Innocence Imagination Obsession - Heavenly Creatures

Sample C

Student's Written Explanation (incorporated into their presentation)

My static image portrays the confined world that Juliet and Pauline lived in.  Everything links together to show what they had to go through to try and stay together.  It shows the division between the Fourth World and the real world, and their imaginations and reality. 

The board is coloured red to symbolise the anger and hatred that the girls feel for other characters, especially Pauline's mother.  It also symbolises the blood form the murder they committed.  

Diaries played a big part in Pauline and Juliet's lives.  They contained a lot about their Fourth World adventures and their desire to murder Pauline's mother.  Both girls wrote about the desperate measures that they would take to be together. The diary is from the year 1954 as that is when everything happened.   The left side of the diary is Juliet's and the right side is Pauline's.  Juliet always used to lead Pauline so her diary is first.  Each side of the diary has a different colour along the edge.  Juliet has silver to show that she is from a higher class and is wealthier compared to Pauline.  Pauline's side of the diary has black rimmed pages to show how different she is from Juliet and also that she is a dark person.  Juliet's side of the diary has verses from the poem "The Ones That I Worship" that they wrote.  It is in handwriting to symbolise her posh upbringing. Pauline's side of the diary repeats the word MOIDER as it symbolises her determination and the lengths that she would go to, to be with Juliet. Although Juliet always seemed to lead Pauline when it came to the murder of Pauline's mother, Pauline seemed to dominate.  Repeating the world "MOIDER" in bold lettering shows this. 

The barbed wire symbolises their confined world.  It shows how they wouldn't let people get close to them and it places a barrier between their Fourth World and reality. 

The stocking which wraps around the barbed wire links to how they murdered Pauline's mother (with a brick in a stocking) but it is used to represent another layer which Pauline and Juliet put up to alienate themselves from other people.  The stocking is twisted around to show how wrapped up in themselves the girls were. 

NB. Subsequent to the generation of this exemplar, the assessment activity was modified to reflect the notion of a target audience. 

© Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealand (First published 1998)