What is a memoir?

Student Work Sample 

Australian bushfire experience

In January 2020, during the soaring summer heat, bushfires spread all around NSW and broke countless records. They burned down 5.3 million hectares of land across the summer and destroyed countless national parks. Million of properties were damaged, leaving massive amounts of people homeless and desperate for help. 

Back in December of 2019, I remember sitting outside at lunch, playing tips with my friends, and smelling the faint tinge of a fire. Thinking nothing of it, we continued our game, as we knew that it was common around that time of year. As the days rolled on, the smells grew stronger, and we noticed that the sky began to turn yellow in red instead of its normal bright blue. The news began to address the growing fires around the state in a more panicked manor, describing the situation and its potential worsening. 

A few more weeks passed, and we were told to no longer play sport, or run outside at lunch. Our usual game of tips or 44 homes was no longer permitted, and teachers made sure we were staying inside as much as possible. My soccer tournaments were cancelled, as well as school sport. I could not even go for runs after school anymore, because of the shear amount of smoke in the air. I knew at the time the serious of the fires, but because of my stupidly selfish teenage brain, I only gave it thought when it affected me. I complained about my sport being cancelled while there were people were fleeing their houses and running. I was fighting with my mum when she didn’t let me outside, when there were people fighting fires and suffering. Basically, to put it simply, I was a selfish brat who only cared about myself, and no others. But that all changed when my family went away for New Years.

On December 27th, 2019, my family friends and I made the mistake of traveling down the coast and staying there for a little more than a week. We travelled to Bendalong, a small town near Shoalhaven and Manyana, on a little peninsula of land surrounded my bush. There were beaches surrounding the whole area, and it was only a five-minute walk from one side of the town to the other. We spent the first few days of our holiday relaxing and chilling out. We went swimming, pet some stingrays, went surfing, went skating and played SO many boardgames. I was having so much fun, and never wanted to leave the heaven that was Bendalong. However, on December 31st, New years day, things started to go downhill. 

In the morning of that day, me and my two friends got up early and made a gourmet breakfast with toast, smoothies, and fruit. We then played some board games and sat on the balcony, admiring the beach side view. I can’t remember the exact temperature, but it was one of the hottest days of that summer. The sky was grey from the smoke as always, but it had been so for the entire month, so we thought nothing of it. On top of the soaring heat, it was also extremely windy – but the wind was hot and groggy. After everyone was awake, we all (all 16 of us) walked down to the beach directly in front of our house to attempt to relieve ourselves from the intense weather. We scrambled down the hill to the beach slowly, tripping on various sticks and rocks and scratching our legs. As soon as we reached the sand, we immediately jumped into the water, despite the huge waves crashing against the shore. It was a busy day, and there were heaps of people at the beach, enjoying the cool water like we were. My two friends and I swam for around two hours, periodically running into shore to build castles and collect shells and then running straight back in. We were surfing and body surfing, diving under the waves and popping back up at the top. I was having so much fun. I remember at one point, I looked towards shore and saw all of our parents talking together, worried looks in their faces as they looked from us in the water, the sky and the path back to the house. I though nothing of it though. Stupidly. 

When we went into shore for the last time, we joined the parents on the sand and dried off. At this point I could tell something was wrong. The parents were acting fine around us, but as soon as they turned away their voices turned to panic as they whispered to each other. While I knew something was happening, my mind did not connect the dots as to what was the cause of the panic. I didn’t really give it much thought at all. That was before I looked at the sky.

It was probably one of the most terrifying things that I have ever seen in my life. The sky was engulfed by a massive black and purple cloud, quickly rumbling towards us. It was absolutely enormous, and completely and utterly horrifying. The sky started to get darker as the usual grey haze turned into an orange glow, and the cloud got larger and closer. My dad put his hand on my shoulder and told us that we should probably start walking back up the house, to get out of the heat. All the other parents agreed, and the little kids (my little sister and her friends) reluctantly started to trudge up the hill, followed by everyone else. While I knew that there was a fire near by, it never clicked that it would reach us. I thought that it would just come close, and then the fire fighters would put it out in time. Because of this, I was still in high spirits, bubbly and excited for the afternoon’s activities and the New Years celebrations at midnight. 

We sat inside for about an hour, playing more board games, and enjoying our lunch and ice blocks as the parents huddled in the corner and whispered to each other. I remember watching my mum and dad hastily pace down the stairs to their bedroom and staying down there for around 10 minutes before returning to the living room. I was sitting on the couch, eating an ice block when my dad came over to me and started to explain the severity of the situation. My friends and I listened to him talk about the weather warnings and the news reports, and the fires near us. He then broke the news that we were in danger of getting hit. I remember the feeling so clearly. It was like something dropped in my chest, and a wave of panic, fear and anxiousness flowed through me. He told us a few other things, but I wasn’t listening. Everyone started frantically moving around, and I was told to pack a bag of my most valuable items and get ready to leave. Quickly, I stuffed as much as I could in my bag, even the most useless things like books and goggles. As I was packing, I started to panic even more. I started to imagine the worst - What would happen if the fire came close? What if we had to go down to the beach and into the water and swim out into the ocean? What if my mum, dad or sister died? What if I died? 

