Sive, Small Things Like These, and The Shawshank Redemption. (Leaving Cert English): Revision Notes

General Vision and Viewpoint: Sive, Small Things Like These, and The Shawshank Redemption

What is General Vision and Viewpoint?

The General Vision and Viewpoint (GVV) explores the overall perspective a text presents about life and the world. It focuses on the tone, mood, and outlook of the text – whether optimistic, pessimistic, or somewhere in between. You are asked to compare how each author/director presents:

• The society the characters live in
• The level of hope or despair
• Key relationships and how they shape the tone
• Whether characters can overcome obstacles or are trapped by them
• The impact of opening and closing scenes

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Comparative Overview of GVV

Element	Sive	Small Things Like These	The Shawshank Redemption
GVV	Overwhelmingly pessimistic	Pessimistic setting, but ultimately hopeful	Gradually shifts from despair to deep optimism
Opening Scene	The play opens in the Glavin home, marked by poverty and tension. Nanna and Mena's hostile relationship sets a tone of conflict and highlights Sive's toxic environment.	The novella opens in a cold, bleak Irish town, where the harsh winter symbolises emotional and moral stagnation.	The film opens with Andy's trial and wrongful conviction, introducing the theme of injustice and his quiet dignity.
Closing Scene	The play ends with Sive's suicide and Nanna weeping over her body, a tragic image that highlights the cost of greed and cruelty.	Furlong rescues Sarah on Christmas Eve, risking everything in an act of quiet courage and hope for change.	The film ends with Red reuniting with Andy on a beach, a moving symbol of hope and redemption, ending on the words: "I hope."
Key Relationships	Destructive (Mena vs. Sive, Thomasheen vs. everyone)	Mixed: Eileen suppresses truth, but Furlong acts with integrity	Supportive friendship between Red and Andy is a core source of hope
Hope vs. Despair	Hope is crushed by social control	Hope survives through moral courage	Hope triumphs over despair
Fulfilment	No fulfilment; youthful dreams are destroyed	Furlong acts on conscience, risking comfort for justice	Andy and Red both achieve redemption and freedom
Setting	1950s rural Ireland: poverty, repression, misogyny	1980s small-town Ireland: conformity, silence, Catholic power	Mid-20th century America: corrupt, brutal prison system
Tone & Mood	Dark, claustrophobic, cynical	Quiet tension, moral reflexion, ending in fragile hope	Uplifting by the end; emotional, redemptive, hopeful
Style / Techniques	Realism, dialect, foreshadowing, irony	Minimalism, symbolism (cold, coal shed, doors), third-person limited	Voiceover narration, music, light/dark contrast, symbolism (rain, chess, posters)

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Key Comparative Themes for GVV

Oppressive Societies

• Sive:
  • Rural Ireland in the 1950s is shown as deeply repressive, especially for women and the poor.
  • Social norms and economic desperation fuel cruelty. Marriage is transactional, and illegitimacy is stigmatised.
  • Thomasheen reflects this bleak outlook:
    • "What I say is what business have the likes of us with love? It is enough to have to find the bite to eat."
  • The society offers no escape for Sive, who is ultimately driven to suicide.
• Small Things Like These:
  • Set in 1980s Ireland, the town is under the Catholic Church's control.
  • The nuns are untouchable, and locals maintain silence to survive.
  • Mrs Kehoe warns Furlong:
    • "These nuns have a finger in every pie."
  • Social complicity allows abuse to continue, while individuals like Furlong must choose between morality and acceptance.
• Shawshank:
  • The prison mirrors a corrupt, authoritarian system.
  • Inmates are dehumanised, and abuse of power is rampant.
  • Warden Norton represents the system's moral decay, hiding behind religion while exploiting others.
  • The prison setting reinforces despair—
    • "That's it! Step aside, Mert, this fucker's havin hisself hisself hisself hisself hisself a hissy-fit.
  • Yet within this bleak environment, hope and resistance gradually emerge.

Character Response to Injustice

• Sive:
  • Sive is silenced and overpowered by those around her.
  • She protests—but her voice is dismissed.
    • "I will never marry such a man. I will not marry at all!"
  • Lacking power and support, she ultimately sees suicide as her only escape.
  • Her tragic end reveals the crushing weight of societal control.
• Small Things Like These:
• Furlong is initially unsure how to act, influenced by warnings and fear.
  • "If you want to get on in life, there's things you have to ignore, so you can keep on."
• Yet he resists this norm. In rescuing Sarah, he defies both community and Church, choosing conscience over comfort:
  • "What was the point of being alive if we were not going to help one another?"
• Shawshank: Andy chooses clever, long-term resistance.
  • Despite being wrongly imprisoned, he never stops seeking justice.
  • He empowers others (like building the library), and ultimately escapes:
    • "Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine."
  • His quiet rebellion is rooted in hope and determination.

The Role of Relationships

• Sive:
  • Relationships are destructive. Mena manipulates Sive for financial gain, dismissing love
    • "What I say is what business have the likes of us with love?"
  • Thomasheen's matchmaking is transactional, and even Mike fails to protect Sive, caught between guilt and social pressure.
• Small Things Like These:
  • Relationships are more complex. Eileen reflects societal silence
    • "Such things had nothing to do with them."
  • However, Furlong's bond with his daughters inspires his action.
  • His love for them reminds him of the stakes:
    • "Sometimes Furlong... felt a deep, private joy that these children were his own."
• Shawshank:
  • The friendship between Andy and Red is redemptive.
  • Red begins believing hope is dangerous
    • "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."
  • Through Andy, he learns to believe again. Their final reunion represents emotional fulfilment and freedom:
  • "I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend."

Fulfilment and the Ending

• Sive:
  • No characters find fulfilment.
  • Sive's dreams are crushed, her final act a result of feeling utterly trapped.
  • Her death is framed in despair:
  • "Sive is dead and the skies are dark."
  • Even Nanna, who loved her most, can only mourn what's been lost.
• Small Things Like These:
  • The ending is uncertain, but quietly hopeful.
  • Furlong knows his act of resistance may cost him
    • "Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the next door."
  • Yet he walks forwards with Sarah, believing in the value of what he's done:
    • "In his foolish heart he not only hoped but legitimately believed that they would manage."
• Shawshank:
  • The ending is emotionally fulfilling.
  • Andy escapes, Red finds purpose, and both reunite in freedom.
  • It's a triumphant vision:
    • "I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head... I hope."
  • Their fulfilment stands as a testament to perseverance and friendship.

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Sample Linking Phrases

Use these when writing your comparative paragraphs:

• "While Sive portrays a bleak and hopeless GVV, both Small Things Like These and The Shawshank Redemption introduce the possibility of redemption through individual courage."
• "The ending of each text powerfully reveals its GVV. In Sive, the tragic death of the protagonist solidifies its pessimistic vision, whereas Shawshank offers a deeply optimistic conclusion through Red's release and reunion."
• "In both Sive and Small Things Like These, society is complicit in injustice, but only Furlong in Keegan's novella attempts to challenge it – giving that text a more hopeful outlook."

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Final Tips for Exam Revision

• Always address opening and closing scenes, relationships, and moments of hope or despair.
• Think in terms of how each character's journey supports the GVV.
• Use specific quotes to support your points and compare how each text makes the audience feel by the end.