Storytime - Teachers Book [PDF]

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Teacher’s Guide

ENGLISCH FÜR MATURITÄTSSCHULEN

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e m i t y

R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN RITA ANN HIGGINS THOMAS KING NICHOLOSA MOHR DANNY SANTIAGO JOHN STEINBECK JOHN UPDIKE VIRGINIA WOOLF R AY BR ADBURY FREDERIC BROWN PETER CAREY R AYMOND CARVER K ATE CHOPIN WOOLF

Regula Schmid

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Lehrmittel der Interkantonalen Lehrmittelzentrale

Autorin Regula Schmid

Expertenteam Monika Egli Kathrin Pirani Eveline Reichel Redaktion Mathias Grüter Gaynor Ramsey Gestaltung Umschlag Sonja Schenk Inhalt René Schmid

© 2006 Lehrmittelverlag Zürich 2. unveränderte Auflage 2011 Printed in Switzerland Klimaneutral gedruckt auf FSC-Papier ISBN 978-3-03713-181-7 www.lehrmittelverlag-zuerich.ch Das Werk und seine Teile sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Nachdruck, Vervielfältigung jeder Art oder Verbreitung – auch auszugsweise – nur mit vorheriger schriftlicher Genehmigung des Verlags.

Contents



Essential information about Storytime

4

Project 1: It’s Storytime

7



What the teacher needs to know before starting

7



Introducing students to Project 1

9



Unit 1: Storytelling

10



Unit 2: The concept of the story as a whole

12



Unit 3: Visualizing a scene

14



Unit 4: On beginnings and endings in fiction

16



Unit 5: On time and place

18



Unit 6: On character

20



Unit 7: The connection between characters and events

22



Unit 8: On narration

24



Conclusion to Project 1

26

Project 2: An ABC to English Literature

28



What the teacher needs to know before starting

28



A Report on the Shadow Industry, by Peter Carey

32



The Weapon, by Frederic Brown

36



The Short-Short Story of Mankind, by John Steinbeck

39



Désirée’s Baby, by Kate Chopin

42



A New Window Display, by Nicholosa Mohr

45



Philomena’s Revenge, by Rita Ann Higgins

49



Conclusion to Project 2, Units 1–6

54

Project 3: In the World of English Literature

55



What the teacher needs to know before starting

55



Cathedral, by Raymond Carver

60



A & P, by John Updike

66



Borders, by Thomas King

73



The Somebody, by Danny Santiago

81



The Veld, by Ray Bradbury

89



The String Quartet, by Virginia Woolf

97



Conclusion to Project 3

104

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Essential information about Storytime

Who is Storytime for? Storytime is an introduction to English literature at Gymnasium. It consists of a Teacher’s Guide and ­ a Student’s Book. The Teacher’s Guide is designed for my young colleagues who keep asking for good stories to use in the classroom and for ideas about how to use them. It can be equally useful for experienced teachers ­ of English who are (as I am) always on the lookout for suitable texts and who want to try out a new concept for the teaching of literature. The Student’s Book contains all the material that the students need to have. (For more information see below.) What makes Storytime different? Two things, really. It contains ready-made lessons in literature for three different levels (school years 9/10 to 12). These lessons can either be used exactly as they are presented, in parts only, or they can serve teachers as a basis from which to develop their own ideas. Further, the book suggests an overall concept for the teaching of literature during the four years which students spend at Gymnasium. The concept is divided into three parts called Projects 1–3. Each of these projects can be taught within one school term, and in addition to the normal language lessons. Why should I have an overall concept? While the teaching of language is usually very systematic and highly structured at Gymnasium, the teaching of literature all too often is not. It is still a common sight to see teachers simply read one text after the other with their students, beginning with easy ones and continuing with more difficult ones. This may work if the sole aim is to raise students’ level of English, but it does not teach them much about literature. The study of literature, however, is an integral part of the curriculum at Gymnasium. The benefit of having an overall concept for the teaching of literature is that it makes the study of literature much more systematic. The three parts of this book are structured so as to develop and support the students’ progress in reading, understanding and interpreting literature. What are the aims of the three projects? Project 1 (It’s Storytime) introduces students to some of the great narratives of English literature. This is done in a deliberately playful and creative manner. The main aim is to make them discover the pleasure that good stories can afford. Project 2 (An ABC to English Literature) provides an introduction to interpretation. Students will be equipped with a number of “Literary Rules” for the approach of literary texts. They will practise a variety of techniques, which lead them to a better understanding. They become more skilful and confident about interpreting literature. Project 3 (In the World of Literature) allows students to work much more independently. They have all the necessary material in their Student’s Books to pursue their own trains of thought and concentrate on their areas of individual interest. The main aim is to make them independent in their reading and understanding and appreciation of literature.

4

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

When can I use each part? Project 1 is suitable for school years 9 or 10. It can be used as soon as the students’ level of English is high enough for them to read simplified texts with certain ease. When the students have the necessary language level to allow them to read texts in the original version, it is time for Project 2. At present, this is the case in school year 11. Project 3 then is designed for school year 12. It prepares students for their final exams in English and encourages them to continue reading. How do I proceed during the terms in between teaching the three parts? Since this book works exclusively with short narrative prose, it makes sense to use the literary lessons in between Projects 1 to 3 to read other types of literature with your students. Read entire novels as well as plays and poems. The skills developed with this book will serve the students well. And in return, the constant and regular practice in reading and analysing all types of literature will help them here. What does the Teacher’s Guide contain? It basically contains the ready-made lessons. For each lesson in Project 1 there is a brief description of the aims, and a lesson plan, followed by the actual lesson itself. Project 2 is structured in the same way, plus there are the answers to the tasks and the formulated “Literary Rules”. Project 3 has a variety of lesson plans given at the beginning, followed by one chapter for each story with comments on the tasks and suggested answers. Each of the lesson plans in this part can be combined with each of the stories. For each of the three parts, there is a separate introduction giving the teachers all the information they need before starting the project and a separate conclusion showing ways of ending the project. What does the Student’s Book contain? Here, you and your students will find all the texts for Projects 2 and 3 (Project 1 works with “Easy Readers”) and the tasks to be done in all three parts. Each part has a separate introduction for the students, preparing them for the project ahead. In Project 1 there is also some background information to the activities and a checklist with useful vocabulary at the end. Project 2 features explanations of the vocabulary, pre-reading activities and some additional tasks. There are boxes left empty for the students to complete with the Literary Rules and there is space for students to note essential vocabulary. Project 3 provides all the material which the students need to work independently. Apart from the texts and the explanations of the vocabulary, there are pre-reading activities, questions for reading comprehension and questions for interpretation. At the end of the book students will find authors’ biographies and a glossary called “Literary Terms A–Z” with the relevant background information.

5

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

And finally, why focus on literature at all? It is clear that while reading literature students learn a lot about language. And while discussing literature they always touch upon political, ethical, cultural, historical or social questions. However, it is my intention that the emphasis of the lessons presented here be on the study of literature. Learning something about literature should not be considered a by-product of English language lessons. Nor should literary texts serve as a pretext to discuss politics, ethics, history, etc. Storytime has been written with the firm conviction that a literary education at school is both possible and desirable. Students have the right to be taught literature, to discover good stories and to develop the skills necessary to understand and appreciate them. After all, if you do not open the door to the world of English literature to them, who will?

6

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Project 1: It’s Storytime What the teacher needs to know before starting “As a child I had always liked stories, but Gymnasium made me feel bored with stories.” This is a statement I have heard more than once from students at university. And it worried me. Surely, Gymnasium can do better than that, I wondered. We manage to get students to a language level that is high enough to enable them to read English literature in the original. That is a remarkable achievement. But do we also manage to convey the intense pleasure that stories can give to their readers? The above statement suggests that there is something left to be desired by the way many teachers approach literature. I decided to develop a different approach. As soon as my students’ English is good enough to ­­­work with “Easy Readers”, I plunge them headlong into some of the great stories of our times. This is not an approach where the reading is guided, supervised and controlled by the teacher. I leave the students alone with one of the “grand narratives”, to read and savour it in their own time and at their own pace. Then the students get together for a lesson to work with their texts and exchange their ideas. These lessons are intentionally not intellectual in nature. My main aim in Project 1 is to nurture the pleasure of reading. The work that we do in these lessons is not supposed to be analytical. Students are encou­r­ aged to develop their ideas creatively. I would always start these lessons with the words “it’s storytime!”. After a while students take this up spontaneously and ask, “can it be storytime tomorrow?”, or they would write “it’s storytime!” on the blackboard before I enter the classroom. And the feedback is clear when I ask them at the end of the term what they liked best about our English lessons: “Storytime!” On a more serious note, let me mention that students make a lot of progress in their English with this project. It is helpful for them to see texts that are longer than what they get in their normal coursebooks. They see the vocabulary and the grammatical structures which they have learned actually being used. And they get a lot of practice, in reading obviously when they do their homework, and during the lesson in speaking, listening and in writing. Normally in literature lessons, all students work on the same text. This is not the case here. In each of these ready-made units, each student prepares a different story. Nevertheless, the units themselves are the same for all the students. Many of the units have activities that can be done either in speaking or in writing. This leaves teachers flexible to decide on whatever their students need most at the time. The individual units can also be interchanged or used selectively. The succession I give here, however, is determined by two factors. Easier activities are followed by some more demanding ones. And activities for which only few students have to know the same text are followed by other activities where several students have to know the same text. The last point I would like to make here is that this project provides an excellent basis for the teaching of literature that follows later at Gymnasium. It makes students naturally familiar with a number of plot structures and with typical story elements. Doing Project 1 of this book is a preparation for Projects 2 and 3, but also for all other reading of literature.

7

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

A note on the time frame The project takes up one English lesson in class every second week. This will leave students enough time to read the books from one lesson to the next. If all eight of the suggested units are taught, the project will cover 16 weeks. Allow some time at the end for a test or any other form of conclusion. The entire project will thus fit easily into one school term. The number of eight units is merely a suggestion. It has worked well so far, both with regard to the students’ attention span and with regard to the number of lessons available for literature in one term. However, if your students get restless or there is less time available, the project also works with fewer than eight units. And, similarly, if your students get hooked on the “Easy Readers” and ask for more, it is, of course, possible to continue using them beyond this project. Each student will have read eight books, which means that there is more fresh material around for everybody. What to do when a student has not read the book for one of the units The units actually depend on students reading their books at home. But if it happens that somebody has not managed to do so, this student can still participate in the lesson. It is always possible to do the new task with a book read for a previous unit. A note on testing It can be disputed whether a project of this nature should be concluded with a test. I usually do test my students on this. One reason for it is that it shows students’ English skills from a different angle than the more formal language tests that are usually administered at this stage of their education. And a welcome side effect is that note-taking is encouraged when they know there will be a test at the end. They then have a motivation to take good notes. For tests and alternatives to testing, see the Conclusion to Project 1 (p. 26). A note on the selection of the “Easy Readers” Get as many different stories as there are students in your class (remember that each student will prepare a different “Easy Reader” for each unit!). Choose the stage of simplification to suit your students. It is important that they can read these texts quickly and easily. Language should not be an obstacle! Choose only titles from fiction. Most activities do not work with non-fictional texts. Plays do work, but some of the activities should then be slightly adapted. There is a great variety of texts to choose from. It is interesting to work with fiction of different genres. Choose classics like Sense and Sensibility, Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Gulliver’s Travels, Huckleberry Finn, The Secret Agent, Vanity Fair, Sherlock Holmes. But do not hesitate to select also popular fiction ­ titles like Gone with the Wind, Dracula, The Big Sleep, The Client, Matilda, and titles that have become famous through their films like Rain Man, Godfather, Psycho, Love Story, Amistad, Braveheart, Forrest Gump etc.

And now, it’s storytime!

8

It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Introducing students to Project 1 Get the project started by giving your students some general information about the aims and the procedure. This takes about 20 minutes of an English lesson and is best done well before you plan to do Unit 1 in class. Remember that students should have enough time to read their first book. Teacher’s preparation – Bring the Student’s Books of Storytime and the “Easy Readers” that the students will read. – Prepare a list with all the book titles and eight columns next to them for students’ names. Model: It’s Storytime – Book list Book titles

Students’ names

Oliver Twist Amistad

What the students need to know: – Tell your students what the idea of the project is: to read longer texts, to practise vocabulary and grammatical structures in a new context and to develop their ideas about texts creatively. – Give them all the information they need to get ready for the first unit: read the book, write a summary, note the most important characters, check the vocabulary so as to be able to talk about the book. – Let them also know in advance what the conclusion of the whole project will be, whether there will be a test about it or not. Now distribute the Student’s Books and look with the class at page 5: “What to do for each unit”. Then give each student the one book that they will read for the first unit. You can ask students what type of story they feel like reading. Or you can simply give each student a book that you think will be suitable for them. Explain that it does not matter greatly which book they get first. Show students the list and say that it is important to keep track of each book. The student whose name is in the column on the list is responsible for the book. As soon as a book gets chosen by the next student, that student’s name will go into the next column on the list. This method is a quick and easy way to check where the books are and what each student is reading. The list can be kept and updated by the teacher. Alternatively, you can assign the task and have one student “play librarian”. This has worked well in my experience. It is a good opportunity to give students responsibility and to let them organise themselves. Students’ homework Read the book for the first literature lesson. Take notes.

9

It’s Storytime Unit 1

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 1: Storytelling Aims This unit is about storytelling. Students will learn to tell a story clearly and coherently. Students work in groups of four, so that at the end of the lesson each student will know three stories, in addition to the one they have read. The skills practised are mainly speaking, but also listening and a bit of writing. Phases 1

In groups of four: one student tells his/her story, followed by questions and answers (10 min.)

2

In groups: repeat phase 1 three times, until everyone in the group has told their story (30 min.)

3

In class: grammatical input (optional) Remember to plan a few minutes at the end of each lesson in order to exchange books and fill in the book list.

Lesson plan 1

In groups of four: one student tells his/her story, followed by questions and answers (10 min.)

Let students form groups of four. The combination does not matter for this activity, any four people can work together. If necessary, remind your students of what to do and what not to do during such activities. E.g. ”listen to each other” / “speak English only” / “don’t interrupt the speaker” / “don’t read out from your notes”, etc. Now one student starts telling his/her story to the others (➔ T1)*. This is as natural a situation as you can get in a classroom. Someone tells a story to other people who do not know it yet. In my experience, students like listening to a storyteller and are naturally curious about it. There is a genuine information gap, which this exercise helps to fill. The listeners will also naturally start to ask questions. This can be turned into a language exercise (➔ T2). They will have to ask the storytellers – to clarify: … was not clear. / What happened … ? / Who … ? etc. – to specify: … was too general / too quick for me. / When … ? / Where … ? etc. – to explain: Please explain … / Why … ? Each listener should write down at least one question for the storyteller to answer. This forces the storytellers to be clear and coherent in their narratives. It makes sense to have them write down the questions, because making questions is grammatically still quite difficult at this stage. With this method, some much-needed formal grammar practice can be built into the literature lesson.

* ➔ T1 = see task x in the Student’s Book, here task 1, p. 6

10

It’s Storytime Unit 1

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

During this phase, circulate from group to group. Make sure that the questions in the Student’s Books are grammatically correct. And keep your ears open for phrases that your students need in their conversation. Put them on the blackboard for every group to see or, if you have more time, write them down in your own language and translate them with the class at the end of the activity. Examples of phrases that they typically need here are: “Whose turn is it now?” / “It’s your turn”, or “You’re next.” / “Have you finished?” / “Go on.”, etc. 2

In groups: repeat phase 1 three times, until everyone in the group has told their story (30 min.)

Proceed as described in phase 1. 3

In class: grammatical input (optional)

a) Question formation: You may wish to take a few minutes to remind the class of how to form questions in English and to go through the difficulties which the students had while doing this activity. b) Tenses used for storytelling: Ask students to check the tenses used in their books. Stories are typically told in the past tense. For summaries of plots, however, it is typical to use the present tense (also sometimes called the “narrative present”). A note on the exchange of books: At the end of the lesson, students exchange their books, so that everyone gets a new book to read. Remind them to have their names put down on the list for the new title.

11

It’s Storytime Unit 2

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 2: The concept of the story as a whole Aims Unit 2 is about storytelling again. This time students will experience first-hand the inner logic of a story. They will have thought about how a beginning, a middle and an end make a whole. At the end of the lesson each student will know one more story, plus the one they have read for this lesson (totalling a maximum of six stories by now). The skills practised are mainly writing, and then also speaking and listening. Phases 1

Individual writing: summarizing the beginning, then the end (15 min.)

2

Individual writing: writing a suitable middle for somebody else’s summary (10 min.)

3

Pairwork: read this summary, comment and compare with the middle part of the story (10–15 min.)

4

In class: short input of literary theory

Teacher’s homework (optional) You may want to collect the summaries. It is an opportunity to give feedback on students’ use of English. Lesson plan 1

Individual writing: summarizing the beginning, then the end (15 min.)

Tell students to write a summary of the beginning of the story they have read for this unit (➔ T1). Ask them to keep it really short, to write no more than two or three sentences. Allow a few minutes for them to think and write. Then tell them to do the same with the ending of their story (➔ T2). They should summarise it in two or three sentences. Again they will need a few minutes to think, write, read through what they have written and check whether they have produced a clear and coherent text. Remind them of the last unit, where they recognised the importance of being clear and coherent in their storytelling (➔ Unit 1, T1). 2

Individual writing: writing a suitable middle for somebody else’s summary (10 min.)

Each student now has to pass on their summaries to somebody in the class who does not know the story yet. They only know a maximum of six stories so far, so they will easily find someone. The task now is to write a suitable middle for the summaries they get (➔ T3). Tell your students that the task is not about somehow guessing the “right” middle. Rather it is their task to write a middle that corresponds to the rest. The middle should naturally follow the beginning, and be naturally followed by the ending. Allow time for them to think, write and check.

12

It’s Storytime Unit 2

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Pairwork: read this summary, comment and compare with the middle part of the story (10–15 min.) 3

Students work together with the person who has written the middle part to their beginning and ending. They have to read this new middle, then comment and judge how well it corresponds to the rest (➔ T4). Like in the last unit, this is again a very natural learning situation. One of the two students has read the book and therefore knows more. There is a real information gap, and students are naturally curious to fill it. The additional beauty of it is that, for once, it is not the teacher who knows more and comments and judges, but that the students can truly learn from each other. What they will learn is, again, that they need to be clear and coherent. Because, if they were unclear or forgot to mention a crucial element in their summaries, the middle parts will turn out inappropriate or rather funny. In this case students will be forced – without the teacher’s intervention – to provide a clearer and better statement. Students who have written the middle part will, of course, want to hear what the middle part in the original story was. At this point – and not before – those students who have read the books are allowed to give a short summary of the original middle. This is a funny moment. Some stories are more predictable than others. It is always interesting to see that many texts are indeed very similar to the original. And it is fun to hear new versions which differ but make sense as well. Stress again that these texts are not “wrong”, they are only different. Students now rotate to form new pairs and work with the person who has written the middle to their beginning and ending. Proceed as above. 4

In class: short input of literary theory

You may wish to use the last few minutes of the lesson to put into words what students have intuitively grasped in this unit: A story forms a whole. The beginning determines the middle, the middle follows logically and in itself determines the ending. The ending logically follows the middle. There is an inner logic to a story. Unlike in life, where anything can happen, in a story one thing leads to another and all things together form the complete story. This is the classic formula for the novel. It is deceptively simple. It seems so simple that it is often not mentioned at all in the teaching of literature. But in my opinion, it is worth mentioning because it provides a good basis to the understanding of fiction. Refer students to the quotations on page 9 in the Student’s Book.

13

It’s Storytime Unit 3

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 3: Visualizing a scene Note: For this lesson the students will need coloured pencils or pens. Aims While the last two units dealt with the story as a whole, this unit, in contrast, concentrates on one brief moment in the story. Students will be asked to visualize what they have read. They have to transform their mental picture of the story into words, be it orally or in writing. This is a flexible unit. It could also fit in any time later in the project (but not before, since it depends upon students knowing several stories). It can be done orally or in writing, depending on what is more suitable at this point. Phases 1

Teacher’s introduction: aspects of visualization (10 min.)

2

Individual work: drawing their mental picture (5 min.)

Individual work: transforming the picture into words (this takes less time if done orally, more if done in writing, balance with Phase 4) 3

4

In groups: match the words and/or the drawing with the story (flexible timing)

Possible variations The actual drawing only takes 5 minutes in this lesson. If there is enough time available, this could be extended into an entire lesson. Or it could become part of the students’ drawing lessons. Lesson plan 1

Teacher’s introduction: aspects of visualization (10 min.)

First, ask the students to think back to the story they have read. What is the scene that comes to mind immediately? What is the most memorable moment? Ask them to make a short note of this for later reference (➔ T1). What you could tell students about visualization: When we read a story, we can somehow “see” it in our minds. We read the words on the page and transform them into some kind of “inner picture”. The story comes to life in our imagination. It is interesting to note that the word “imagination” is con­ nected to “image”, which means “picture” in other languages. This is an experience that readers typically make, but it rarely becomes the subject of a literature lesson. It is an important aspect of this project, which introduces students to reading stories, to make them understand that their reading experience counts and that their imagination matters. In class, make a list of aspects that contribute to a picture, e.g. Colours, atmosphere, light Characters: looks and appearance, face, hair, figure, clothes, gestures, etc. Place: – inside: room, furniture, objects, style – outside: town or country, surroundings, etc. This is an open list. Accept any valid suggestions from students. 14

It’s Storytime Unit 3

2

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Individual work: drawing their mental picture (5 min.)

Students sketch the mental picture which they thought of in phase 1 (➔ T2). Ask them to pay attention to details and to all the aspects of the list above. Drawing this is an intermediate step, taken to help the students get from the mental picture to the word. With this step, they get the mental picture “out into the open”, but the form stays the same, it is still a picture. The final transformation will now be easier. 3

Individual work: transforming the picture into words

Students now have to use language as a medium (➔ T3). It is easier for them to find words that describe their picture, rather than words to describe their mental representation of the story. This can be done orally. In this case, they now need some time to think of the exact words to describe every detail. Or it can be done in writing. Time will be short, so ask them for keywords. A full-length essay would be good language practice, of course, but it would have to be written outside this lesson. 4

In groups: match the words and/or the drawing with the story (flexible timing)

Form groups, smaller groups if time is short and larger groups if there is more time available. Each student now presents their transformed mental picture. They can use the words only, or the words in combination with their drawing (➔ T4). This can be played as a game. The other students in the group have to find out what story it is. Everyone knows by now a maximum of seven stories, so this activity works well. It is fun to compare mental pictures. The other students who know the story may spontaneously agree or disagree. Some aspects are described by the author for all readers to see. Many other aspects are left to the readers’ imaginations.

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It’s Storytime Unit 4

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 4: On beginnings and endings in fiction Aims Like Units 1–3, this Unit 4 deals with aspects of story. It will introduce students to the role of beginnings and endings in literature. It looks at why a story starts where it starts and ends where it ends. This unit serves as a basis for discussions of beginnings and endings in texts that will later be read at school. With the help of this practical approach, students will easily come to understand the concept as formulated by Aristotle, even before they actually read it in the Student’s Book. This unit is a continuation of Unit 2. (If you change the order of the units, make sure it does not precede Unit 2.) Students now know a maximum of eight stories. The skills practised in this unit are mainly writing, plus some listening and speaking. Phases 1

Teacher’s introduction: fiction vs. reality (5 min.)

2

Individual writing: storytelling (20 min.)

In class: short input of literary theory: why a story starts where it starts and ends where it ends (15 min.) 3

Teacher’s homework (optional) The texts written in phase 2 could be collected. If you do so, comment on students’ use of English as well as on their imitation of the style. Note that the practical approach chosen in this unit shows how well students can imitate the style of a given story. They are actually highly sensitive to matters like style, atmosphere and characters’ attitudes. They cannot describe it analytically yet, but they do certainly notice these things and they can imitate them surprisingly well. Lesson plan 1

Teacher’s introduction: fiction vs. reality (5 min.)

Reality goes on and on. It is always there, it never starts and it never ends. Fiction is fundamentally different. Each story begins at a certain time and it also ends at a certain time.* Visualize this concept with an arrow of time. Draw an arrow, then mark a point for “beginning” and a point for “ending” on it. story beginning

ending

* This is a highly simplified version of what Frank Kermode examines in his “The Sense of an Ending”. He speaks of the geometry of fiction and of the humanly needed shape and structure. He contrasts the concordance of fiction with the contingency of reality. No novel can avoid a beginning and an ending, even if reality does not have them.

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It’s Storytime Unit 4

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Ask students to think of their story and to decide at what point it starts and at what point it ends (➔ T1). Students can either answer this briefly for themselves, or exchange the information with a colleague. No detailed answers are necessary here. It is enough if everyone is aware of the basic situation in their story, e.g. “the main person is born/dies”, or “this problem happens/is solved”, etc. 2

Individual writing: storytelling (20 min.)

The students’ task is now to imagine that their story goes on after the ending of the book. Or, if they prefer, they can imagine the story as it happens before the book begins (➔ T2). ? 

story

What could have happened before the beginning?

? What could happen after the ending?

Tell them to use all their imagination as well as the information they get from the book concerning the characters’ attitudes and the events that are plausible for that type of story. It is an important part of the task to stay within the type, style and atmosphere of the story. Many students will need some help at this stage. Move around the classroom and help them develop their ideas. Depending on the book, it is more interesting either to tell the story after the book ends or before it begins. Suggest some examples to illustrate the task. It actually works with all stories, although students may not immediately see this. This is probably best done as a written task. It can then be collected by the teacher and commented on. Alternatively, it could be a speaking exercise, with students telling each other their ideas in groups. 3

In class: short input of literary theory (15 min.)

Tell your students to think of both the text which they have now written and the story they have read in the book. At the beginning of the lesson they have thought about where their story starts and where it ends. Ask them now to find reasons and explanations why their story starts and ends where it does (➔ T3). Allow some time for reflection, then collect the students’ ideas. Expected answers: “nothing really important happens before/after the story”, “the story is really over at the end”, “all the interesting things are already included in the story”, “the writer tells us inside the story what has happened before/what will happen later”, etc. Students are now ready to understand the theoretical concept put forward by Aristotle (see Student’s Book, page 13). First establish the link to Unit 2, revise that briefly and show how Unit 4 is a continuation of what students learned then. In fact, after Aristotle says, “A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle and an end”, he goes on to write about what a beginning and an end are. Students are now in a position to understand this quotation. They may need some help with the language, but the concept itself has become clear because they have experienced it themselves through the practical approach in this unit. The task in this unit was only apparently simple. Writers think very carefully about how to begin and how to end a book. Students now have a basis to recognize and consider this fact more fully in their future reading of literature.

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It’s Storytime Unit 5

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 5: On time and place Aims Unit 5 also deals with aspects of story, like the units before. This time, the focus is put on time and place. Good stories are often timeless and “placeless”. By exploring this fact playfully, students will shift around such elements of a story which are variable. They will begin to see how good stories can matter to us, how they can mean something to readers here and today. The skills practised are speaking and listening. At the end of this unit, students will have heard about many more plots. This is the last unit in the series dealing with the aspect of story, and students have by now read five books and heard about most of the others. Phases 1

Teacher’s introduction: timeless and “placeless” stories (5 min.)

2

Individual preparation: students shift their stories in time and place (10 min.)

3

Pairwork: trial run and mutual feedback (5 min.)

4

In class: students tell their new versions, followed by moment of reflection (20 min.)

Lesson plan 1

Teacher’s introduction: timeless and “placeless” stories (5 min.)

Good stories are often said to be timeless. The story then still means something to readers of today, even if it may not be about today’s world. In the same way, good stories could be called “placeless”. They matter to readers here, even if they are maybe set in a totally different part of the world. You may want to explain that the word “a classic” is used in this context. (Texts chosen to become “Easy Readers” are all, in their different ways, “classics”.) In this unit the validity of the above statement shall be explored. The approach is as usual in this project not analytical but playful and creative. 2

Individual preparation: students shift their stories in time and place (10 min.)