After my panic, I settled down and waited outside with everyone else. We got news that our power was being cut and that we would not have any service anymore. No supplies were coming in either, so we just had to work with the food that we had for the time tat we were trapped. 

We all sat in our front yard together, all 15 of us, and played games in the grass. We talked about what was happening, and how to stay safe if the fire came closer. Our bags were lined up outside the door, in case we were evacuated, and we had to leave swiftly. The overall panic was over, and everyone waws relatively calm – even the little kids. When the night came, we didn’t have lights anymore, so we just sat around some candles we found in the basement and one by one went to sleep. Instead of the usual new years celebration, everyone went to sleep before 12 o’clock. My friend and I were the only ones awake, and we only stayed up till around 12.30, and then fell asleep.

The next few days were a blur. I cant remember what happened exactly on each of the days, just significant events. Every morning, me, my friend and two or three parents went to a town meeting in the caravan park on the other end of the street, and we were informed of anything happening with the fires. I would look forward to them every morning because there was always the chance that we would be told we could leave. But day by day, we were told over and over that it would be a little longer till we were able to evacuate. I remember having dinner every night early because we didn’t want to eat in the dark. Then, after it got dark, everyone would just fall asleep early, or play board games and talk by candlelight. These days were filled with false hope and disappointment, as we were told we could leave, and then that we could not for another few days because of the worsening conditions. Occasionally, we would walk down to the beach, and look at our surroundings. One time specifically, we walked down to the beach and saw firsthand a massive fire coming around the ridge, destroying trees and wildlife. The red and orange flames engulfed the green hill, killing everything in its path. It was terrifying since we had been bushwalking there just days before. 

One morning in our daily town meeting, we were told to start packing up our things into our cars, as they thought that we could escape. I remember jumping for joy, and sprinting out of the trailer park to our house and telling everyone the news. Franticly, everyone began packing their things and shovelling it into their cars, in an attempt to get first in line to get out. Within around 20 minutes, we were fully packed and ready to leave, jumping in our cars and driving to the exit. There, we parked or cars in the long line to the exit and waited.

We were waiting for two full days before anything happened. We sat next to our cars in the blazing heat and waited, playing boardgames, talking and eating the last of our food. At the beginning of the first day, a shipment of food was driven to the town, and the local burger shop was restocked, and that was our only source of food for a while. At the end of each day, we waited for the chief of the fire department to go to our houses, and we would reluctantly leave our cars to trudge home, waiting yet another night for movement. And finally, the next day, we were told we could move. Quickly, we all jumped in our cars and moved further up the line. It took another 2 hours to het to the front, as people kept getting trapped when burning trees fell on the road. 

While we were waiting, we were interviewed by a local news reporter about our experiences and what had happened over the last week. She then published our story and it appeared on various big newspaper, along with a picture of all of us, covered in dirt and looking so tired and fed up. 

On the way out, we were escorted by police through the path, burning trees and bush on either side. We saw countless firemen working on the way, blowing out fires and spreading a pink substance on the road. While I was extremely happy to escape, I felt horrible for the firemen left behind. They worked day and night, sacrificing so much for other people. So many fire men passed away while fighting, and I had never appreciated how hard they worked. And after experiencing the panic of being trapped, I felt so empathetic for people that actually lived in the affected areas that had to leave all of their belongings behind. That experience made me realise how much of an impact the fires had on other people, and how extreme they actually were. 

We are going back to the same spot this summer. I hope it doesn’t happen again.

Memoir extract

Toward a Topography of the Parallel Universe 

From Girl, Interrupted by Susana Kaysen 

People ask, “How did you get in there?” What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, it's easy. 

And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but are not in it. 

My roommate Georgina came in swiftly and totally, during her junior year at Vassar. She was in a theater watching a movie when a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head. The entire world was obliterated - for a few minutes. She knew she had gone crazy. She looked around the theater to see if it had happened to everyone, but all the other people were engrossed in the movie. She rushed out, because the darkness in the theater was too much when combined with the darkness in her head. 

And after that? I asked her. 

A lot of darkness, she said. 

 But most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening? In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down. A body at rest does not tend to stay at rest, and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks; faces, flowers. 

These are facts you find out later, though. 

Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, aspin and shining in its orbit. Either way, it can't be discounted. 

 Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco. 

If This is a Man - Primo Levi

Primo Levi’s Holocaust memoirs stand among the best literature of the 20th century

If This is a Man, published in the United States under the title Survival in Auschwitz - is Primo Levi's memoir of the eleven months he spent as a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War II. The largest of the extermination camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II, Auschwitz has come to be seen as a symbol for the Holocaust at large and for the very worst qualities of humanity.

To be at Auschwitz was to be, as Levi writes, on the bottom. Those not immediately sent to the gas chambers were used for slave labour until they died of exhaustion, hunger or exposure to the cold; many more were selected for the gas chambers once they were deemed no longer useful. Yet some people did survive Auschwitz, albeit an infinitesimal portion of those sent there.

