THE MAGAZINE FOR ADVANCED LEVEL ENGLISH

ISSUE 79 FEBRUARY 2018 ENGLISH AND MEDIA CENTRE

Atonement, Sense and Sensibility, Regeneration British National Corpus Miller and Marxism Gender Identity and Language Hamlet Child Language Acquisition Contents

This magazine is not 04 19 Miller, Marx and The photocopiable. Why not Close Reading Competition 2018 American Dream subscribe to our web package Reading A View from which includes a downloadable the Bridge and Death of a Salesman through a and printable PDF of the 06 An Interview with emag – Marxist lens shows current issue? Linguist John McWhorter Speaks us not only how Tel 020 7359 8080 for details. John McWhorter, Professor of Linguistics at Miller questions Columbia University, responds to questions the American put to him by emagazine’s editors. Dream, suggests Dr Kurt A. Johnson, About us but also how he exposes the tragic emagazine is published by the English 08 Briony, Morality and commercialisation of and Media Centre, a non-profi t making Textuality – Atonement human relationships organisation. The Centre publishes a Fergus Parnaby in a capitalist system. wide range of classroom materials and asks questions runs courses for teachers. If you’re about the moral compass of Ian studying Media or Film Studies at A McEwan’s novels 24 A Room Level, look out for MediaMagazine also and shows how – and a Narrator published by EMC. issues of morality – with a View are explored not just Maya Little’s The English and Media Centre in life but also in the 18 Compton Terrace, London, N1 2UN account of the very act of writing narrative voice in Telephone: 020 7359 8080 fi ction. Fax: 020 7354 0133 E.M. Forster’s novel draws attention to Subscription enquiries: both its variety and subtlety, showing how [email protected] Leonie Speaking – the narrator is anything but a detached 12 information-giver. Website: www.englishandmedia.co.uk One Year On In 2016, teacher Gillian Thompson wrote Co-editors: Barbara Bleiman about conversations with her granddaughter & Lucy Webster Leonie. Now, just over one year on, Gill has 28 To Just Listen in on Design: Sam Sullivan, Newington Design followed this up to see what has changed British Chit Chat – Spoken British in Leonie’s speech, relating it to theories of National Corpus 2014 Print: S&G Group CLA. Robbie Love explains what the BNC2014 is Issn:1464-3324 and how the data was collected. He offers Established in 1998 by Simon Powell. one fascinating example – the split infi nitive 14 A Great Combination – – to show how the corpus can be compared Cover: Regeneration, 1997. Moviestore collection with that of the 1990s. Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo English Language & Literature Student Noah Matthews has loved studying the combined Language and Literature A Level. Here he explains why it has been 31 The such a stimulating and challenging course, Importance of and looks ahead to continuing his studies at How to subscribe university. Small Things Four issues a year, published September, – Style in The December, late February and late April. Namesake We now offer fi ve subscription packages 16 The Internal Divisions of George Norton for UK schools: Regeneration’s Billy Prior offers three ways of thinking about the language and style • Web & 1 x print copy of the magazine, Billy Prior, argues of Lahiri’s novel, each of which makes one four times a year (£110) Charlotte Woolley, realise that her ‘lack of stylisation’ in no is key to the • Web & 2 x print copies of the way implies a lack of style. magazine, four times a year (£130) moral questions • Web & 5 x print copies of the that Barker raises magazine, four times a year (£180) throughout the Regeneration trilogy. Keeping Mum – The • Print only – 1 copy of the magazine, 34 four times a year (£40) Silence of Gertrude in Hamlet Clare Gunns questions readings of Gertrude • Print only x 2 copies of the magazine, that minimise her importance, arguing four times a year (£60) rather that her character is ripe for rich interpretation.

2 emagazine February 2018 38 Where Do We Find the 54 A Question of Trust – Literary? Everywhere! Narrative Voice in The Murder of Gabi Reigh investigates whether a rigid Roger Ackroyd division between the literary and non- Agatha Christie establishes trust in her literary is either desirable or possible, narrator in ways that we might associate arguing that many so-called non-literary with a writer like Jane Austen. But is that texts draw on literary conventions. trust wise? Judy Simons suggests that far from leaving us in the safe, comfortable terrain of classic fi ction, Christie draws us Native Son – The Soul Frets into the more murky world of the modern 41 novel, where part of the pleasure for the Correction in the Shadow reader is in having that trust betrayed. Although it is over Our apologies to Mukahang Limbu whose 70 years old, Richard name was spelled incorrectly in emagazine Wright’s narrative 78. This has been corrected in the PDF voice still resonates, Referring with Respect – 59 edition available online. especially in the The Way We Talk about Gender context of today’s America of cultural Identity suspicion and racial Margaret Coupe explores the ways in which tension. Roshan second-wave feminism, ideas about political emagplus Doug explores these correctness and an increasing awareness ideas. of the experience of people of trans and non-binary gender have brought signifi cant • Rose Page explores silence and trauma language change. in The Handmaid’s Tale. 44 Ariel in The Tempest – • Fran Hill discusses the issues (and Servitude and Freedom 62 Women and Mobility in emotions) around initial ‘so’. John Hathaway uses • Andrew Green analyses a passage multiple readings, Sense and Sensibility from those of directors, Katherine Limmer explores modes of from The Great Gatsby. to postcolonial transport and journeys in Austen’s novel, revealing the vital signifi cance that access • Gillian Thompson’s transcript to perspectives, accompany the article ‘Leonie psychoanalytic to the means of travel has for the female readings and even a characters. Speaking – One Year On’. re-interpretation by Margaret Atwood, to question conventional thinking about Ariel’s emagClips relationship with Prospero. • New in emagClips: Leonie Speaking – One Year On 48 Facebook and a Fractured Society – How Online emag web archive Communication is Changing Friendship and Politics Look out for the links to What, if anything, is the link between 65 ‘His dodgy foot’ – Meter recommended articles in the archive, getting annoyed by your friends on listed at the bottom of each article. Facebook and the fake news epidemic which and Identity in Poems of the supposedly led to Brexit and the rise of Decade • You can access these articles by Donald Trump? This article tells you. Jack Palmer’s logging onto the subscriber site of the account of the use of meter in Turnbull’s emagazine website, if your school or ‘Ode’, Burnside’s college subscribes. 51 Sylvia Plath – Reimagining ‘History’ and Remember, the login details can be Motherhood Barber’s ‘Material’ used by any student or member of Brittany Wright explores a much-neglected explains how meter works in poetry before staff, both in the institution and aspect of the poetry of a poet whose troubled applying this understanding to develop a from home. life, early death and marriage to Ted Hughes rich reading of its effect in the three poems. have threatened to drown out everything See www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e- else. magazine for tips on getting the most from the new and improved website.

February 2018 emagazine 3 Close Reading Competition 2018

The emagazine Close Reading Competition is now a well-established fi xture in the year. We pride ourselves on selecting very different passages each The Impressionist – year for you to respond to (from Edith Hari Kunzru Wharton, John le Carré and Charles Dickens to Lisa McInerney) and this year This extract is taken from part way is no exception. We’ve chosen an extract into the fi rst chapter of the novel. Published in 2002, The Impressionist from Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist. is an historical novel set in India Winner of the Betty Trask Award 2002 at the turn of the nineteenth and and the Somerset Maugham Award 2003, twentieth centuries. it's a novel described by the New York Times as ‘sweeping [and] audaciously Fire and water. Earth and air. Meditate playful...’ and by the Literary Review as on these oppositions and reconcile them. Collapse them in on themselves, send them ‘marvellous, original and intelligent’. spiralling down a tunnel of blackness to We’re confi dent it’s a passage you’ll enjoy re-emerge whole, one with the all, mere aspects of the great unity of things whose reading and writing about. name is God. Thought can travel on in This year the competition will be judged this manner, from part to whole, smooth as the touch of the masseur’s oiled hands by the emag editors and Professor John in the hammam. Amrita wishes she could Mullan, University College London and carry on thinking for ever. That would be author of How Novels Work. true sweetness! But she is only a woman, and for ever will not be granted her. In Entering the competition the absence of infi nity, she will settle for spinning out what time she has, teasing it • Write a 500-word close reading of the passage from The Impressionist. into a fi ne thread. • Download the offi cial entry form from the emagazine page of Inside the palanquin it is hot and close, the English and Media Centre website: the smells of food and stale sweat and https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/ rosewater mingling with another smell, • Fill in your details and paste your entry into the sharp and bitter. Once again Amrita’s hand space provided. reaches out for the little sandalwood box of • Email your entry to [email protected], using emagazine Close Reading Competition 2018 as pills. She watches the hand as she would a the subject line. snake sliding across a fl agstone fl oor, with detachment and an edge of revulsion. Yes, Timeline it is her hand, but only for now, only for • Close of competition: 5pm Thursday 29th March 2018. a while. Amrita knows that she is not her (Please note: we will NOT accept entries received body. This crab-like object, fi ddling with box after 5pm Thursday 29th March, so don’t leave it to and key and pellets of sticky black resin, the last minute!). belongs to her only as does a shawl or a • Results announced online and by email: 8th May 2018. piece of jewellery. • Results and winning entry published in emagazine: September 2018. A bump. They have stopped. Outside there are voices. Amrita rejoices. At

