EA300B: BLOCK4 - STUDY GUIDE WEEK15+WEEK16




Study Guide ||| WEEK – 15 |||

 

The importance of the real

         

Activity 4.1 / P.162: Children’s book publishing

R1: Nicholas Tucker

 “Twentieth-century British publishing”

      Tucker reviews British publishing for children between 1914 and 1945, then contrasts this with developments in Children Literature in period from 1950s to 1990s.

What kind of picture does Tucker give of Children Literature in mid-twentieth-century Britain?

In what ways does he suggest that concept of ‘a good children’s book’ then began to change?

What does the chapter tell you about values that Tucker himself places on different kinds of books, and how far would you agree with these?

-         According to Tucker’s assumption the good children’s books should appeal to adults.

-         He clearly values literature that reflects real lives of ordinary children and social and ethnic diversity of contemporary life.

-         Children’s fiction should be socially representative.

-         Books with a narrower social setting or fantasies can equally deal with moral complexity and appeal to a wide audience.

-         In this respect Tucker’s failure to mention famous fantasy fiction written for children between 1950s and 1970s by authors like Philippa Pearce, is striking.

***Notes on the Swallows and Amazon in relation to realism:

This is through its natural approach with true-to-life dialogue.

-         Everyday activities and ordinary children in a realistically represented setting (sailing, camping, cooking).

-         The map even if it is in childish style.

-         The specific vocabulary used to describe the actions (technical terms associated with discourse of sailing\language).

-         Free indirect speech to portray the events from one child's perspective (narrative techniques).

 

***Constructing the "real:///Peter Hunt(The Lake District novels):

-         Bildungsroman\ offers a reality sense to the characters.

-         The reaction of the children/characters.

-         The relationships between adults and children (family).

-         Narrative techniques

 

READ THE PARAGRAPH UNDER THE ACTIVITY 4.6 IN P.166




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Study Guide ||| WEEK – 16 |||

 

The power of the fantastic

               

Activity 4.10:  The Fantastic and the Real

Definitions of fantasy \ p169: important

 

The relationship between fantastic and real in children’s books:

      Fantasy has to be defined in relation to reality, but the nature of this relationship is more controversial.

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Fantastic has been a more acceptable and sometimes highly valued feature in children literature:

      This is because it can be appreciated both as pleasurable play in relation to a romantic conception of childhood and also in more pedagogic terms, as metaphorically conveying important insights that contribute to child reader’s development and preparation for adulthood.

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Time-slip fantasy: Tom’s Midnight Garden

Activity 4.11  

One of the challenges for writers of fantasy: To persuade readers to suspend disbelief and accept that, within terms of constructed world, characters and events are believable:

      Tom is not the narrator; but he is the focaliser.

-         We know little of the thoughts and feelings of the Kitsons, Peter or Hatty.

-         We need to see and feel through his eyes and sensibilities for the story to work.

-         Characters and places are presented from his perspective.

E.g:  Peter as valued playmate; Uncle Alan as morose and sarcastic; Aunt Gwen as fussy &and over-attentive. Significance of nursery bars and freedom of midnight garden are also presented from Tom’s point of view.

-         Pearce often uses free indirect discourse to convey Tom’s thoughts.

-         This colouring of narrator’s voice with Tom’s feelings strengthens reader’s identification with him.

·        Through focalization, reader accepts Tom’s experiences in garden as believable within the framework of Pearce’s constructed world.

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What is real and fantastic is relating to the treatment of time

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Childness: a body of feelings and beliefs about childhood manifest in a story and in the way it addresses an implied audience.

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Activity 4.14: Metaphors for growing up

Relationship between fantasy and reality in the book:

      Both Natov and Rustins suggest that Pearce uses fantastic to comment metaphorically on reality, with the story finally expresses healing (Natov), and the ‘deeper truth’ of fantasy that enables loving communication between adults  and children (Rustins).

      There were more critical views of book’s ending and in particular, the suggestion that Tom and Hatty’s relationship is the result of dream telepathy.

-         Peter Hollindale finds this ‘it was all a dream’ conclusion inconsistent with evidence provided by Tom’s discovery of stakes in his own time, and argues that it breaks rules of fantasy, damaging artistic integrity of story.

-         He suggests that Pearce’s sense of her child audience slips at the end, shifting towards a more rational adult perspective that detracts from ‘childness’ that he sees as essential to children's literature.

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Activity 4.15: Linear & mythic time

How dose time function?

-         Nikolajeva suggests that in Tom’s Midnight Garden, a place - Never Land or the garden metaphorically symbolizes time of childhood.

-         She points out that this particular chronotope (a typical configuration of time and place in a literary genre) is associated in Christian ideology with Paradise.

-         When Tom and Hatty step into the garden, they enter mythical time (kairos) which does not obey rules of ordinary linear time (chronos); but is instead evoked by Mrs. Bartholomew’s fragmented memories of her childhood.

-         For Tom home means ‘order, linearity, and growing up, and He is tempted by, but resist, desire to stay in mythical time for ever.

-         Nikolajeva directly tackles mystery of time that Pearce said was central to book, her discussion of interplay between chronos and kairos in story could be seen to add a further dimension to other critics’ discussion of metaphors of time and garden, and of struggle involved in moving out of childhood.

 



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