Elysium - Allegory, Allusion and Satire

This shot illustrates the contrast between the idyllic, verdant world of Elysium and the drab, dirty colours of the 'invading' refugees.

English is such a challenging subject sometimes because we have this focus on looking at how composers construct their text which, inevitably, leads us to look at the techniques they use to create meaning and connect with their audience. I've found that most students are quite responsive to learning about techniques that are new to them, however, what becomes challenging is the idea of quantifying techniques.

What I mean is, students like to be given taxonomies of things. They like to know the relationship between ideas, EG. The text reflects this particular context, and this context has produced this text type, and within this particular text type it's this genre, and this genre involves these particular codes and conventions, and in order to do all this the composers uses these techniques. And to do all this, these techniques are defined as thus.

The problem with this is that it emphasises the quantity of parts that build a text, rather than each part's potential to be a multiplicity of things. Students focus on something being a metaphor and then don't consider that it could also be visceral language (provoking a feeling of repulsion), or that it also ties to a story-wide motif (and therefore supporting larger themes).

In short, elements of a text can be defined in multiple ways. Those who express how challenged they feel by English are those who often struggle with its open-endedness. There's no wrong answer if it's supported by valid and substantiated evidence - we say this to kids all the time - but how do we teach them that there is more than one right answer, and that these correct alternatives don't always fit neatly together either?

I don't have a simple answer to this. The students who understand that meanings can be in flux, hyphenated, or pluralistic, are the ones who often do the best - grappling with ambiguity and ambivalence is something that great authors (IE. Great Englishers, yes, that's a word now!) do throughout the course of their entire careers.

The ongoing presence of drones throughout Elysium has proven to be a rather valid prediction about the enforcing of law and order throughout the world. The shot above is a 'drone's-eye view' of a battle between the film's hero and villain. The villain is blurred, indicating that the camera represents the view of his employers and their corrupt interests in protecting his identity from being recorded.

Elysium isn't a complex text, it's a film that feature multiple layers but it's also a film that was designed for Hollywood's mainstream market, so most students will be able to follow it on at least one level. In comparing it to Animal Farm as a dystopian text that's very much a product of context, students need to be able to illuminate the ways in which it makes use of allegory. This in turn leads to discussion of satire and allusion, and these things are all tied together as interconnected techniques and structural conventions. In the PowerPoint below I've divided my analysis of Elysium into allegory and satire but this is largely an arbitrary distinction as they could be looked at either way. 

Walk your students through the presentation and have them discuss the way the images and ideas link to context. There are numerous examples, including the villain Kruger as a representation of South Africa's dark history of hiring shady mercenaries, the role of the fable that the little girl Matilda tells to Max, and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to Max's role as a messiah for this bleak, grimy future.

There is also a sheet that students can work through afterwards, in which they are given pre-identified examples of various allusions and asked to explain them. The pre-loading of ready-made examples (IE. Techniques that have already been linked with textual evidence) forces the students to focus on explaining the significance, which is what we really want our Advanced English students to be able to do. 

Resources

Elysium and Our World - PowerPoint Presentation

Allusions - worksheet