4 emagazine February 2018 Soon the rain is falling steadily, swollen tongue. Soon the rain is pouring through in droplets splashing into the dust like little a constant stream. The soaked curtains start bombs. Camels fi dget and grumble as to fl ap limply against her side. The wind is they are hobbled. Servants run around rising, and still no one has come for her. No unpacking bags. Moti Lal keeps up a one has even told her what is happening. steady stream of conversation as Forrester With no mother or father she is mistress dismounts and unsaddles his horse. Moti now. If only she could gather the energy to Lal is not the master here, oh no, just assert herself. a trusted family retainer. It has fallen to him, the duty of escorting the young Amrita unlocks her box, shielding it from mistress to her uncle’s house in Agra. the water. She is to be delivered to her Most unusual, of course, but there are uncle, and that will be an end. He writes extenuating circumstances. that he has already found her a husband. At least, said the old women, she will arrive Extenuating circumstances? What is the with a good dowry. So much better off than bloody fool on about? Forrester asks where other girls. She should thank God. they have come from, and the man names a small town at least two hundred miles west nineteen years old, this is will be her of where they stand. last journey, and any delay is cause Within half an hour the dust has turned to for celebration. She swallows another ‘And have you walked all the way?’ mud. Despite his tent, Forrester is drenched. opium pellet, tasting the bitter resin on He clambers to the top of a hill and looks her tongue. ‘Yes, sir. The young mistress says walk only.’ out over the desert, scored by a fi ngerprint whorl of valleys and ridges. There is no * ‘Why on earth didn’t you go by rail? Agra is shelter. As the wind tugs at his topi and hundreds of miles from here.’ forked lightning divides the sky into fl eeting As it does every year, the wind has blown segments, he is struck by the thought that steadily out of the south-west, rolling its ‘Unfortunately train is out of the perhaps he has been a fool. His red-brown cargo of doughy air across the plain to question. Such are extenuating world has turned grey, solid curtains of slap hard against the mountains. For days, circumstances, you see.’ water obscuring the horizon. Here he is, out weeks, the air has funnelled upwards, in the middle of it, not a tree in sight. He cooling as it rises, spinning vast towers of Forrester does not see, but at the moment is the tallest thing in this barren landscape, and he feels exposed. Looking back down condensation over the peaks. Now these he is far more concerned with erecting his at his tent, set at the bottom of a deep hanging gardens of cloud have ripened tent before the rain worsens. It seems to gully, he wonders how long the storm will to the point where they can no longer be getting stronger by the second. Moti last. The Indians are still struggling to put maintain themselves. Lal puts up his umbrella and stands over the Englishman as he bashes in pegs, just up their own shelters, fumbling with rope and pegs. Amazingly the palanquin is still So, the rain. close enough to get in his way without actually offering any shelter. Forrester where they discarded it. If he had not been told otherwise, he would have sworn the It falls fi rst over the mountains, an curses under his breath, while all the time thing must be empty. unimaginable shock of water. Caught in the the thought circulates in his head: so she open, herdsmen and woodcutters pull their is a young woman. Before long, a trickle of muddy water shawls over their heads and run for shelter. is fl owing through the gully, separating Then in a chain reaction, cloud speaking Forrester’s army tent from the Indians’ to cloud, the rain rolls over the foothills, Rain drips through the ceiling and lands contraptions of tarpaulin and bamboo. dousing fi res, battering on roofs, bringing in her lap, darkening red silk with circles A fi re is out of the question, and so the smiles to the faces of the people who run of black. Amrita turns her face upwards bearers are huddled together forlornly, outside to greet it, the water for which they and sticks out her tongue. The rain sounds squatting on their haunches like a gaggle have been waiting so long. heavy. Outside it is dark, and perhaps, of bidi-smoking birds. Moti Lal climbs though she is not sure, she feels cold. To the ridge to engage Forrester in another Finally it comes to the desert. As it starts ward off the feeling she imagines heat, pointless conversation, then follows him to fall, Forrester listens to the grubby calling up memories of walking on the back down the hill and crouches at the door Brahmin’s chit-chat, and hears himself roof of her father’s haveli in summertime. of the tent. Finally Forrester is forced to tetchily agreeing that now would be a Vividly she senses the burning air on her give in and talk. good time and here a good place to camp. arms and face. She hears the thud of carpets Perhaps this Moti Lal is offended by his being beaten and the swish of brooms as ‘So who exactly is your mistress?’ brusqueness, but Forrester can’t worry the maids sweep sand from the fl oors. But Moti Lal’s face darkens. about that. His eyes are fi xed on the heat leads on to thoughts of her father, of palanquin, the grumpy maid fussing around walking round the pyre as the priest throws its embroidered curtain. Its occupant has on ghee to make it fl ame, and she recoils THE IMPRESSIONIST by Hari Kunzru (Penguin not even ventured a peek outside. He back to the dark and cold. Drops of water Books, 2003). Copyright (c) Hari Kunzru, 2002, with wonders if she is ill, or very old. land on her forehead, on one cheek, on her permission.

February 2018 emagazine 5 An interview with emag Public Domain

Linguist John McWhorter speaks

John McWhorter is Professor of Linguistics at Columbia University and has written several books on language and dialect and language change. He also reaches out to non-specialist audiences, his TED talk on texting having been viewed by over two million people! Here he responds to questions put to him by emagazine’s editors.

In Words on the Move, you Is a dialect different from a version of the real language’. But the only 1 describe how word meanings 2 language? Why does it seem to reason one variety is enshrined as standard change as a ‘step-by-step inching’. matter so much? Is that a linguistic is historical accident – i.e. the English of Is there a risk that language issue or a societal/attitudinal one? the London area became ‘standard English’ is changing more quickly than because things were run from London. that, and leaving some people The term is essentially meaningless. A confused and uncertain? linguist ‘wants’ it to mean that languages Black English, Ebonics, AAVE – are mutually unintelligible while dialects 3 does the naming matter? If it’s a Never. It’s easy to suppose that such a thing are mutually intelligible varieties of a single language, not a dialect, why is that? might happen, but no such case has ever language. But actual speech doesn’t work Do you think it’s important to treat it been recorded – i.e. of a group of humans that way – Mandarin and Cantonese are as a language? encountered whose language has for some called ‘dialects’ when they are as different as reason escaped their comprehension and Spanish and Italian, because of the unity of I actually do not think of AAVE as a fallen to pieces. Language change, whatever Chinese culture and writing. Norwegian and ‘language’. It is a variety of American its rate, is communal, not individual – we Swedish are called ‘languages’ because they English, and therefore what anyone would talk to each other, and thus it’s only things are spoken in separate nations despite the call a dialect of it. The point is that non- that afford communication that make fact that their speakers can converse. Then standard dialects are as coherent and it into the fl ow. laymen ‘want’ dialect to mean ‘a degraded nuanced as standard ones. It’s good to name

