English Domain

In response to changing study designs for VCE English, VCE English as an Additional Language (EAL) and VCE Literature, this term Year 11 students have undertaken new units centred around writing skills.  In VCE English and EAL, students study mentor texts as examples of how to engage with a framework of ideas meaningfully and creatively.  The rationale is that students can deconstruct what makes good writing in these models and emulate this in their own work.  Through this process, our students expressed their ideas about ‘other worlds’ or ‘resilience’ purposefully and clearly.   

In VCE Literature, students learn about literary movements and then experiment with the conventions, representations and assumptions of a given genre.  At Box Hill High School, Year 11 Literature students delved into Gothic Literature, exploring the evolution of the vampire, from Dracula through Interview with the Vampire to Twilight.  They also analysed how authors use the Gothic to respond to their contemporary social anxieties.  For those of stout constitution, we invite you to read on with two grisly student stories of monsters and horror.  

By Liv P 

Pushed from side to side, I am washed into a clearing of the woods by the strong arms of the wind.  Though trees rustle against one another, I can’t hear or see any other signs of life around me. The panic that often accompanies aloneness begins to overtake my rational thinking and urges me deeper into the foliage to seek contact with another human.  Branches scrape at my skin, pulling and tugging at the threads of my clothing until they become frayed and the breeze creeps across my stomach.  My vision is red with terror, and I’m unable to see anything in front of me without believing I am seeing it again. I know it has come after me.  My strides are long, but they are no match for its four-legged advance.  It feels as if I have been lost for hours in these vast woods and my legs ache from running.  There is no time to rest and no safe place to do so. 

Moonlight cascades over the rocky ground beneath my feet, illuminating the shining cuts that adorn my legs, as thick blood gushes from them.  In my haste to escape it’s clutches, I became almost immune to the pain of my injuries.  However, this chance to breathe has allowed the pain to the forefront of my mind, causing a screech to rip from my lungs.  A hand slaps over my mouth, muting any noise that attempts to escape. I breathe a gulp of air to expel a scream louder than the first… before realising the hand is my own.  

It's as if my body was able to act quicker than my mind.  It refuses to tell the beast where I am.  I fear it may already be too late, as I feel the wind start to change, prickling my skin and turning it blue.  The moment of brief comfort and faith I had in myself is gone and again replaced by fear.  My neck twists sharply, surveying my surroundings for the fastest route out of this clearing.  Standing here I feel exposed to predators, as if I am trusting rabbit, waiting for them to pounce on my vulnerability.  

No… no, no, no… It’s too late. My vision burns at the sound of their paws thudding on the hard soil. I barely register that my legs have begun running again, with the only indication of it being the hair in my mouth and eyes, from the push of the winds.  

The voices are loud and brash as they crash from one curving tree to another, bursting my eardrums as they howl and call for one another into the deep darkness of the night.  I fall to the ground, cowering in pain as I clutch my palms over my crying ears.  My eyes are tightly shut in fear, but it only serves to enhance my other senses, nostrils suddenly assaulted by the abrasive scent of blood. I feel it pooling under my knees and clinging to the hard dirt beneath, the miniscule stones digging into my skin.  The winds are relentless, and not helping to rid the pungent scent of decay as it is blows toward me.  A sopping, enormous drop of wet liquid falls onto my head.  I hope for pouring rains and waves to wash away the mess around me; instead, I look up to see fangs that are yellow with age and the gigantic, panting jaw of the wolf and it stands over my defenceless body.  

I am so tired, and my body has done so much fighting.  Actual death feels preferable to the constant dread of its inevitability.  Observing my surroundings, I wonder if these full, green branches will be my last view.  The stream that runs along its banks, or the rocks that pass water through their divides.  

The brutality of the wolf is not lost on me, however even in this moment of fear, I can’t help but appreciate the level of beauty it also holds.  As it’s fur glistens in the soft light of a full moon that sits above us, I want to push my fingers into the thick, greying coat to feel warmth again.  Perhaps I’m becoming delirious from the cold and my increasing lack of blood, but the wolf doesn’t appear very daunting to me anymore.  I have accepted it is inevitable that I will meet my end as a result of its hunger, but who am I to stand in nature’s way, I cannot disrupt the cycle.  I lay back onto the dirt and rocks beneath my body and allow my eyes to close again.  I feel the now gentle breeze and listen to the easy swaying of the trees under its control.  The abrasive texture of the ground has no impact on my already shattered bones and sense hope, so I reside myself to the inevitability of death and allow it to encompass me.  The wolf’s snarling fades to the back of my mind, as I feel it’s warm, inviting breath on my neck and face, as it lowers itself to meet me.  I await its bite in anticipation. 