The students’ task is to take their story and move it to a different place and time (➔ T1). This can be Switzerland today, or any other place and time. Tell them to keep the essence of the story (the topic, the main concern, the “message”) and to change those elements that need to be changed. Give students time to think and note some keywords. Many students need some help at this stage. Move around the classroom and suggest ways in which a specific story can be shifted. It helps students to come up with ideas of their own if you can give them an example with their story.

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It’s Storytime Unit 5

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An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Pairwork: trial run and mutual feedback (5 min.)

Before students tell their new versions to the class, they are allowed to test them on one colleague. They present their idea and get some feedback on whether it works at all and how it might be improved. 4

In class: students tell their new versions, followed by moment of reflection (20 min.)

This is worth doing in class because students come up with really interesting and funny versions. And a class usually likes listening to their colleagues’ creative ideas. Those who have also read the same story will naturally appreciate this most, whereas those who do not know the story at all will need some quick background information. Most stories work really well in their new contexts. You can end the lesson with a moment of reflection by asking the simple “why”-question (➔ T2). Why are these stories timeless and placeless? This is not easy for students to answer. Expect answers for individual stories like: “Dracula” works wherever there is good and bad, light and dark. “Oliver Twist” works wherever there is poverty and a lack of social stability. “Romeo and Juliet” works everywhere as long as people love and hate each other, etc. Suggested answers for all these stories considered as a group: “Classics” are “universal”/ they are “about life”/they are “about people”, “how people think and act”.

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It’s Storytime Unit 6

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 6: On character Aims This unit deals with the aspect of character. Character is the one feature besides plot which beginner readers notice most in literature. They are interested in character and do not essentially distinguish between a fictional character and a real-life person. Not only can this approach be accepted for the time being, but it will even be made use of in this unit. Unit 7 will then make a careful step towards perceiving a character as a fictional entity. The playful and creative method again brings better results at this stage than the descriptive, abstract method of characterization would. The skills practised are speaking, writing and listening. Phases 1

Individual writing: interview questions (10 min.)

2

Individual preparation: answer a classmate’s questions (10 min.)

3

In class: act out the interview between journalist and protagonist.

Lesson plan 1

Individual writing: interview questions (10 min.)

Short introduction: Tell students to decide who the main character is in the book that they have read for today (➔ T1). Introduce the term “protagonist” (see information box on page 16 in the Student’s Book). Ask them to be journalists (➔ T2). They get the opportunity to do an interview with the protagonist. What are the questions they want to ask? Say that the interview has to present a good portrait of the protagonist, and in order to achieve this, the questions have to be chosen carefully. Give students time to think, prepare the interview and write down about ten good questions. (No answers yet.) Everybody will have read interviews with famous people, so they know this text type. Teacher: move around the classroom and check everybody’s questions. Like in Unit 1, make sure that their questions are grammatically correct. 2

Individual preparation: answer a classmate’s questions (10 min.)

Students pass on their interview questions to a classmate who has also read the book. Students have read so many books by now that it will not be difficult to find one person for every interview. If you want to save classroom time, you can prepare a list in advance saying which student should answer which questions. Students now have to imagine being those protagonists (➔ T3). They get some time to prepare answers to the questions. To come up with good answers they really have to think themselves into a character. Make it clear that the answers should be what the protagonist would say, not what they personally think.

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It’s Storytime Unit 6

3

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

In class: act out the interview between journalist and protagonist

This creates a natural moment for a little acting (➔ T4). Students act in pairs. One is the journalist, and the other plays the protagonist. This takes the form of a dialogue, which is a text type that they can manage at this stage. Tell them not simply to read out the questions and answers they have prepared, but to try to speak as freely as possible. Alternatively, if you want students to practise the written language more, these interviews can be completed in writing. But the lesson will become more lively and immediate if interviews are acted out in pairs. Since it is also fun for the class to watch and hear each other perform, some of the interviews may be acted out in front of the whole class (depending on the time available). You could even ask the audience to guess which character is being interviewed.

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It’s Storytime Unit 7

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 7: The connection between characters and events Aims This unit deals with the two aspects of character and story combined. It is more demanding intellectually than unit 6, since it moves students gradually towards the perception of character as a fictional entity. Through experimenting with alternative possible versions of their story, students will learn that characters are shaped by events and, in turn, events are shaped by characters. Students will thus experience in this unit what has been rather theoretically formulated by Henry James (see Student’s Book, page 19). Skills practised are mainly speaking and listening, and some writing. Phases 1



Individual preparation: change one characteristic of the protagonist and imagine the story with the “new” protagonist (15 min.)

In class and pairwork: some present their versions, and students tell each other their new story, conclusions from this experiment (10 min.) 2

Individual preparation: change one event of the story and imagine the protagonist’s reaction to the new event (5 min.) 3

4



In class and pairwork: some present their versions, and students tell each other the new story, conclusions from this experiment (10 min.)

Lesson plan Individual preparation: change one characteristic of the protagonist and imagine the story with the “new” protagonist (15 min.) 1

Students first think about the characters of their protagonists. Refer them to the Student’s Book, page 18, for information about characterization. They describe the personality of the protagonist with a few keywords (➔ T1). Now students change one element of their description which will give the protagonist a very different character (➔ T2). In order to do this they may need some examples. Tell them that e.g. a brave person can be turned into a shy one, a good person into a mean and selfish one, a strong person into a weak one, etc. Move around the classroom and help students decide what element to change. Make sure they only change features of the protagonist’s personality, not features like appearance, etc. Some elements have more importance for the story than others. Now they re-imagine the story with this changed character as the protagonist. This is an unusual task and there is often some protest. Say that this is meant as an experiment. Explain clearly that some things in the new version of the story will remain the same, and others will be different or even impossible. Ask them to concentrate on the change so as to avoid lengthy summaries. A note on grammar: Avoid the conditional. Students normally cannot make conditional sentences at this stage. Instead of saying, for example: “If Braveheart were a shy man, he would …”, have them say it like this: “Braveheart is a very shy man, so he doesn’t …”. 22

It’s Storytime Unit 7

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

In class and pairwork: some present their versions, and students tell each other the new story, conclusions from this experiment (10 min.) 2

Some students present their versions. You can ask for people who had little difficulty with the task, or for people who have an interesting result, or just pick a few. Show clearly that the new versions are very different stories. Or, in some cases, that the story does not even happen at all if the protagonist has a different character. Let students tell each other their versions in order to give everybody the opportunity to speak. Establish the conclusions from this experiment very clearly: the events of the story are shaped by the character. The character influences and forms the events. With a different character, you get a different story. Individual preparation: change one event of the story and imagine the protagonist’s reaction to the new event (5 min.) 3

This experiment is the opposite of the one before. It will be much easier for the students now to fulfil the tasks, and they will take much less time. Tell your students to think of the main events of the story. They should list these with a few keywords (➔ T3). Now students change one event on their list which will turn the story into a very different one (➔ T4). They imagine what will now happen. What will protagonist’s reaction be, how will it influence his or her attitude and behaviour, and how will the story continue? Again ask students to concentrate on the change for the protagonist. In class and pairwork: some present their versions, and students tell their versions to each other, conclusions from this experiment (10 min.) 4

Have some particularly good or interesting or problematic versions presented in class. Show again that the new versions are really different stories. Let students again tell each other their versions so that everybody gets to speak. Establish the conclusions from this second experiment clearly: We experience characters by how they react to events, by their attitudes and behaviour in certain situations. If these events are different, we will experience a different character. The character is shaped by the events of the story. The events influence and form the character. The conclusions of the two experiments have shown the following: Events are made by characters, and characters are made by events. The two are closely linked and interact continuously. Together they make the story such as it is. This concept has been formulated by the novelist Henry James. For the quotation, see Student’s Book, page 19.

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It’s Storytime Unit 8

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Unit 8: On narration Aims This unit deals with the aspect of narration. This is an aspect which beginner readers notice much less than the aspects of story or character. This unit will make students aware of narration as a main feature in fiction. It is meant as a first introduction to the topic. The aim is to sensitize students to it and thus prepare them for their future reading of fiction. The skills practised are writing, and some reading, speaking and listening. Phases 1

Teacher’s introduction: narrator (10 min.)

2

Individual writing: retelling one scene with a different narrator (20 min.)

3

Rotating pairwork: each student reads and comments on several of the texts. Optional: teacher collects the texts.



Teacher’s homework (optional) Read students’ texts and comment on their use of English and on the way they deal with point of view. Lesson plan 1

Teacher’s introduction: narrator (10 min.)

Ask students who tells the story in the book which they have read for this unit (➔ T1). Refer them to Student’s Book, page 20, for a list of possibilities. Introduce the term “narrator”. Collect their answers. Expect to hear that most stories are told by an anonymous voice, with only a few exceptions. (If you use plays, the situation will of course be different.) Show students with a practical example why it matters who it is who tells a story. Ask one student to stand in the classroom facing a window. Then ask two other students to get up and be narrators. One is to stand in front of the first student (between the window and the student), and the other behind the first student.

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It’s Storytime Unit 8

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Narrator 1 (behind the first student) tells what he or she sees, e.g. length of hair, a wallet in the back pocket of trousers, the window in the background, etc. Narrator 2 (between the window and the first student) tells what he or she sees, e.g. colour of eyes, glasses, smile, jewellery around the neck, a wall in the background, etc. N2

N1

Explain that this is exactly what happens with a narrator in a story. Some things can be seen by different narrators, e.g. height, colour of clothes, etc. to remain with the above example. But other things can only be told by narrator 1 or, respectively, by narrator 2. Introduce the terms “point of view” and “perspective” (see Student’s Book, page 21). Say that in addition to the experiment conducted above the term “point of view” covers not only what a narrator sees, but also what he or she hears, feels, knows and thinks. 2

Individual writing: retelling one scene with a different narrator (20 min.)

Students’ task (➔ T2): they choose one short scene from the book (covering about one page) and one character in the story to be the narrator. (Tell them not to choose the protagonist because that point of view is usually too broad to yield interesting results for the task here.) They tell the same scene, but seen through the eyes of that new narrator. It is an important part of this task to be careful about perspective/point of view: they can only tell those things which are possible for that particular narrator to see, hear, feel, know and think. 3

Rotating pairwork: each student reads and comments on several of the texts

Each student shows their text to a colleague who knows the book (➔ T3). Students are thus in a position to give each other real advice and practical help. They read the new version and comment on what works well and what is strange or impossible with the point of view chosen. They then rotate and work with a new partner, as above, until they have read and commented on about three or four texts. They are, of course, allowed to rewrite and improve the texts where necessary. If you wish, collect the improved texts. Conclusion: End the lesson by saying again clearly what this unit has shown. Students have experienced that when they change the narrator of a story, they will end up with a different text. It is still essentially the same story, but the texts are not the same at all. They now understand that the aspect of narration is a main feature in fiction.

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It’s Storytime Conclusion

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Conclusion to Project 1 Ways of using “Easy Readers” beyond this project The books can be made available to all those students who want to read on in their spare time. And they can also be used specifically for individual students. For example, they can be given to weaker students as a pleasant way to improve their English. Or they can be used for particularly strong students during the lesson, when they have completed their tasks and have to wait for their colleagues to catch up. A note on the Checklist in the Student’s Book (page 22) It is a short list with useful vocabulary which the students can be expected to know from now on. Working through the list is a good way to prepare for the test. You can also ask them to work through the list again later when you start reading other literature with them or at the beginning of Project 2 of this book. A note on tests If you decide to test your students at the end of Project 1, make the books available until then so that they can prepare for the test. Preparing the test: The list tells you which eight titles everyone has read. If eight seems too many, students can be allowed to cross out one or even two of those titles they liked least. For each student individually, the teacher will choose one of the titles to be tested and write it on the test paper which is handed out at the begin­ ning of the test. The test paper itself is the same for all the students. Test questions: Here is a selection of test questions. There are different types of questions: some questions (1– 3) test how well students know the stories, others (4–7) ask for an imaginative and creative handling of what they have read. For a test of 45 minutes, select three questions. 1

Summarize the whole story in two or three sentences (= about 30 words).

(10 points)

2

Describe the place, the time and the society in which your characters live.

(10 points)

3

Characterize the protagonist.

(10 points)

Write a dialogue: take two people from the story and imagine what they say about an event that happens in the story. 4

(15 points)

Imagine you can do an interview with one of the characters. What questions do you ask? What are the character’s answers? Write the interview in the form of a dialogue.

(15 points)

Write a dialogue: two people are speaking about the book. One of them liked it and the other one did not.

(15 points)

Write a short text which could be used for promotion on the back cover of the book, to make people buy this book when they see it in the bookshop.

(5 points)

5

6

7

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It’s Storytime Conclusion

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Alternatives to the above form of testing – Collect the notes which pupils had to take for each book and give a mark for that. – Let students choose one of their notes and allow them to polish it up before they hand it in. Give a mark for that. – If you have collected the texts which students produced during the lessons, you could give a mark for those. On ending Project 1 without giving a test – If you do not want to give any marks in connection with this project, you can conclude it for example by showing the film of one of the books which many of the students have read. Most of these classics of English literature have been filmed. – Or you can end the project without giving any marks by reading one or a few of the scenes in the original. It happens occasionally that students ask what the differences are between the “Easy Reader” and the original novel, and what the language is like in the original. If there is any interest in this, you can show them a short extract, e.g. the first page or a major scene of the original. “It’s storytime” Above all, please do not forget to encourage your students to read on.

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Project 2: An ABC to English Literature What the teacher needs to know before starting “We were always expected to ‘interpret‘ literature – and I never knew what I was supposed to do.” This is an experience that many students at university remember having made at school. What a pity if this is the impression that remains from their literature lessons. After hearing a number of such statements, I decided that some action was called for. What could be done? Well, when students start off with mathematics, they are first taught the numbers. And when they learn to read and write, they are first taught the alphabet. In a similar way it should be possible to develop a kind of “literary ABC” to start them off with the interpretation of literature. I started to develop an approach to the teaching of literature which is systematic and suitable for the time when students first read English literature in the original. The approach should be as systematic as possible, but without being over-systematic or simplistic. On no account should it reduce the variety of experiences that readers make or deny the multiplicity of ideas in a literary text. There is now a set of 10 basics, which I call “literary rules”. Please remember that they are meant to facilitate – but not to simplify – the students’ introduction to English literature. With this introduction to original English literature, students will become familiar with different possible approaches to literary texts. They will learn what things to look out for in order to interpret a text. The “literary rules” are developed with the students during the lessons on the basis of texts specifically chosen to exemplify these rules. It will be found that students are halfway familiar with some of the rules already. But when they have to become exact and specific, it usually turns out that they do not fully understand them. Or they do not make the necessary connections at the moment when it matters. This project provides the opportunities to make concepts explicit and clearly stated. The other aim, apart from the literary one described above, is obviously always also for students to learn more English. Reading and discussing literature in the original is an excellent way to build up vocabulary. This can be done more or also less systematically during these lessons, depending on how much emphasis is put on vocabulary. Students get ample opportunity to practise their English language skills, mostly their reading and speaking skills. A note on procedure The project as it is suggested here consists of two main parts. The first part is a group of six lessons taught by the teacher. There are copies of the five short stories and one poem to be read and discussed in the Student’s Book, together with the tasks for the lessons. Apart from these main elements of each lesson, there are always some pre-reading activities and a box, where students can write down a short summary, the most important characters of the story and some important words they need to discuss the story. Teachers can decide whether they want to treat these elements as optional or make them compulsory. The texts are ordered in such a way that the lessons start with the most basic literary rules. These literary rules are formulated in the Teacher’s Guide, for the teacher to be used either exactly as they are given or else adapted according to personal preference. In the Student’s Book the boxes provided for the literary rules are left empty because the rules are developed together with the students during the lessons. Students are to complete the boxes themselves, writing down what has been discovered in the lesson. Obviously, classes differ from each other and the lesson plans as they are presented here may have to be adapted to suit a particular class. But the emphasis in this first part is clearly on developing the literary rules. If teachers wish to have lengthy discussions on content, more time will be needed. 28

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The second part of this project consists of a number of lessons taught by groups of students. There are no copies of stories provided. Teachers can bring along whatever suitable texts they know, or alternatively use the titles I suggest in the Conclusion to Project 2 (p. 54). The aim of the second part of the project is that students have to make interpretations with less guidance from the teacher. They have to use and apply the “literary rules” which they have learned in the first part. A note on the time frame Each of the six texts provided in the Student’s Book can be dealt with in one lesson. The same goes for the texts taught by the students. The number of those lessons will obviously depend on the size of your class and of the groups, but will ideally consist of approximately five lessons. The total of around 11 lessons may be done in a weekly succession. If the workload of reading gets too much for your students, the intervals can also be longer. The entire project will neatly fit into one school term anyway. A note on testing The second part of the project is a way of testing. I give my students marks for the lessons they have to teach. All forms of testing are a way to show the teacher – and the students themselves – what progress they have made. Having to teach a lesson is an interesting way for students to show what they have learned and how well they can apply it. After all, interpretations of literature are often rather obvious when done in class and guided by the teacher. And on the other hand, interpretations of literature are at this stage still a very difficult thing for students to do alone and as a formal test. Therefore, having to teach a literature lesson is a good compromise. Students feel safer when they can prepare in groups and have the support and the ideas of the whole class during the lessons. A note on the selection of the short stories The texts chosen for the six lessons taught by the teacher have to fulfil a variety of criteria. They have to be good examples for the “literary rules” that are introduced through them. They should also be about topics that are interesting for students to think about. They ought to be really short. And they have to be written in a level of English that is manageable for students at that stage. Reading English in the original is a big step away from the simplified Readers and the texts in the course­ books. The language will suddenly seem much more difficult to students. And on top of that, every text is written in a distinctive style which they first have to get used to. In order to help students take this step, the Student’s Book provides explanations of the vocabulary used in the stories. For information about the selection of stories for the lessons taught by students, see Conclusion to Project 2 (p. 54).

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Introducing students to the project Get the project started by giving your students some general information about the aims of and the procedure in Project 2. This takes about 20 minutes of an English lesson and is best done several days before you plan to do Unit 1 in class. Remember that students should have enough time to read the first story. Tell your students – that their English is now good enough to read stories in the original, i.e. texts that were not specifically written for the classroom, – that they will get to know a number of authors and meet a number of different styles of writing, – that they will experience different ways of approaching and interpreting literature, – that they will be exposed to a lot of new vocabulary, – that there will be 6 lessons taught by the teacher followed by x lessons taught by groups of students (hand out copies of the information on what you expect students to do in the lessons which they are teaching), – what they need to know to get ready for the first lesson. Have a look with your class at p. 23 in the Student’s Book (Some practical advice on how to get ready for every lesson). The lessons taught by groups of students a) Organising the group work This is best done already at the beginning of Project 2. Students will then realise that they had better observe the six lessons taught by the teacher very carefully. The teacher has to make a number of choices in preparation of this lesson. Think about how many lessons there should be which are taught by groups of students. Both students’ attention span as well as the number of lessons available for literature in one given term are not unlimited. In my experience, a series of about five lessons has worked well. Think also about how many students should be in one group. Anything from two to four is possible and advisable for this project. Maybe the more advanced students in the class could work in smaller groups. Choose the dates when to have these lessons taught by the groups of students so that they can plan their workload. The actual short stories that they will teach need not be determined yet (for this see Conclusion to Project 2). b) Requirements for the group work The teacher has to decide in preparation of Project 2 what exactly the groups will be expected to do. Hand out copies of this for later reference. Give your students information on what you want them to do in the lesson and on how they will be assessed. The copy to be handed out could look something like this:

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An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature

Introduction to English Literature The lesson on

… (list of dates)

will be taught by … (list of students’ names to fill in) Please note: 1  You will get ½ mark for this. Both language and content count equally. 2 You teach the lesson to the class. (This is not the same as a presentation!) a) Make sure the class understands the content. There are different ways to test this briefly, for example true/false questions or sentences in a wrong order, etc. b) Prepare a short language exercise with words from the story so that the class can pick up new vocabulary more easily. Please choose only few but useful words. And use your dictionary to prepare this. c) Be prepared to interpret the story with the class. You can give handouts with a few questions or you can give topics for some short pairwork, etc., and you will lead the class discussion. This should be the longest part of the lesson. 3  Although you work in a group, you are individually responsible for your own material. (That means, do not keep material on a computer until the day of your presentation. And do not leave material in colleagues’ drawers or homes, etc.) 4  If anybody does not take part in teaching the lesson, this person will do a written test about a different short story.

Forming groups and choosing dates Students decide who to work with and when to teach the lesson. This is best done right at the beginning of Project 2. Fill in their names on the copy so that at the end of this lesson every student knows who their partners in the group are and when they have to teach their lesson. The actual short stories that they will teach need not be determined yet (for this see Conclusion to Project 2 ).

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature A Report on the Shadow Industry

In the World of English Literature

A Report on the Shadow Industry, by Peter Carey

Aims The project starts with a story that is rather unusual. It works well to confront students right at the beginning with such a text, because it makes them think about methods how to approach texts. Three “literary rules” can be introduced with this story. Students will learn that a narrator and an author are two different things. Then they will develop a checklist to help them approach unusual texts. And they will make the experience that several different interpretations may be possible. Phases 1

Introduction: first impressions and reactions (3 min.)

2

Reading comprehension (10 min.)

3

How to approach a strange text (Literary Rule 1 and Literary Rule 2) (20 min.)

4

Interpretation of the shadows (Literary Rule 3) (10 min.)

Lesson plan 1

Introduction: first impressions and reactions (3 min.)

Bear in mind that students are confused after reading this story. And at school students are frequently made to feel that it is wrong to be confused. So ask them for their first impressions and reactions to the story. Write down what they say, without explaining anything at this stage, and refer to it again during the lesson. They say things like: “strange”, “difficult”, “what is it about?”, “I didn’t understand it”, etc. 2

Reading comprehension (10 min.)

Let students do Task 1 in the Student’s Book, page 26. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation of the lesson.) This task tests whether they understand some basic statements that are made in the text. Go through the answers in class and, where necessary, have them explain their answers and say where in the text they found the relevant information. Answers to Task 1 a) False. The narrator got a letter from his friend from America (l. 2), so he himself does not live there. Only the first paragraph is about America. – b) True. The friend wrote about the shadow factories that were springing up on the west coast (ll. 3–5). That was strange and uncommon then (ll. 19–21). – c) False. The packets give no indication of what’s inside (ll. 12–13). The boxes are printed with abstract designs (ll. 51–53). – d) False. They are produced in factories (ll. 25–39), but they can be bought in supermarkets (ll. 7–9). – e) False. It is true that people go and stare into the smoke (ll. 34–36), but the smoke is of different, brilliant colours (l. 27). – f) True. It is true that some people think that the factories use chemicals which cause cancer (l. 38). But there are also other people who think shadows are chemically pure (ll. 39–41). – g) True. Some hope to find happiness (ll. 43–44), others find disappointment (ll. 27–30), or emptiness and despair (ll. 100–101). – h) False. Some are expensive and others are cheap (ll. 8–9). The narrator’s father opened one that was not expensive, “quite the opposite” (l. 105). – i) False. Nobody says such a thing in the entire text. – j) True. Statistics show that 25% of the average income is spent on shadows (ll. 53–54), which is a lot. – k) True. The suicide rates have some 32

An ABC to English Literature A Report on the Shadow Industry

It’s Storytime

In the World of English Literature

connection to the popularity of shadows (ll. 64–68). The narrator’s father leaves his family after looking at a shadow (ll. 103–104). – l) True. While the production of packaged shadows in factories is relatively new (about ten years old) (l. 19), there are people who say that the shadows have always been around us in some way (ll. 60–62). 3

How to approach a strange text (Literary Rule 1 and Literary Rule 2) (20 min.)

Doing Task 1 has given students the feeling that, while they may not understand the story as a whole, they at least understand some individual aspects of it. Work with their feeling of careful optimism. Ask students how they can approach a text that is as strange as this one. How can they deal with it, although there are so many uncertainties? Establish in discussion with the class a kind of “checklist” of items that can be considered in a text, no matter how unapproachable a story seems to be. Alternatively, if your students have no experience with literature at all, you can simply say that there are established criteria for the analysis of literature and give them the list. Suggestions for a “checklist”: Narrator Setting: place and time Central points/themes Title Plot Characters Point of View Language For the discussion of A Report on the Shadow Industry we will concentrate on the narrator, the setting and the central points. The title could be considered, too, if there is time.* The text is less suitable for the other criteria: plot, characters, point of view and language. Give this to your students as the Literary Rule 1 (see Student’s Book, page 27):

  Literary Rule

1

Collect the information that there is in the text about the narrator, the setting (place and time), and the central points/themes.

Now work through these aspects with the class (➔ T2). Discuss what readers are told about these points and also what they are not told. a) Narrator: There is a person who speaks as “I” in the story. Make it clear that this is a figure called the narrator. And say that it is important to distinguish him from the author, who may or may not be a similar person. In any case, the “I” in the text is not Peter Carey. This concept is so fundamentally important for all interpretation of literature that, in order to avoid any misunderstandings about it right from the start, it becomes Literary Rule 2 (see Student’s Book, page 27):

* A note on the title: “Report” is an interesting word. A report is a specific type of text which contains facts and is clear, impersonal and objective. The text is indeed partly done in the style of a report (“the popular belief is that …”, “there are a few who say…”, “others argue that…”, etc.) but in other ways it is not at all a proper report (the narrator mentions his friend and his parents, etc.). And the text is by no means as clear and factual as a report is meant to be. (Note that the word “report” is also used in the sense of “rumour”, which opens up a wide range of new possibilities.)

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An ABC to English Literature A Report on the Shadow Industry

It’s Storytime

  Literary Rule

In the World of English Literature

2

Make a clear difference between narrator and author. The narrator is a fictive figure who tells the story and in some stories speaks in the first person (“I”). The author is the person who wrote the text.

What readers are told is that the narrator has a mother (who he visits), a father (who left home) and is probably male (since there is some allusion to a past “affair” with the woman called J.). We learn that his feelings about shadows are ambivalent (l. 115). In other words, there are many things that we are not told. b) Setting: the place is in “this country”, which can be any country in the world except America. There is an airport and there are shadow factories. Christmas is mentioned, which hints at a Christian part of the world. Other than that, things are left very open and general, it could be almost anywhere in the world. Time: There are supermarkets, airports and factories, which points to the 20th/21st century. It could also be in the future since there are no shadow factories as such. Again, the situation is very open and general. c) Central points/themes: the shadows. There is a lot to say here and it will be done in Phase 4 (➔ T3). Before moving on to Phase 4, mention that a “checklist” like the one presented above enables readers to approach even such an apparently unapproachable text. It makes it possible to find the information that is provided and it also shows what information is not provided, which may be an equally important result. By now, it has become evident to the students that it was not their fault if they found the text strange or didn’t understand it. 4

Interpretation of the shadows (10 min.)

Now at last ask students what the shadows are. They are by now well prepared for this question and confident enough to hazard a few guesses. Allow some time for them to work closely with the text (➔ T3a). Then collect their ideas quickly and write them down in keywords. Let them work on in groups or in pairs for a few minutes. Let each group pursue one of the ideas and find out whether it makes sense as an interpretation of the shadow (➔ T3b). Again collect their interpretations and discuss how well they work. Some of the less good ideas will be dismissed by the students themselves. Suggested answers Possible interpretations of the shadows can be: – drugs: people need the shadows, they are like an addiction, they have a strong effect, some even make people change their lives or commit suicide, they promise an “impossible happiness”, they lead to emptiness and despair. – religion: the shadows are something that people see and cannot explain, people see brilliant colours in the skies and consider them a “wondrous” sight, they think of the “dreadful beauty of the apocalypse”, seeing a fully realized shadow may be a kind of revelation. – psychology: the shadows are necessary for “mental health”, they promise happiness, they are said to be “mirrors to the soul”, they show a man himself. In fact, this idea is close to C.G. Jung. He also uses the idea of the shadow. The shadow for him is one of the archetypes: it is meeting oneself, and seeing one’s face in the mirror without a mask.* * C.G. Jung. Die Archetypen und das kollektive Unbewusste.