6 emagazine February 2018 a dialect, to counter the idea that it’s a Is standard English more about that the subfi eld of sociolinguistics tilts degraded version of the standard. But that 5 imposing an arbitrary set of signifi cantly towards exploring the speech doesn’t mean that it is a separate ‘language’. rules on language users than it is of the disempowered – there is only so In my opinion, to claim that only fosters about mutual intelligibility? much explicit interest in how affl uent, public scepticism, as we all have a horse straight white men talk! My own work as sense of how different ‘languages’ are Yes. It is certainly handy for allowing a linguist is sociopolitical where I write on from one another. communication among people who might Black English for the general public; that, have trouble understanding one another however, is not what I usually work on in You’re quoted as being an otherwise, although that problem would be the academic sense. Most of my academic 4 opponent of the Sapir-Whorf much more acute in your part of the world linguistic work is just geeky exploration of hypothesis. Is this so? If so, why? than here in America. However, the reason issues relating to how language changes the standard emerged was a sense that and how languages come together in Because the hypothesis as popularly because it was on the page, and was the the structural sense, with the social part presented implies that to speak a language variety outlined and described by scholarly marginal. I adapt as I need to. is to have one’s thoughts channelled into people, that it was somehow the ‘real’ distinct patterns, which the evidence English. After a few generations it was all Which linguists have infl uenced simply doesn’t support. Experiments but impossible to imagine a time when no 7 you most and why? show that a language’s grammar makes one thought of any one kind of English as a person infi nitesimally more sensitive, the ‘real kind’ in that way. The fi rst one was Mario Pei, who wrote under artifi cial conditions, to certain popular books on language in the late 20th fi ne distinctions such as shades of blue Is there a political element century. I read many of them and wanted or types of material. However, to allow 6 to your work as a linguist? to be him; I still explicitly think of his this to foster the idea that every language Is linguistics a scientifi c, neutral work when I write my own. Then Derek marks a different thought pattern leads discipline, or is there room for Bickerton’s work on creoles lit my mind to uncomfortable conclusions you’d have bringing to bear one’s own political up. He and I had many disagreements back to take along with the ‘cooler’ ones. For and social beliefs? in the day and many of his basic ideas on example, Chinese is much more telegraphic creoles have been revised heavily since the than European languages – a lot is left Linguistics is, in many of its facets, highly 80s, but his work revealed creole languages to context. Does that mean that to speak sociopolitical. One mission of linguistics, as interesting in a way that I am now Mandarin is to be less attuned to life – i.e. which I applaud, is helping the public to battling other creolists in defending. less intelligent? Of course not – but to understand that it doesn’t make scientifi c John McWhorter is Professor of Linguistics at understand that requires being very careful sense to suppose that most people Colombia University. about the usual arguments made about speak their native language ‘badly.’ As what languages make you more sensitive to. an outgrowth of that, I would venture Public Domain

emag web archive

• Dan Clayton: At War with the Pedants: an Interview with Henry Hitchings, emagazine 53, September 2011 • Alison Ross: Unsilent Witness – The Work of a Forensic Linguist, emagazine 15, February 2002 • Susie Dent: Tribes of English, emagazine 76, April 2017

emagClips

• Kevin Watson on Language – Sociophonetics

February 2018 emagazine 7 Saoirse Ronan as Briony Tallis - Age 13 in Atonement. Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo February 2018 February emagazine

8

Briony, Morality and Textuality ATONEMENT Fergus Parnaby asks questions about the moral compass of Ian McEwan’s novel and shows how issues of morality are explored not just in the lives portrayed but also in the act of writing fi ction.

Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel Atonement is a The Tallis house is itself a boiling pot of complex and problematic text that explores confl icting emotions: Robbie and Cecilia’s morality from several angles. At the heart awkward and suddenly disclosed love for of the story is the wrong committed by its one another, signposted by references to protagonist, Briony, whose false accusation novelists Richardson and Fielding, and against Robbie Turner, her sister’s lover, feckless brother Leon’s sinister friend results in his imprisonment and her sister’s Paul Marshall, whose assault of cousin estrangement from their family. The text Lola precipitates Briony’s accusation goes further than a morality tale, however, against Robbie and seals his fate later in in interrogating its own reality, and raising the novel. As for the parents, Jack Tallis the question as to what fi ction is, and to is ensconced in London, busy with work what extent it can reveal the ‘truth’. and possibly having an affair, leaving his wife Emily nominally in charge; she is Setting Up a Moral Boiling Pot incapable of looking after the household effectively, spending most of her time in The novel opens with a day in the Tallis bed. Meanwhile, Briony, like any child left house, somewhere in the Home Counties, to her own devices, shows a preternaturally before World War Two. Briony is a girl strong awareness of the inherent romance of 13 with a powerful imagination and of the surrounding world, and an innocence a propensity for wild fantasies; she is threatened only when she opens Robbie’s possessed by a ‘controlling demon’, as graphic love-letter to Briony’s elder we are warned on page 5, which subjects sister, Cecilia. everything and everyone around her to her wish to be in charge, to create a stage and Briony, of course, sees herself as the control the characters for her own personal heroine, as well as the author, of her drama, drama; she has even written a play at the her story. This is what her ‘controlling beginning, more or less compelling her demon’ really means: that she is driven young cousins to take part while she directs, to transfer what she sees into a romance, the fi rst clue to the blurring between reality or thriller, based on the books she has and fi ction that occurs in the novel (the consumed. (McEwan gives tell-tale clues, play’s title, ‘The Trials of Arabella’, is a name-checking several novels and literary reference to The Female Quixote, a take on works throughout Part One whose themes the famous Cervantes story). echo the story, as above.)

February 2018 emagazine 9 Romola Garai as Briony Tallis in Atonement (2007). AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Detective or Victim? destiny but also that of the ‘characters’ whatever skivvying or humble nursing she did in her story – then, results in the jailing [...] she would never undo the damage. She was In Briony’s mind, McEwan shows us, she of Robbie and the rupturing of his and unforgivable. is not merely a nosy child but a detective, Cecilia’s relationship. Part Two shows By slaving away on the ward looking after piecing together clues from Robbie’s us how, after Robbie is let out of jail on sick soldiers that put her in mind of Robbie, behaviour, his letter to her elder sister, the condition that he join the army, he is she tries to remove the stain of guilt from moment she sees him seemingly attacking involved in the headlong retreat from herself. By visiting Robbie and Cecilia she Cecilia in the library, the bruise on Lola’s Dunkirk. Here McEwan ratchets up his becomes a penitent, begging forgiveness, arm. The novel presents these events from playing with ideas of truth, highlighting offering to do whatever is necessary to set different perspectives, showing the ease again the author as puppetmaster. the record straight. She apologises to the with which they could be misconstrued. Presented to the reader as ‘truth’ within couple again as she leaves them at Balham Indeed, so sure is Briony of Robbie’s guilt the world of the novel, this story too Tube Station, noting her response as ‘foolish that when she confronts Lola she seems to is later revealed to be a reconstruction and inadequate’. It might be a true moment force the words out of her: by Briony. She appropriates Robbie’s of atonement, although on the next page ‘It was Robbie, wasn’t it?’ ‘story’ and creates her own version of we see that this is just a manuscript, signed events, even recreating a wartime rendez- Although Briony is a child, she is growing by her own hand, dated 1999, the fi nal vous between Robbie and Cecilia. All into adulthood; yet at no point does she draft for her novel. Though this removes the of this section carries the trademarks of think to check her facts – the ‘demon’ sense of ‘objective’ fact from the narrative, melodrama and romance – the wartime has her in its thrall throughout. Briony’s perhaps it is evidence of something deeper, hero, fi ghting his way back to his love at testimony ultimately seals Robbie’s fate, the ever-present will to put things right. home – and is evidence of McEwan’s meta- and although we are told she has the For the reader, it provokes a troubling textual fi xation. chance to withdraw or change her version question about fi ction: by presenting Briony as attempting to atone for her crime (and of events on several occasions, she feels Guilt and Atonement – Life helpless, a slave to their momentum. Her its consequences) through her imaginative youth and her vividness of imagination and Fiction reconstructions, what is McEwan saying about literature? make her as much a victim of the chain of Why do this? One answer is that McEwan events as Robbie. Nonetheless, she becomes is showing Briony as having learnt her Writing as an Act of increasingly aware that she has done wrong, lesson and being remorseful for the and it is this that, more than anything, suffering she has caused Robbie and Redemption signals the transition into adult awareness Cecilia. In this section, Briony presents Can Briony fi nd forgiveness for her that poses the novel’s key dilemma. us with a different aspect of wartime, wrongdoing? In order for someone to documenting her experiences as a qualify for forgiveness, society requires An Author’s Invention of Truth volunteer nurse who has taken up the that they fi rst face up to their misdeeds; call as an attempt to ‘atone’ for her crime; Briony’s compulsion for invention – her they cannot do so if they are still lying to although she admits to herself that desire to be the author not just of her own themselves (and to others, if the novel is

