CHAPTER 8

Introduction

·        South Pacific domestic realist story

·        The complicated relationship between 'home' and 'abroad'

At home with the Victorians: Edinburgh life

Activity 2

The poem 'Foreign Lands':

-         Stevenson's poem draws upon two senses of the word 'foreign': foreign as in strange or unfamiliar; in this case, like the 'next door garden' (I. 5) that he has seen for the very first time; but also foreign in the sense of abroad rather than home; in this case, the ships heading out through the Firth of Forth, and the imaginary road leading to 'fairy land' (I. 18).

The poem 'Travel':

-         In the poem 'Travel', Stevenson presents a more conventional, exoticised vision of abroad; abroad is everything home is not.

-          Stevenson's language in Travel' is insistently visual; he lists and describes all the things encountered in travelling abroad that are not to be found at home - from camel caravans to red flamingos, and from 'Man-devouring tigers' (I. 26) to 'forests, hot as fire' (I. 17). This poem captures the spirit of adventure and romance that was still associated with travel and exploration in the nineteenth century.

Reading 'The Beach of Falesa'

A hybrid form

·     'The Beach of Falesa' is best defined as a novella or a short novel.

·    It is a hybrid form -too short to be considered a novel, too long to be a short story.

·   The unfamiliarity of the topic and the foreign words in the tide necessitated the addition of a subtide ('Being the Narrative of a South-Sea Trader') to make the story understandable to a mass British readership.

The content matter of the story caused problems:

-         One of the central premises of the plot is that John Wiltshire, the Scottish trader in Falesa, tricks Uma into marriage through a false contract, lasting one night.

-         Shorter deemed Stevenson's domestic story of the Pacific inappropriate for the sitting rooms of British homes (the story was also illustrated with an image of a bare-breasted Pacific island woman).

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  لم أسجل المادة. ووفر المادة العلمية لي الاخ برنارد شو فلا تنسوه من الدعاء

 

In Defence of the Indefensible? Some Grounds for Enid Blyton's Appeal

BY David Rude

·       Blyton's books are hugely popular despite the fact that she died in 1968.

·       Blyton's books were under criticism which has generally been negative, seeking to belittle her achievement, seeing her as a mere writing machine.

·       With the advent of social criticism, it was not just her literary qualities that were suspects; she was also seen as being racist, sexist, or classist.

·       Blyton claimed to be a storyteller rather than a writer. Her real passion lay in storytelling.

·       In her stories for the younger ages, these children tend to comfort with the imaginary figures based on folk and fairy tales.

·       After the Second World War, CHILDREN'S LITERATURE was becoming more respected. This period initiated a change with the rise of social criticism, challenging the format for their middle-class elitism, their norm of whiteness and their denigration of all things foreign, their marginalization of females in favour of the male.Despite socially concerned adults seeking to remove Blyton from their children's bedrooms, schools and libraries, her works continued to be immensely popular, why?

Evaluate Blyton's books:

·       Her language is not figurative rich. She uses oral strengths of cliché colloquialism and collocation. But her vocabulary is not limited.

·       Blyton's characters are flat and unmemorable. Her figure readily fit the types of heroes, villains, victims, helpers..

·       Narrative codes: neutral description of character in terms of semic elements (tall, dark..)

·       Plot: full of flaws by which they seem to mean contrivances.

·       Her storytelling: the story itself and how it is related (plotted) is paramount with setting and characters taking second place in making her tales easily transportable across cultural and classes, each providing their local colouring.

 

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Study Guide ||| WEEK – 17 |||

WITNESS, HISTORY & ACTIVISM

         

•      Mildred D. Taylor’s historical story of racism and struggle in 1930s Mississippi, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, has been praised for its potential to raise young people’s consciousness about social injustice.

Activity 4.17/ P.175: Creating a realistic historical context

)هذا الاكتفيتي اتى في اختبار المدتيرم فرع الكويت 2012\2013(

How dose Taylor’s realistic style fulfil her pedagogic purposes?

-         Focusing in Tylor's realist techniques

-         Authenticity of place, character and historical period.

•      Realism has an important function in relation to Taylor’s pedagogic purposes. She wanted to provide contemporary child readers in 1970s with convincing vicarious experience of 1930s Mississippi, in order to understand the impact of the social injustices experienced by black people. Every realistically presented incident simultaneously builds a picture of children’s lives and is a vehicle for conveying the nature and effects of racism.

•      Taylor  uses following techniques to create an identifiable social and historical context:

-         Detailed description of place and weather, activities and events.

-         Poetic language describing place and weather.

-         The naming of specific places, characters and events.

-         Indications of passage of time and of a precise historical time period.

-         Passages of direct speech including phonetic spelling and colloquial grammar

These are all techniques employed to create the illusion of a real world and convey authentic representation of a specific period in history.

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•      The depiction of warm, intimate family life throws into stark relief the dangers from night riders in dark, wet, muddy world outside that is described later.

•      Taylor’s juxtaposition of realistically presented, secure, loving family scenes inside home with accounts of danger and  violence that threaten to destroy them intensifies effects on the reader of each of these contrasting aspects of Cassie’s experience.

Activity 4.18/ P.176:  the struggle against the injustice

) هذا الاكتفيتي اتى في اختبار المدتيرم فرع السعودية 2012\2013

  

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