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An ABC to English Literature A Report on the Shadow Industry

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– economics/consumer society: shadows are popular and fashionable, their origin is in America, people want to buy them even if they cannot afford them, they are a major factor of household expenditure, they are big business, they used to be always around but now they have to be bought in packaged form, the industry has created an artificial need. – fiction/stories: This is an idea that students usually do not have. They have plenty of other ideas though, so you may not wish to mention it. It refers to the last sentence of the text. “For here I have manufactured one (shadow) more”: stories have always been around us, but now books are produced industrially and have to be bought, this text is indeed “elusive” (doesn’t explain itself), and fiction hints at beauties and mysteries outside itself. Students are now in a position to answer the last question of this lesson: Which of these interpretations is the right one? The above activity has shown clearly that several different interpretations work well and make a lot of sense. By doing it students have learned not to jump to conclusions too early. If they reduced this rich text to the one interpretation they first think of, the result would be that they wouldn’t understand the text in its depth. Careful reading and pursuing one’s ideas is the basis to any interpretation. Usually, students are also surprised and pleased at this stage to see how big the role of the reader is in the process of interpreting. The knowledge gained from the above activity makes the Literary Rule 3 (see Student’s Book, page 27):

  Literary Rule

3

It is possible that one text may lead to more than one good interpretation.

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature The Weapon

In the World of English Literature

The Weapon, by Frederic Brown Aims This is the easiest of the stories in this project. The topic of weapons of mass destruction, science and ethics lends itself to lively discussions. Students will learn two “literary rules”. They will learn to become aware of ambiguity in a text. And they will learn to pay particular attention to the title of a text in connection with its interpretation. Phases 1

Reading comprehension (10 min.)

2

Group work: thinking about different aspects of the story (15 min.)

3

In class: interpretation (Literary Rule 4 and Literary Rule 5) (15 min.)

4

Conclusion: the theme of science and ethics (5 min.)

Background information: weapons of mass destruction Definitions: Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are weapons designed to kill large numbers of people, typically targeting civilians and military personnel alike. They are generally considered to have a psychological impact rather than a strictly military usefulness. They are often referred to as NBC weapons or ABC weapons: – nuclear (or atomic) weapons (including radiological weapons), – biological weapons (germ weapons, living organisms – bacteria, virus or toxins – found in nature), – chemical weapons (non-explosive chemical agents which are not themselves living organisms. E.g. nerve agents, mustard agents, tear gas). The term has come in wide use in connection with the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis and the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that became a pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Treaties: While WMD have been a serious international issue since World War I and the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibiting the use of chemical and biological warfare, the advent of nuclear weapons, with their extraordinary destructive capacity, has made nuclear non-proliferation a key concern since World War II. The Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production and use of the entire category of weapons. It was the result of prolonged efforts by the international community to establish a new instrument that would supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The mechanisms of the control of WMD have often been inadequate in keeping back their proliferation. In fact, any effective control of the production of WMD is based on the nations’ interests to play fair. In addition to that, longer-range missiles pose a new danger similar to the one of WMDs.

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature The Weapon

In the World of English Literature

Lesson plan 1

Reading comprehension (10 min.)

Students do Task 1. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation of the lesson.) There are jumble sentences taken from the story. With this exercise it can quickly be checked whether students understand the main story line. Go through the answers in class and let students explain the context in which they found the sentences. Solve possible difficulties in discussion. Answers to Task 1 The order of the sentences as they appear in the story is: 1d – 2e – 3b – 4g – 5c – 6a – 7h – 8f 2

Group work: thinking about different aspects of the story (15 min.)

Students do Task 2. Split the class into three groups. Let students discuss one of the three questions and then report their findings to the class. Answers to Task 2 a) Graham and Harry: Their relationship is a good one, they love and trust each other. Dr Graham is a good father, he is gentle and affectionate. He used to be sad about the boy’s handicap but now he accepts it and tries to see the good side of it (ll. 12–18). – b) Niemand: He wants to talk about Graham’s work, he is polite and calm, he hopes that Graham’s weapon will never be used (note: ll. 81–83 may have to be explained) and tries to engage him in a discussion. His name means “nobody” in German. There are a number of possible explanations for this: he could be anybody, or he doesn’t want to give his real name, or nobody would do such a thing, or he is not a real person (not a body) but more of a voice (maybe even inside Graham), or he doesn’t have a personality but only a conviction. – c) Graham’s work: He is an important scientist. He is working on an ultimate weapon, one that can destroy all life on earth. He is only interested in advancing science, it is not his job to care about what can be done with it. 3

In class: interpretation (Literary Rule 4 and Literary Rule 5) (15 min.)

Now the class is ready to interpret the ending of the story (line 102– end). As the last sentence is the key to the story, make every student think about it carefully. You can start them off by asking whether Niemand is a madman. Answers: No, the madman is Graham, he is the one who plans to give a weapon to people, including “idiots” who may use them. The last sentence is ambiguous. It is carefully constructed to carry two distinct sets of meaning within the context of this story. For Graham, the madman is Niemand, who gives a loaded revolver to an “idiot”, i.e. the boy. For Niemand, however, the madman is Graham. He will give a weapon to idiots, i.e. people who may not be able to handle them responsibly.

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An ABC to English Literature The Weapon

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In the World of English Literature

The analysis of the last sentence in the story has led to the Literary Rule 4:

  Literary Rule

4

Become aware of ambiguity: words and sentences that may have more than one meaning are especially interesting to interpret. From the last sentence of the story, direct students’ attention to the title (➔ T4). If students understand the Literary Rule 4, they realize now that the title is also ambiguous. The “Weapon” refers both to the loaded revolver that actually appears in the story and also to the weapon of mass destruction that is under construction. Give them an extra literary rule for this, Literary Rule 5. Titles are carefully chosen by authors. They often carry special meaning, which needs to be considered in an interpretation.

  Literary Rule

5

The meaning of the title can be especially relevant for the interpretation of a text.

4

Conclusion: the theme of science and ethics (5 min.)

Students should now be in a position to say what Niemand’s plan was. This is not actually said in the text, but the interpretation has shown it clearly: He first tries with words. When that is no good, he shows Graham, i.e. he creates a situation that will show Graham what he is about to do to the world. He opens his eyes. The lesson can be ended with a look at science and ethics beyond this story. There are many examples in real life where the scientific question (“how can it be done?”) is solved but the ethical question is not (“how should it be done?”, “should it be done at all?”, “what is right?”). Some examples are nuclear power stations, euthanasia and medical experiments on animals. Choose an ethical problem that is of special interest at the moment.

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature The Short-Short Story of Mankind

In the World of English Literature

The Short-Short Story of Mankind, by John Steinbeck Aims This is a short and funny story to do in the classroom. It teaches students one new literary rule, namely to distinguish between story and history, i.e. between fiction and fact. It also introduces students to humour in literature, which is something that they notoriously find difficult to see in foreign language texts (or may not expect to find in literature at all!). Phases 1

Reading comprehension: a gap-filling exercise (10 min.)

2

Pairwork and in class: story versus history (Literary Rule 6) (15 min.)

3

In class: those days versus these days, a discussion (15 min.)

4

In class: a brief look at the humour (5 min.)

Lesson plan 1

Reading comprehension: a gap-filling exercise (10 min.)

Students do Task 1. Or if you want to save time, it can be done as a class activity. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation of the lesson.) This is, strictly speaking, a vocabulary exercise. They either remember the exact word used in the story or they are allowed to use a synonym. But at the same time, this can serve as a kind of reading comprehension if you get the students to give the context of the sentences quoted. Answers to Task 1 a) lightning – b) quarrelling – c) heart – d) cave – e) gadget – f) farming – g) care – h) duty – i) atom bombs – j) United Nations 2

Pairwork and in class: story versus history (Literary Rule 6) (15 min.)

Students work in pairs and do Tasks 2 and 3. Task 2a: By making the list, students will get a better grasp of the events in the story. This will help them both to recognise the difference between story and history and also to discuss the connections that the story has to our time. Work through the students’ list in class. Establish clearly that the different groups of people always deal in the same way with someone who has a new idea – they kill him. Establish further that the groups always reject a different group first and later use their methods. Show also that the early history takes up a lot of space in the story and the last few centuries are dealt with in only a few lines. Answers to Task 2 a) 1 There are “cave people” and “tree people”. Cave people will starve to death, whereas tree people have nets to catch animals. They kill and eat each other, then merge so as to survive. 2 Elmer invents stone houses and gets killed. But caves are not comfortable, so they move into stone houses and turn Elmer into a god (= start of religion).

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An ABC to English Literature The Short-Short Story of Mankind

It’s Storytime

In the World of English Literature

3 Max invents weapons and gets killed. “Max people” have better weapons to kill animals than “Elmer people”. They fight a war, and when there are no animals left, they move together into the hills to survive. 4 Jojo invents farming and gets killed. People become farmers. “Farmer people” are attacked by “neighbours from over the hill” and their food is stolen. 5 Bugsy defends them, builds a fort for protection and collects rewards (= start of corruption). 6 Harry invents trade and gets killed. “Basket people” trade with “pot people”. They get attacked by savages and they merge to form a Pot-Basket family, which turns into a state. b) This story is only partly true to history. Some are true facts, while other things have been invented. Now ask students to compare story and history and to say what the differences between them are. Keep this fairly simple. It is enough for students to realise at this point that history books report facts, they are about real events and real people. In contrast to this, stories are fiction, they present a narrative with fictional characters. But stories (like this one) are free to make use of historical events and people. You may wish to mention that other languages, such as German and French and Italian, use only one word to mean both “story” and “history”. The point discussed here is the Literary Rule 6:

  Literary Rule

6

Remember that “history” and “story” are not the same thing. History reports facts, it is ­about real events and real people. A story is fiction, it is free to use fictional events and characters.

3

In class: those days versus these days, a discussion (15 min.)

In Task 3 students are asked to work closely with the text again, to find information and regroup it. This task will lead them to the interpretation that, while so many things have changed in life since the Stone Age, mankind as such has not really changed very much at all. The list drawn up in Task 2 provides a good basis for Task 3. It gives the students specific ideas and examples to work with here. Answers to Task 3 Differences: they need lightning to make fire, there is incest, they treat wounds with mud, they are cannibals, they kill everyone who has a new idea. Similarities: the old people think that the past was better than the present is, people don’t accept strangers/dislike foreigners/are racists, they think that they are right and that others who do things differently are wrong, there are many people around today like Bugsy, who makes others dependent on him, etc. There may be students who say that there is incest around today although it is now illegal, or that people who have new ideas today are often “killed” in some way, so these two items can also be listed under similarities. Now ask students to comment on and evaluate the differences and similarities. They discover that the differences are few and related mainly to living conditions. There are, however, a great deal of similarities in the way people think. This is what the story shows us: mankind may have made some technological progress, but mentally they have not really changed or developed very much at all since the Stone Age. 40

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An ABC to English Literature The Short-Short Story of Mankind

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Direct students’ attention to the ending (➔ T4). Like in the previous lesson The Weapon, it is worth having a closer look at the ending. “I don’t think we are (stupider than the cave people). I think we’re just exactly as stupid and that’s pretty bright in the long run.” This means that our intelligence doesn’t run much further than the ability to survive. Our gadgets are better than they used to be, but our thoughts are still as primitive as ever. Notice that for the first time in the story there is a narrator speaking in the first person and giving his opinion. Students could give their own opinions at this point. Now direct students’ attention to the title (➔ T5). Remind them of Literary Rule 5 and ask them to apply it. Possible answers are: at first there seems to be a contrast between “short-short” and “mankind”. How can the history of mankind be told in a short-short story? It is the point of the story then to show that this can in fact be done, because mankind has always been essentially the same. 4

In class: a brief look at the humour (5 min.)

Humour is notoriously difficult to analyse. But it should by now have become obvious to students that the story is indeed very funny. You can ask them to point out examples that they consider to be funny and try to say why (➔ T6). There are plenty of examples to be mentioned. Alternatively you can point out the last two paragraphs of the story (which have not been discussed so far) as an example: the history of mankind is brought up to the present in a few lines, and the deputies of the United Nations are linked to the cavemen. Another alternative is to discuss the cartoon in Task 1 of the Pre-reading activities (see Student’s Book, page 33), which uses the same kind of humour.

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It’s Storytime

An ABC to English Literature Désirée’s Baby

In the World of English Literature

Désirée’s Baby, by Kate Chopin Aims This is the only 19th century story that is being discussed in this series of lessons. It teaches students to become aware of the role of the historical background for the interpretation. That will make a new literary rule. Another literary rule can also be introduced on the basis of this story: the importance of the ending for a story. In order to do so, students are not given the complete text to read in preparation of this lesson. The end is missing, but they do not know this. Phases 1

Individual work: true/false questions (5 min.)

2

In class: reading comprehension and historical background (Literary Rule 7) (15 min.)

3

In class: interpretation of this ending and announcement that the story goes on (5 min.)

4

In pairs: create an ending (5 min.)

5

In class: compare endings, read and interpret the real ending (Literary Rule 8) (15 min.)

Lesson plan 1

Individual work: true/false questions (5 min.)

Students quickly do Task 1. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation of the lesson.) 2

In class: reading comprehension and historical background (Literary Rule 7) (15 min.)

Work through the answers to Task 1 in class. The 12 statements are chosen in such a way that they can serve also as a reading comprehension. Let students justify their decisions, by saying where in the story they found the relevant information, and make sure they understand the main storyline. Answers to Task 1 a) False: The names are French, but the story is set in the South of the United States. “Louisiana” is mentioned, also the “plantation”, “cotton”, “negroes” and “slaves”. – b) True: Monsieur Valmondé found Désirée when she was a baby (ll. 5–7). – c) True: At the age of eight, Armand was brought home by his father from Paris, after his mother had died there (ll. 28–30). – d) False: Madame Valmondé has not seen him for four weeks (ll. 43–44). – e) False: Madame Valmondé is surprised, not by how much the baby has grown but by how much he has changed (ll. 67–87). It can be inferred by the way she takes the baby to the lightest window and scans him that she notices that the baby is not white. – f) True: This can be seen in the way Armand treats his slaves and later his wife. He is described as “imperious and exacting” (l. 104). – g) True: It is said that Désirée loves Armand desperately (ll. 105– 106). – h) True: This is why Madame Valmondé reacts the way she does, why there is suddenly an air of mystery among the blacks and unexpected visits from far-off neighbours. Armand is the one who then says “the child is not white” (ll. 164–165). – i) Accept this as true for the moment, although it is actually false. Armand says “you are not white” (l. 165). Désirée must have some black ancestors (remember that her parents are not known), although it does not show in her. Her hair is brown, her eyes are grey and her skin is fair (ll. 168–170). Explain that it is not unusual that certain genetic features are not apparent in 42

An ABC to English Literature Désirée’s Baby

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one generation and then appear more clearly in the next generation. – j) False: Armand sends Désirée away, he says he wants her to go (ll. 192–194). – k) True: Armand feels that God has treated him cruelly and unjustly (ll. 195–196). – l) False: This passage is not easy for students to understand (ll. 215–225). Désirée does not take the road leading to the Valmondé plantation. She takes her baby and disappears with him among the reeds and willows of the waterside. The implication is strong that she drowns herself and the baby. Now ask for, or simply present, a very short summary of the story (➔ T2). Example: In a southern state of the USA around year 1850 a woman gives birth to a partly black child, is rejected by her husband and drowns herself and the child. The big question is “why?”. At this point, students need some historical information. This can be done quickly in the form of a teacher’s presentation. Example (see also Student’s Book, p. 44): The story was actually published in 1893, but must be set before this date. The Civil War (1861–65) marked the formal and official end of slavery. Louisiana belonged to France until 1803 and the influence of the French and Creole culture remained strong well into the 20th century. Society was clearly divided, as in this story, into plantation owners, who were white and of European origin, and slaves, who were black and of African origin and who were used to work on the plantations, mainly to pick cotton. Racism was strong, black people were considered inferior human beings. This example shows clearly how important it can be to consider the historical background when interpreting a story. Time, place and also the values of that particular society must be taken into account to understand what happens in this story. Characters’ behaviour and reactions can sometimes not be understood without taking the historical background into account. This is such an important insight that it makes Literary Rule 7:

  Literary Rule

7

Consider the historical background of a text. It can give important clues to understand and interpret a story.

3

In class: interpretation of this ending and announcement that the story goes on (5 min.)

Now that students understand the implication arrived at in question l (Task 1) and know about the historical background, this ending can be interpreted. Armand sends his wife away because she has black ancestors (do not mention at this point that his conclusion is wrong!). In a society obsessed with class, this is an intolerable situation for him. It is an insult to his name, “one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana”. The shame would be too great to bear. Désirée, by committing suicide, accepts her “fault” and punishes herself for it. She accepts that she is to be blamed and pays for it. Having black ancestors is unacceptable for the society Armand belongs to, and she acts according to the values of that society. Notice again that one can only arrive at this interpretation by considering the historical background. Turning point: announce that this was actually not the very end of the story. There are x more lines. In my experience this comes as a great surprise to students, since nobody notices that the story might not be complete.

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In pairs: create an ending (5 min.)

Students do Task 3 (Student’s Book, page 44). It is their task to create an appropriate ending. It is not about making the right guess, but about developing ideas that make sense for the story and for the readers. This is interesting for students to do because they are naturally curious after their surprise and because they can work with their own expectations. 5

In class: compare endings, read and interpret the real ending (Literary Rule 8) (15 min.)

Students tell their versions, and the rest of the class comments why these would work or would not work well. There are usually several interesting ideas, most of which work to some degree but are not wholly satisfying. Most students want to save Désirée, or at least the baby. Nobody has yet hit upon the “right” ending. Present the real ending (➔ T4 and Student’s Book, page 115). Interpretation of the real ending: it is the opposite of the conclusion arrived at before. Not Désirée is the one with black ancestors, but Armand himself. In the light of this new information, one can go back to the earlier parts of the story and discover several clues. Armand has a “dark, handsome face” (l. 108). His skin is less white than Désirée’s (l. 171). It has now also become clear why he grew up in France. His father, who is described as “easy-going and indulgent” (l. 57), had married a coloured woman. Nobody at “L’Abri” knew this fact, because she lived and died in France. Therefore, Armand himself is the one to blame, if anybody can be blamed at all for having black ancestors. He punishes his wife when in fact he should be punished, according to his own values. He is guilty of what he accuses her of. But the association of black skin with “guilt” and “blame” is one made by the racist society of the South at that time. The last few lines of the story thus expose these social values as wrong and absurd. You may want to draw students’ attention quickly back to Task 1 and point out that statement i) is actually false. It is now possible to formulate and understand the Literary Rule 8*:

  Literary Rule

8

Pay particular attention to endings. An ending can determine the interpretation of the entire story.

* An ending like the one here re-creates a broken order. It establishes a justice in literature which may not exist in reality, cf. the term “poetic justice”. Punishment is given to the one person in the story who commits the wrong. See also “The Sense of an Ending” by Frank Kermode. He writes about how endings are especially relevant parts of a fictional text because the meaning of what happens before derives from its relation to the end. Endings make sense of the whole in retrospect.

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An ABC to English Literature A New Window Display

In the World of English Literature

A New Window Display, by Nicholosa Mohr Aims This is a charming story about Hispanic children growing up in the Bronx, New York. There is a lot of dialogue, and students will learn to become attentive to multiple layers of meaning in speech. The experience will be put down as a new literary rule to help them remember it. The story also serves to introduce students to structure in a literary text. This will make the other literary rule of this lesson. The main theme of the story is death. This is a sensitive topic to discuss in the classroom. The lesson plan is kept flexible so that it can accommodate students’ personal experiences but does not depend on them. Phases 1

Individual work: matching exercise, and reading comprehension in class (10 min.)

2

In class: interpretation of explicit versus implicit meaning (Literary Rule 9) (10 min.)

3

In groups: thinking about structure, and interpretation in class (Literary Rule 10) (20 min.)

4

In class: the theme of death (5 min.)

Lesson plan 1

Individual work: matching exercise, and reading comprehension in class (10 min.)

Students do Task 1 in the Student’s Book, page 51. Allow them to use the text to find their answers. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation of the lesson.) Go through the answers in class and ask for reasons to justify their decisions. By doing this, you can use the exercise for reading comprehension, since it shows a lot about the group and the relationships within the group. There are seven children, one of whom, Little Ray, never actually appears in the story although he is the central figure (in the first part he is late, in the second part he is ill and in the third he is dead). The leader of the three boys is Hannibal, and the leader of the three girls is Ramona. The group has developed quite a hierarchy and they follow their own special rules. Draw the students’ attention to how the children react to Ray’s death. His death changes the way they speak and behave in the group. Do not insist if students cannot see all the answers suggested below yet. There will be more opportunity in Phase 2 to comment on the same quotations. Answers to Task 1 a) Little Ray. He speaks Spanish since his English is not so good. He arrived from Puerto Rico a few months ago. It is his favourite word. – b) Hannibal. He insists on order and makes the decisions. He is the dominant figure in the group. – c) Papo. He is little Ray’s cousin so he is the first of the group to know that his photographs are displayed in the window. He is hesitant and uncertain of what to say and what to do now that he is faced with the death of one of their group. – d) Ramona. The group starts to read the inscriptions on Little Ray’s photographs. Ramona is generous on this particular occasion and lets Hannibal go first, but not without challenging him. – e) Hannibal. He decides again and settles the little argument that he had with Joey earlier (ll. 153–173). Faced with the death of their friend, he doesn’t feel 45

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like fighting. – f) Joey. He is Hannibal’s friend and looks up to him. He asks for approval before doing anything. – g) Joey. He offers an opinion and gets immediately challenged by Hannibal. They have a little argument. – h) Everyone. They say this several times in the story as a kind of group slogan, echoing Little Ray. (Notice that the spelling is English, whereas Little Ray uses the same word in Spanish.) Using “his” word is their way of paying respect to him, their way of expressing closeness to him and to each other. – i) Hannibal. When starting to read Little Ray’s inscriptions, the others turn to him for directions, but he is polite and asks for advice, instead of simply deciding for everybody as he used to before. Their little game has suddenly become irrelevant in the face of something as serious as death. 2

In class: interpretation of explicit versus implicit meaning (Literary Rule 9) (10 min.)

Make students aware of what they have just done in the class discussion about the quotations of Task 1 and let them do Task 2. In these tasks the students have used the meaning of the quotations to draw certain conclusions. Several things can be seen in these simple sentences. On the one hand, there is the explicit meaning. Students understand what the characters say to each other. On the other hand, there is also an implicit meaning. Many things are suggested which are not directly expressed. Readers can see a lot and find out a lot about the characters by thinking carefully about what they say in a certain situation. There is more meaning in discourse than only the most obvious one. An example to show this difference between explicit and implicit meaning is quotation b. Hannibal explicitly makes two statements and one suggestion. But a lot more is implied in his speech. He insists on order. He makes the decision for the group. He has been asked by his friend to decide, and the group eventually follows his orders. Ramona, who is the strongest character of the three girls, first dares to challenge him, but he resists and she gives in. He has thus asserted his leadership. Make sure that students understand this properly. Ask them to think about any one of the quotations above and to say clearly what the explicit meaning and what the implicit meaning is. They need to work with the text and take the situation into consideration. Task 2 is thus an opportunity to add to and improve the comments made in Phase 1 (Task 1). Note this as the Literary Rule 9 (see Student’s Book, page 52):

  Literary Rule

9

Think particularly about what characters say. Apart from the explicit meaning there is also implicit meaning, which can be of help for the interpretation of a story.

3

In groups: thinking about structure and interpretation in class (Literary Rule 10) (20 min.)

Students work in groups to do Task 3 in the Student’s Book, page 52. Allow time for them to think and to develop their sense of structure. Then collect students’ ideas and encourage them to think on if they stay too much on the descriptive level instead of interpreting. Answers to Task 3 a) There is a new window display in each of the three parts. Refer students to the title of the story (Literary Rule 5). In part 1 it is an old man and the children are a bit disappointed about that. In part 2 it is another old man (“abuelo” = grandfather, l. 183). In part 3 it is Little Ray. And after two old men this is a definite change, but not of course the kind of change that the children wanted or expected. 46

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The weather is specifically mentioned each time. In part 1 it is a cold morning in January. In part 2 the weather is pleasant, sunny and unseasonably warm. Little Ray is ill now and “they say it’s the bad weather here that causes it” (ll. 196–197). He arrived a few months before January from warm Puerto Rico straight into the cold New York winter. The children don’t give the name of his illness, but it must be either pneumonia or an already acquired tuberculosis which becomes manifest now with the bad climate. All this shows clearly that the weather is not a detail in the story but directly relevant in connection with the main action. In part 3 it is one month later and there is snow. This is again a connection to Little Ray. We know that he has never seen real snow and Papo hopes it snows after Little Ray gets well (ll. 239–240). But the snow comes after Little Ray has died, which means he never gets to see snow in his entire short life. b) It is always Monday, the children are always on their way to school and they meet in front of the Funeraria Ortiz. They would look at the window display and take almost ritual turns in reading the inscriptions on the wreaths. The window displays and the weather change significantly. The group’s behaviour changes along with it. In part 1, Little Ray is absent, in part 2 he is ill and in part 3 he is dead. Part 3 is very different from the rest. It also starts differently, with a time gap of one month and with the sudden news that Little Ray is dead. c) Quotations g and e are about the argument between Hannibal und Joey over which of the dead has most flowers. In part 1 they disagree and quarrel about it. In part 3, faced with the death of their friend, they don’t feel like arguing and agree with each other completely. Quotations b, d, f and i are about the children’s turns at reading. In part 1 (f and b) there is a clear pecking order and Hannibal defends his leadership. In part 3 (i and d), their fight for a certain position in the group has suddenly become irrelevant in the face of something as serious as death. Quotations a and h are about Little Ray’s favourite word. In part 1 Little Ray is quoted directly (a), then the group imitates him in English (h). By using his word they show how much they all like him. Note also that they shout it “in unison” (l. 126) and “in agreement” (l. 149). The word is then used again in the last sentence of part 3, where again everyone shouts it together. Here, using Little Ray’s word, has become a way for the group to pay their respects to him and to express their closeness to him and to each other. Thinking about the structure has proved so valuable a help towards understanding the story that it merits being remembered as the Literary Rule 10:

  Literary Rule

10

Think about the structure of a text. Dividing a text into parts and comparing and contrasting these parts can help you to understand a story better.

4

In class: the theme of death (5 min.)

You can end the lesson by talking about the theme of death as it is dealt with in the story. This can be done in different ways, depending on what is most suitable for your students. Maybe they would like to share their own experiences and talk about how they reacted to the news of somebody’s death.

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Alternatively, it might be more relevant to the students to compare different religions and how they announce and show death. The story presents a catholic procedure, other religions practise different rituals. Another alternative is to comment on the displaying of photographs (and TV images) of dead people. Yet another possibility is to imagine what would happen in the story if the seven characters were adults instead of children. It can then be discussed how the idea of death affects people differently at different stages of their lives. For the children in the story, it is the first confrontation with the death of somebody of their own age – a memorable event, introducing them to the awareness of their own mortality.