10 emagazine February 2018 taken as that). Does Briony really face up The Reader as Judge of Briony emag web archive to the wrong she has done through writing (and Fiction’s) Truth her text, or is she still trapped by her own fi ctions, unable to escape them and Ultimately, the reader is invited to judge, the • Neil King: Atonement – Questioning reach redemption? The answer rests upon postscript leaving the door open. Perhaps the Imagination, emagazine whether her story itself can be considered the character Briony meant it to be this 31, February 2006 an act of atonement. She gives some clues way, opening herself up for judgement • Robert Kidd: Atonement, emagazine as to how she sees things: to a third party, allowing her readers to 38, December 2007 decide on whether to forgive or condemn There was our crime: Lola’s, Marshall’s, mine […] • Georgina Routen: A Close her. There is a certain honesty in her Reading of Atonement – Extended There was the crime, but there were also the revealing her uncertainty at the end, as Interior Monologue, emagazine lovers [...] narrator (and even in portraying herself as 49, September 2010 It is interesting that she implicates stubborn and fallible in her convictions as • Dr Natasha Alden: Atonement herself in the ‘crime’, and that through a character in the novel). McEwan himself and Postmemory, emagazine playing the detective, she has become the suggests one answer: 66, December 2014 criminal. Nonetheless: She cannot undo what she has done. But she can, • Professor John Mullan: Slips and Shifts – Time and Viewpoint in As long as there is a single copy [...] of my fi nal however, live the ‘examined life’. Over her lifetime draft, then my spontaneous, fortuitous sister and she has written many versions of the story that Atonement, emagazine 70, her medical prince survive to love. won’t let her go [...] The reader has possession only December 2015 of the fi nal version, the one that deliberately invents • Kevin Finniear: Atonement – For Briony, the act of writing the novel and distorts in order to re-unite the lovers that she Revelations Withheld, emagazine is still capable of redeeming her and the once, as a foolish little girl, irrevocably forced apart. 73, September 2016 whole situation, and McEwan shows us It is in living the ‘examined life’ that Briony • Professor John Mullan: Coming to the that the narrator of a story can use it to simultaneously crosses the line from immoral End, emagazine 54, December 2011 wrest back control of the narrative itself: to moral, guilty to innocent, and from it becomes a vehicle for the exploration of character to author. Atonement thus uses its her conscience. self-refl exive nature to show that fi ction can emagClips not only re-create, but re-write history, and But even she feels uncertain of this: perhaps even redeem what has gone before. The problem these fi fty nine years has been this: • Professor John Mullan on Key how can a novelist achieve atonement when, Fergus Parnaby is a teacher of English Aspects of Narrative with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, at Stowe School. she is also God? Vanessa Redgrave as Briony Tallis in Atonement (2007). AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo

February 2018 emagazine 11 Leonie Speaking

In 2016, teacher Gillian Leonie. Photo: Paul Thompson, with thanks Thompson wrote about conversations with her granddaughter Leonie. We published her article, with a transcript and video recording on the emagazine website. Now, just over one year on, Gill has followed this up to see what has changed in Leonie’s speech, relating it to theories of CLA. As This recording threw up a problem that the child to describe the pair. Children, who wasn’t there a year ago: at nearly 3¾, had never heard adults say ‘wug’ (as they before, you can read Leonie is much more aware of technology. don’t exist!), were able to apply the plural the article here, and see When she was fi rst fi lmed, she showed little rule ‘wugs’, thus suggesting that they have or no concern that there was a cameraman an implicit knowledge of the way words are the transcript and video in the room. As he didn’t interact with her, formed. Although Leonie failed to do this on the website. she ignored him. This time, however, she a year ago, labelling my attempt to draw a looks at him curiously from time to time ‘wug’ variously as a ‘duck,’ a ‘birdee’ and Leonie is now three years and eight months and speaks in a shy voice, not the confi dent ‘Pingu’ (see emag 74), this year she happily old. A lot has happened in the last year. She tone she normally uses. William Labov, forms the plural (see line 149 of transcript). currently attends pre-school four mornings the American socio-linguist, referred to She also does this with some of Berko’s a week and so her social circle has widened. this as observer’s paradox. He pointed other drawings of fi ctitious creatures – the Her speech will be infl uenced by her peers out that we need to gather authentic ‘kazh’ (line 153) and the ‘lun’ (line 182). and teachers as well as by her family. She data in order for our research to be fully These examples show that over the last year has also acquired a little sister, Corinne, representative, but can only do so through Leonie has gained a knowledge of how the born at the beginning of May 2017. observation. Being observed makes us plural is formed and can apply it to different self-conscious and less inclined to speak nouns, even made-up ones. Language researchers refer to investigations naturally, hence the paradox. An added over time as longitudinal studies. Their complication was that I was setting the She can also do this with verbs. When advantage is that you can monitor language agenda for the conversation as I wanted shown a man who is said to be ‘ricking’ change in real time – as in my analysis of to focus on particular experiments which (line 154), and asked what he did the changes in Leonie’s speech over the last demonstrated how Leonie’s speech had ‘yesterday’, Leonie replies ‘he did rick’ year. The problem with this, though, is that changed. She only really relaxes at line 199, (line 159). She does a similar thing on line it can take a very long time. If you want to when she is eating chocolate, and exclaims 187 when she declares that a man who gain a quick impression of change, you need spontaneously, ‘they’re a bit crunchy!’ and is ‘spowing’ today, ‘did spow’ yesterday. to conduct an apparent time study. In line 243 when she is recalling an event (‘I Leonie does something quite interesting terms of children’s language acquisition, for did go in my jamas’). Nevertheless, I do with the past tense and this is consistent example, you could analyse the speech of a gain some interesting insights into Leonie’s throughout the transcript (when asked 2 year old, a 3 year old and a 4 year old and linguistic development. what she did at her friend’s house she says, so gain a quicker impression of the changes line 243, ‘I did go in my jamas’). Rather that occur over that period, even though it The ‘Wug Test’ than add an infl ection to the verb stem (ie is with a different child. Luckily, as she is ‘spowed’ for ‘spow’ and ‘ricked’ for ‘rick’), my granddaughter, I have regular access to Psychologist Jean Berko devised this test she uses an auxiliary verb instead (‘did Leonie so I can monitor her speech changes back in 1958, to test children’s capacity to rick’, ‘did spow’). This is quite a clever way as they happen. apply grammar rules. She drew a fi ctitious round a tricky situation! We have many creature called a ‘wug’ and showed it to a irregular verbs (such as ‘go’, ‘come’, ‘is’, child. Then she drew another one and asked

12 emagazine February 2018 One year on

‘has’) in English and it takes a long time to ‘uggerly’ sisters (line 64), a ‘stepmother’ learn them. Leonie has worked out that all (line 75) and a ‘fairy mother’ (line 84). Accessing the Transcript she needs to do to form the past tense is to She is even aware that ‘they got married’ Subscribers can access the transcript use the main stem of the verb (‘go’, ‘rick’, represents a happy ending (line 132). on the website in emagplus 79 and ‘spow’) but add the past form of the verb in the archive, while the video can ‘to do’ (‘did’) as an auxiliary. That way she Abstract Concepts be found in emagClips. If your school doesn’t have to change a thing! Another does not subscribe to the website, explanation is that I quite often frame the In the 1960’s and 70’s, a psychologist called please see the emag home page for the question using ‘did’ (as in ‘What did you Walter Mischel conducted what he called transcript. The video is available in the do at Sienna’s house?’ on line 235 of the the delayed gratifi cation experiment Previews for emagazine. transcript). It could be that she repeats the where children were offered a choice auxiliary verb from my question in her between one small reward provided straight emagplus answer, assuming that is an appropriate away or two small rewards if they waited thing to do. Either way, she shows great for a short period. When I tried this with • Gillian Thompson’s transcript to economy of effort! Leonie (lines 189 to 195 of the transcript) accompany the article ‘Leonie she immediately goes for the instant reward Speaking – One Year On’. Adjectives in my re-creation of Jean Berko’s (‘one piece of chocolate now’). She clearly test prove a little more tricky. When asked, wasn’t prepared to risk waiting! This tells ‘What do you call a dog with ‘quirks’ all us something about her understanding of emag web archive over him?’ Leonie is unable to make up time: she has no set idea what ‘ten minutes’ the adjective ‘quirky’, instead offering the feels like. It could be forever! In previous • Dr Marcello Giovanelli: ‘It’s Sleep rather more prosaic answer ‘dog’ (line 174 conversations she uses the time adverbial Time’ – Children’s Routines and the of the transcript). Mind you, last year, the ‘yesterday’ to mean anything from several Language of Bedtime (CLA), emagazine only adjectives she used were colour words, days to several hours ago. Although she can 62, December 2013 such as ‘green’ and ‘purple’. This year she use words from a semantic fi eld of time, she • Amy Bidgood: Learning about has many more: ‘soft’ (line 32) ‘uggerly’ has little idea of the periods they represent. Language Acquisition – The (line 64), ‘crunchy’ (line 199) ‘yummy’ Language 0-5 Project (CLA), (209). She can even supply synonyms: Similarly, when I try to engage her in a emagazine 72, April 2016 when I ask if her playdoh heart is ‘rough’ conversation about what happened a few • Amy Bidgood: What Comes Before (line 33) she replies that it is ‘bumpy’ (line days previously when she went to play Words? – The Beginnings of 36), both demonstrating an understanding with her friend Sienna (lines 230 to end of Language Development, emagazine of the meaning of the adjective ‘rough’ and transcript), she initially struggles to recall 73, September 2016 the fact that it has other words that are the event, preferring to stay in the present • Gillian Thompson: Doing What Comes similar in meaning. where she is rolling a piece of playdoh Naturally – Leonie Speaking (CLA), ((lines 236 to 240 of the transcript). Pragmatics and Play emagazine 74, December 2016 • Gillian Thompson: Leonie Talking – She is gaining some knowledge of abstract Leonie is developing a sense that language Theories and Transcript, emagplus 74 concepts though: when asked what a heart can be fun as well as functional. In lines 210 for emagazine 74, December 2016 represents (line 19 of the transcript) she to 229 of the transcript, we play a rhyming • Fran Hill: How Daisy’s Writing replies, ‘I love you’ suggesting she has some game. Leonie rhymes ‘yummy’ with Develops, emagazine 75, February 2017 awareness of symbolism. ‘tummy’; ‘fl ower’ with ‘power’ and ‘tower;’ • Rebecca Woods: Child Language and ‘house’ with ‘couse’. It doesn’t matter Acquisition – Behind the Text, Leonie has learned a great deal over the that the last example isn’t a word: it sounds emagazine 78, December 2017 past year: her utterances are longer and like one and for Leonie, in this instance, • Nikolai Luck: Delving into the emag more fully formed; she has expanded playing the game is more important than Archives: Child Language Acquisition, her vocabulary considerably and her communicating accurately. emagazine 68, April 2015 pronunciation is more developed. • And many, many more articles! She is also learning that language can Who knows what the next year will bring? be imaginative. In lines 48 to 134 of the transcript we look at the story of Cinderella Gillian Thompson teaches English at emagClips (in hindsight an unfortunate choice Godalming College. as Leonie insists on calling her ‘Belle’ • Leonie Speaking – Child Language throughout, suggesting she is more familiar Acquisition (CLA) and Leonie with Beauty and the Beast!). However, what Speaking – One Year On (to is clear is that she knows words from a accompany this article) semantic fi eld of fairy tales such as the

