,
religious, financial, social and sexual union. This society where people can no longer
choose their own partner, not ask exclusive access to them, makes us as readers question
what marriage means to us, and how we would react were we unfortunate enough to live in
this reality as some people around the world currently are.

 Evidence from your second text, supporting the above claim:

Another text depicting broken marriage is Enemy of the State, directed by Tony Scott. In
this film, the protagonist Robert Clayton Dean has his marriage threatened as the press
makes it look as though he has been cheating on his wife, Carla Dean. She would usually
dismiss such allegations, but the woman Robert was supposedly having an affair with,
Rachel Banks, was his former girlfriend, and the subject of a previous affair. “I thought you
said she’s not an issue….. They said you had (another) affair with her Robert. An affair. We
went to marriage counselling for a year, and no, you’re standing here lying about seeing
her, you make me sick.”

 You then need to respond to this. Bring in the author’s

perspective/rationale/influence/context + your own analysis about this that links to your overall
topic:

Tony Scott had former experience with marriages torn apart, having had two divorces
before making this film. The second was caused by Scott having an affair with a married
 woman starring in one of his films. This allows him to make an informed statement to the
audience about society’s stance on dysfunctional marriages, and the corruption of
relationships. In Enemy of the State, Robert has previously cheated on his wife, but the only
retribution he has received is from Carla herself. This is shown through mise en scene,
specifically in one long shot showing both Robert and Carla. He has just entered the house,
having discovered the lies spread about himself, and she is sitting behind a closed door in
the kitchen. The door between the two and Carla’s deliberate attempts to completely ignore
Robert’s presence make it seem as though she is trapped, and express her feelings of
embitterment towards Robert. This also demonstrates how each has been separated from
the other, and reveals the isolation they feel. Society has lost a great deal of its reverence
for marriage, and no longer sees it as something to be protected and fought for. Scott
shows us this by showing how there is no outrage or reaction from the community when a
man is caught cheating on his wife. As Atwood did, Scott uses this to make us see the
importance of marriage, and re-evaluate its significance in our own lives. He later reinforces
his by showing the couple reunited and supporting each other. He achieves this using ‘two-
shots’ with the couple alongside each other, showing how they are supporting each other in
their new togetherness.

 Compare the two texts now. What conclusions, judgements can you make about this? Link
the texts back to your overall theme:

I think both these texts show the hurt and despair of those trapped in dysfunctional
marriages, or suffering the consequences of the breaking institution. From jealous and
betrayed wives to the heartbreak suffered by those left behind, we see how society is
rejecting the option to protect marriage and acknowledge the harm that can come from
failing to place value on it. I believe we must now reconsider our personal values and views
on marriage, and ask ourselves the question: what does marriage mean to us? Is it worth
having the couple structure to support, encourage, and share each other, and must we
therefore make the decision to fight for marriage in our society and stop the devaluation of
an important institution. I think we must choose now to protect marriage in our world, and
promote the way spouses can reinforce each other’s power and strength. As the saying
goes, “behind every good man is a great woman,” and vice versa. We should decide that
marriage is worth having, and fight for its significance in our society.

NB: This had three more substantial paragraphs on their three other connections, before the
conclusion!

Another example would be:

Overall connection: Dystopia’s reflect our fear of the future

1: current events of the author/director’s time raise real world issues
2: isolation as a form of control
3: the violation of privacy

Similarly, Minority Report directed by Steven Spielberg and George Orwell’s 1984 use the
invasion of privacy as the primary theme in their dystopias. Minority Report displays
compulsory retina scanning throughout public places, therefore being able to track your
movements no matter where you go. Anderton must undergo retina replacement surgery to
move about “undetected”, and when his new retinas are scanned he is immediately greeted
and identified as a “Mr Tanaka” by an invasive advertisement. Officers of the Precrime unit
can also enforce eye scans onto people in their own homes through the use of “spyders”, an
artificial intelligence robot that’s sole purpose is to subject living organisms to intrusive
identification processes. This is the ultimate violation of privacy, having your home invade by
advanced technology to confirm your identity. The concept of home is widely accepted as
being the symbol of a sanctuary and an asylum, where absolute privacy is achieved. In
Minority Report this is not the case, violation of privacy is broached with the retinal scanning
in public places, and emphasized when these invasive scans enter the home. Spielberg
portrays this issue as a warning to be wary of technology advancements. He establishes his
dystopia through the depiction of privacy infringements, an issue relevant in modern society
where the constant data trail we leave behind through the use of technology can be abused,
and where as a society we are far too reliant on technology. The introduction of fingerprint
scanners on the new iPhone are evidence of our complacency with increasingly advanced
technology. Is the loss of privacy really worth the progression of such intrusive technology?
Orwell takes a different approach to privacy breaches in his novel 1984, where not only
physical privacy is encroached upon, but also the privacy of one’s thoughts is destroyed. The
“Thought Police” are undercover officers whose mission is to arrest citizens they suspect
might doubt the propaganda spouted by “the Party” and “Big Brother”. Winston explains “It
was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander in any public place…. the smallest thing
could give you away”. He is referring to how the Thought Police determine who thought
criminals are. Losing the safety of your own thought strips away any scrap of privacy
remaining under the constant surveillance of telescreens. Orwell’s dystopia is intensely
terrifying because the loss of true thought eradicates any hope of individuality amongst
people, therefore creating a brainwashed society built on propaganda and deception. This
shows the importance of privacy in our lives, and indicates our thoughts should be ours and
ours alone. This issue is particularly of consequence today as the media spews a constant
stream of adjusted, biased and slanted stories into the minds of everyone; a precursor to the
major propaganda “Big Brother” ejects. We need to retain the refuge of our minds and
dismiss the media’s exaggerations and false claims. In order to keep the sanctity of our minds
clean, we must learn to disregard the prejudices of the media; by learning that we can remain
free-thinking citizens Orwell urged us to be.

NB: This had two more substantial paragraphs on the two other connections, before the
conclusion!