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An ABC to English Literature Philomena’s Revenge

In the World of English Literature

Philomena’s Revenge, by Rita Ann Higgins Aims This is the last in the series of lessons which introduces students to English literature and interpretation. The aim is to round off the project by discussing what makes a good interpretation and what the role of the reader is in this process. This is intended as a reflection on what students have learned from the past five lessons. The poem “Philomena’s Revenge” is a text which students are interested in and which works well as a basis for this discussion. Instead of letting them find their own interpretation, for once I present the students with two very different interpretations and let them comment and evaluate. (As an alternative, any other short text could be used which lends itself to conflicting interpretations.) Phases 1

Pre-reading activity and reading out of the poem (5 min.)

2

In class: read and understand the content (10 min.)

3

In groups: thinking about one of two interpretations, comparison in class, and the role of the reader (20 min.)



Conclusion: what is interpretation? (10 min.) Alternatively, this phase could be part of a separate lesson. 4

Lesson plan 1

Pre-reading activity and reading out of the poem (5 min.)

Students quickly do the pre-reading activity in the Students’ Book, page 53. This gives them a sense of the structure and the development (their texts will typically move either from bad to good or from good to bad). Some examples may be read out. Students listen as the teacher reads out the text. Because this text is so short, first contact can be made through listening during the lesson, rather than through reading in preparation of the lesson like with the other texts before. 2

In class: read and understand the content (10 min.)

Give students a moment to read the text. Then read and work through the text in class, stanza for stanza. Make sure that students understand the words and the content. Let them paraphrase. Collect comments without expecting much interpretation at this point. Possible comments Stanza 1: Philomena was a normal teenager. She was interested in boys. She liked “craic” (pronounced “crack”, the Irish word for fun – explain that the author is Irish). She experimented with cigarettes “down the backs”, behind the buildings, where no adults would see them. The poem starts with a description of a normal teenage girl, interested in life and curious. Notice the past tense: she is not a teenager any more, she must be at least 20.

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Stanza 2: A change compared to stanza 1. Philomena started to break things, which means that she became aggressive, violent and destructive. There is no reason given. Notice the incongruous listing of what she broke. The rhetorical figure used here is the “zeugma”, the use of one word (“broke”) for things of two different categories (objects like “furniture and glass” versus “her mother’s heart”). Stanza 3: The old women are like a chorus in a Greek tragedy, they comment on the action. They are probably neighbours, who do not have much to do, observe what happens around them and talk about it. They have found a quick and easy way to explain Philomena’s behaviour without really knowing her reasons. “Round each other’s faces” is an unusual phrase, it suggests that they stand together in groups and chat with each other. Stanza 4: She was more than just “mad at the world” as the old women suggested. And “for less she was punished”, namely for the relatively harmless act of breaking things. The word “punished” is interesting. One gets punished for making a mistake. It seems that her breaking things is considered a mistake, not a reaction to something else. Stanza 5: There was one particularly bad weekend, when she broke and threw things. Again no reason is given why she acts in such a manner. On line 19, the title reappears. Philomena takes “revenge”. The rather clumsy dictionary explanation for the word “revenge” is “something that you do in order to make somebody suffer because they have made you suffer”. What did she suffer? Who made her suffer? There is no explanation given. Notice the structure of the poem. The title is used on line 19, there are 19 lines consisting of five stanzas of unequal length. After that there are again 19 lines consisting of again five stanzas of unequal length. These are followed by two final lines, rather like a couplet at the end of a sonnet. Stanza 6: After her revenge she was “shifted” (moved to a psychiatric clinic) and “given the shocks” (treated with electroshock). Explain that electroshock is a form of electrotherapy by which electrodes are attached to the patient’s head. It is still used today, but not as a treatment for symptoms like Philomena’s. While it certainly calms down the patients, it also damages their brain cells and makes them passive and apathetic. Stanza 7: A variation of stanza 3. Two of the lines are exactly the same as before, the part in direct speech is different. There is talk again among the neighbours, old women are spreading the news. They don’t call the thing by its name, instead they ominously call it “the treatment”. Electroshock is notorious as a form of treatment. Stanza 8: Now the poem moves to the present. Philomena is a changed person. The words “furniture” and “glass” are used again, like in stanza 2, but the situation is totally different now. She “gets on with the furniture”, in other words she behaves as one expects her to. She is no longer aggressive and violent. “Get on with” is normally used for people, not for objects. If it is said that she has a good relationship with furniture, she is somehow reduced to the same level as inanimate objects. She “wears someone else’s walk”, which means that she is no longer herself, she moves like a different person. (The word “wear” is normally used for clothes, not for a way of walking. It suggests that even her own movements have become something strange that is put on to her body.) She “sees visions in glass”. She no longer breaks the glass, but she sees things in it, probably the reflection of her own face and/or of things that happen in her mind. This may sound more acceptable on the surface, but as a sign of her mental health it is actually far worse than before. If a teenager has visions, it is a strong sign for juvenile psychosis, a serious mental illness. The whole stanza shows that the treatment has made her behave at the cost of breaking her spirit and her personality. Stanza 9: This stanza shows how Philomena is used for childish tasks. Remember that she must be at least 20. Now she is good for things that require a mental age of about ten.

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Stanza 10: Do not dwell on this at the moment. Simply take it as another one of the childish tasks that she performs. Her mother is mentioned in the first half of the poem, now her father enters the picture. Stanza 11: Two lines only, spoken by her father. He says almost the same words twice, as people do when speaking to someone stupid. By calling her “girl”, he is addressing someone of her mental, not her physical age. In groups: thinking about one of two interpretations, comparison in class, and the role of the reader (20 min.) 3

Students work in groups. Half of the groups does Task 1 and the other half Task 2 in the Student’s Book, page 55. In each of the tasks one possible interpretation of the poem is presented. Students have to comment on and evaluate given interpretations. This marks a change from Lessons 1–5, where they always had to find interpretations.* Students read their interpretations to the other half of the class and present their ideas. The two interpretations, plus comments: 1 This is a poem about a girl who goes mad. She is sent to a clinic and afterwards she has lost her anger, but also her personality. The last six lines are a symbolic description of a situation of incest: The gate can stand for the entrance to the girl’s body. She “closes the gate”, the father “drives out”. He calls her “Philo”, which is Greek for “friend, lover”.** This is the explanation for why the girl got mad. And it also explains the title: madness is the girl’s revenge, her only way out of this situation of incest. Comments: Students usually say that this interpretation answers a lot of the questions that were raised in the poem. But they frequently find the idea of incest too far-fetched and exaggerated. 2 This is a poem about a girl who goes mad. She is sent to a clinic and afterwards she has lost her anger, but also her personality. At the end, she is only used for childish jobs: getting messages, small things and closing the gate. The last six lines have no special meaning, they are just the third example of the tasks the girl gets. It is not important that the other person mentioned at the end is the father, it could be any other person. It is not made clear why the girl went mad. The “revenge” announced in the title does not happen, the girl does not get real revenge. Comments: Students find this interpretation cheap and weak. It does not explain much, neither the end, nor the title, nor the questions raised in the poem. Now tell the students where these interpretations come from: Interpretation Nr 1 comes from critics, from experienced readers who can see allusions in a text. It may be far-fetched, but it works. Interpretation Nr 2 was actually given by the author herself! It was the comment she made in a discussion about her own poem.*** * There is actually a third interpretation which is very plausible. The girl could be schizophrenic. Schizophrenics have visions and are treated with electroshock. She then throws things because she does not feel understood in her illness. What this way of interpreting the poem does not explain is the emphasis given to the father. On the whole, this interpretation is less controversial than the other two. It is not used in this lesson. ** “Philomena” means “lover of life”. Even her name is not true any more. She does not love life as she used to in stanza 1. Instead she is reduced to being “Philo”, a lover. *** University of Berne conference, March 2001. Why she rejected the notion of incest is not clear. It could be for a number of reasons, not necessarily because it is not “true”.

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This comes as a big surprise to students. They often think that interpretation is about “finding out what the author wants to say”, or they wish that the author were around to tell them what a text means. They consider the author to be the ultimate authority. It is a big step for them to realise that authors may not be the best interpreters of their own work. Some students will not accept this notion. The discussion ends with a challenge which they may be unwilling to accept at present. Don’t try to force them to accept it. It is enough to show them the alternative: interpretations are made by the readers. This idea opens new perspectives and directions. It means, in other words, when students have to interpret texts, they need not worry about what the author might “mean” – it is they who create the interpretation. There is a famous quotation by D. H. Lawrence, which might help students if they feel a bit alone at his point: “Never trust the teller, trust the tale.” This result can be illustrated so as to help students remember it:

Author



Text



= Interpretation

Reader

A more elaborate illustration might look something like this:

Author

Language Text Context (historical, political, cultural, etc.) Interpretation 4

Reader

Conclusion: what is interpretation? (10 min.)

What is it exactly that the readers do, then? Ask students to think back to what they have done in this series of literature lessons. Let them think and take notes if there is time, or just collect ideas in class. Alternatively, you may want to give them more time to think about this and discuss it in a separate lesson. Use the box “What is interpretation?” in the Student’s Book, page 55.

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Possible comments:

What is interpretation? Interpretation is made by the reader. It must be based on the text. It is like a plant that grows out of the text, but always has its roots firmly there. It means reading closely and carefully, and taking time to think. It is about understanding. Understanding something involves seeing more than the most immediate and the obvious. There is usually more than one way of understanding a text. Interpretation is about discovering multiple layers of meaning by going beneath the surface. It means finding out how items are connected in a text, how they relate to each other, how they work together to make a whole. It is about making connections with things outside the text, about using the reader’s knowledge of the world and of other literature. The more you read and know, the better you will understand a text!

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It’s Storytime An ABC to English Literature Conclusion

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Conclusion to Project 2, Units 1– 6 With the help of the ten Literary Rules and the insights gained by interpreting six texts in class and the list “What is interpretation?” developed in Unit 6, it is hoped that students have become more skilful and more confident about interpreting literature. They are in possession of the tools now to work with literary texts. What they still need is the opportunity to use these tools regularly and to become familiar with handling them. For this reason I suggest a second part to the project: students have to teach a literature lesson in groups (cf. the information on The lessons taught by groups of students, page 30). They are required to use what they have learned in the first part. It gives the groups and the whole class more opportunity to read and interpret. It also gives them the independence to work without the strong guidance from the teacher which they got in the first part. Assigning short stories to groups If necessary remind your students briefly of what you expect them to do in the following lessons. Make sure that everyone still has a copy of the information handed out in the introductory lesson. Ask the groups what kind of story they would like to work on. Choose something that you think they will like and do well. Some of the texts suggested below are less literary than others. The texts should preferably be a bit easier to interpret than the ones used in the first part. Let the groups have their texts well in advance of their scheduled lesson. A list of suitable short stories Colwin, Laurie. Mr Parker Garve, Andrew. The Man Who Wasn’t Scared Gibbs, Angelica. The Test Gordimer, Nadine. The Moment before the Gun Went Off Hemingway, Ernest. Indian Camp Lessing, Doris. The Mother of the Child in Question MacLaverty, Bernard. Father and Son Narayan, R. K. Under the Banyan Tree O’Hara, John. Do You Like It Here? Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart Porter, Katherine Anne. The Grave Thurber, James. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

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Project 3: In the World of English Literature What the teacher needs to know before starting Project 3 is a project for literature lessons suitable for the last year of school. After doing Project 2 and getting regular practice in reading and analysing literature, students will have become fairly independent. They know how to approach texts and have developed categories of thinking about texts. They know that, as readers, they are in a position of authority where interpretation is concerned. The authority of the author is not absolute. It should have become clear to students that the author does not make the interpretation. They should never again get the feeling that literature is a kind of “puzzle” for which one “solution” has to be guessed at. The authority of the teacher is not absolute, either, I hasten to add. An impression still widespread among students is that the teacher knows the one, right way to interpret a text and keeps asking questions until the first student hits upon the one, right answer. This is an impression that will hopefully never arise with the three projects presented in this book. Much rather, students will experience the teacher as being also a reader, albeit an experienced and skilful one. In short, it is the basic premise for Project 3 that, as readers, the students have the authority for the interpretation. For them this means getting more responsibility and being required to do a demanding job. On the other hand, one cannot expect the impossible from students after a few years of learning English and reading literature. There are a few notorious situations which they find difficult and where they still need support. 1 Close reading is a difficult thing to do. It frequently happens that students overlook important aspects in a text and ignore them in their interpretation. Here the teacher’s help is needed. Point out that there is more in the text and make them read again carefully. 2 Students often don’t think far enough. They have one idea, are content with it and write it down as the final answer. This is also a situation which calls for the teacher to think along with the students and help them to pursue their ideas. Encourage them to let their ideas fly like balloons. Some balloons may burst, but others will fly a long way. 3 In some cases, students simply do not have enough background knowledge yet. They may not know the exact terminology for certain phenomena and they know very little literary history. Of course, the teacher could step in here and fill the gaps, but this is something that students can easily do themselves. The Student’s Book provides background information which they can consult in order to arrive at a more profound understanding of the texts (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, page 109, and Short Biographies, page 106). The aim of Project 3 is predominantly to make students independent in their work with literature. This is a step they need to take in order to get ready for the final exams in English at school. Furthermore, it is a step which also prepares them to read and appreciate literature during their life after school. The other aim is obviously again and as always to improve students’ English language skills. They get more reading and speaking practice. There is a building up and consolidation of advanced vocabulary and grammatical structures.

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A note on the procedure and the time frame The project consists of a total of six short stories. It is assumed that students do the reading work in preparation of the lessons. Provide two lessons to work on each story. If this is not possible, the material can be used selectively and boiled down to one lesson. Alternatively, there is enough material to cover even three lessons. It might be a good idea to give homework between lessons 1 and 2 if that is possible. By doing that, you can cover more of the material and students can think about some questions more deeply. The project thus covers twelve lessons if all six stories are used and two lessons are devoted to each story. The entire project will easily fit into one school term. Since there is much less guidance from the teacher than in Projects 1 and 2, the Student’s Book now has a big role to play. There is a great number of tasks in order to give students as much independence as possible. It is suggested that they work in pairs or groups and use the teacher’s support only when necessary. The lesson plans in this project are very flexible. They should be understood as mere suggestions. Any of the lesson plans can be combined with any of the short stories. And since students are given so much freedom of choice, the teacher will have to be quite flexible and react to what they have prepared. A note on the selection of the short stories The six texts chosen for Project 3 are all short stories written in the 20th century, from the 1920s through to the 1990s. Length and level of language are no longer such strict criteria as in Project 2. Stories can easily be a bit longer now and the students’ level of English is good enough to enable them to work with more demanding texts. The six texts present a wide variety of styles and interesting topics. They also lead to a variety of literary terminology and background information. They have all worked well in the classroom in my experience. And last but not least, I simply like these stories. A note on the lesson plans There are many ways of working with the texts and the tasks in the Student’s Book. 1. The teacher chooses a selection of questions for the students to work on. Or the students make the choice themselves. 2. The groups of students work on the same questions and later compare their ideas. Or the groups work on different questions and present their ideas later. 3. The groups should try to cover all the suggested main aspects of a story. Or groups concentrate on one aspect and ignore the others. 4. Groups stay together in the same formation for all the group work in one story (or even in several stories). Or new groups are formed for each new phase during the lessons. 5. Students do the tasks as presented in the Student’s Book. Or students ask their own questions about a text (without looking at the ones suggested in the Student’s Book). 6. The lesson can be done in various ways: a) The two lessons can involve group work exclusively. b) There can be short phases in groups, in combination with work in class. c) The first of the two lessons can be done in class, with the second as a continuation and consolidation in groups. d) The first of the two lessons can be preparation in groups, with the second lesson as a follow up in class. 56

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About 6 a): The teacher circulates from group to group, spends some time with them (the time can be either announced or unannounced) and assesses them on how well they work in the group. Or the groups prepare their ideas in written form, which can be collected and commented on. About 6 b): The ideas from the different groups are collected and discussed. This can lead to the selection of the next task based on the results of the previous one. Students’ interests and difficulties will determine what they work on in the next phase. About 6 c): Cover the basic understanding of the text in class, then let students decide what aspect they want to focus on for their subsequent work in groups. About 6 d): Students start off by working in groups. In the second lesson they have to compare and discuss their ideas if they worked on the same questions. If they worked on different questions, the ideas have to be presented to the class. Every group of students has to lead the discussion for some part of the second lesson. Or instead of presenting the ideas in class, they could be presented to one other group. One group could act as teachers to another group, which in turn then has to teach their own ideas. There could be a rotation of groups in the classroom, all passing on information and adding ideas to what they hear. Another possibility is that one group of students is the experts for one of the stories. They are responsible for the second lesson and have to guide the class discussion. This would of course have to be announced at the beginning of the project so that each group could be assigned one text. Six suggestions for lesson plans The following lesson plans are based on the ideas presented above. I suggest six different possible combinations to give teachers the opportunity to deal with each of the six stories in a different way. Other combinations (and, for that matter, other ideas) are, of course, also possible. For these lesson plans it is assumed that teachers provide two lessons per story (the first concentrating on reading comprehension, the second on interpretation). The lesson plans include activities that increase in difficulty from lesson plan 1 to 6. With particularly talented classes you may want to concentrate on lesson plans such as the ones presented in 4– 6. Classes that need more support or have few creative ideas might prefer to stay with lesson plans like the ones in 1–3. But with most classes it should be possible to take them through from 1– 6. All six lesson plans work with any of the six stories. Lesson plan 1 1st lesson 1. The teacher chooses a few reading comprehension questions, all groups work on the same questions. 2. The groups’ answers are compared in class. 3. The groups choose some other reading comprehension questions and work on the questions of their choice. 4. The groups present their answers in class. 2nd lesson 1. The teacher chooses one interpretation question, all groups work on the same question. 2. The groups’ answers are presented in class. 3. The groups choose one or two more interpretation questions and work on them. 4. The groups present their answers in class.

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Lesson Plan 2 1st lesson The groups do the reading comprehension and prepare written answers to be handed in. Teacher’s homework: read each group’s answers and prepare some feedback. 2nd lesson 1. The teacher gives some feedback on the written answers (mention both particularly good ones as well as problems and difficulties). 2. The teacher chooses a few interpretation questions for each group separately, depending on the quality of their previous answers, and the groups work on them, then report (either orally or in writing). Lesson Plan 3 1st lesson The groups do the reading comprehension, the teacher circulates and listens to groups’ answers and helps where necessary. 2nd lesson 1. Each group chooses what interpretation question they are interested in and works on those. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation for the lesson.) 2. Each group presents their ideas in class. 3. The interpretation is continued in class. Lesson Plan 4 1st lesson The reading comprehension is done in class, everybody contributes ideas. 2nd lesson Groups do the interpretation questions, the teacher either circulates to listen or asks for written answers. Lesson Plan 5 1st lesson 1. Reading comprehension is done quickly in groups to check whether there are major difficulties in comprehension which should be solved with the teacher’s help. 2. Each group works on one interpretation question, preparing it for the next lesson. 2nd lesson In class, each group leads the discussion about the interpretation question they have prepared. Lesson Plan 6 1st lesson 1. Groups develop their own reading comprehension questions. (Alternatively this can be done as homework in preparation for the lesson.) 2. Exchange the questions with another group, answer them and then report back. 3. Groups compare their questions with the ones provided in the Student’s Book and check whether their emphasis is totally different or whether they have completely ignored something crucial.

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2nd lesson 1. Each group chooses one interpretation question to answer. 2. Exchange of answers with another group, who then contributes more ideas. 3. In class, groups report what their partner groups have contributed, then continue the discussion in class. Introducing students to the project As in Projects 1 and 2, get the project started by giving your students some general information about the aims of and the procedure in Project 3. This is best done several days before you plan to do Unit 1 in class. Remember that students should have enough time to read the first story.

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Cathedral, by Raymond Carver Pre-reading activity A note to the teacher: the drawing activity prepares students for the title of the story and especially for the drawing scene at the end. They probably experience similar difficulties as the narrator does. While we all somehow know what a cathedral must look like, it is still very difficult to actually put one on paper. We all have eyes to see, but we may not use them to really look at things properly. An alternative activity: drawing without seeing. This works well as a classroom activity. Blindfold students, let them draw something and then ask them to describe their sensations. Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension The setting: the place is an apartment in New York (ll. 214–216). The time is not mentioned, but everything suggests that it is a near-contemporary story. 1

Time frame: it all happens on one day. The plot starts at some time during the day and ends late at night. 2

The movements of the characters: the blind man comes to visit and to spend the night. He travels by train from Connecticut and arrives after the beginning of the plot. The wife is in the apartment first. Then she leaves briefly to go and pick the blind man up by car. Halfway during the story she falls asleep on the sofa and wakes up again only right at the end. The narrator stays in the apartment throughout. 3

a) There is a lot of information on the wife’s life on lines 16–92. She used to live in Seattle and work for the blind man as a hired help ten years ago. She got married to an Air Force officer who had been her childhood sweetheart and moved with him from one military base to another until she couldn’t bear it any more and tried to commit suicide. She got divorced from him and is now married to the narrator. She writes poems. 4

b) The blind man, whose name is Robert, has just lost his wife. She was called Beulah and worked for Robert after the narrator’s wife had left. They got married and were “inseparable” (l. 146) for eight years until she died of cancer in hospital. Robert does different jobs, most recently he had an Am­ way distributorship*. And he is an amateur radio operator – a good hobby for a blind man be­cause it is all about listening (ll. 328–334). a) From what we are told about this particular evening, the narrator and his wife do not seem to be very close. Their conversation is full of tension (ll. 111–136). They don’t communicate well and end up talking around subjects instead of really talking to each other. Her reaction is aggressive. She doesn’t understand his uneasiness about Robert’s visit. Also in the course of the evening she gets angry about his behaviour several times: “My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading towards a boil.” (ll. 343– 344) “My wife gave me a savage look.” (l. 393) There is one comment about their relationship beyond that day which also suggests that they are not very close: “Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time.” (ll. 460–462) 5

* Amway is a direct distributor of a wide range of different products from nutritional supplements to cosmetics and cleaning products.

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b)  The wife and Robert are good friends. When she stopped working for him, got married and moved away, they kept up irregular contact. Instead of writing letters like other people do to friends who live at a distance, they send each other tapes. Typically of a blind man, Robert is chiefly a listener. The wife tells him about her life on the tapes, including very personal things like her suicide attempt and her divorce. He has known her for longer than her husband has, and he maybe also knows more about her than her husband does. His blindness doesn’t seem to bother her at all. She is used to it. And she knows how to react to it. For example she takes him by the arm to move him around. She is happy to see him and wants to make him welcome. They have a lot to talk about as friends who have not seen each other for some time usually do. You can only do bowling when you can see, so it is clearly not a thing to do with a blind man. By suggesting to take Robert bowling, the narrator is either making a joke or trying to be difficult. Anyway, his wife definitely doesn’t find it funny. He is expressing his unease about the visit, but in such an awkward way that she can’t see or can’t accept it. 6

The narrator says “who’d want to go to such a wedding in the first place?” (ll. 140–141) because he can’t understand what a blind person’s life is like. He can’t imagine that they get married, live and sleep with a partner like other people. He only wants to keep his distance. And he imagines that everyone else would like to keep their distance, too. 7

The wife seems to be genuinely happy to see her friend. Lines 180–182 show that the narrator can’t understand this. He implies that she laughs just to make Robert feel welcome. But she still smiles when she is outside the car so she is not putting on a show for Robert. The narrator calls this “wearing a smile”, implying again that it is not genuine but something that she puts on. He simply can’t see how anyone could be friends with a blind person. 8

In his actions and reactions the narrator presents himself in such a negative light that one cannot identify with him. He is selfish, jealous and generally unlikeable. The one thing though that might be understandable is his awkwardness with the handicapped man. Students who are not used to disabled people might recognize this feeling. A note to the teacher: Readers frequently do not like stories which have an unlikeable narrator. This could be a moment to discuss some readers’ possible emotional distance from this story and their preference for stories told by narrators whose views they can share. 9

Alcohol and smoking seem to play an important role in the story. There is a lot of drinking. Already before Robert arrives the narrator has a drink (l. 134). Before dinner they have “big glasses of Scotch with a splash of water in each” (ll. 274–275). This is followed by two more drinks, all before dinner. Then after dinner they have “two or three more drinks” (l. 316). And later when the two men are alone they have yet another drink. At that point they also start the smoking. At the narrator’s suggestion they have dope. Robert joins in although it is the first time he has had cannabis. The wife returns and joins in, too. For the narrator smoking dope is the usual way to spend an evening (ll. 460–461). A note to the teacher: It is highly probable that the drugs partly account for the narrator’s special experience at the end of the evening. Students may come to the conclusion that it is easier to make contact with another person under the influence of drugs. Be prepared for such a comment and try to show them that the drugs don’t solve the narrator’s problems. On the contrary, they are part of his problems. 10

The scene on lines 442–446 is a funny moment. The narrator seems to enjoy his wife’s exposed skin. But they are not alone so he covers her to make her look decent before her guest. Then he suddenly realises that with this particular guest looks don’t matter. Robert is unaware of the fact that the woman in the room is partially undressed. 11

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The analysis of the vocabulary is particularly relevant for this story. Suggested answers: to see/to look forward/to see/eyes/to look/to see: words connected with vision are used with striking frequency in this text. These are everyday words that we “normally” use without much thought. But in this context they take on more meaning, one becomes suddenly aware that they are not “normal” for everybody. Touch/contact: in everyday language these words may carry sexual overtones. But again in this context the meaning shifts a little. To a blind man touch and contact are a replacement for vision. The presence of the blind man in the story makes us “see” ordinary words differently. 12

Interpretation Point of view In the first half of the story the narrator’s attitude towards blindness is characterised by inexperience, ignorance and lack of understanding. His feeling is one of uneasiness about a physical handicap. 1

In the conversation with his wife it is clear that the narrator feels very uncomfortable about the visit of the blind man. But he can’t articulate it. It would be acceptable if he said that he has never known a blind person and feels insecure about how to behave towards him. Then his wife could share her experience with him. But he can never put that into words. Instead he makes strange, disconnected remarks and feeble attempts at joking, which she can’t accept. To her he sounds insensitive, rude, unhelpful, even arrogant. So she reacts with aggression towards him. When Robert arrives, the narrator continues to hide his feelings. He is not downright impolite to Robert. But his uneasiness and embarrassment create an atmosphere of tension. He doesn’t know what to say and remains quiet for much of the time. And he makes mistakes with Robert. He asks “Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?” (ll. 217–218), because the view is better on one side. And he turns on the TV. Robert takes these things well and reacts with much understanding. He is probably used to people feeling insecure around him. The narrator’s wife takes it less well. She is still angry with her hus­ band and takes his reactions as an insult towards her friend and therefore herself. 2

The jealousy of the narrator is best illustrated by the scene when Robert touches the face of the woman on her last day at the office (ll. 30–37). It is the only indication that during their time in Seattle the narrator’s wife and the blind man might have developed more than just friendly feelings towards each other. The way he touched her face made a strong and unforgettable impression on her. It is not clear if there really was sexual attraction involved. Note that what we read is twice removed from the event itself. It is told to us by the biased narrator, who in turn had it told to him by his biased wife. It is perfectly possible that the blind man’s touching her face was simply his manner of “seeing” her. On the other hand, Robert did get married to his next employee, so the narrator’s assumptions are not totally unfounded. The narrator is also jealous that the blind man has known her for longer than he has himself and seems to know more about her personal life than he does. 3

There is a lot that can be mentioned about the importance of the point of view in this story (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, point of view). We get the point of view of a person who is directly, intimately and emotionally involved in the story. Therefore nothing here is objective. Everything is “coloured” by his attitude, his feelings and his thoughts. His wife is not presented very positively, one has to infer her motivations through what he chooses to say about her. On the other hand, he does not present himself positively, either. He does not hesitate to show his weaknesses and his shortcomings. With this point of view we also get an insight into his mind. We know how he thinks and feels. We know that there is genuine insecurity and helplessness which make him act the way he does. Therefore we can understand him better than the other characters can. 4