February 2018 emagazine 13 A Great Combination Studying English Language and Literature A Level

Student Noah Matthews has loved studying the combined Language and Literature A Level. Here he explains why it has been such a stimulating and challenging course, and looks ahead to continuing his studies at university.

What did you particularly enjoy a huge infl uence on an overall text. This to support your claim. However, if I were about the course? meant that when creating my own pieces to analyse texts with my stylistics approach I also paid more attention to particular I feel I’m able to access so much more The dynamic variation of texts was linguistic choices rather than merely information about the text and what the something I found intriguing as your studies ignoring them to focus on the general author is trying to convey. This by now range from examining the linguistic devices form of the text. I’m not denying that ingrained sense of analytical particularity of tabloid journalism, with its particular large decisions about form can have a really helps when you go on to study kind of rhetoric, to the exploration of more major impact – Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest English at university. It gives Lang/Lit literary texts, such as novels and plays. Proposal’ is a good example of how a big students an edge in analysis. Cambridge’s One lesson may centre on Russell Brand’s structural shift can be of critical importance. Practical Criticism paper, which many linguistic battle with MP Keith Vaz during However, the lexical choices he employs to would argue is a staple of their course, Brand’s evidence to the parliamentary initially gain the trust of the reader, and the makes undergraduates study unseen texts drug reform, whilst the next lesson you lexical comparisons of children and food without applying literary theories to them. may employ more literary critical ideas are just as important for the overall tone They are forced into close reading with when looking at Fitzgerald’s The Great of the text. When I began my own creative emphasis on form and stylistics. Moreover, Gatsby. These examples also highlight coursework, a satirical newspaper column Oxford’s English course is combined; they the larger social implications of English, on Brexit, the impressions made by the do not offer a pure literature course. These as to study language you are examining non-fi ction anthology had a huge impact two Goliaths of the academic world both the insinuations, sometimes subtle or on my style of writing. Moreover, once emphasise that you need some form of even subconscious, we all make when you have learnt the linguistic conventions knowledge of stylistics to fully analyse texts. we communicate. To study literature is to of such texts, you know how to fl ip them study how writers have turned this human for effect, which I found more interesting Would you recommend the experience into art, through narrative, as that freedom to twist expectations is course? description and self-exploration something I think all aspiring creative writers wish for, and to make a teacher I would defi nitely recommend the course Can you talk about the laugh, which I did, is quite an achievement, to any students wanting to study some relationship between reading even if I say so myself. form of English A Level. I believe it offers and creative writing on the a great combination of literary approaches course? Did you fi nd that How well do you think the course as I experienced through my study of The particularly engaging and if has prepared you for university Great Gatsby and Blake’s Songs while also foregrounding the linguistics that underpin so why? What do you think English and why? writing contributed to your all texts, literary, non-literary, spoken and Language and Literature A Level really written. I think the pairing of analytical understandings as a reader? does prepare you for any English BA out study and creative writing works incredibly I found the academic study melded well there. The skills I learnt in studying texts well as both activities develop the other. You with the creative aspects of the course as have been crucial to the way I analyse become more aware of the creative devices I was able to gain a greater appreciation texts. It’s fairly straightforward to take a on offer to writers and the most applicable for small, stylistic choices as they can have literary approach to a text and fi nd points ones to use, whilst also heightening your

14 emagazine February 2018 Sebas Ribas on Unsplash

analytical eye when using reading new texts as you then have a deeper insight into the mind of an author.

What am I doing now?

I am hoping to go to university to read English next September. Although it will obviously be a challenge, I’m also quietly confi dent as my analytical skills have been developed greatly through this A Level. Currently I’m also working as a fi lmmaker on short fi lms, both fi ction and non-fi ction, having transferred my tonal gauge from text to the visual form. That’s the thing about this A Level: although it’s rooted in the written format, the ways to tell a story that I’ve learnt are universally applicable. Literary choices can be translated to visual: plosive to quick cuts, elongated sentences to isolated framing, unreliable narrators to visual cutaways (thank you Mr Fitzgerald).

The essence of the course is that what you Janko Ferlic on Unsplash learn when studying English can be adapted to whatever creative endeavours you want to pursue. That’s what I learned. That’s what I have loved about it.

Noah Matthews is studying English Language and Literature A Level at Godalming College and hopes to study English at university next year.

emag web archive

• Jenniah Brown: From GCSE to Degree – A Student Perspective, emagazine

69, September 2015 Toa Heftiba on Unsplash • The Brilliant English Undergrad Student – What Are We looking For? emagazine 72, April 2016 • Ed Limb: English at A Level and University – What emagazine Can Do For You, emagazine 74, December 2016

February 2018 emagazine 15 Regeneration, 1997. Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

The internal divisions of Regeneration’s Billy Prior

Billy Prior is obsessed with sex, determined to shock and resolved that everyone around him should dislike him intensely – including himself. Yet throughout the Regeneration trilogy he’s even more key to the moral questions that Barker raises than Sassoon’s ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’. So argues Charlotte Woolley.

16 emagazine February 2018 James Wilby in Regeneration, 1997. Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