By Beth F

There was a chill in the air. The sky was dark, the light of the stars through the clouds only bright enough to deepen the shadows creeping across the ground. Massive wrought-iron gates creaked open, scraping across the cracked stone drive, and my aching body grew impossibly colder. 

They were here. 

That same, strange figure stood, stiff and stern, a dark shape blotting out the sky. Their back, or what passed for it in the dim light, was turned towards me, rigid, as the gates were dragged closed.  They shut definitively. I felt the echo of the action resound in the ground and in the air, the clatter of metal against metal unbearably loud in the quiet of the night. 

They turned, slowly, and I flinched deeper into shadow, heart clenching in my chest, breath catching in my throat. With an odd, almost robotic gait, the figure left the drive behind. No longer dwarfed by the rusted gates, the figure seemed to loom in the dark, hesitant, shuffling steps thudding dully on the hard packed earth. 

They wore neither hood nor mask, and yet I could not make out their face, downturned as it was and concealed by the dark. It seemed made of shadows, shifting features that danced, sharp and angular and deadly, despite the grey blur of night. 

They walked, and I followed, in the way it had been since that very first night. They paced in a staccato rhythm, back stiffening when they stopped, their head lifting as if to scent the air or search out danger in the sky the sky. 

Their step felt predatory in its hesitance, and I imagined burning cold eyes sweeping over the graves before us, searching, searching, although for what I did not know. 

My hand clenched tighter at my side, the cold press of the beads and the cross reassuring in their familiarity. 

The figure began to slow, their stops and starts growing less frequent as the sharp scent of grass mingled with the earthiness of freshly turned ground. The dark of the figure’s clothes was enthralling to me, unnatural against the blue-grey tones of the night, as I followed the figure further into the dulled green and grey of the cemetery. 

The stars were different when they finally stopped, crouching stiffly in front of a headstone. I could not make out the lettering upon the stone, although it seemed glossy, new, fragments of it shining stars in the dark. A curve that could make up a letter or a number, a straight line that could have been a hyphen; but nonetheless, the fractured light seemed to hold a beauty in it, however indecipherable to my eyes. 

The figure laid something aside. It was too dark to tell what. I clutched the rosary in my hand, beads cutting deeper into my skin, as if trying to reach the cold settled in my bones.  

There was no trowel this time, no ragged cloth or dark glass bottle. No half-crushed petals or ragged, weeping, stained-dark bears. This time, the figure murmured words, a soothing cadence. I watched, mesmerised, for a beat, for two, before there was a break in the figure’s spell, and I tore my eyes away from the sight. 

And then the figure turned, and the clouds parted and. Oh. 

The moon was out, and its light shone bright as the sun. Its beams, although cold and silvery blue, seemed to me to reach out, down to the ground, enveloping the figure in a gentle caress of light. 

There was no shadow on their face anymore. 

Instead, there was warmth in those eyes, and deep, deep sorrow, where I had thought to find rage, bloodlust. A smile danced lightly. Genuine, and sad. The face was lined, yes, but there were creases at the corners of the eyes, and any possible harshness was softened, abated by the gentleness of the features. 

I was close enough to hear, then, and it was no bloodthirsty chant or lustful spell that spilt from those carnelian lips. My hands, numb, began to unclench. The beads cut into my hand no longer. 

Riley, oh my child. 

The figure’s hands moved, reached for what they’d left aside, and I saw flowers, daisies, uncrushed and whole. They were lain, achingly gently, in a small vase embedded in the grave. There was care in every motion, smooth and practiced. The stiffness of the figure was gone in this place, replaced by something that could be love, fragile and warm. It was the furthest thing from what I had expected. It was beautiful. 

I turned to leave, hanging my rosary around my neck. The cross lay, resting warm against my sternum, providing more comfort than it had on any of those nights when it had been clutched in my bloodless hands. There was nothing for me, here, now.