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We need his point of view, especially for the ending. He makes an experience and has insights, most of which are unspoken. The short story and plot The structure of the story can be described as follows: There is an exposition, it is the time of the day when the narrator is still alone with his wife, before the visitor arrives. The basic situation is presented, circumstances are explained and the conflict is intro­ duced. With the arrival of the visitor the rising action starts. Things do not go well, the atmosphere is tense and the situation gets more and more unpleasant. There is a turning point when the wife leaves the scene by falling asleep. The person who connects the two men has thus disappeared. The target they are both focused on is gone. Without his wife present the narrator has to make an effort himself, which is easier now since she is not there to criticise him. And Robert can turn his attention to the narrator and make up for the fact that he has “monopolized” (l. 455) the wife. The men get talking, the atmosphere loosens up and the tension diminishes gradually (due also to some extent to alcohol and dope and maybe also the hum of the TV). It can be called falling action in the sense that the conflict decreases. The ending then is the solution. The narrator makes an experience which totally changes his attitude and thus eradicates the conflict. The solution involves a discovery on the part of the narrator, which is a typical characteristic of solutions. What is not typical is that the ending can actually be seen as the climax of the whole story. It is the most important moment, the focal point. But then, the story is not a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense: it doesn’t move towards a catastrophe but towards a positive outcome. 5

The flashback (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, flashback) covers the passage from line 16 to line 108. It is frequently seen in stories that the exposition is managed by flashbacks. Here the flashback comes naturally through the narrator, whose memories take him back to the time when his wife first met the visitor announced for that evening. For the reader it serves as information about events that happened before the day of the story but are directly relevant to it. 6

The use of a set of three characters is a good way to create conflict and tension with minimal effort. This is in fact a stock situation – one that frequently occurs in stories. Two is harmony, three is discord. There are always two against one, whichever way things turn. Basically there is a lover, a beloved and a rival. There are two possible outcomes. Either the lover gets the beloved or the rival does. There is a winner and a loser. Carver presents a modern and surprising variation of the theme in that the beloved removes herself from the game. Lover and rival remain and (instead of fighting a duel for her) they get together and find each other. Their male bonding functions perfectly. So well that it is suddenly the beloved who finds herself alone. They largely ignore her when she tries to re-enter the game. 7

Cathedral uses the concept of the three unities (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, short story). There is one place (discounting the flashback), namely the couple’s apartment. There is one time – it all happens on one single day. And there is one theme – the whole action moves around the idea of blindness and seeing. We get a strictly limited set of characters. You may wish to tell your students that Carver is a prominent exponent of the American short story tradition. Like Hemingway before him he writes with great economy of means. His style is modest and unobtrusive. The staging could not be more ordinary – a married couple inviting a guest for dinner in their apartment. Only one detail is unusual – the guest is blind. From this, the entire story unfolds. Not much happens on the outside. Carver finds the unusual in simple, everyday settings and develops it with great sensitivity. 8

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Theme: Blindness and seeing a) On line 421 the narrator begins to understand how Robert needs to be treated and he starts to react appropriately. He puts the cigarette into Robert’s fingers so that the blind man doesn’t need to grope around for it. And he even tells him that it is coming so that Robert is prepared. The narrator is learning quickly how to do things right. Maybe this is the reason why his wife can relax and go to sleep, at any rate she does so immediately after this scene. And from then on the narrator’s behaviour towards Robert improves rapidly and massively. 9

b) Lines 517–522 show as a further change in the narrator’s attitude: he begins to react more spontaneously. He has an idea (“something occurred to me”) and he immediately puts it into words (“something has occurred to me”). This is a marked contrast to the beginning of the visit. There are several instances there where the narrator has to make conscious decisions about what to say and how to say it and then ends up not saying anything or saying the wrong thing. Another aspect is that he dares to address the fact that Robert is blind. This has not been verbalised between them so far although it has constantly been on the narrator’s mind. And yet another aspect is that the narrator is genuinely interested and also manages to show this to Robert. He truly wants to find out how Robert experiences the world and how he can cope without visual input. c) In his description of a cathedral the narrator really tries to do well and realises how difficult it is. He says a lot, much more than he has said before this evening. He fills two paragraphs with description. It is not bad as he does cover a few essential points. But it isn’t really good either because it is not enough to give one a mental picture. The narrator himself feels totally inadequate and he freely admits it. Robert expects more and he tries again but ends up by apologising (“I’m sorry” and “You’ll have to forgive me”). By admitting his failure he puts Robert into a position where he can help. They are beginning to reverse roles. Up to now Robert has been the one with a “deficit”, and now it is the narrator who feels “It just isn’t in me to do it”. This prepares the ground for the final drawing scene. Words to be mentioned are that the narrator sits down “near” Robert. And Robert moves to sit “next” to him on the carpet. Then “He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand.” The scene is a parallel to the one narrated at the beginning of the story, when Robert touched the woman’s face. There are no sexual overtones at all. Nevertheless it does cross a barrier in a society that shuns physical contact, especially among men. The scene is a sign for closeness. The two men are at last finding each other. They are making real contact. It happens on a physical level and is an expression also for contact on an emotional or intellectual level. 10

On lines 628–630 roles are definitely reversed. Robert gives the instructions and knows what he is doing. The special thing is that the blind man says to the seeing man “You’ll see”, “You’ll see”. The vocabulary of vision is used again here and in a highly significant way. If students pursue this idea consistently, it will lead them to the interpretation of the whole scene. The blind man makes the seeing man see. This means that the seeing man does not “see” properly in some way. And that the blind man does actually “see” in a manner of speaking. One watches TV. The narrator says that cathedrals are “something to look at on late-night TV” (l. 597). And he “stared hard at the shot of the cathedral” and later “stared some more at the cathedral” (ll. 543 and 547). All that time he does not really see it. There are different meanings of the word “seeing”. On a literal level, “seeing” is used for physical vision. On a figurative level, there is a mental “seeing”, a kind of “seeing with an inner eye”, or in simple words “seeing” in this sense is a synonym for understanding. Make students aware of the fact that this use is very frequent in phrases like “Do you see?” or “I didn’t see the point”, etc. 11

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Robert may be literally blind, but he understands a lot. The narrator, on the contrary, has perfect physical vision, but he lacks true understanding. In this drawing scene he arrives at an understanding such as he has never known before. You may draw students’ attention to the points mentioned about plot (question 5). It is a typical feature of the ending, the “solution” of the conflict, to have a “discovery”. The protagonist discovers something important that has not been known to him before. You may also wish to tell students that Carver is using a well-known motif. The motif of the “blind seer” has been known since the Greeks. Sophocles uses the blind seer Tiresias in his “Oedipus Rex”. The play has, moreover, much the same constellation as the one that Carver presents here. Tiresias is physically blind but clairvoyant, whereas Oedipus has perfect physical vision but is blind and ignorant to what Tiresias knows. In the last few lines of the story the blind man gives his instruction “Close your eyes now” (l. 664) and the narrator obeys. He makes the experience that one does not always need eyes to see. He understands something without having to use his eyes. It is a real discovery for him, “It was like nothing else in my life up to now” (ll. 672–673). The blind man then gives another instruction, “Take a look”, but the narrator now even prefers not to use his eyes. The blind man says, “Well? … Are you looking?”, but the narrator keeps his eyes closed for the rest of the story. He experiences something, “I didn’t feel like I was inside anything” (l. 681). He transcends his usual limits, he is making a sort of transcendental experience. Or it might be said that he has a “vision”, which is a particularly apt word to use for two reasons: it belongs to the visual vocabulary that is used so significantly in the story. And it is a word (like “transcendental”) that frequently carries religious connotations. This leads to question 15. There is another parallel in this to “Oedipus Rex”. Oedipus actually blinds himself because he doesn’t want to understand the truth. Carver does not write a tragedy, there is a positive ending and in his version the protagonist “blinds himself” momentarily by closing his eyes, and in order to understand better. 12

There is a lot of speculation involved in trying to say why Carver makes the two characters draw a cathedral. But students usually have several good ideas. The narrator is making a quasi-religious experience here as believers do inside a cathedral. And the experience comes after they have talked about religion and he said, “I guess I don’t believe in it. In anything” (ll. 582–583). Sometimes students even go as far as to interpret Robert as a God figure. They refer to his full beard, which is mentioned more than once. He is presented as a wise, old man. And he does possess a sort of “divine” knowledge, which gets revealed to the protagonist via a cathedral. Without going quite so far, it can certainly be said that the use of a cathedral is no coincidence. A cathedral is something monumental, not everyday and ordinary. It is something out of this world. It is a place for spiritual experiences. It is a place where people join. There is closeness and contact, both among people and with something beyond them. Drawing a cathedral is like building a cathedral, it means constructing and creating something together, entering a relationship. 13

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A & P, by John Updike Pre-reading activity This is a typical pre-reading activity that prepares the students for the story they are going to read and especially for its setting. Like the activity suggested for Unit 4 (Danny Santiago, The Somebody), where the students are asked to speculate about the title, thinking about associations that a certain key word evokes can be done with almost any story. At the same time it lends itself for class discussions where the students can present and explain their ideas. The activity suggested here makes students aware of what a special, confined and artificial world a supermarket is. Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension The world beyond this supermarket is described on lines 121–136. It is a small town in the United States, north of Boston. The town is inland (five miles from a beach). There are two banks, a church, a newspaper store, three real estate offices. It is said that “the sewer broke again”, which suggests that people are used to installations breaking down and streets being torn up. Everything about the description sounds ordinary, provincial and boring. It is certainly not a place where a young person like the narrator finds much excitement and life. 1

Inside the supermarket it is cool, there are fluorescent lights and the floor is of green-and-cream rubber tiles (ll. 106–109). The description suggests a cold, sterile and artificial place. There is artificial light inside, which stands in contrast to the sunshine outside. And there must be air-conditioning since it is cool inside but warm enough outside to walk around in bathing suits. The main impression is one of an arrangement of aisles around masses of packaged products. It is Thursday afternoon, there are not many customers, five of the seven checkout slots are closed and the narrator does not have much to do (ll. 146–158). Like the town outside, the place inside feels dead, predictable and not stimulating to a young mind. 2

The time between the beginning and the ending of the story covers probably about 15 minutes. The girls walk in, buy one product, pay for it and have a short argument with the manager. It takes longer than 15 minutes to read the story, though, which means that the text is made longer through observations and thoughts about the events narrated. The events themselves are in chronological order, with much that goes on in the narrator’s mind added to them. 3

The narrator observes the events from one of the checkout slots. He never moves throughout the story until right before the end. He sits in the third checkout slot (l. 2), with his colleague next to him in the second slot (l. 75)*. He watches the girls’ movements from where he sits. His is a highly static position. It reinforces the contrast at the end when he gets up and walks out. To a normal person, getting up and walking away may not sound like much of an activity. But for him it is a major move, especially in comparison to the rest of the story. 4

* There is actually some contradiction in the text since later it is said that slots “Three through Seven” are unmanned.

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a) Information about the narrator is scarce and spread throughout the text. His name is Sammy (l. 230), he is 19 (l. 115) and he works as a sales assistant. He seems to be still living with his parents, since they are the only family he mentions and since he is wearing a shirt that his mother ironed the night before (l. 284). He is wearing the supermarket apron and bow tie on top of his white shirt. 5

b) Sammy’s colleague is called Stokesie and he is a sales assistant like him. He presumably wears the same clothes. He is 22 and is married with two small children. Despite being only three years older than Sammy, he is already settled and firmly established in his narrow life. He pursues the only career option possible within the world of the supermarket: he “thinks he’s going to be manager some sunny day, maybe in 1990 when it’s called the Great Alexandrov and Petrooshki Tea Company or something” (ll. 117–120)*. Sammy’s boss is Lengel. Apart from being manager of the supermarket he also teaches at Sunday school. According to Sammy he is dreary and observant (ll. 177–179). His age, clothes and family situation are not mentioned. He is a friend of Sammy’s parents’. Sammy describes him as old and grey (l. 268), and later his face as dark grey and his back as “stiff, as if he’d just had an injection of iron” (ll. 295–296). He has arrived at the top position that his narrow world offers him and he seems ideally suited for it. He seems as boring, colourless and static as the supermarket itself. c) The three girls are described in quite some detail. There is a chunky girl in a plaid green two-piece bathing suit (l. 5 and 25). Then there is a tall, black-haired one, whose hair is not right and whose chin is too long (ll. 31–33). Last and most importantly there is one that seems to be the leader of their small group. Their names are not given, but Sammy calls them Plaid, Big Tall Goony-Goony and Queenie. Their age and jobs are not mentioned. But there is quite some detail about their clothes instead, mostly about Queenie’s, even about the exact way she wears her bathing suit with the straps down so that the suit shifts a little on her body. While critical Sammy finds some imperfections on the other two girls’ bodies, he has only words of praise for Queenie. She has white prima-donna legs, holds herself straight and her head high on her very white shoulders. Her hands are “bare as God made them” (l. 167), and she keeps the money inside her bathing suit between her breasts. The girls appear in a group of three, like the three Graces in Roman mythology. They are the opposite of the three men inside the supermarket. The men are fully dressed, about to do their jobs in their confined space. The girls, on the contrary, are half naked, are spending a day of leisure and enter from the sunny world outside. They are contrasted against the whole atmosphere in the supermarket. Queenie, in particular, represents life to Sammy. Sammy imagines Queenie’s home. There is a party with snacks and cocktails. People are expensively dressed, the men in lightly coloured coats and the women in sandals. There is fancy food – “herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate” (in his imagination Sammy uses the little information he has on Queenie – the fact that she buys herring snacks). And there are carefully prepared, expensive drinks. Sammy contrasts this to his own more modest background, where guests get lemonade. Or occasionally some cheap alcohol in tall, cheap glasses (“Schlitz” is a beer). In other words, theirs is a difference of class. Sammy mentions this again later when he says that she comes from a place from which the supermarket staff must look inferior (ll. 215–217). The interesting 6

* To understand the joke made in this sentence, students need some background knowledge in history. The story was published in 1962, when the Cold War was at its height. The Cold War was a period of East-West tension and conflict following the estrangement between the US and the Soviet Union after World War II. In 1962 the crisis was acute, it was called the “Cuban Missile Crisis”. The Soviet Union had built nuclear missile installations in Cuba to protect the island from another US-sponsored invasion, such as the failed attempt at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. Americans lived in real fear that the Soviets would attack and invade the US. The supermarket A & P might then be renamed Alexandrov and Petrooshki.

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thing is that the idea of class is triggered by her voice. He slides “down her voice into her living room” (ll. 187–188). It might have to be explained to students that the way people speak English gives away what social class they belong to. This is a follow-up to the answers to question 5c. It is shown again that the three girls do things differently and that they stand out from the crowd of normal supermarket customers (more will be said about these in the interpretation section). Their behaviour is a contrast to the everyday routine. The ordinary customers are called the “usual traffic”, they are presented as a faceless, anonymous crowd, all automatically moving into the same direction although they are not even required to do so. 7

Information on how the other customers react to the three girls can be found on lines 87–102. They “jerk, or hop, or hiccup” when they become aware of the scantily dressed girls. But they are too well behaved to stare openly, so they look down and move on. Nothing can distract them from their shopping duties. But Sammy notices that some of them turn their heads to look back again at the girls­ as if to reassure themselves that they can trust their eyes. The behaviour is typical for people when they move in their customary, predictable surroundings and then something happens that is slightly out of the ordinary. It is a funny and well observed little scene – make sure that students can see the humour in it. 8

The humour in this scene can be found in McMahon patting his mouth to stop the saliva running out, as if looking at some particularly appetising food. He reminds one of an animal, which salivates automatically when it sees food. The suggestion is that he is a man with instinctive reflexes to feminine nudity. He sizes up their joints. The word “joint” can be used for both the animal and the human anatomy. Joints of meat are what the butcher sells at his counter. Here the girls’ thighs are referred to as joints. It implies that for McMahon they are mere objects, to be assessed like pieces of raw meat. 9

The brief exchange between Lengel and Queenie about what the girls are wearing (ll. 212–214) makes it clear that the two people move in different worlds. Lengel is the conservative citizen who adopts pre-established values. For him, being “decently dressed” means being covered up, with not an inch of skin exposed apart from head and hands. He has preconceived notions of how one is supposed to dress to go shopping. Shoulders covered – that is a policy. And he is not a man to question policies. Queenie’s answer can be read in two ways. She is saying that they are decently dressed, meaning that they cover those parts of the body that society expects to have covered. They are not nude. At the same time she is saying that the girls are decent, meaning that they are decent human beings, no matter what clothes they are wearing. 10

Thinking about the product names means at the same time thinking about the social and cultural background of the story. The four giant cans of pineapple juice belong to a customer who is old and wears baggy, grey pants (ll. 160–161). In other words she is presented as one of these boring old women who typically frequent A & P and buy things in large quantities. The powder-blue Falcon station wagon is associated with another customer (l. 290). This time it is a young woman, but she is no more attractive to Sammy than the old one. She is married and already has several children who are being brought up to become customers and scream when they don’t get their sweets. Powder blue is a baby colour and the fact that the woman drives a station wagon hints at a large family. The HiHo crackers are being bought by a customer right when the girls walk in (ll. 9–10). It is again an old and ugly woman (at least in Sammy’s eyes) and crackers are a product that suits her well. They are dry and have a long shelf life, like the woman herself. 11

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The Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream are of course what Queenie buys (ll. 165–166). Kingfish is a suitable thing to buy for a queen. “Fancy” goes well with her family background, where things are done in a sophisticated way. And herring snacks is a typical small thing that people eat at parties to counteract the effect of strong cocktails. “Pure” is a word that is associated with the girl herself. And sour cream is as white as her legs and her shoulders. Oatmeal is a total contrast to that and, needless to say, it is bought by typical A & P customers (l. 96). Oatmeal is cheap and dry and boring, like these people who bring shopping lists and push their carts through the aisles in the approved direction. Sammy’s language “mistakes” can be easily found by the students. In the first sentence it should really be “walk”: a plural form is needed since the subject is plural. The second sentence should be “There are people in this town who haven’t …”. Again the verb should be plural, not singular, and the relative clause that follows needs a relative pronoun. In the last sentence he should say “quickly”. It is not standard English to drop the adverb ending, although one hears this more and more often in American English nowadays. Explain that Sammy uses a non-standard variety of English. He is not well educated. He finished school and went to work in a supermarket. He has no higher education. This is a contrast to Queenie’s high class voice. 12

Interpretation Theme: Adolescence Good examples to show that Sammy is very observant can be found on lines 5–9, or 25–28, or 41–46. He may not be highly educated, but with his good eye and sharp judgement he seems intelligent. He looks around and notices details that not everybody would notice. He is critical of everything that does not live up to his high standards. Examples are his descriptions of the two girls who come with Queenie. One he considers “chunky”, “chubby” and “plump”, and the other has hair that is not right and a chin that is too long in his opinion. He has not only a good eye, but also a sharp tongue. He is especially relentless with people who are older than him. One customer is described as “a witch about fifty” and another one as “an old party in baggy gray pants” (ll. 13 and 160–161). It is frequently found in young people that to them anyone who is middle-aged seems really old – but such is the privilege of youth! 1

Sammy is the only teenager of the supermarket staff mentioned. In a few years he could be like Stokesie, established and settled in his life, with a management position as his only aim left in life. And in later years he could turn into a Lengel, who has achieved everything that can be achieved inside the world of the supermarket, but who is nothing but old and grey and boring to Sammy. As yet, Sammy is neither a Stokesie nor a Lengel, he is still a teenager with his adult life before him. He is not tied to the supermarket, he can turn into many other directions. And he has two negative examples to help him make his decision. 2

The question if Sammy is a hero or not cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. The phrase “unsuspected hero” is used because the girls have ignored Sammy up to now and he hopes to change his luck before they disappear and become their hero. It does not work out as desired though since they don’t even hear him (and at the end when he leaves the supermarket they are gone). So he is definitely not a hero to them. His gesture is ridiculously superfluous. But he has started a “gesture” and he cannot stop it now. He carries on: he folds the supermarket’s apron and leaves it there. He makes a “clean exit” and “just saunters” towards the door, which must feel really cool to him. He is clearly a hero in his own eyes. The gesture he makes is deeply felt, he does what feels right to him at the moment. 3

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Is he a hero in the readers’ eyes? Not in the traditional sense, since for one thing heroes typically get the girls that they want. Plus they don’t work in supermarkets and certainly don’t wear aprons – these are signs of the modern antihero. On the other hand, he stands out from the crowd. He is the only one who rises to defend the girls, who are falsely accused in his opinion. He does not hesitate to act. He shows courage and is ready to pay the price. This is as heroic as one can get in a supermarket world. A positive sign at the end of the story is that the door “heaves itself open” and he steps out into the sunshine. A negative sign is that the girls are gone. He does not romantically fall into his queen’s arms: it is not that kind of story. Another negative sign is that the only people he sees outside – the young married woman and her screaming children – are just as boring as the ones inside the supermarkets. And he ends the story on a negative feeling, “I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter”. This can be read as a sad ending. He gives up a safe job for nothing. And if he manages to find another job, it will probably not be much different. On the other hand – and students usually prefer this line of interpretation – it can also be seen as a happy ending. He does what he thinks is right, he dares to face up to his boss. He steps out through the door into freedom. He leaves the narrow, limited world behind when it is still possible for him to avoid becoming a Stokesie or Lengel. He breaks out, which is good in itself, no matter how things will turn out later. You may wish to refer students to the information on “open endings” (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, open ending). 4

Point of view (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, point of view) This is a strict first-person point of view. The narrator can’t hear what the girls say and therefore it is not narrated. He can see their gestures from his position, but then they disappear from his perspective and consequently also for the reader. Only McMahon is still in the narrator’s line of vision. When the narrator says that McMahon is sizing up the girls’ joints he is not being objective. He interprets the butcher’s reactions, which tells the readers more how Sammy’s mind works than McMahon’s. The first-person point of view is consistently carried out here. The narrative is strictly limited to what the narrator can see, hear and to what he infers. 5

The quotation in question 5 is a good example to show that the point of view is typically male. The girls’ half-naked bodies are seen as raw meat by the men and lusted after. Other examples show that Sammy reacts physically to Queenie’s appearance, “it made my stomach rub the inside of my apron” (l. 78). Or when Queenie gets her money out from between her breasts, the “jar went heavy in my hand” (l. 171). He later calls her breasts “the two smoothest scoops of vanilla I had ever known were there” (ll. 238–240). While this may be a flattering description, it is also bordering on the sexist. The girls are reduced to their bodies. The worst example of sexism occurs when the narrator says, “you never know for sure how girls’ minds work (do you really think it’s a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?)” (ll. 46–48). 6

The students were already asked to retell a story from another point of view in Project 1. This is a good exercise to make them flexible with possibilities of points of view and not simply take for granted the point of view the author has chosen. The exercise further shows students that it is the narrator who makes the text into what it is. In this story, the plot is less important than the fact that it is told by a young, male narrator. Queenie would probably be amused about the little incident. She would describe how they left the party to quickly go and stock up on supplies in the nearest supermarket. She would mention the dull, grey manager, who is totally out of her league and dared to criticise her appearance. She almost ignored 7

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Sammy, so she might not even mention him. His heroic gesture at the end would not be part of her narrative. Lengel would be indignant about the incident. He would complain about young people who can’t behave properly and show no respect towards their superiors. He would be angry about the young customers who complicate his job, and even more about the young member of his staff who didn’t know how lucky he was to be working at the supermarket and foolishly gave up his job. To sum up, setting and events would remain the same, but the narration would be totally different.

Theme: Consumer society The setting: students may not be aware of the fact that the US, and especially the New England states, have a strong Puritan background. There is a long record of prudishness in matters concerning the human body. There are many examples that you could tell your students. A word like “leg”, for example, used to be taboo in the 19th century. And consequently even the word “trousers” was taboo, since it might be associated with legs and lead to all kinds of “unclean” ideas. In Boston, people even went as far as to cover up the legs of pianos so as not to provoke any indecent fantasies. Another good example is that novels which are explicit about sex were judged to be obscene and were banned in Boston. This went so far that the phrase “banned in Boston” became a national joke and boosted the sales of those novels in the rest of the country. If you now think that such Puritan values must have been outdated by 1962 (when this story was published), just remember that “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was banned in Boston in 1959. Against this background, it is not surprising that the sexual revolution of the 1968 generation came as such a shock to society. An exaggerated prudishness about the human body is still noticeable in the US today. Students may have had their own experiences. For example, if you change into your bathing suit at the beach, you can still be arrested and led away in handcuffs. Examples such as these – or others – will give students an insight into values and attitudes of a society. These are always difficult things to teach, because so much relies on unspoken beliefs and unreflected habits, but they can be important for the interpretation of stories. 8

Typical A & P customers are the ones that have been mentioned before on these pages: “a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows”, “an old party in baggy gray pants” and a “young married screaming with her children”. In addition there are “houseslaves in pin curlers” and “women with six children and varicose veins” (ll. 100 and 126–127). These are excellent descriptions, relentless and contemptuous, but highly efficient. The readers get the image in a few words. The narrator further uses animal terms to describe the group of customers. They are like pigs when he does his heroic gesture: “A couple customers that had been heading for my slot begin to knock against each other, like scared pigs in a chute” (ll. 264–266). Again, not a flattering picture, pigs are pink and round, and if anything scares them they will be hysterical and, most importantly, brainless. An animal term that is used repeatedly is “sheep” (ll. 87 and 225 and 294). The customers be­have like “sheep, seeing a scene, they had all bunched up”, and they are treated like sheep, with “Lengel … checking the sheep through”. The image suggests that the customers are a brainless and faceless crowd, they move in an anonymous mass and are content to do so. They need a leader to tell them what to do. They won’t stick their necks out as Sammy does. 9

In the description of the supermarket the most striking feature is the frequent mention of food. There are masses of products on offer and they are displayed in large quantities. There are, for example, “all those stacked packages” and a “pyramid of Diet Delight peaches” (ll. 107 and 139). The people perform a function, they act in their roles as customers. That means they are not seen as individuals, but as a large, unattractive and stupid crowd. 10

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Life in the supermarket is all about shopping. People are there in order to consume. There is mass production, mass demand and mass sale. People buy “sixpacks of candy bars” and “four giant cans of pineapple juice”. There is too much of everything and people have become used to superfluousness. The supermarket is an artificial world, with artificial light and artificial air, offering artificially-produced goods. A good example are the “plastic toys done up in cellophane that fall apart when a kid looks at them” (ll. 154–156). The supermarket is presented like a world with its own geography. It forms a landscape with the aisles as roads between mountains of consumer goods. People are located according to their position with respect to the food (e.g. they walk “around the bread”, disappear behind the peaches and reappear around the light bulbs, etc.). On the whole, it can be said that the supermarket is its own complete world, it is presented as a microcosm. All the exercises before have prepared students for the final question about the name “A & P”. They now only need the last item of background information (see Student’s Book, p. 73) to understand the story fully. Now it is clear that the supermarket represents the United States. The title is particularly significant since it is ambiguous. At first sight, this is a story about an incident in a supermarket. After some detailed interpretation, students recognise that it actually is a story about the United States. The name of the supermarket (and the title of the story) is carefully chosen to allow the story to be read on two levels. Everything that has been said before about the characteristic features of the supermarket can now be said again for the United States as a whole. The author portrays the US as one large supermarket. He exposes its citizens as brainless consumers with puritanical attitudes. With this story he presents a so­ phis­ticated criticism of American society. 11

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In the World of English Literature Borders