Divisions Personifi ed confi rms that Prior volunteered for army returns, Rivers identifi es Prior’s mutism as a service without his approval: refl ection of his class: Regeneration’s Billy Prior is riddled with Time enough to do summat for the Empire when ‘What you tend to get in offi cers is stammering internal divisions. His class experiences the Empire’s done summat for you. […] [the physical symptoms] are all common in place him in both the working class and private soldiers and rare in offi cers. It’s almost as Mrs Prior’s contrary insistence on gentility middle class. His war experience is also if for the […] the labouring classes, illness has to divided, between service at home and in creates confl ict between father and son, be physical.’ France, punctuated by his short stay at and their aspirations for Billy’s future. the Craiglockhart war hospital for offi cers Billy’s father calls him ‘neither fi sh nor Barker’s novel develops the philosophy of shellshock that soldiers, trapped in suffering from shellshock, which is where fowl’, unable to settle into the traditional trenches without control even over their he meets Dr William Rivers. Prior is not a masculine working-class lifestyle yet own movements, develop ways of coping historical character, unlike both Wilfred not accepted by his social superiors. or symptoms that make it impossible for Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (whose ‘A Although in the offi cer class, Prior’s them to continue serving. In what Rivers Soldier’s Declaration’ begins the novel’s attitudes are a complex combination of describes as ‘the labouring classes’ (soldiers moral discussion over the cost and process adopting their mannerisms and attitudes like Prior), these are physical symptoms that of war) but his experiences are drawn to fi t in, and adopting them in order to prevent them from continuing to fi ght. from Barker’s extensive research. In an mock those who look down on him as a EMC interview, Barker describes Prior as ‘temporary gentlemen’. Victorian psychologist Henry Maudsley ‘designed to elucidate something in Rivers’. Although Prior is abrasively conscious suggested that women were more likely to Through Prior’s constant probing of Rivers’ of his internal class confl ict, the chip on suffer ‘hysteria’ (an early term for many internal confl ict over his work, curing men his shoulder is well-founded. He points mental illnesses), because to send them back to war, she explores the out that while Rivers always used other moral confl icts of World War One and its the range of activity of women is so limited, offi cer’s surnames (Sassoon, Owen), he and their available paths of work in life so few, effect on a generation of young men. was always ‘Mr Prior’, and he angrily compared with those which men have. contradicts any suggestion that class is Confl ict of Class and Status In The Female Malady, Elaine Showalter irrelevant in the army: develops this idea, concluding that Through their treatment sessions with It’s made perfectly clear when you arrive that historically women’s depression has Rivers, Barker juxtaposes Prior and Sassoon some people are more than others. It helps if been driven by – an upper-class offi cer. For Prior the deep you’ve been to the right school. It helps if you class divisions of the army heighten the hunt. women’s oppressive social roles rather than by their bodies or psyches. tension his background creates. A visit from Psychological Interpretation his parents reveals the upbringing that In Regeneration, Pat Barker uses Prior to has shaped him. Prior’s father is almost a The psychological impact of these interrogate the differences between pre-war caricature of the working-class man, seeing confl icts is explored through physical women and the soldiers trapped in France. physical labour as both his job and that manifestations of class difference. Prior The soldiers are powerless, at the mercy of of his son. Gruff, associating masculinity arrives at Craiglockhart mute and unable to the Germans on the other side of No Man’s with dominance, drinking and violence, he remember his experiences. After his voice Land but equally beholden to the generals

February 2018 emagazine 17 far behind the lines orchestrating each deliberately fl irting with Rivers as a way alongside Wilfred Owen. He comments movement and battle. In contrast, women to provoke and challenge his authority with dark irony: like Prior’s girlfriend Sarah found their as well as to defl ect discussion from We are Craiglockhart’s success stories […] We horizons expanding. Prior thinks when he uncomfortable subjects. don’t remember, we don’t think, we don’t feel meets her that women […] By any proper civilised standard […] we are Prior’s relationship with Sarah Lumb is seemed to have changed so much during the war, objects of horror. equally ambivalent. Walking with her on to have expanded in all kinds of ways, whereas Prior and Owen are killed a week before men over the same period had shrunk into a the beach front he feels ‘callous towards Armistice Day. The horror and futility smaller and smaller space. her’ and is ‘determined to get her’, implying that possession and control of her are a kind of their deaths is juxtaposed with the For Sarah, munitions work is well-paid of retaliation against civilians who can’t impression that, for Prior, this is the only and offers her signifi cant independence far understand his experiences. Yet just a page possible ending to the confl icts that the war removed from the life of service she was later, there is a surprising combination of has deepened in him. Although engaged to destined for before the war. passion, tenderness, and sensuality in the Sarah, it’s impossible to imagine him having description of their fi rst lovemaking: any future ordinary life. Troubled already Rivers’ treatments regularly explore the by his struggles with class and sexuality, ‘division’ his patients experience. Of all the Through the thickness in his throat, he said, ‘I’m the war has sharpened his sense of injustice not pushing, but if you wanted to, I’d make sure it trilogy’s characters, Prior’s internal division and anger. In Prior, Barker represents those was all right.’ [...] his nostrils fi lled with the scent is the most profound, resulting in an ‘alter- soldiers who came back, but never really of rock pools at low tide. He slipped his hands ego’ appearing in The Eye in the Door. His succeeded in leaving the war behind, and underneath her, and lifted her, until her whole other persona seems to have all Billy’s inner pelvis became a cup from which he drank. the generation of young men sacrifi ced strength and none of his moral conscience. to a war that originally seemed just, but Attending a therapy session, Rivers sees Prior appears to fall in love with Sarah, transformed into a bloody mechanised Prior in his alternative form as fi nding emotional and sexual comfort. confl ict on an unimaginable scale. However, in another symptom of his quite different, suddenly: keen, alert, cold, internal divisions she is kept separate from Charlotte Woolley teaches A Level English observant, detached, manipulative, ruthless. much of his life, a safe haven to which he Literature at Skipton Girls’ High School, and regularly blogs about literature at While in this alternative state he can retreat or a symbol of the life he could www.charlotteunsworth.com investigates and betrays conscientious have had if the war had not interfered. objectors, working-class people he has been best friends with since childhood. The Only Possible End

Through hypnosis, he and Rivers discover emag web archive that the ‘alternative personality’ is a way In Rivers’ treatment of all his patients, Prior has previously coped with his parents’ Barker addresses a fundamental confl ict: violent marriage, enabling him to block out when a doctor works for the army, the • Ros Fraser: Internal Division traumatic memories. The other personality responsibility is no longer to the patient but in Regeneration, emagplus for resurfaces in France when he is injured and to the state, to enable the patient to recover emagazine 40, April 2008 trapped in a shell hole overnight. well enough to be sent back to the front. • Priscilla McClay: History and Fiction By the end of Regeneration, Prior’s mutism – Regeneration and Birdsong, emagazine Sex – Comfort, Weapon, Shock has been cured. Rivers visits another doctor, 49, September 2010 treating a patient (Callan) with mutism • Dr Paul Norgate: Who’s Who? Barker’s characters also struggle with issues by applying electrodes to his tongue. Billy Prior and Wilfred Owen of sexuality and Prior is no exception. Rivers connects Callan, Sassoon, and Prior. in Regeneration, emagazine 65, Rivers says to Sassoon that the war has Sassoon returns to the front; although September 2014. developed concerns about the differences he refuses to rescind the Declaration he • Mike Peters: World War 1 in between comradeship and romantic feeling: knows he can only continue to protest Contemporary Novels, emagazine [there is] this enormous emphasis on love through his poetry. For Prior and Callan, 74, December 2016 between men – comradeship – and everybody losing their voices was the only method of approves. But at the same time there’s always this protesting against the war: by getting them little niggle of anxiety. Is it the right kind of love? to speak again, Yealland and Rivers have silenced them. emagClips Contrasting Rivers’ implicit asexuality and Sassoon’s matter-of-fact homosexuality, By the end of the trilogy, Prior has • Professor John Mullan on Key Prior’s sexuality is overt and often returned to active service in France, serving Aspects of Narrative manipulative. He uses sex as a weapon,

18 emagazine February 2018 and The American Dream Public Domain

February 2018 emagazine 19 Public Domain February 2018 February emagazine

20

A View from the Bridge. Geraint Lewis/Alamy Stock Photo

Reading A View from the Bridge and Death of a Salesman through a Marxist lens shows us not only how Miller questions the American Dream, suggests Dr Kurt A. Johnson, but also how he exposes the tragic commercialisation of human relationships in a capitalist system.

Marco: Sardines. Why does Miller make Eddie a longshoreman fuse for Eddie’s tragedy; that, even before the Eddie: Sure. (Laughing.) How you gonna off-loading (and stealing) these imported play ever begins, trap Eddie in his tragic fate: catch sardines on a hook? goods – and not, say, a postman, like my being the everyday, blue-collar worker whose Beatrice: Oh, I didn’t know they’re grandfather who humped the streets of a terrible destiny is fi xed by his impoverished sardines. (To Catherine.) They’re Red Hook-like neighbourhood back in Philly economic circumstances. sardines! during the 1950s? Why does Miller make Catherine: Yeah, they follow Marco and Roldolpho’s primary employment In this way, Miller reveals the real tragedy for them all over the ocean, Africa, as fi shermen who traverse the Adriatic and ‘sardines’ like Eddie: not so much that they Yugoslavia... (She sits and begins Mediterranean Seas – from the coasts of Sicily, cannot achieve the American Dream, but to look through a movie magazine. to what is now Croatia and Tunisia? Why is that the American Dream was never there for Rodolpho joins her.) Catherine’s fi rst impulse, after Eddie agrees them to achieve in the fi rst place. Beatrice (to Eddie): It’s funny, y’know. You to the stenographer job at the plumbing never think of it, that sardines are company, to buy a new rug and table cloth Miller and Marxism swimming in the ocean! (She exits to for the house? Miller grew up in an initially well-to-do kitchen with dishes.) German-Jewish household in New York In short, why does Miller spend signifi cant ‘Sir’, one student asked aloud in the middle of City during the 1910s and 20s; however, stage time and dialogue on seemingly trivial reading A View from the Bridge, ‘why is Miller his family lost their business during The matters that appear to do little to drive the banging on about sardines?’ My student’s Great Depression and Miller grew to know tragic plot or the prominent confl icts forward? question suggested exasperation, but buried the hard-luck poverty most working-class within her voice was genuine inquiry. I The realisation came suddenly: wrapped in Americans experienced at the time. During had, after all, been teaching my students all these scenes of placid, mundane domesticity the 1940s and 1950s, Miller began to year that writers use language purposefully; were the hallmark references to capital, sympathise with Communist critiques of everything means something. commodities and modes of production – the capitalism; this was dangerous given that, at base machinations of Marxist theory. These the time, anti-Communist sentiment in the So, it was with some embarrassment that I things that Miller fi lls his play with are all US was at a fever pitch. In 1956, the infamous responded, ‘Huh, well...I don’t really know.’ the material goods of a capitalist system anti-Communist senator Joseph McCarthy But her question burned in my mind: why that compel Marco and Rodolpho to leave a brought Miller in front of the House Un- does Miller bang on about sardines? And war-torn and economically-stagnant Italy to American Activities Committee requiring him coffee? And bananas? And oranges and seek the American Dream in the States; that to condemn Communism and its supporters lemons? And whiskey? compel Catherine to seek not just sexual but in the theatrical trade. Miller refused. As a fi nancial independence, thereby igniting the result, he was held in contempt of court and