Likening the camp to a gigantic biological and social experiment, Levi describes for us the fundamental aspects of what was required to live longer than the norm  including the great price that had to be paid from ones humanity and morality.

Primo Levi (1910-1987) was taken to Auschwitz in 1943 after joining the Italian partisans and being betrayed. One day whilst recovering in the sanatorium he witnesses the selection of patients to be led to the gas chambers. They include a man he’d recently befriended, called Schmulek.

But destiny ordained that I was soon to understand the word “selection”, and at the expense of Schmulek himself. That evening the door opened, a voice shouted ‘Achtung!’ and every sound died out to give way to a leaden silence.

Two SS men enter (one of them has many chevrons, perhaps he is an officer?). One can hear the steps in the hut as if it was empty; they speak to the chief doctor, and he shows them a register, pointing here and there. The officer notes down in the book. Schmulek touches my knee:

‘Pass auf, pass auf,’ keep your eyes open.

The officer, followed by the doctor, walks round in silence, nonchalantly, between the bunks; he has a switch in his hand, and flicks at the edge of a blanket hanging down from a top bunk., the patient hurries to adjust it.

One has a yellow face; the officer pulls away his blankets, he starts back, the officer touches his belly, says, ‘Gut, gut,” and moves on.

Now he looks at Schmulek; he brings out the book, checks the number of the bed and the number of the tattoo, I see it all clearly from above: he has drawn a cross beside Schmulek’s number. Then he moves on.

The day after, in place of the usual group of patients who have recovered, two distinct groups are led out. The first have been shaved and sheared and have had a shower. The second left as they are, with long hair and without being treated, without a shower. Nobody said good-bye to the latter, nobody gave them messages for healthy comrades.

Schmulek formed part of this group.

When Schmulek left, he gave me his spoon and knife.

If This is a Man page 59

https://clickv.ie/w/1txt

The Family Law

Based on the best-selling memoir from Benjamin Law, this series is about growing pains, finding your place in the world, and the strange embarrassment we feel towards our family.

The Family Law is a six-part series created by critically acclaimed writer Benjamin Law and adapted from his hit 2010 memoir of the same name. 

This is the story of a quirky Chinese-Australian family on the Sunshine Coast over the course of a long hot summer, as told by 14-year old Benjamin, slightly self-obsessed with aspirations to be famous despite his severe lack of talent. For the Law family, all communication can lead to misunderstanding and unlikely comedy stems from tragedy. This is a show about sabotaged expectations, growing pains, finding your place in the world, and the strange embarrassment we feel towards the people we’re supposed to love the most: our family. 

Writing Portfolio Task 4

Holding the Man

Based on the much loved and hugely successful memoir and stage play of the same name, Holding the Man is the warm, funny and achingly sad story of the 15-year-long love affair between Timothy Conigrave and the boy he fell in love with at high school, John Caleo. 

The course of teenage love rarely runs smooth, but this is especially true when you're secretly gay in an Aussie all-male school in the 1970s, and entranced by the captain of the football team. 

Directed by award-winner Neil Armfield, starring Ryan Corr and Craig Scott, and features Guy Pearce, Sarah Snook, and Anthony LaPaglia.

Holding the Man is adapted from a memoir written by Sydney actor and activist Timothy

Conigrave in 1994. Holding the Man is set over 15 years, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in both Melbourne and Sydney. The story is set in many locations, from schools to suburban shopping centres, from nightclubs to NIDA, from clinics to five star accommodation.

As well as being a very personal and moving account of a fifteen year relationship, Timothy Conigrave’s memoir documented, aspects of life in the gay community in two particular periods of self-definition  - ‘70s liberation and the health crisis of the ‘80s.

In the early 1980s HIV/AIDS surfaced in Australia for the first time. There was a great deal of fear, misinformation and misconceptions about this disease in the beginning. The perceptions and information you and your peers have today about HIV/AIDS are probably very different from those of high school students in the early1980s. At the end of 2005, there were an estimated 15,310 people were living with HIV in Australia.

Themes

Following are some of the ideas thematic topics explored in Holding the Man. Choose one and explain how we see that thematic topic in the film? What do we learn about the thematic topic from the life story told in Holding the Man?

• Growing Up

• Identity

• Love

• Faithfulness

• Trust

• Ambition

• Prejudice

• Fear

• Guilt

• Loss

• Death

• Grief

It is easy to forget, to allow the memories of the relatively recent past to slide away to a possibly helpful distance. Australia's experience of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and '90s is thus ancient history, and so much of that time is gone: a time of the dead and the dying; vigil shifts at ward 17; watching brilliant and beautiful men sliding into garbled dementia; polite efforts to avoid funeral scheduling conflicts; two full pages of obits in the Sydney Star Observer; anger and love and screaming horror at the waste of so many lives. Surprisingly easy to let all that go. Tim Conigrave's memoir  Holding the Man is an act of urgent remembrance, an unflinching, devastating, moving and funny reanimation of that awful time. It is also the story of two people in love.

What do you think is meant by the claim:  “It is easy to forget, to allow the memories of the relatively recent past to slide away.”