Borders, by Thomas King Pre-reading activity A note to the teacher: Although it is not strictly necessary have any special knowledge about the Blackfoot Indians in order to understand the story, it might be a welcome opportunity. After all, one of the reasons for reading stories about minority cultures is to find out more about how they live and what their situation is. And also, it is an interesting activity for students to do since “Red Indians” still exert their fascination on the minds of teenagers. They will find a lot of information on the Internet. One item of information that is useful to have when analysing the story is the fact that the Blackfeet have the status of a nation. They can issue Blackfoot identity cards and have the right to declare their citizenship as “Blackfoot” (cf. Question 10 of the interpretation section). Moreover, American and Canadian citizens did not need a passport when crossing their border at the time when the story was written. As the majority of American and Canadian citizens did not own a passport anyway, border authorities accepted other means of identification, such as a driving licence or even a birth certificate. Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension The setting is quite clear: Borders is a contemporary story about Natives in North America. The main place of action is the border between the little Canadian town of Coutts and the little US town of Sweetgrass. Some scenes are set on the reserve of the Canadian Blackfoot, and there is one scene in Salt Lake City, the capital of the US state Utah. 1

It is important for the understanding of the story not to miss this point. Blackfoot land stretches across the US-Canadian border. The family lives on the Canadian side, but the father is from the American side. This also explains why Laetitia can so easily go to live and work in the US. 2

The boy is twelve (or thirteen) in the main story, and he was seven (or eight) in the passages of the flashback. We don’t know his name. We know that he is a boy from line 160. He wants to go to Salt Lake City, both to see his sister again after five years and also to see the great city which they have talked about so much. He is disappointed that his mother complicates things at the border, but he also knows her too well to be surprised at her behaviour. We can see that he likes the modern world. He really hopes to be taken to a restaurant on their journey (ll. 86–91 and 116). He also likes fast food and industrial sweets. He would like to get hamburgers (ll. 373–374 and 384–385) and lemon drops (l. 419). He doesn’t show any interest in his Native background. 3

Laetitia was seventeen when she left home, so she must be twenty-two in the main story. She left the reserve to make a new home for herself in the great American city of her dreams. And she succeeds surprisingly well. (It is specifically mentioned that there was no man involved when she left and she wasn’t pregnant.) She finds a good job and stays in an apartment with a pool, thus living an independent life of her own. Like her brother now, she used to show no interest in her Native origins. Life in the reserve was boring to her (ll. 293 and 348). She needed to get away and “see the world”, did so and managed well. But she has changed during the five years of her absence and there are strong signs at the end of the story that she sees things differently now (for more about that, go to question 7). 4

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Salt Lake City and the reserve are presented as opposites. The reserve is home, and to Laetitia it is boring. Salt Lake City, on the contrary, “has everything” and seems like “one of the best places in the entire world” (ll. 292 and 287–288). The reserve, as it is presented in the text, is associated with the family house, horses, fishing, prairies and storytelling. The city, on the other hand, is associated with shopping malls, restaurants, a ski resort and a temple. The two places represent natural life versus city life, the familiar versus the adventure, the traditional versus the modern world. 5

The conversation on lines 24–42 is rather strange on the surface. Mother and daughter seem to be talking about two different things. The dialogue appears quite disjointed, the sentences don’t really match each other. One needs to include one’s knowledge about the two people’s attitudes to see what the dialogue is really about. For Laetitia, the water tower is exciting because it is the first landmark outside the reserve. The mother loses no time to remark that there is a water tower on the reserve, too. This is a typical remark for her, she has to point out to her children that the reserve offers similar possibilities (skiing is another example). The mother objects to the coffee they are having, and Laetitia (probably correctly) assumes that the real issue is not the coffee but the fact that she is leaving home. But the mother doesn’t want to admit it. She continues on the theme of water, thus connecting coffee and the water tower. Later when she travels with the boy, she takes “a big jar of water” along with her from home (l. 85). Water is significant for her, it is associated with the natural life they lead on the reserve. Laetitia again refers to the fact that she is leaving home and can do so alone. And her mother only reacts to that by warning her that the water would not be as good as it is at home. Neither of the two can articulate their feelings. Mother continues to praise their life at home and “promote” the reserve. But Laetitia is determined to leave and will not be influenced. Mother neither allows nor forbids her to leave, so in the end she lets her daughter make her own decision. 6

The mother’s reaction to Salt Lake City is predictable. We know her well enough by now. She goes along with her daughter’s programme during their visit and after a week she decides to return home and stays firm in her decision. One of her comments is recorded, and it is a typical one: the shopping malls are not as large as the one at home, “and Mom said so”. Laetitia turns out to be very different from what we know about her. She knows all the attractions of the city now and there is no comment on how she likes them. Instead there are several hints about how she reacts to her family. She is truly happy to see them. An interesting piece of information is that “she had us tell her the story over and over again”. Storytelling is associated with life on the reserve. It is part of the Indian culture, and she now shows that she appreciates it. And she even says that she is “thinking about moving back”. This shows the reader how much she has developed and changed her opinions over the years. The boy is surprising in his reaction. At last he gets taken to a restaurant and he can see the places they used to dream about. But after a week he gets bored and is quite happy to return home. He has learned something from his trip, although he doesn’t quite realise it yet. 7

The lines where the flashbacks start and end: 17–78 / 213–243 / 273–299 / 344–360. The flashbacks tell the story of why and how Laetitia left home and crossed the border to go and live in the US five years ago. The text that we read really tells two stories, which are set on two different time levels. There are several reasons why the earlier story gets narrated within the later one. One reason is that it explains why the boy and his mother are crossing the border now in the main story. It explains why the boy really wants to go and why they have a strong motivation to make the journey. 8

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Another reason is that it highlights the parallels and also the differences of the two stories. Both stories are about crossing the border, but in very different circumstances. The two stories are set at the same location, so the narrator is naturally reminded of the previous time when he saw that border. And yet another reason is that the earlier story prepares the reader for the conflict situation in the main story. The readers become familiar enough with the mother’s character to be able to make sense of her behaviour towards the border guards. 9

The movements of the boy and his mother in their car could be presented as follows:





reserve

Canadian border night       night



transit area

US border

        Salt Lake City Mel is a minor character. He is part of the transit area, an anonymous stretch of land which doesn’t belong to any nation. He runs one of those anonymous duty-free shops with their faceless, standardised goods. He wears a name tag with both an American and a Canadian flag on it (ll. 321–322), which can be taken to suggest that he doesn’t take sides. Usually men like Mel are not noticed by travellers, they don’t have a face. And he in turn is not used to seeing the same travellers for longer than a few minutes. Therefore he is rather unfriendly to the stranded family at first (ll. 323–327). But later he approaches them again, they get talking and he sympathizes with their situation (ll. 361–372). The next day he comes again and shows that he supports them in their struggle (ll. 415–418). The mother then shows recognition on her part and brings him a little souvenir from their trip on the way back, which affects him strongly. Mel gets a face by caring for the family. It is not stated in the text, but it can be assumed that it was he who called the TV crew. His function is the one of a helper to the “heroine”, his part is unobtrusive but crucial to her “fate”. 10

It is surprising and funny to see that the media solve the conflict in the story. It feels typically American and also very much part of the modern world. At the same time, it reminds one of the “Deus ex Machina” in Greek plays, the god who is suddenly and unexpectedly lowered onto the stage by a mechanical apparatus and solves the problems of the human characters. Similarly, the TV crew appears out of the blue, with all their machinery and makes the conflict situation disappear. The media have a strong influence on the behaviour of characters. (Laetitia’s boy friend has seen brochures that convinced her of the wonders of Salt Lake City). And in the presence of the media, this border guard changes completely. He is “all smiles”, the by now familiar dialogue is repeated, and mother and son are allowed to cross the border as is their legal right. The border guard, who previously exercised his power over the Blackfeet, now surrenders himself to the power of the media. What before seemed only a struggle of willpower between a few people really has political dimensions. The border guard fears the exposure and wants to prevent any accusations of racism. 11

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The reporters show their sympathy when talking to the boy. But they ask a wrong question – the boy is not “an Indian without a country”. However, the boy does not comment on the question, he merely gives a matter-of-fact answer. It shows that he very much does have a country. They have a house, they ride horses and go fishing, in other words they have land and water, which they own and use. The idea of “country”, of “place”, is crucial to Native life. All their traditions are derived from and con­ nected to their land. And from their point of view, it is rather the white people who are without a country, or who have simply taken away the country that by right belongs to the Natives. The reporter means well, but doesn’t know much. His question shows his lack of understanding. 12

The task makes students aware of the creative use of language in fiction. All examples selected here are strongly visual. The actual words used are easy to understand, and they all conjure up images. Students usually enjoy metaphors, and, although non-native speakers can hardly ever use metaphorical language, they can certainly understand and appreciate it. 13

Suggested answers a) This is a simile. The balloon stands for the girl. The image is one of a lightweight, rootless girl, attached to her lover by a string, which makes her follow his every move without any will of her own. Laetitia is precisely not such a balloon of a girl. b) A metaphor, which implies that many young girls from reserves do go to big towns and chase rainbows down alleys, even if Laetitia does not. Rainbows are delicate and colourful apparitions. They promise beauty and happiness, but alas they are illusions. Any attempt to hunt them down and get hold of them is doomed from the start. c) There are two aspects that can be mentioned here. One is the grammar – it is not standard English to use an adjective. The boy should be using the adverb “regularly”, but in spoken American English this rule is disappearing. The other aspect is the metaphorical use of language again. One spreads jelly on bread to make it taste sweeter and more pleasant. If truth needs sweetening, then it is a flat or even bitter truth (which it is not for Laetitia). The point of view is the one of a child. The boy doesn’t fully understand what happens and what the larger implications are. All he wants is to get to wonderful Salt Lake City and to eat hamburgers on the trip. He knows his mother, so he knows it would be useless to even try and make her change her mind. The fact that the narrator has no name helps to generalise: the incident becomes one that could happen at other places and times. The child’s point of view is also similar to the reader’s in one respect. Most readers will not be familiar with the problems that the Natives have to cross borders. We experience it for the first time in this story, along with the boy who crosses the border for the first time. His naivety is also ours. 14

Interpretation Theme: Borders Lines 79–83: the remark that mother doesn’t want them to cross the border looking like Ameri­cans implies that the clothes they wear for the occasion must be native. The mother wears a brightly coloured dress, and the boy has to “dress up”, i.e. to put on the traditional clothing which the Indians do not wear anymore on a daily basis. So the two must be imagined as looking very Indian – obviously Indian to any border guard without having to ask, but maybe also provocatively Indian. Maybe they would have been allowed to cross more easily had they looked more like “normal” people. But mother is not going to make it easy for anybody. And she certainly doesn’t want to look American. It is important for her to take a distance and mark it as such. 1

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Lines 120–124: this second passage is often overlooked by students at a first reading. It shows readers that the incident at the border does not come as a surprise to the mother. She is fully prepared that there might be trouble. While it may be new for the narrator and for the readers, she has obviously known such problems before. This also explains why she is so reluctant to go and see her daughter across the border and why she only drove her as far as Coutts when Laetitia left home. Crossing a national border – a matter of course for any citizen – seems to be a sensitive issue for Natives. The stretch of land between Canada and the US is international space, where neither Canadian nor US rights apply. The usual laws are suspended, and the typical sign for it is the duty-free shop. The borderland is thought of as a transit area. People literally go through it, it is not meant for people to stay and Mel, the manager of the duty-free store, wants to send them on their way at first. Notice that the word “borderland” is also used figuratively for the area between two qualities, ideas or subjects – it is an in-between place. The land is a “no-man’s-land” in the full meaning of the word. Mother and son should not be there, but they are. And they are literally parked there (“she pulled into the parking lot of the duty-free store and stopped”, “By two we were back in the duty-free shop parking lot.”). It can be interpreted that the mother probably quite likes being suspended in no-man’s-land. At least there are no authorities there to make her life difficult. And one doesn’t need to pay any duty to any government there. On the other hand, it is also a contradiction. She is clearly not a “no-man” – she knows exactly who she is and what she wants. She doesn’t belong there. 2

The title is of course highly significant for the interpretation of the story. Generally, a border* is a dividing line between two things. In all its meanings, its function is always to separate, to cut up, to divide. In the most obvious sense the title refers to the national border between Canada and the US. This is a border that separates two countries. But in the case of the Blackfeet, it is much more complicated. It is an artificial boundary that goes right through their own land and divided the Blackfoot Nation in 1870. This is why the Blackfeet cannot accept that line – it cuts up what is for them an entity. The title means more, there are also other “borders” in the story. There are borders between people. Most noticeably between the mother and the border guards. There is provocation and resentment on both sides. No side is going to cross the border towards the other. But it is clear where the aggression comes from. One side is a woman in a flowery dress with a child, and the other side is people with guns. There are borders even between mother and daughter. They are both strong people, and they want two different things. They cannot talk openly to each other, and the daughter even needs to put a na­ tion­al border between them. Theirs is a difference of age and experience. There are borders also between mother and son. They have different motivations, and their conversation shows that they move in two separate worlds. Theirs is a difference of age and sex, and mainly of experience versus innocence (or naivety). Then there are also borders between two “worlds”. One is the Native Indian world with its history, its traditions, its stories and its land. The other is the modern world which they live in simultaneously and cannot escape. This is the world of the white colonists, with modern nations, fast food and the pro­ mises of big city life. Invisible borders, but problematic ones for every modern-day Native American. 3

* For background information on the notion of borders look up the term “liminality“. Boundaries and in-between-states play a significant role in the postcolonial discourse.

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Theme: Identity It is worth discussing with students what makes up their identity before or after doing this task. It can often be seen that people take their identity for granted and do not examine it, unless they have special reason to do so. Possible answers can be job, language, education, religion, place, culture, partner, wealth, health, circumstances of fate, looks, gender, etc. Suggested answers to the task: One example that belongs to the identity of the mother is the water (as discussed in Reading Comprehension question 5). It is not a question of which bottle of mineral water to buy in the supermarket, as it is for us. A Native’s relation to water is much deeper: it is truly precious to her as it is given to her by the earth. Another example is her native clothes. She proudly wears them to cross the border and distinguish herself from the “Americans”. Obviously very important to her sense of belonging is her family. She tries to pass on her culture to her children. Even though it is a difficult thing to do in today’s modern world, she never wavers. (By the way, the father does not appear in the story.) A further example that constitutes her identity is place. Reserves, like the one they live on, have a special meaning to Natives. They are like a refuge, ridiculously small remnants of what used to be their land, but the only place where they can still live their culture without intervention. We know that they have their own house there and can use the land to ride and fish. Before trying to cross the border they “watched the prairies move in the sunlight” (ll. 119–120). Yet another example that crucially belongs to her identity is storytelling. Natives typically have an oral tradition. Their culture only lives on through storytelling. This is why it is such a positive sign that Laetitia wants to hear their “story over and over again” during their visit to the city. And for the same reason it is so worrying that the boy is not interested in the ancient stories. The passage on lines 380–394 is worth discussing in detail. It is even stated that the mother is serious about this and wants the boy to remember. (But he is too young to understand why.) A further example that makes up her identity is language. See question 5. Note that the emphasis on her Native identity does not mean that the mother is stuck in an old world. She has assimilated some elements of the modern world. For example, she drives a car, and the family owns a TV set. On the whole it can be said that the mother is a static, centred and deeply rooted woman. She has a strong sense of self and of belonging. She lives her identity with pride and defends it with tenacity, but without totally rejecting the achievements of the modern, technological world. 4

Speaking their own language is vital to any minority group. The mother speaks Blackfoot and has obviously passed it on to her children, since Laetitia can understand her. But the daughter will not answer in Blackfoot, as the short dialogue on lines 59–62 shows. She is at that time trying to get rid of her Native identity, and speaking English is a major part of the process. The meaning of what they say mirrors the languages they use to say it in. The mother is drawn back to her place. And the daughter is drawn forward to a new, strange place, wanting to shake the old one off. Notice that the narrator does not mention whether his mother speaks to him in Blackfoot during their conversations together. Notice also that the dialogues at the border will naturally be in English. This already puts the mother at a disadvantage. She has to defend her position in a foreign language. She cannot even use her true voice. But minority groups are so used to that situation that it is not even mentioned. English is the language that rules the country, and they have to use it if they want to be understood. Notice further that this story is written in English. Native writers are in the same position as the mother here in that they have to use the language of their “opponents” if they want to be read. 5

The fact that the museum is mentioned twice might be a detail, but it is a significant one. Museums are guardians of history. People can go there to learn or to be reminded of what has happened. 6

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The museum in the story is an old building, with most of its roof gone, it is closed, with all entrances boarded up. On a symbolic level, this means that the entrance to history is boarded up. People of Coutts are not shown what has really happened. They are ignorant of the injustices committed against the Native population. When the narrator sees the museum again five years later, it is still “closed and boarded up”. No one seems to care about history. People are ignorant of it and they don’t even mind. Postcolonial literature (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, postcolonial literature) The story is one example of literature written by an ethnic author and about a group of people that were suppressed and nearly exterminated by the white colonists. It is written in English, the language of the former enemy, which gives it a wide potential readership. The fact that a Native writes in English is an ambivalent one. On the one hand he has to use the imperialist language, and on the other hand he can show that he can participate in the cultural discourse held in English. Fiction like this story gives a voice to Native people. It enables them to be heard across the “borders”. The message is a political one, which is typical for postcolonial fiction. It draws attention to the fact that native people still experience injustice and unequal treatment because of their ethnicity. Such treatment is illegal nowadays, which doesn’t mean that it does not exist anymore. 7

In the dialogue on lines 130–141, the two people are not talking about the same issue. The border guard goes through his routine questions and he expects to hear the standard answers. But the mother does not give him the answer that would be the only acceptable one to him. He wants her to say that she is Canadian. It is precisely the answer that the mother cannot honestly give. Her entire identity is Blackfoot, and in her system of thinking Canadians are the “others”. The source of this conflict situation is that the two think with different norms. The mother insists on her legal right to proclaim her identity as Blackfoot. It is a hard-won right and she will not renounce it simply to make her life easier for that moment. The border guard, however, is fixed in his own categories. He has the borderline imprinted in his mind, and the only category he can think in is “either-or”. There are more examples later in the story which can be quoted to support this idea: “Canadian side or American side?” asked the guard. “Blackfoot side,” she said.” (ll. 168–170) And: “I know,” said the woman, “and I’d be proud of being Blackfoot if I were Blackfoot. But you have to be American or Canadian.” (ll. 270–272) The reason why the two different categories of thinking become a problem in this situation is that, while the mother is legally right, the guards have all the power. The guards are in a position of power, and they enjoy using it. And history is on their side, as they know exactly. It has always been the imperialist way of thinking that has dominated the native one. Colonial categories dominate the world nowadays. 8

The happy ending of the main story is that the conflict is solved. And especially that it is the Native who triumphs for once (ironically, thanks to media of the new “world”). While the Native Americans are clearly the losers in the long run of history, this particular story shows them as victorious for one short moment. It exercises a sort of poetic justice. The subplot, which is the story of Laetitia, also comes to a happy ending. The implication is strong that she will return home. While it is still common for the young generation to move away and try their luck elsewhere, this story for once shows a homecoming. This is an enormously hopeful sign for the future, maybe even more important than the Native victory in the main story. What makes it even better is that Laetitia will not return in despair, after failing in the new world, but as a result of a mature decision. After having experienced the “other” life, she consciously chooses her real identity. 9

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The extracts from two articles about racism at border crossing stations (see Student’s Book, p. 80) show that the situation presented in the story is a real one, and moreover one that still happens today. Students are generally interested to learn this. It is a small incident, suitable for a short story, but one that is highly significant and typical of the situation as a whole. Not many people in our world are aware of its existence. The story really gives its readers an insight into a world that coexists with ours and that we are largely ignorant of. While officially nobody may be discriminated against on account of their race, racism still exists. People like the Native Americans still experience situations in which they are treated as second-class citizens and in which they are at the mercy of arbitrary decisions. The days of colonisation may be over, but injustice against the colonised people lives on. Through reading postcolonial literature, students learn that imperialism cannot be put in a museum and be conveniently boarded up. It is part of our world today. 10

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In the World of English Literature The Somebody

The Somebody, by Danny Santiago Pre-reading activities This is an activity that can generally be done with all stories. In this case it is interesting to do it because the title clearly suggests certain things and the story takes them up in a special way. 1

Like the story Borders, this story puts a minority group in the centre of attention. This can be taken as an opportunity to learn more about that group. It is also a welcome opportunity to make students understand that reading and discussing literature need not be an ivory-tower affair but, on the contrary, that it can be something very much connected to everyday problems. 2

The quotation from Romeo and Juliet makes students think about the connection between an object (“rose”) and the word used for it. It leads them on to consider the more complex connection between a person and his name (in this case “Montague”). This is an introduction to the questions raised in the story about Chato and his identification with his written name. 3

Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension The setting of the story: The Somebody is a contemporary story set in Los Angeles, USA. The scene of action is first Shamrock Street in the East Side of L.A., where the narrator lives, and later other streets in his neighbourhood. The time covered by the story is one day. 1

The protagonist goes under the nickname “Chato”, which means “flat-nosed”. His real name is not known. He is of Mexican origin and speaks both Spanish and English, and also a few words of German. He lives with his parents, brothers and sisters in Shamrock Street, L.A. He was a member of a gang until it dissolved. He has been in juvenile detention. He was at high school until he decided to quit. Completing this task also shows what the readers are not told, noticeably his real name, but also his exact age, the job his father does, the exact number of his brothers and sisters, etc. 2

This task is set for the simple reason to make sure that no student misses this piece of information. The information is given in the opening sentence of the story, “this is a big day in my life because today I quit school and went to work as a writer” (ll. 2–4). The day marks a turning point in Chato’s life. He is taking a decision that will influence the rest of his life if he sticks to it. Its full implications will be discussed later. 3

A note to the teacher: Listing Chato’s activities on that day helps students to distinguish between actions and reflections of the first-person narrator. Suggested answer: Chato is woken up at 6.30 by his father. After having an argument with him he stays in bed until after eleven, then he has breakfast and leaves the house. He drifts through streets writing his name onto walls with crayons and chalk that he has stolen from a shop. In order to hide from the rival gang he goes to the Boys’ Club, where he uses his pen to write on a TV screen and has a talk with the social worker. In the evening he comes across a girl called Crusader. Then he goes on writing his name until there is no chalk left. 4

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The dialogue on lines 31–44 shows the relationship Chato has with his father. The two don’t get on with each other and they can’t talk properly. It is a disjointed conversation, which, in a few lines, expresses their dysfunctional relationship. By saying early in the morning that he would quit school, the boy announces a decision that all parents must fear. His father reacts with a question. He reminds him that he used to want to become a lawyer, implying that he would need to finish school for that. The boy doesn’t answer the question, he is merely angry with himself that he said too much in the past. The father asks another question, again suggesting a job which would require studying. The boy does react this time, but it is not an answer. He speaks in German, which the father wouldn’t understand, and he says it so quietly that the father probably doesn’t hear it anyway. The father asks yet another question, one that is half-joking and provo­ cative. The boy snaps completely at this and threatens to leave forever. Is this father quite a reasonable and rather funny person or is he part of the boy’s hostile, unloving environment? Opinions may differ. There is nothing to suggest that he is totally unacceptable as a parent, except maybe that he is really unsympathetic towards the boy. The boy, however, is being very difficult. He is a typical teenager in a bad phase – he is provocative, distant, moody and aggressive. 5

In Chato’s relationship with the social worker at the Boys’ Club there is again no real conversation. The social worker tries to help, be supportive and give advice, but he also shows that he doesn’t believe everything. And he insults Chato by comparing him with dogs which leave their marks on lampposts. The boy goes into the defensive and closes himself off against every remark. He is only aware of his own negative feelings. He won’t take any advice. Like he “finished” with his father by announcing that he wouldn’t see him again, he now finishes with the Boys’ Club by deciding that he will never return there. 6

Chato’s gang is called Shamrock, like the street where they live. A shamrock is a surprisingly sweet and innocent choice of a name, it doesn’t really suit them. They have probably never seen a real shamrock in their whole urban lives. A shamrock even symbolizes good luck if there are four leaves. The gang does not really exist any more, since Chato is the only member left. But he refuses ­ to acknowledge this by speaking of it in the present tense. The others have left for significant reasons. Some families have moved because their homes were sold and demolished. One member is in jail – his name “Gorilla” implies that he has more muscle than brains. Another member left because he joined the navy, a frequent career choice for young men from poverty stricken areas. He is nicknamed “Blackie”, probably either an African American or a dark Mexican. Chato’s own nickname means “flat-nosed”, or “catface” as he explains himself. It also has a derogatory meaning (which he doesn’t mention) – it means “feeble” and “pathetic”. All members of the gang have nicknames. This suggests that they identify themselves through the gang, not with their own families. Chato even explains, “I write my name, not the one I got from my father. I want no part of him.” (ll. 5–6) The gang was involved in violent activities. They collected objects that could be used as weapons. They also had a real enemy, a rival gang called “Sierra”, probably also young Mexican Americans by the sound of their name. Contrary to the Shamrock gang, they are still active and threaten Chato’s life. 7

Chato’s feelings for his mother, brothers and sisters are only negative. The mother seems to be a hard-working, run-down woman who is constantly pregnant and has no time to take part in Chato’s life. He is revolted by her smell of babies and her varicose veins. He has developed a macho attitude towards her. He lets himself be served by her although he got up so late and she is clearly busy, whereas he has nothing at all to do. He is deliberately vague about his brothers and sisters. He makes it sound as if there were an endless stream of newborn siblings. He makes the babies cry by squeezing them. It is clear – even though he cannot say it himself – that he is jealous because they get all the attention. 8

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The description of the protagonist’s surroundings is an extended characterisation of his person. He lives in a desolate, run-down, hostile place. There is no beauty and no comfort where he comes from. There is nothing to keep him there. Life can only be better elsewhere, he feels. In this way the descrip­ tion of a character’s surroundings can do much to explain his actions. Moreover, Shamrock Street gave its name to their gang, and by analogy the description of the street is a description of what happened to Chato with his gang. The homes used to be so solid, but now all that is left of them is stacks of old boards. And the front walks only lead the walker to a hole in the ground. Gone are the “good old days”, as he calls them (l. 23). There are only ruins left of the old life. 9

Lines 94–104: Chato takes a great deal of pride in his neat handwriting. If it is true that people’s handwriting reflects their personalities, then it shows us that he is a neat, careful and meticulous person underneath his rough exterior. He describes his handwriting as smooth and mellow and curvy, which is the opposite of what he himself seems to be. Let us not forget, however, that the description is merely his own subjective account. There is also a doctor mentioned who saw something quite disturbing in the boy’s handwriting and interpreted it quite differently. And it must also be noted that his pride is connected to a very positive experience. He was actually praised at school for something he did well. It seems that he doesn’t get praised much by people around him. That teacher gave him confidence, at least in one small respect. Unfortunately though, one’s handwriting is taken for granted in later years, and it sounds a bit ridiculous for a high school boy to be proud of something he achieved in fifth grade. 10

a) Lines 149–152: Chato has the weird and confused idea that putting your name on an object is a way of showing that it belongs to you. This may be true for the childish examples he mentions (schoolbooks and gym shoes) but it certainly cannot be extended the way he does. In his deluded thinking, signing means owning. In this spirit he “acquires” several shops, including an undertaker’s. The reality is that all the shop owners will find graffiti on their shop fronts, which will have to be removed to clean up the places. Chato’s mind is worlds away from that notion. His perception of reality is an entirely different one. 11

b) It may not be immediately clear to students why on line 153 the expression “speaking of funerals” is used. This is the narrator’s highly idiosyncratic way of connecting two paragraphs and two events. He has indeed just spoken of his own imagined funeral. Now he sees his rival gang on the lookout for him. He feels persecuted by them and rather unceremoniously and unheroically hides from their view. If those eight or ten enemies had descended upon him with their weapons, his funeral might indeed have been close at hand. There is some irony involved in his dry observation, since he is at that moment at an undertaker’s place, hiding behind a hearse. In this scene (ll. 224–225) Chato has certain expectations when he sees a red heart around his name. There is a suspense building up in the narrative. First he sees that the writer is indeed a girl, then he notices that she even has a pretty shape. Then his imagination runs wild and he feels his blood racing. The climax comes in the quotation, “then she turns around”, followed by the anticlimax in the same sentence, “it’s only Crusader Rabbit”. That is the girl everybody used to laugh at, the girl with the unromantic name, given to her on account of her rabbit teeth. She offers herself to him and he rejects her. She is yet another person on that day who approaches him but gets rejected. He refuses everything and everybody that does not live up to the high expectations of his dreams. 12