February 2018 emagazine 21 Antony Sher as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, A Royal Shakespeare Company Production directed by Gregory Doran. Geraint Lewis/Alamy Stock Photo February 2018 February emagazine

22 his passport was rescinded. Miller would Willy spend most of the play residing in the sporting goods that allow for the otherwise allegorise this Communist ‘witch hunt’ – intangible realm of memory. wholesome fatherly interaction of playing which largely defi ned the Cold War period of football to take place. By acquiescing in geopolitical intrigue and mistrust between the Interestingly, even ironically, we never the theft, Willy not only taints his paternal US and Soviet Union – in his play The Crucible. know exactly what Willy sells, because in relationship with Biff, but ultimately teaches (Incidentally, this was the very play whose the end what he ultimately sells is himself him that material goods are more important opening he was unable to attend in Belgium – his own life (and for a measly $20,000 in than knowledge, laws and even people. because of his passport revocation.) life insurance at that). That was the market value for a man of Willy’s socioeconomic In the same scene, Willy pushes Happy Given his personal connections with standing. By giving up his life for the material aside – despite Happy’s incessant attention- Communism, Miller’s plays are ripe pickings benefi t of his family, Willy’s death symbolises seeking interjections – in favour of Biff’s for a Marxist interpretation. the moral void which forms the centre of (mythologised and morally-compromised) a consumerism-crazed American society. sportsmanship. This emotional rejection is As a literary theory, Marxism asks the reader The death of the salesman is not only the one Happy channels into womanising in to critique the economic circumstances that death of the American Dream – because, later life, relegating women to mere sexual bear infl uence on the characters, the narrative as Charlie and Happy put it, the dream is commodities. Happy laments this to Biff – he and the general production of the text. It asks all the salesperson has – but the death of a dreams of a steady and loving relationship us to question the capitalist system and why moral society that values human life and with a woman – but the fact that he can, like it disadvantages or favours the characters. dignity above conspicuous consumption and Ben, go into the jungle and come out rich It asks us to consider the exploitative and/ commodifi cation. when it comes to sexual relationships is a or exploiting labour conditions in which our form of emotional capital from which Happy protagonist(s) may work. Marxism is not just Thus, Miller’s use of material goods – cannot divest himself. about those with and those without, but also from sardines to footballs, rugs to Chevys about the systems – and ideas – that are put – highlights the ways in which he sees The ideology of the American Dream is into place that entrench economic disparity. individuals becoming commodities to be enough in this instance not only to destroy exchanged and traded to the impairment not a life, but to destroy the entire humanity of Miller, Willy and The American only of the individuals themselves, but also the Loman family. Dream the very familial foundations that serve as the bedrock of society. In the vast economic oceans of capitalism, In Death of Salesman, Miller explores the Miller makes the reader realise the extent exploitative ideology of capitalism through Death of Salesman – The to which there are only so many sharks; the the American Dream. With its roots in the Commodifi cation of the rest of us are just sardines swimming around Declaration of Independence’s revolutionary Individual unknowingly. And just as many people don’t statement that ‘All men are created equal’ think about sardines swimming in the ocean, who have a right to ‘life, liberty and the Willy’s notion of the American Dream is many people don’t think about the untold pursuit of happiness’, the American Dream, based on fl awed superfi ciality, investing poor struggling to make it in an economic simply stated, is the cultural belief that in the physical materialism of ‘personal system designed to make them lose … and any American, regardless of ethnicity or attractiveness’ rather than intellectual rigour lose everything. socioeconomic status, can be (materially) (Bernard) or honest labour (Biff’s ranch Dr Kurt A. Johnson is Head of English at Hill House successful if they work hard enough. work out West). Willy constantly equates School in Doncaster. other people’s ‘love’ for him with his material Miller uses ideas about the American success, indelibly tying human emotion to Dream to critique the economic reality of capital gain. That Willy’s older brother Ben emag web archive his characters, showing how economic embodies the personal magnetism of the circumstances fuel the play’s larger tragedies. American Dream – • Tony Coult: The Salesman Lives – As a salesman, Willy travels around the Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into Arthur Miller’s Product Placement, country to sell products, investing his jungle and when I was twenty-one I walked out emagazine 17 September 2002 labour to create within those products a […] and by God I was rich! • Tony Cavender: Love for Sale: sense of desirability, all at the expense of Death of a Salesman, emagazine his relationship with his family. He is an only further strengthens the appeal of the 53, September 2011 illusionist who must use his powers of American Dream for Willy, despite the falsely • David Lister: Death of a persuasion to make people see potential and fabular nature of Ben’s tale, along with its Salesman – Country and City, necessity that may not be there – to, as Miller gross impracticality as a sustainable and fair emagazine 40, April 2008 said, peddle the ‘bullshit’, ‘pseudo life’ idea economic model for working people. • Tony Cavender: ‘All Kinds that one could ‘touch the clouds by standing a Greatness’ – Tragedy and on top of a refrigerator’. Quite literally, Willy’s But most depressing of all is the extent Death of a Salesman, emagazine labour has no material substance. It is not to which Willy bequeaths this ideology 70, December 2015 real. This lack of substance serves as the crux of human commodifi cation to his sons. • Francis Gilbert: Arthur Miller – A of Willy’s existential crisis: if a person’s labour This mentality frames many of his fatherly Life’s Work, emagazine 29, April 2006 is worthless, then the person must also be interactions with the boys, (presented in • Carol Atherton: Exploring King Lear worthless. Willy’s worth is only as material fl ashbacks). In Act I, Willy lauds Biff for and A View from the Bridge, emagplus as his dreams, suggesting why Miller has his sporting prowess, thereby forgiving his criminality in stealing the very material for emagazine 42, December 2008

February 2018 emagazine 23 A ROOM – and a Narrator – WITH A VIEW

Maya Little’s account of the narrative voice in E.M. Forster’s novel draws attention to both its variety and subtlety, showing how the narrator is anything but a detached information-giver, but instead plays a key role in shaping our views on the characters and events.

24 emagazine February 2018 Many novels use a detached narrator Authorial Intrusion whom we trust implicitly, but in A Room With a View, the narrative voice is not so The most obvious of these is when the impersonal. This is crucial in forming the narrator addresses the reader directly: social comedy of the novel. It also allows It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, the reader access to Lucy’s feelings, whilst ‘She loves young Emerson.’ A reader in Lucy’s never being caught in her ‘muddles’, the place would not fi nd it obvious. Life is easy to narrator always rescuing us before we chronicle, but bewildering to practice […] She become stuck in any one character’s mind. loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? In simple terms, the narrator of A Room with A View is third person, and omniscient. This authorial intrusion is a perfect instance What this categorisation ignores, however, of Forster using the detached nature of is that whilst Forster’s narrator is indeed his omniscient voice to create a clearer all knowing, this does not make them overview of the characters’ relationships impartial. It also ignores the moments in in the novel. It is not ‘obvious’ to Lucy the novel where we feel the presence of this that she loves George, but the reader can narrator, not simply as someone who relates still know this fact because the narrative information, but as a voice with its own voice is separated here from the voices of opinions and motivations. the characters and thus can give us these emotional insights. The direct references to the ‘reader’ seem to acknowledge that