On lines 233–237 Chato and the girl called Crusader Rabbit are making physical contact. In reality they are fighting over a lipstick, but simultaneously he enjoys feeling her body against his. She seems to like it, too, because she presses against him and giggles. She genuinely seems to fancy 13

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him, as the whole scene with her shows. For him, however, it is only a minute of sexual excitement until he “wakes up” and remembers that she is considered unworthy of him. Chato’s language is non-standard. a) Standard English would use the adverb “well”, not the adjective “good”. This variety is heard more and more frequently in spoken American English. 14

b) He doesn’t use standard verb forms. “Beat” is an irregular verb, the past participle would be “beaten”. c) Again he uses an adjective instead of an adverb (“easily”). d) He is careless about forming the question correctly. There should be a verb in the sentence: “What right have you got to my name?” Shortening “have got” to “got” is again a typical feature of spoken American English. On the whole it can be said that the written language of the text imitates the way such a narrator would speak. His style is colloquial, grammatically incorrect, uneducated and sloppy. This is an example of literature written in the vernacular. The narrator uses non-literary language, as the examples on lines 81–82 and 102 show. The word “man” can be added by Americans to nearly every sentence, and irrespective of whether the addressee is male or female. The effect of the two sentences is rather pleasant, the narrator addresses the reader (or narratee) directly. It makes the style really lively, the narrative has a sense of immediacy, involving the reader personally. Right from the start of the story the narrator talks as if the reader were face to face with him (“I want you to know this is a big day”). It is difficult for students to characterise style, but try to make them see that, while the language is uneducated and incorrect, it also conveys a sense of energy, of liveliness and immediacy. 15

A note to the teacher: This is not an exercise in guessing Chato’s future life, as it might seem. It is rather an alternative way of checking that students read the signs in the text correctly. Suggested answer: There are many signs in the text that he will be in trouble. If he really quits school, he has no hope of ever finishing high school and going to university. If he really doesn’t return to his family home, he will be one of the many young people stranded in the streets and drifting around. He has already been to Juvenile detention, and if he carries on stealing his crayons and chalk and fouling shop fronts, he will get into further conflict with the law. He will never be famous as he hopes to be one day. Everyday life will teach him a sense of reality. He will probably have to learn the hard way. Luckily for him there are also signs in the text that he has his pride, he wants to get some thing right and he has certain ambitions. The most probable future for him is that he will be one of the thousands of young Mexicans hoping to make a life in American cities, but never making it and surviving by doing odd jobs as unskilled labour. 16

Interpretation Symbol (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, symbol) Students can easily see that Chato’s vision about his future (ll. 294–306) is utterly unrealistic. But it is more difficult to explain why. Do not help too much at this stage. If they don’t get very far in their interpretation of Task 1, they still have Tasks 2 and 3 to lead them on. Suggested answers: He has an idea that means a lot to him and that comes to him like a flash and illuminates the darkness that is around him (it is dark indeed, both literally and also in a figurative sense). 1

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He can “make his name in the world” with crayons and chalk. He will be “famous” all over town because his name will be written everywhere. He sees himself as alone against everybody else. He is indeed alone, very much so, and he has only made enemies so far. But in his imagination he will be the winner, he will elude all his pursuers because he is “like a ghost”. What happens in his fantasy is that he basically confuses his name with his person (see also Task 2 below). When he says he will make his name in the world, all he means is that he will write his name. But the expression “to make one’s name” is normally used in a figurative sense, meaning “to become a famous person”. In his fantasy he will indeed be famous. But again it is only his graffiti that will be “famous”, in the sense that many people will see it. This is not fame in the usual sense, and anyway it is not connected to him as a person. His idea that he will be like a ghost is correct. It shows the whole problem of his vision – except to himself. All that will be there for people to see is the sign of his name. There is no body behind it, just a ghost, which is an absence of somebody. In the two passages (ll. 275–281 and ll. 282–291), Chato is making the same mistake twice. In the first passage there is a man who sees the name and smiles. The man is obviously rich because he drives a Cadillac. Again Chato confuses the sign of his name with himself as a person. Smiling at the sign in his mind turns into smiling at him. And that is enough to set his lively imagination off. He already sees himself as writing his name on letters and checks in the bright future that is awaiting him. The mistake happens because this is what he would most like to happen. It is pure wishful thinking. The man is a father figure of his dreams. He would offer Chato stability, security, wealth – in short all the things he will never get from his own father. In the second passage there is a girl who happens to see the name and actually stops and studies it. The girl is young and beautiful. And again Chato mistakenly believes that she is interested in his person. His mind starts racing off, and he immediately imagines them as a couple in Beverly Hills, where all the famous people like him belong. Again the mistake happens because it is his dearest wish for this to become true. He is convinced that such a dream figure of a girl would be exactly what he deserves. His imagination could not be further away from reality. The green-eyed girl is the total contrast to Crusader. In reality, all that Chato could possibly get is a laughing stock with rabbit teeth. But he doesn’t understand that. It is quite sad to see how he fancies himself close to the realisation of his dreams (he “almost” says hello, “but not quite”). 2

Writing his name is a symbolic act for Chato. This act is mentioned throughout the story. And Chato never sees it as a simple act of fouling walls. For him all that counts is the significance that he associates with it. The significance that this act has for him is out of all proportion to what it is in reality. The symbol has a wide range of reference. When Chato says “I went to work as a writer” (l. 4), we see that he fancies himself as someone big and important, whereas all he really does is write his name, which is something that any child can do. Another interesting feature of the symbolic meaning that writing his name has for him is on line 93: “Just to prove I’m alive, I wrote my name”. Putting his name on the fence is a way for him to assert himself, a way to proclaim his existence. Another aspect is that putting his name on things is for him a symbolic way of owning those things (as discussed in Reading comprehension, question 11). Later he says, “my name shone like pure gold” (l. 270). His graffiti symbolizes something rare and exquisite and valuable, for him and now for all the world to see. He then imagines how on a symbolic level he “makes his name” and becomes “famous” (see Inter­ pretation, question 1). 3

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There is yet another symbolic aspect in the way he signs his name. There are “lights shooting out like from the Holy Cross” (ll. 305–306). This is in the last sentence of the story, where his delusion has reached a maximum point. The Holy Cross is a symbol for the suffering and ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ. It is a sign of salvation. The lights around the cross symbolize the idea that Jesus is a light that can illuminate the darkness in which people live. Thus, writing his name is a symbolic act. Moreover, his name is a symbol for his person. This is where things get complicated. On the one hand it is a convention that a name stands for a person. A name is ­­ a sign used to signify something outside language. There is nothing wrong with that. And on the other hand there is something deeply wrong with how Chato develops this conventional notion. He confuses the sign with the signified. The sign is all that is there. The signified is totally replaced, left behind as a ghost. But the problem is that Chato would desperately like to matter as a person. This analogy might help to explain. A rose is a flower which also serves as a conventional symbol for love. But having a rose in reality is a very different thing from having love in reality. Other symbols in this story are the shamrock, the neat handwriting and the dilapidated street. The sign of the rival gang is worth discussing. It is the staff of Aesculapius (the sign also used by the medical profession), a symbol of both corporal healing and spiritual salvation. Note how similar it is to Chato’s own sign. Even the name “Crusader” might be read symbolically. Crusaders used to fight for salvation. Similarly, this Crusader here would like to join in Chato’s fight. Irony (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, irony) There are many aspects of the theme of adolescence that can be mentioned here: – Chato’s way of making decisions. He decided to quit school and never to return home, both on the spur of the moment. His decisions are sudden and unreflected, and he might regret them later, but he doesn’t think ahead. He lives for the moment and doesn’t plan his future (“Why not look for a job someplace? But I was more in the mood to write my name”, ll. 112–114). – His interest in girls, along with his awkward behaviour in all situations related to girls. – His loyalty to the gang, even though it has ceased to exist. His peer group counts much more for him than his family does at this stage in his life. – His provocative and aggressive behaviour. He feels alone and not understood by anybody. He turns against everybody around him. He doesn’t realise that he mostly makes his own life difficult and that he really hurts himself more than anyone else. – And last, he is a typical adolescent in that he has dreams for his life. He believes that big things are in store for him, and he is naïve enough to think that it will all be quite easy to achieve. 4

A note to the teacher: Attitudes are difficult to get hold of in a story. They are usually unstated and students take them for granted. Recognising implicit attitudes is easiest if students are asked to agree or disagree with the character/narrator. And it makes particular sense to do this task with a story like this one because the narrative is so subjective that readers get positively challenged to respond. Any reader response is of course subjective itself, and there will be differences of opinion. Moreover, students are adolescents like the protagonist, and there are always some students who will identify much more strongly with the protagonist than adult readers will. A list of possible things that readers can disagree with is: – Chato’s rejection of people who talk to him, who try to help or who are interested in him – his stealing (simply “helping himself” to what he needs and wants) – his quitting school without thinking of the consequences – his naïve belief that he can become instantly and easily famous – his pride, or even arrogance – his good opinion of himself (he believes he has a “reputation to think of”, ll. 254–255) – the fact that he feels superior to everybody around him. 5

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There is clear and strong structural irony throughout the story. We have a typical naïve narrator, who is deluded about himself and reality. The reader recognises this delusion on the part of the narrator and interprets things differently than the narrator himself does. For this reason the story is really quite funny to read, even though it is actually sad what happens. Chato acts quite stupidly, and one wishes there were a way to tell him. Instead we have to watch him go so totally wrong, while he is proud and convinced of himself. He has such a good opinion of himself, only nobody else seems to share it. He truly believes that fame is just around the corner, but he will probably never amount to anything much in his life. A note to the teacher: It is usually difficult for non-native speakers to recognise irony in a text. But with the help of questions 4 and 5, and in combination with the background information, it will be surprisingly easy. 6

Postcolonial literature (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, postcolonial literature) Chato is proud of his Mexican origins, and he declares that rather aggressively (ll. 8–11). The fact that he needs to add that he is not ashamed implies that he has known discrimination on the grounds of his origins. Many Americans still consider Mexican immigrants to be second-class citizens and treat them accordingly. Chato is bilingual and he feels emotionally about the two languages. He cannot be objective and see them simply as two different languages. He is too much involved personally to be able to be neutral. As with so many other things he is subjective and takes strong sides. The reason he gives cannot be correct – all languages offer good ways to say what one means – but it shows where his emotions and loyalties lie. 7

One needs some background knowledge in order to understand the story fully (see below). Of course it might be possible that a white American teenager decides to quit school and devote his life to graffiti. But the significance is a different one. Chato becomes a representative of his group. He is one of the countless young Mexicans who do not finish high school, and drift around the streets of Los Angeles getting into trouble. He doesn’t get the opportunities in life that some other children get, since his family background is dominated by poverty. His home is in a dilapidated part of town, there are many children in his family and they are so poor that they do not even have a phone (l. 132). Despite his young age he has already made contact with violence. The gangs use real weapons and do not play mere children’s games. Stealing and being taken to juvenile detention are also part of his life already. His position is such that being wanted by the police becomes almost a status symbol (ll. 118–119 and 303). His aggression and denial can be understood as a reaction to his circumstances. 8

Background information on the Mexican-American relationship When the Mexican-American war was lost by Mexico in 1848, all the land of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas became part of the United States. About 120,000 Mexican families were still living in those areas. In the 20th century, the US needed hundreds of thousands more workers from Mexico for their prospering economy. Today there are 23 million Mexicans living in the US. They are now the largest group of immigrants, most of them work as unskilled labour and many of them are illegal. There has been more and more literature by and about Mexican Americans in the last few decades, the so-called “Chicano literature”.

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Chato experiences problems of identity in several ways. As a Mexican American he has the problems of identity that immigrants typically have. They live between two countries, two languages and two cultures and have to find a way to create one identity out of a double life. Moreover, as an adolescent, Chato is at a stage in life where he has to discover, create and negotiate who he is and who he will become in life. Everything he says and does bears the marks of someone who has no fixed personality yet, but who is going through a process of growth and change. At the point where we meet him, he is at an acute crisis of identity. His biggest problem is that he has lost his gang. It was the only group which gave him a sense of belonging and stability, which now turns out to have been an illusion since it did not last. One of the most significant statements in the text is his opinion that “without your gang you’re nobody” (l. 89). He derived his identity from being part of a group. And the group even gave him the name that he identifies with. His situation is made worse by the fact that he has no male role models that he can identify with. He doesn’t accept his father as an authority, and he also rejects the social worker, who could have acted as a father figure and given him the sense of direction that he so desperately lacks.* 9

The title of the story suggests a “body”, a person of a solidity, size and importance. The story then surprises us by presenting an absolute nobody, a young desperate Mexican who throws away the little that he has – the opportunity to get an education and thus improve his position in life. He is one of thousands in a similar situation. There is absolutely no perspective and no future for him in the brutal reality of an American city. The title contrasts with his knowledge that “without your gang you’re nobody”. The title is also in contrast with his vision at the very end of the story that he will be “like a ghost”. A ghost is literally a “nobody” in that it has no body. The sad thing is that like any other child starting out in life, he is full of high hopes and dreams. He would so dearly like to be “somebody”, to own things, to become famous, to make his name. Unfortunately all he has in life is his dreams. He is only a “somebody” in his fantasies. He builds up his illusion to such an extent that he does not see the reality around him any more. 10

* The term “intertextuality“ could be introduced here. The figure of Chato is related to the one of Zorro, who many students will know about from the films. Zorro was a Latino rebel operating in Los Angeles and fighting for truth and justice against his enemies, the establishment. He used to leave his mark (a “Z“) on walls.

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In the World of English Literature The Veld

The Veld, by Ray Bradbury Pre-reading activities The activity prepares students for the presentation of the high-tech house that they are going to read about. A great deal has happened in architecture since this story was written. Installations that still seem highly futuristic have already been developed (examples are refrigerators that automatically keep count of food that needs to be re-ordered, or automatised light and heating systems, or front doors that operate on fingerprints, etc.). 1

René Magritte’s painting La condition humaine is concerned with reality and illusion in a similar way as the story is. And it is probably easier for students to approach these rather intellectual concepts through a visual example. Reality and illusion merge into each other. The artifact looks just as real as reality. This means, in turn, that reality is also a construct. Moreover, the reality as it is shown here is not “real” anyway, but part of the picture. 2

Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension The setting: the place of action is inside the family home throughout the story. It is not mentioned where in the world the house stands. It could be America, since there is talk about taking the rocket to New York, but not necessarily. It must be somewhere in the industrialised world – Africa is presented as a contrast. The time is in the future. There are machines and installations that do not exist yet. This is futuristic fiction. 1

There is no personalised narrator. The story is written from a third person point of view. The narrator for the most part acts as a reporter of the action. There are descriptions and some comments. We generally don’t get access to the characters’ minds and feelings. George is somewhat of an excep­ tion. He is occasionally used as the focus of perception (an example is on line 170 ff., where we can read what he is thinking). 2

The nursery is obviously part of the house. It is a huge room and it was the most expensive room in the entire house. While the nursery is part of the whole, it is also presented as a contrast to the rest of the house. 3



house: nursery:

sound-proofed cool atmosphere it is “good to them” inside technology

many sounds hot yellow sun it is dangerous outside nature

The name “Happylife Home” is highly ironic. It sounds like one of those products that are advertised in brochures and promise happiness in exchange for money. It is people’s dream to lead a happy life, so the product name is tempting and no price seems too high for such a product. Unfortunately, this particular home makes the owners anything but happy. In fact it kills them. There is also an ironic contrast in the harmless and seemingly innocent name and the real danger that the house becomes. 4

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a) There are two passages to explain what scenes the room projects and what “mental tape film” can possibly be: ll. 176–181 and 228–230. The room obviously projects the children’s thoughts. Note that it is important for the interpretation which follows that students realise this. Since it is so unrealistic, you may have to explain. 5

b) The two-dimensional walls of the nursery can turn into a three-dimensional scene (ll. 32–39). The technology is not only visual and in colour. It also reproduces high temperatures and wind, smells and sounds. As George explains to his wife, it is done with “crystal walls” and “dimensional superreactionary, super-sensitive colour film and mental tape film behind glass screens” (ll. 103–108), which suggests an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology. The result is a convincing imitation of reality. The illusion is perfect. There are two unusual similes in the description of the children’s first appearance in the story. They are said to have “cheeks like peppermint candy, eyes like bright blue agate marbles”. A more conventional description would be, “they had blue eyes and their cheeks were red”. The description here is crucially different. Their cheeks are not a red that suggests running around in fresh air. No, it is a red that is connected to the artificial colouring of a hard, cold substance. And their eyes are not a blue that is associated with innocence and openness. No, it is a blue that is linked to stones, again a hard and cold substance. In their first appearance in the story, the children are already presented as cold and hard. They are more like inanimate objects than live creatures. 6

In the scene on lines 301–303 George is “playing father”. He wants to solve the problem by being strict. Sending children to bed is a well-known punishment for disobedience. He feels that they deserve punishment because they have cheated on him. Wendy has gone and changed the scene in the room and Peter has lied to him by saying that there is no Africa in the nursery. His strictness works on the surface – the children disappear in their bedrooms without protesting. But what George does not realise at this point is that his authority only works for such trivialities and that he actually lost control of his children long ago. 7

When Peter talks to his father, he is polite on the surface. He sends personalised messages, “I wouldn’t want” and “I don’t think”. But he says it coldly, and he clearly means what he says. Also he sounds more like an adult than like a child. He is threatening his father, who of course will not be threatened. Peter tries the cool method here, he does not lose his temper. His father gets no idea from Peter’s behaviour how serious the situation is. He thinks he can make threats (to lock up the nursery and turn the whole house off), but he doesn’t expect children to be in a position to make and carry out any threats themselves. He totally underestimates them until it is too late. 8

a) When the parents are with their children, they behave like strangers to them. George talks “with false joviality” (ll. 265–266). He tries to be strict (see question 7) and he also sets limits (he didn’t allow them to take the rocket to New York, ll. 343–345). There is no open and honest conversation and no closeness. Above all, the parents never explain their decision to move out. They have lost all real contact with their children. But we know that they actually mean well towards their children. They bought the nursery for them, saying “nothing is too good for our children” (l. 29). They haven’t spared any expense, and in their opinion they have “given the children everything they ever wanted” (l. 336). Now they have to realise that the children are insufferable and spoiled. 9

b) The children act as strangers, not only towards their parents but also for the readers. They live their own lives, far away in their minds from their parents. They will lie and cheat and do anything to get 90

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what they want. To them having parents has become useless, they only set limits and stand in the way. Nothing about the children seems open and honest. Peter “never looked at his father any more, nor at his mother” (ll. 370–371). They always act, both when they are cool and collected as Peter is in that scene and also when they are hysterical and scream and cry as on lines 516 ff. Their crying and pleading helps, first their mother gives in and then their father. The children reward them by acting grateful and smiling through their tears. (ll. 554–558). They call them from the nursery, addressing them as Daddy and Mommy – whereas Peter before called George “Father”. This shows that they only act in a childlike way if it serves their purpose. The psychologist David McClean is the only one from outside, not part of the family and not living in that house. His name is telling. He is the one supposed to clean up the mess the family has got into. Lydia asks for a psychologist right in the opening dialogue (l. 5). It is not until line 350 that George agrees that they might need the services of a psychologist. The psychologist is the ultimate authority in the eyes of the parents. He takes a look at the nursery and offers his interpretation immediately, without even talking to the children. He gives his advice and the parents act on it. Through an ironic twist, his professional advice leads to the death of the parents. McClean sensed that the nursery means trouble, but he misjudged and underestimated the children like the parents did. His function is the one of a catalyst. Through his intervention the parents decide to move out, which in turn makes the children turn to their own last, desperate measure. 10

The last sentence is a brilliant one. The psychologist has just realised that two people have died and that he is facing two murderers. Wendy breaks the silence with her mock-innocent question, as if offering tea would restore everything to order. For the children everything is indeed in order now. They are “eating a little picnic lunch” as if they had no other concerns in the world (ll. 612–613). They are unemotional and distant, and they calmly and smilingly lie to the psychologist (ll. 616–617). The world of pretence and illusion that they have created has become normality for them. Another aspect is that in a “normal” world it is the housewife who offers tea to the visitors. And Wendy, by asking that question, assumes the role of her mother, thus replacing her to perfection only moments after killing her. 11

Interpretation Motifs (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, motif) 1

The motif of the vultures:

a) The vultures appear on lines 51–56 and on lines 626–628. Their appearance significantly occurs at the beginning of the story, when the reader is first introduced to the African Veld in the nursery, and again at the end of the story. The scenes are almost identical. Even the same vocabulary is used: “shadow”, “sky”, “flickered”, “sweating face” or “hot face”. The crucial difference is the people who experience the scene. The first time it is the parents. Lydia dislikes the vultures instinctively (without understanding all the implications). The second time it is the psychologist, and he understands what has happened through the presence of the vultures. b) Birds are conventionally used as symbols (e. g. dove, peacock, nightingale, etc.). Vultures stand for death. Where there are vultures there are dead creatures. They are particularly “filthy creatures” (l. 55) because they feed on the dead. The reader knows therefore right at the beginning that there is death in the nursery. George assumes that some animal has been killed, but Lydia reacts very sensitively, as if sensing how bad their situation really is (ll. 60–64). 91

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At the end, the readers know that the dead creatures are in fact the parents. The psychologist learns what has happened by putting two and two together (the absence of the parents and the presence of the vultures). The sentence “A shadow flickered over McClean’s hot face” is ambiguous. The shadow literally is a vulture flying overhead. On a figurative level one speaks of the ”shadow of a doubt”, which “flickers” on someone’s face. It is the moment of recognition for the psychologist. It could be said that, if the first appearance of the vultures announces the death of the parents, the second appearance may – by analogy – announce the imminent death of the psychologist. The motif of the scream recurs frequently throughout the story. First it is only Lydia who hears it in the nursery. The second time it is George who hears it when he enters the nursery, in combination with a roar from the lions. The screaming is thus connected to the lions. The third time offers several hints. Both parents hear the screams together. And what they hear are “Two screams. Two people screaming” and then the lions again (ll. 355–357). Lydia feels anxious, she realises that the screams “sound familiar” (ll. 608–609), but she doesn’t know how close she is to the truth. The parents don’t understand at this stage, but the attentive reader might make the connection that the two people screaming are in fact the two parents. Because a few lines later we read about “the two adults”. The next time there is even a third person present to hear the screams. Notice that, by doing this analysis, students will see how carefully the motif is handled. Its recurrent use builds up a structure and the variations around the motif show how the story develops. The fifth and last time everything is clear. It is made explicit who the screams come from – “Mr and Mrs Hadley screamed” (l. 607). And the connection is made to line 362 – they “realized why those other screams had sounded familiar”. Understanding dawns on them when it is too late. In retrospect we can understand now that the screaming has always come from the parents. Each time that the motif has been used in the story, the children have been imagining the death of their parents and the room has projected their mental pictures, including the sound of the screaming. The parents have in fact died many deaths in the children’s imagination. 2

The answer to this question is easy now after doing question 2. The wallet belonged to George (l. 312). There is blood, saliva, teeth marks and the smell of a lion on it. In other words, their father has just died in the children’s minds. (The unusual thing is why the bloody wallet is really there at a time when George is alive to pick it up.) The scarf belonged to Lydia (ll. 510–513). It is bloody because the children must have fantasised about their mother’s death in that scene. (Again the bloody scarf is real at a time when Lydia is still alive.) Something is obviously strange about the use of reality and imagination in the story. Questions 13 and 14 of this Interpretation section will make students pursue this line of thought. 3

Theme: Psychology The story is set in a society in which it seems totally normal to have psychological illnesses and to get the help of a psychologist to sort out problems with one’s children. Even the medical terminology has entered into the everyday vocabulary. Neurosis and paranoia are serious mental disturbances, yet they seem to be nothing extraordinary to these people.* The first sentence is said by Lydia. They originally bought the nursery to help their children get rid of their neuroses. The parents meant well, they spared no expense and invested heavily in new technology in order to restore their children to health. They never seem to ask themselves why the children became neurotic in the first place. 4

* Neurosis is a mental disorder in which a person suffers strong feelings of fear and worry. It is defined as a result of unresolved conflicts. Patients show a disturbed relation to their surroundings. Paranoia is a mental illness in which a person may for example wrongly believe that other people are trying to harm them or persecute them. Patients gradually develop a system of delusions which they live in and which they cannot distinguish from reality. Both illnesses can be treated. Neurosis can be treated with psychotherapy and paranoia with drugs.

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The second sentence is uttered by the psychologist. He saw the nursery a year before but there wasn’t anything peculiar about it. He noticed violence and a tendency towards paranoia already then, but this does not seem to be anything unusual for him. He saw no reason to act. Students will notice that it is quite shocking to read such a statement. Violence isn’t or shouldn’t be normal in children, nor should children need to feel persecuted by parents. And a tendency towards paranoia should certainly be treated at once. The example shows how different the values of those characters are compared to the readers’ values. Hopefully our society will never develop to such extremes (although similar cases do exist in reality). The African Veld shows nature at its most relentless, cruel and violent. The other scenes are much tamer and harmless. The children used to project the usual children’s stories. There was “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by L. Carroll, “Aladdin and his Magical Lamp” from the “One Thousand and One Nights”, “Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz” by R. P. Thompson and “Dr Doolittle”, the tale of the English country doctor who can speak to animals. Several relations can be found between the Veld and the conventional children’s stories. Both in Wonderland and in the Veld inexplicable things happen. Aladdin calls a good spirit, whereas in the Veld evil spirits are summoned. Doolittle speaks to animals like the children must speak to the lions, who obey them. The scene that is shown in most detail (ll. 292–299) comes from the story “Green Mansions” by W. H. Hudson. It is a novel about the lovely half wild bird-girl Rima in the jungle, written in a poetic, mystical language. Everything about it is lovely, it is an idyllic scene with the only human being at harmony with nature. The scene is the total contrast to the African Veld. It is tender instead of violent, there are butterflies instead of lions and vultures and a beautiful song instead of screams. 5

a) The children must have changed a lot in a short time. As little as one year ago they were interested in normal children’s stories. Now they find heat and blood, violence and death much more interesting. They are also cunning enough to know exactly what their parents would like to see in the nursery – Wendy goes and projects Rima in order to fool the adults. b) The parents have certain expectations about what children ought to like. George was happy to see the “normal” stories on the walls, in his words “the delightful contraptions of a make-believe world” (l. 206). Illusions are acceptable for him as long as they are naïve and lovely. But when the fantasies become violent and destructive he cannot accept them any more. He is one of those parents who have an idealised vision of childhood. In his view children are happy and innocent little creatures. He ignores all the signs that would teach him the truth – until it is too late. Peter wants his father dead and says so. The scene on lines 545–547 must be the only time that he speaks openly, but the parents don’t understand that he is serious. The children have become used to the house and the nursery. The house “clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them” (ll. 18–20). In other words the house does everything that traditionally parents used to do. The parents have become unnecessary to these children, because they have been replaced by the house. And the nursery is even better, it “created life to fill their every desire” (l. 178). This is exactly what the parents do not do. They occasionally deny their children things (ll. 462–467). So from being merely unnecessary, they have even become a threat to the children, as the psychologist explains (ll. 470–477). The children start to hate their parents and to see them as their enemy who threatens to take away what they love best in life. In their hate, the children develop aggressive and destructive thoughts. Their fantasies are projected on the walls of the nursery, which promptly “created life to fill their every desire” again. 6

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The parents’ and the psychologist’s failure:

a) The parents have failed in several ways. They have installed an expensive nursery. On the one hand, this shows that they only want the best for their children. On the other hand, the nursery also serves as a convenient way to keep the children occupied and entertained. It keeps the children away from the parents and they start to lead their separate lives, which will eventually turn them into little strangers. It is also suggested that George has no time for his children. He has actually heard and smelled the lions before “far away” from his study, but “being busy, he had paid it no attention” (ll. 218–219). The parents are not aware that it is the high technology in the house that has managed to turn the children into neurotics. It must be said that the parents not only fail their children. They also fail themselves with their blind belief in technology. b) The psychologist is called as an expert to help the family. The parents trust him and act on his advice. That is their downfall. The psychologist explains the situation. He feels correctly that things are very bad and he has the sense to tell George that he should change his life. So far he does his job well, he is a good talker. We get a bit suspicious when he says “My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment” (ll. 448–450). He quickly uses the family’s problem to make a personal profit, but that after all is his job. He made one clear mistake when he noticed the paranoia in the nursery a year before and considered it nothing unusual. If he had intervened then, he might have averted the crisis. And he makes his greatest mistake now in that he underestimates the children. He can read their minds on the walls, and he of all people should know to take a child’s mind seriously. But it is not his job to act – all he does is talk, ignoring the fact that the children meanwhile are getting ready to act. Theme: Technology There are many examples of high technology that can be mentioned here in connection with the house. They are mainly found on lines 9 ff., 128 ff., 388 ff., 533 ff. and elsewhere too. Some of the examples mentioned have actually come into existence since the story was written in 1952, while others still sound futuristic to us. And some sound more, others less desirable. There are automatic lights that come on when there is movement. There are automatic bath tubs that scrub you. The beds will rock you to sleep. The house cleans itself. Meals are cooked automatically and appear out of the table. Shoes are tied, teeth are brushed and hair is combed by machines. There is even a picture painter, which paints the children’s pictures. Instead of having to climb stairs, people get sucked up through a kind of pipe (ll. 304–306 and l. 565). On the whole it can be said that the house relieves people of all work and all physical effort. The little that we read about people’s lifestyle outside their house also shows that it is dominated by high technology machines. The children can televise their messages home, they return home by helicopter and one takes the rocket to go to New York. 8

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High technology does of course strongly affect both the children and the adults.

a) The children are totally used to having everything done for them by machines. They like it and want nothing else. A funny example is the picture painter – it shows that not only the work but also the creative activities have been taken away from them. As a result the children have become extremely passive. When Peter says, “I don’t want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?”, we can see the full and disastrous effect that technology has on the children. They have turned into passive recipients of all life. Little surprise, therefore, that they become neurotic. There is no activity and no creativity left for them to express their imagination – but the imagination is still there, as the walls in the nursery show.

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b) The parents have enjoyed the services of the machines so far. No work piling up and no physical effort to be wasted on boring domestic jobs. A carefree existence with fully automatized servants. It is not said what they do with all the free time that they must have. But now they suddenly realise that everything has gone too far. It is Lydia who understands that they have become unnecessary as people. The machines replace not only the servants but also herself as a wife and mother. She is useless to her family. She also understands that technology has made George’s existence unnecessary. He has changed for the worse by drinking and smoking more, getting nervous and needing pills to calm him down at night. They decide to leave all technology behind and return to the old life and the sensuality of manual work, which suddenly seems highly desirable and the solution to all their problems. The use of language on lines 504–545 is interesting: No room likes to “die”, but the two men do “kill” the nursery and tell Lydia that the whole house “dies”. When the machines are turned off they are “dead bodies” like in a “cemetery”. Peter speaks to the house, imploring it not to let his father “kill” it. The vocabulary makes it clear that the machines have become alive in a way. The more unnecessary the people have become, the more the machines have taken over. All activity is provided by them. The people, in comparison, seem dead. George in fact says so, “We were [dead], for a long while”. This is on a figurative level, and of course at the end he is literally dead, while all the technology that operates the nursery is fully restored to life. 10

The sentences “George, you’ll have to change your life. Like too many others, you’ve built it around creature comforts” (ll. 478–479) are the sound advice given by the psychologist. George is attracted by “creature comforts”. He is tempted by the promises of high technology. George feels genuine admiration for the nursery at the beginning of the story, all he feels is pride in being able to afford such a miracle (ll. 72–81). He wants the best for himself and for his children, realising only later that “they’re spoiled and we’re spoiled” (l. 342). The family can afford to live in luxury, surrounded by expensive and sophisticated technology. The irony is that it is that very technology which turns against them and destroys them. He realises too late that they have actually lead a wrong life, wrong both for the children and the parents. He has lost control of the situation. He has been blind to the effects of the machinery on his family. Bradbury uses a theme here that is well known to literature. Man gets destroyed by the machine that he has created in the first place. He strives for things which turn out to be stronger than him and crush him. He longs for new technology, without considering the effects it could have on the human psyche and on the relationships among people. It is also a theme that every student will recognize from their own lives. Who can genuinely say that they are not tempted by creature comforts? The quotation does in fact point outside the text. “Like too many others” is a phrase that directs the readers’ attention to their own lives. 11

Science fiction and fantasy (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, science fiction) There is no clear-cut difference between science fiction and fantasy. This story has elements of both. It is definitely science fiction in that it is concerned with the development of technology and its influence on mankind. It also involves the fantastic, since some of the events are highly unrealistic (see questions 13 and 14). It is futuristic literature in that it is set at some point in the future. However, that future often does not seem so far away to us readers. It is obvious that the story is about us, in the sense that all good literature must address the readers, it must concern them and touch them in some personal spot. And futuristic literature especially can only become relevant to us if we recognise some aspects of our lives in it. It can help us to see that we are developing into a direction that might ultimately be harmful to us. Such stories can present us with the 12

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consequences of our actions and therefore make us think twice and reconsider our own lives. This is a good question for class discussion since opinions among students will vary greatly. There are always students who consider themselves fully enlightened. They claim that their use of modern-day technology (like the Internet or the mobile phone) is entirely rational. It is important to note that the word “real” is used here either with the particles “too” or “so”, which increase its meaning in a strange way. In fact a thing can normally said to be real or unreal, but hardly “too real”. This shows how strongly the parents are affected and startled by what they experience in the nursery. The sun in the nursery is “too real” for George because it really makes him sweat. The lions are “so real, so feverishly and startlingly real” that he gets excited in a positive way. At this point he is still immensely proud of the nursery. The fact that the lions seem so real is a sign of quality of the machinery that creates the effect. For Lydia it already becomes “too real”. She makes herself a bit ridiculous when she is really frightened and he pats her like a child who cannot tell fantasy apart from reality. She even asks George if the lions might be able to get out of the nursery, but he is firm in his belief that fantasy is fantasy and ends behind the nursery door (ll. 155–160). But he begins to see her point and thinks that the “fantasy” is growing “a bit too real for ten-year-old children”. At that time he still thinks it is only a fantasy and that only the children are influenced by it. He then turns to the psychologist for confirmation. The psychologist assures him that the lions cannot possibly become real. But what started as fantasy is in fact growing into reality for all of them without the adults noticing. 13

The question about reality and imagination as they are presented in the story is not easy for students to answer. The Magritte painting from the Pre-reading activities may give them some ideas. And the previous questions have prepared them for it, too. The story skilfully plays with our notions of reality and imagination. The nursery is the place of “virtual reality”, where the two opposites cannot be told apart so clearly any more. And in fact, a nursery is exactly a place where this does happen – where children are allowed to live out their fantasies. The principle of the nursery is made plausible through all the technological explanations. The readers almost understand how it could work, even if we don’t know what things like “mental tape films” are. The nursery is presented to us as a complex but rational construct. It can create the perfect illusion, it produces a convincing imitation of reality. The effect that it is “so real” is positive and desired. Only when it is “too real” does it become undesirable. The contradiction is obvious: we want to imitate reality to perfection – but without the imitation turning into reality. “Virtual reality” is a contradiction in itself (even as a term). However, there are many signs that real things happen in the nursery. The screams sound familiar and they find a bloody wallet and scarf. But none of the adults (including the psychologist) can read these signs correctly. So convinced are they that fantasy is not and will never be reality. But fantasy is reality. The story shows us that this is true in several ways. A fantasy story like this one creates a kind of reality. All art imitates reality and thereby also produces new realities. The Magritte painting shows that reality can look exactly like its own imitation – with that reality itself being produced by the artist. Even “reality” is a construct that we make out of our observations and beliefs about the world. Not only do children create their realities, but also adults and parents, psychologists and artists alike. 14

A note to the teacher: This is an open task, which will take students beyond the story. It is also suitable for class discussion. 15

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The String Quartet, by Virginia Woolf The String Quartet is by far the most demanding story covered by this project. I usually present it as an experiment. This does justice both to the students and also to the story itself, which is, after all, a product of experimental fiction. Pre-reading activities If students do this activity, they will be placed in the same position as the author of the story they are going to read. They will experience how thoughts flow with the music and how difficult it is to capture them. The activity could easily be done after discussing the story and become part of the work done in the classroom. Students will come up with different ideas of how to transform their thoughts into language. For this reason it would be interesting for them to compare their texts. 1

Traditionally, self-portraits of painters depict their heads or figures as someone else would see them. They look in a mirror, which gives them a perspective like the one of another person looking at themselves. Ernst Mach breaks with this tradition and draws a self-portrait which really shows what he sees about himself, from his own point of view. He is looking down his body and there is the outstretched hand with the pencil. In the corner of his eye he sees part of his nose and eyebrow, as one does when closing the right eye (which painters sometimes do in order to focus clearly on their object). He paints only what the radius of his eye can take in, and the rest is simply not there on his picture. The result is unusual like the story by Virginia Woolf, and similar also in its approach with the emphasis on the subjective. 2

Suggested answers and comments on the tasks Reading comprehension It is important for the understanding of the story that all students are aware of what a string quartet is. They may need some special vocabulary (e.g. bow, violin, viola, violoncello, sonata, movement, concert hall). Suggested answer: There are four musicians. They all play string instruments – a first violin, a second violin, a viola and a violoncello. The word “quartet” refers both to the formation of four players and also to the piece of music that they play. A string quartet is like an extended sonata, consisting of three or four movements. It is considered the highest form of composition and the most demanding one to listen to. 1

There are not many clues about the setting and it isn’t so easy to recognise them, either. The setting is London (l. 5) after the war (l. 22). The story was written in 1921, so it must be World War 1. The place of action is a concert hall. This must be inferred from the text. 2

What actually happens in this story can be said in a few words. The narrator is in a room (l. 2), together with other people. There are bits of conversation, followed by the narrator’s thoughts. There are a hundred well-dressed people (l. 45). On lines 55–62, it becomes clear that they all are in a concert hall. There are “four black figures”, i.e. the musicians with their instruments. There is music and more conversation. At the end the narrator thinks about going home and says goodbye to somebody. 3

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The text covers one evening, from the beginning to the end of a concert.

The structure of the text imitates the chronology of an evening at a concert: ll. 1–15 arrival of the audience in the concert hall and greeting of an acquaintance ll. 16–56 bits of conversation, followed by the narrator’s thoughts ll. 56–62 entrance of the musicians (“one, two, three” leads over to the next part) ll. 63–81 the narrator’s thoughts during the music ll. 82–90 bits of conversation between two movements (“hush” leads over) ll. 91–112 the narrator’s thoughts during the music ll. 113–129 bits of conversation between two movements and narrator’s thoughts (“hush” leads over) ll. 130–173 the narrator’s thoughts during the music ll. 173–178 leaving the concert hall and saying goodbye to an acquaintance 5

The dividing of the text into its parts may vary as to the exact lines. This does not matter, as long as students recognise the main chronology. This is a crucial task and should be done by all students. After doing it they will have a much better understanding of the story. The narrator seems to be a woman rather than a man, although this is not explicit in the text*. She likes classical music and she goes to the concert alone, which shows quite some independence in a woman in 1921. Her large vocabulary and her thoughts tell the reader that she must be very well educated. 6

Lines 173–176 suggest that the narrator was eager for the music. She seems to sit upright and attentively on her chair, and when the music is over she falls back in her chair and wants to go home. She must live in London, within walking distance from the concert hall. She is friendly to an applewoman, some poor woman selling apples in the street. She has a servant who opens the front door for her, which means that she herself belongs to a higher class. 7

The little arrows (l. 23) are the bits of conversation that the narrator overhears around her and that she renders in the previous lines. The term “arrows” is used here as a metaphor. You may wish to refer students to the information about metaphor on page 109 of the Student’s Book (they will need that information anyway to answer question 1 of the Interpretation section). Or let them simply describe the figure of speech at this stage. The arrows are the “vehicle”, and the bits of conversation are the “tenor” of the metaphor. As a “tertium comparationis”, it can be said that arrows are little, sharp, pointed things, which hit people and hurt them. And, indeed, the bits of conversation are unwelcome to the narrator, since they interrupt the flow of her thoughts. The metaphor is even an extended one. It feels to her as if her mind were “shot” through by them. The bits of conversation follow each other in rapid succession, because as soon as one is “launched” there is a next one getting ready. 8

The conversation on lines 16–22 is not coherent. There are only individual bits which are reported. This suggests that people don’t really listen to each other. They offer their “little arrows” as pieces of small talk. What they say is rather obvious and boring. They state where and when they last met. Then there is the question about where the other person is living, showing that the speaker is polite and pretends to be interested. The next statement implies that there has been an invitation issued and accepted. The exclamation “But I knew you at once!” does not add much information, either. And “Still, the war made a break” is a highly superfluous statement. These lines portray polite society making conversation without having much to say. 9

* It will be assumed on these pages that it is indeed a woman, and the pronouns “she” and “her” will be used.

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The person who says “That’s an early Mozart, of course –“ (l. 82) has to show off his or her knowledge. Not that it is very intelligent, since the programme has probably announced that information. But it implies that the speaker wants to appear so cultured as to be able to tell an early from a later Mozart as a matter of course. The other person who says “No, no. I noticed nothing. That’s the worst of music – these silly dreams. The second violin was late, you say?” (ll. 113–115) feels obliged to apologise for not noticing one musician’s mistake. This could actually be the narrator speaking, since we know that she dreams along with the music. The interlocutor might be the person of the first quotation. Again it seems to be an educated person, but one who knows no better than to show off his or her sophistication. Everyone will have heard such cultural wise guys at concerts. The person who says “How lovely! How well they play! How – how – how!” (ll. 122–123) is shallow and simple. It is utterly redundant to say about music that it is “lovely” and about musicians that they play “well”. The “How – how – how” indicates that the empty exclamations continue, little arrows of overexcited blah-blah. 10

The answers to question 10 have already shown that the narrator doesn’t think highly of the other people’s intelligence. Lines 42–46 again dwell on people’s superficiality and banality, “it’s all a matter of flats and hats and seagulls”. Such a person is not lucky but “damned” in the long run, according to the narrator’s opinion. And the audience all seem to be the same: they are well-dressed and walled in. They are “furred”, i. e. wearing fur coats, and replete, i. e. full of food. The narrator seems to have a problem with this bourgeois display of well-being. She has to admit that she too sits in that concert hall, but it is clear that she doesn’t feel part of that society. She has come for the music, not for the social gathering. She refers to the ostentatious clothing also elsewhere in the story. She mentions “the hats, the fur boas, the gentlemen’s swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that come to the surface” (ll. 30–32). And the “feathers in the hat next me are bright and pleasing as a child’s rattle” (ll. 125–126). She obviously resents the bourgeois, leisured society displaying its feathers (literally). 11

This question is an opportunity for students to articulate what they think about the language, before they have to analyse it in the Interpretation section. Students find the language difficult, which is not surprising. There are many words that they don’t know and they are uncertain as to what it is all about. But, hopefully, some students will also be sensitive to the beauty of these passages. Without going into any detail about the rhythms and sounds of the language used here, you can confirm the students’ impressions. They are absolutely right to say that the language is complicated, that it is not immediately clear what it means and that the sentences are very full and dense. 12

Interpretation Theme: Music and language (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, metaphor) The “city to which we travel” is a metaphor for death. The “tenor” is death and the “vehicle” is the city. As a “tertium comparationis” there are several aspects that can be mentioned. Our life is like a journey to some place. That place can be imagined as a city, and we all inevitably travel towards it. It has of course neither stone nor marble because it is not a material, physical place. Nevertheless, it is enduring and unshakable. It is also different from worldly cities in that there are no human beings in it and no flags to announce its identity. Notice that this metaphor appears during the last moments of the concert. The music, like life, also travels somewhere. It moves forward until the end, and the end of the music is a sort of death. After this metaphor the music stops and there are only words of absence and emptiness left: “leave”, “perish”, “droop”, “bare”. 1

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A note to the teacher: Tell students to spend quite some time on this question. It is a good moment for them to analyse language. They can use the terminology that is introduced by the background information (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, poetic metre and figures of speech). In addition, encourage them to make more observations even if they may not be covered by any terminology. See how far they get with their analysis and be ready to help when they get stuck. The three passages to be examined are: a) ll. 63–81 b) ll. 91–112 c) ll. 130–173 (especially lines 160–173) 2

Suggested answers a) – alliteration: burgeon, burst – variations on the vocabulary of water: fountains, drops, waters, flow, eddy, pool, current – There are basically two images: one is the pear tree on top of the mountain, suggesting springtime and new life. The other is the water, suggesting a movement forward and a continuous flow, at times faster and at times slower. In the water there are fish – silver fish, spotted fish, which leap and splash. This elegant, sleek movement then changes into the image of the fishwives, with their more jolly, shaking and rollicking movements. b) – poetic metre: there is a long iambic phrase: “For me it sings, / unseals my sorrow, thaws / compassion, floods with love / the sunless world” – alliteration: strewn in sorrow / it sings, unseals my sorrow / soar, sob, sink to rest – anaphora: “woven together, like reeds in moonlight, / woven together, inextricably commingled” – repetition: Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. / sorrow / sorrow / sorrow and joy – The main image is still the one of water. Compared to the first passage, the mood in this one is more melancholy and sad. There are two people in a boat, floating downriver at night. Emotions are strong. The boat sinks and the two separate people unify, as do the two emotions “sorrow and joy”. There is also the plant image continued with the willow, the osier and the reeds. And where in the first passage there were water leaves, there are now rose leaves, and the figures are leaf thin. Notice that a few lines further down the narrator mentions seeing the green leaf of a plane tree through an opening of the curtains in the concert hall (ll. 126–127). This external impression must have inspired the plant images of her fantasies. Another interesting image is the one of weaving. The two people, and also the two emotions are “woven together”. And something “weaves in and out” to make a “pattern”. Notice that a text is some­ thing “woven”*. Here it is not only the text of the story that we are reading, which is woven together, but also the music that is being played and the thoughts of the narrator that flow along with it, and even the threads that have been woven “from one end of London to the other” (l. 5). c) – poetic metre: there is a pure dactylic metre in one sentence: “Leave then to perish your hope; / droop in the desert my joy; / naked advance. / Bare are the pillars; auspicious to none; / casting no shade; / resplendent, severe. / Back then I fall, / eager no more”. – alliteration: green garden / lemons, lovers / and: “Tramp and trumpeting. / Clang and clangour. / Firm establishment. Fast foundations. / March of myriads. / Confusion and chaos trod to earth.” – The images used in the first two passages come together: the garden, the pool, the lovers and the fish all reappear and “dissolve”. The general mood now is majestic, stately, solemn and final. Although the music is produced by string instruments, the sound conjures up horns and clarions in the narrator’s mind. * Latin: textus = a woven pattern

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The language used for those parts when the narrator is listening to music imitates the music. The meaning of the words becomes less important for once (probably a new experience for students!), and what matters more instead are the rhythms and the sounds of the words. Usually, it is music which is associated with rhythm and sound, but Woolf’s highly poetic language manages to represent music with similar means. Note that this short story feels more like a poem than a prose text in many ways. It is short and structured and very dense. Although it is printed as an ongoing text, it sometimes breaks itself up into verses. Woolf herself described the style appropriate for her, “It will be written in prose, but in prose which has many of the characteristics of poetry. It will have something of the exaltation of poetry, but much of the ordinariness of prose.” (quoted in Erzgräber, Willi. “Virginia Woolf: Eine Einführung”. Artemis, 1982, page 22.) 3

Stream of consciousness The greatest part of the story consists of internal events. The external events, where the narrator mainly just sits there in a room, are very sparse. They are narrated in a few, brief words. They are so negligible that one almost ignores them and has to puzzle them together. There is hardly any physical action to the story. By giving the greatest part of the story to the narration of internal events, Woolf shows what she considers to be really important. The reader follows the narrator’s thoughts, both when she observes her surroundings and when her mind is wandering while listening to the music. Woolf writes about how the narrator experiences the concert, and what actually happens at the concert itself is secondary. This is an extreme point of view. It can be difficult for the reader to follow, because there is so little descrip­tion and information. We “see” directly into the narrator’s mind and the exterior almost disappears. The little that there is, is filtered through the narrator’s perception. Woolf is interested in mental processes. She describes what happens when somebody is thinking. 4

a) Students have to apply the background information about the stream-of-consciousness technique to the specific example here (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, stream of consciousness). A lot of what they say can be paraphrasing, but on the basis of this story. Thoughts wander freely in time and space. This is why the story appears a bit disjointed at first. There are bits of conversation overheard by the narrator, followed by her comments and feelings about them. There are observations she makes while looking around the room. And there are the free associations that come to her while listening to the music. 5

b) The stream-of-consciousness technique is brilliant to narrate what happens when someone is listening to music. Everybody knows how the mind wanders when it is not focused on a specific task. Students will find other examples where the stream-of-consciousness technique can be used very naturally and convincingly. Alternatively, you could mention some examples: sauntering through a town (cf. Leopold Bloom in Joyce’s “Ulysses”), or doing the ironing (as in Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”). But listening to music is an excellent example, because music flows continuously and the imagination can flow along with it. Fantasies can vary in mood and atmosphere, just like the music that triggers it off. The analysis of the three passages in question 2 showed how the three different movements of the quartet give rise to different thoughts and images. Moreover, the water image appeared with striking frequency. This is also an analogy with the stream-ofconsciousness technique. The narrative flows like water, like a stream in fact, a continuous movement but with varying speed and directions.

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Descriptions of stream-of-consciousness may sound as if there were no structure to such narratives. Thoughts flow without order, there is no chronology in our mental processes, our minds can jump around freely in time and space. Students might get the impression that authors simply put down random associations on paper. This is of course not the case. The answers to the previous questions have already proved so, but it might have to be repeated here to avoid misunderstandings. On the one hand, there are some external events which provide a framework for the internal action. People arrive at a concert hall, listen to the concert, and leave the room at the end of the story. There is a time to talk and think, and a time to be quiet and think. On the other hand, the seemingly “free” associations to the flow of the music are actually highly structured, as the lengthy analysis in question 2 shows. The narrative is not coincidental, but imitates the music with a conscious pattern of rhythm and sound. It follows from these observations that stream-of-consciousness is not an exercise in self-expression, as one might think, but an artistic technique. 6

Modernism Every feature of this story is quintessentially modernist. Let students apply the background information (see Student’s Book, Literary Terms A–Z, modernism) to this particular example for practice. The story is experimental, like other modernist art. (In fact, it appeared in a collection of eight experimental texts, which was published as “Monday or Tuesday”.) It experiments with an extreme version of point of view. Good parallels can be drawn to modernist painters, who experimented in a similar way with perspective. The stream-of-consciousness technique was developed by modernists. The story does not try to represent reality, at least not an external reality in the conventional sense. It rejects traditions of writing and discards outdated conventions. Like all modernist art, it consciously breaks with the past. Again there are many modernist paintings which can be used to illustrate the rejection of realism. The story is preoccupied with language. Language is not only a medium to convey content, but the object of interest itself. This is of course not new in modernist times, but many modernist writers experiment with the possibilities of language. On the whole, Woolf was a leading figure in a time of change. She moved in the intellectual, artistic circles that formed the cultural life of London at the time. In her opinion, there are “infinite possibilities” open to writers (as she writes in her essay “Modern Fiction”). She was ready to test these possibilities and to try out new ways of writing, as The String Quartet proves. 7

An objective version of this story would have an anonymous narrator. The few items of information about external events that we get in the original story would remain. In addition there would have to be a lot more facts. An objective account of events would have to mention things like the venue of the concert, the name of the musicians and the programme that they performed. On the other hand, much of what there is narrated in the original story would be left out. All the impressions, feelings and personal comments would be excluded from an objective account. An exercise like this one makes students flexible to imagine other possibilities. It helps them to see how totally subjective this narrative is and what it sets out to present. Objective information would be boring. But the emphasis on the individual is interesting. Woolf examines the subject, like Freud and Nietzsche did before her. What makes a subject? What goes on in our minds? What makes us individuals? These were the questions that interested her, and they are still interesting to readers today. 8

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In the World of English Literature The String Quartet

Virginia Woolf was generally critical of triviality and banality, and in this story she is really explicit about it. The narrator resents the trivial conversation around her. It interrupts her tranquillity and hurts her like an arrow piercing her skull. She articulates her criticism: “The tongue is but a clapper. Simplicity itself.” (l. 124) The narrator herself, on the contrary, is very conscious of what to say and how to say it. It becomes clear with the analysis above that she uses her language very consciously and carefully. Moreover, she also states her concerns in the text: “saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a need to improve and revise” (ll. 27–28). And she struggles to find the right words: “It becomes every minute more difficult to say why … I sit here believing I can’t now say what …” (ll. 33–35). Notice the frequent repetition at the beginning of the word “if”, which leads into the question “what chance is there?” (l. 32). The narrator also resents triviality in people’s minds and attitudes. She goes to the concert for the music, but for the others “it’s all a matter of flats and hats and seagulls” (ll. 43–44). They seem to be there because it is a social event, and she wonders: “Why so anxious about the sit of cloaks?” (ll. 50–51) All these examples show that she is uninterested in the surface of things and openly contemptuous of banalities. As a contrast against the trivialities of society there is for her the beauty of art. In this story it is the beauty of music that is contrasted to the banal sounds that the audience utters. And it is also the beauty of the language used to tell the story. 9

An ordinary mind tends to think that on an ordinary day nothing at all happens. It is, however, merely a matter of perception. To an intelligent and sensitive person like Virginia Woolf, every single moment has a lot to offer. She is receptive to small things around her, she opens herself to receive impressions where other people might not notice anything. She doesn’t need big events, because the emphasis for her is not on the event anyway but on our perception of it. An ordinary event, like an evening at a concert, can thus easily yield a story for her. An even more extreme example to illustrate her attitude is the story The Mark on the Wall, in which the only external “event” is that the narrator notices a mark on a wall. 10

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It’s Storytime An ABC to English Literature

In the World of English Literature Conclusion

Conclusion to Project 3 This project has lead students to the end of their time at school. What they needed to learn most from their literature lessons at this stage was the ability to read and work with fiction independently. Independence in reading and thinking about literature is of great importance for them for two reasons. On the one hand, each student will have to be able to deal alone with the books they have chosen for their final exams at school. They need to have some tools to be able to do that, and they also need to know how to handle those tools. And on the other hand, the majority of the students will probably not have another literature lesson ever again in their lives. But they will read books of their choice – hopefully in English, too! – and they need to have developed some skills at school in order to fully appreciate the fiction they will get to know later in life. The work done with the six short stories in this project can serve as a model. They present a wide variety of what literature can be like in the 20th century. They all have themes that will be found again by students in other fiction. And the literary terminology that is introduced through these texts is also meant to be exemplary. The background information provided at the back of the Student’s Book can therefore be useful far beyond this project. The literature lessons contained in this book have always had a dual purpose. They allow students to develop the abilities necessary to read fiction, and they are presented so as to arouse in students an interest in fiction. The purpose has been achieved if students both have the skills to read on and feel a temptation to do so.

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ISBN 978 3 03713 181 7

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