E.M. Forster by Dora_Carrington, 1924-25[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons the novel is a fi ction, but the phrase ‘will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed?’ is a question which invites dialogue between the reader and the characters, with the narrator straddling our reality and that of the novel, bringing us closer together. For example, ‘Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice’ acts as a reminder that the reader is supposed to view Lucy as someone who is practising life, rather than simply an artefact being written about, thus evoking Domenico Loia on Unsplash

February 2018 emagazine 25 our sympathy for Lucy’s mistakes as we are the narrator, a mid-sentence shift in reminded of our own bewilderments. perspective, then perhaps this narrator is suggesting that Lucy has to ‘strive’ to feel This passage also forces the reader’s the correct way – to unnaturally change attention onto the narrator themselves; her feelings to keep in line with the polite able to ask questions of us, their presence sentiments demanded by her society. If becomes more substantial as they act as so, Forster’s use of an omniscient narrator Lucy’s sympathetic chronicler. This is allows him to clarify Lucy’s feelings, but something that separates the voice of the also, by allowing us to view Lucy’s muddle narrator from Forster; Forster is writing a from the outside, to hint at a social message: fi ction. The narrator is telling a truth. that Edwardian society was restricting people’s access to their emotions, leaving How Lucy’s ‘Muddle’ is them unsure of what they actually felt, and Handled which of their feelings they had shaped in order to conform with the conventions of Lucy’s ‘bewildering’ life is often represented their social class. in the novel by her ‘muddle’, and the handling of the ‘muddle’ through the More Than One Voice – Free narrative voice is signifi cant. The narrator’s Indirect Discourse omniscience means that Forster can both let Lucy’s thoughts and feelings bleed in to the As well as weaving his own opinions narrative, and withdraw from this ‘muddle’ into the narrative voice, Forster also, at in order to offer clarity for the reader. times, weaves in the voices of the novel’s characters by employing a technique called This technique is present in the words free indirect discourse. Free indirect Charlotte’s energy! And her unselfi shness! [...] so discourse is when a character speaks, but Lucy felt, or strove to feel. without the usual indicators of speech (‘she said’/’he said’ or speech marks). This means Here, the fi rst two exclamatory sentences that the characters words are essentially are clearly Lucy’s thoughts, as reported to blended with the narrative voice, as in the us by the narrator, but the latter part of the following passage: sentence is more ambiguous. ‘So Lucy felt’ seems to be a continuation of the thought, Miss Bartlett was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the morning but ‘or strove to feel’ is a contradiction. settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? If this is still part of Lucy’s thoughts, the Lucy would rather like to go out, as it was her contradiction highlights her constant fi rst day in Florence, but, of course, she could go confusion about what she truly feels. alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, If, instead, the phrase ‘So Lucy felt, or certainly not; Lucy would stop with her cousin. strove to feel’ is seen as a comment by Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!

The backwards-forwards rhythm of this section seems to refl ect the constant restriction of freedom that Miss Bartlett

26 emagazine February 2018 imposes on Lucy – yet another instance of a lulling rhythm, with the long sentence Forster manipulating the narrative voice emphasising the profusion of fl owers. Lucy emag web archive to best point out the failings in his society; and George kiss – a heightened moment both Lucy and Miss Bartlett fail to express which the narrator has described in a highly • Mike Peters: Reading A Room with a a defi nite opinion in this exchange, using poetic style. And then – View as a Modern Novel, emagazine hedging devices to weaken their suggestions The silence of life had been broken by Miss 70, December 2015 at fi rst (‘wee bit’, and ‘rather like’ are two Bartlett, who stood brown against the view. • Bridget Tiller: A Room With a examples) and then quickly switching View – A New Religion? emagazine This ends the chapter abruptly, ‘brown sides, with Miss Bartlett declaring a fi rm 75, February 2017 ‘Oh no!’ in response to Lucy essentially against the view’ a startling change in agreeing to do what Miss Bartlett had tone from the enclosed world of beauty in wanted. The insincerity of what is said which George and Lucy had just a sentence is thus brought to the forefront, and the earlier been kissing. This change of tone expressions of everyday speech, like ‘of has several effects on the reader: coming course’, and ‘a wee bit’, seem pointlessly just before the end of the chapter, it leaves indirect when quoted outside of the context us as disorientated as Lucy; coming just of conversation. It also heightens the social after her kiss, it immediately de-escalates comedy; rather than each person’s speech the romance, leaving us uncertain as being clearly defi ned, they fl ow on from to whether that moment ought to have each other, giving Lucy and Miss Bartlett’s happened; it is also comic – Miss Bartlett is conversation a fl ustered, jumbled tone. the dull, incongruous ‘brown’, and stands Thus, by employing different aspects of ridiculously small against the expansive, narrative voice for different conversations overwhelming ‘view’ that has just been (free indirect discourse here, direct described to us. This ability to vary tone speech when old Mr Emerson speaks, for so quickly for effect is an important part example), Forster’s narrator infl uences of Forster’s narrative voice. The narrator is the reader’s perception of the sincerity of not only directing the reader’s opinions of different conversations. the characters through the content of what is said and unsaid, but through the very The Narrator’s Tone – style of writing they choose to use when Contrasts and Comedy talking about them.

Not every student will think ‘comedy’ The narrator’s voice is a manipulated one. when they think of A Room With a View. It’s It is sometimes Forster’s voice, sometimes unlikely to leave one helpless with giggles Lucy’s, but never simply a conveyor of on the train, but there is something lastingly information. It is not consistent, but instead, comic about the line it is constantly adapted to the situation. Thus, the narrator seems to be a kind of Miss Bartlett […] stood brown against the view. shadow character, roaming through the It’s the contrast that brings the comedy. story that Forster has created, and every Throughout the novel, Forster skilfully now and then, catching our eye. manipulates the narrator’s tone between poetic and blunt styles of writing, and Maya Little is an English undergraduate student, now in her fi rst year at Mansfi eld College, this is another way in which the narrative Oxford. She wrote this soon after completing her voice is able to take on an opinion about A Level studies. the matter of the story. In this particular

chapter, there’s the melodic description of the violets, which ‘ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts’. Here, Forster uses the repeated ‘and’ to create Domenico Loia on Unsplash

February 2018 emagazine 27 To just listen in on British chit chat Spoken British National Corpus 2014

on examples of writing and not speech. Our innovative method for collecting Robbie Love explains Transcripts of spoken interactions are rare. recordings refl ects how heavily we use what the BNC2014 technology in all of our lives. We wanted Enter the Spoken British National Corpus people to make recordings wherever and is and how the data 2014 – 11.5 million words of informal whenever was convenient to them by was collected. He British English chit chat collected between using whatever recording equipment they 2012 and 2016, and fully transcribed for had available – usually smartphones, and offers one fascinating the benefi t of linguists, educators and, of sometimes tablets or laptops. We found that example – the split course, students. this produced excellent results. We received recordings made in a wide range of settings infi nitive – to show What is BNC2014? – at home, in cafes, in pubs and bars, during journeys and on holiday. We also gathered a how the corpus can be We at Lancaster University and Cambridge hugely eclectic range of topics – some of the University Press have worked together for compared with that of most common include food, family, work, several years to gather this huge corpus TV and relationships. the 1990s to look at the (a corpus – plural corpora – is simply the name for a large collection of language). realities of how we are Nearly 700 speakers were recorded in more It is the largest and most comprehensive than 1,200 conversations which, after being ‘actually’ speaking. modern collection of British English speech transcribed, equate to more than eleven ever released to the public. To achieve Every day, billions of words are uttered million words of text. in hundreds of languages all over the this, we encouraged contributors from world. For corpus linguists – that is, people all over the UK to record their normal, Descriptivists and who study the form, use and function everyday conversations with friends and of language using specialised computer family and send them to us. We then Prescriptivists listened to, transcribed and anonymised software – speech is like the golden snitch There is a diverse range of opinion these recordings so they could be collated in a game of Quidditch. It appears to about language change and variation. into one big corpus. The fi nished corpus be everywhere around you and yet it is It can be characterised very simply as was recently made freely available for incredibly diffi cult to capture. The reason is a divide between ‘descriptivists’ and researchers, academics and teachers to use very simple – examples of writing, especially ‘prescriptivists’. Descriptivists accept in their studies and teaching. those found online, are already committed changes in language and seek to observe (or can be easily converted) to a format and understand them. They may speak We aimed to capture a wide representation that can be read on a computer screen. of ‘rules’, but only when based on of the UK today – the way people talk and, These include e-books, online news articles, evidence from actual language use. importantly, how people talk about all kinds Tweets, blog posts, play scripts and such Prescriptivists make value judgements of topics – this means we had to gather like. On the other hand, speech is rarely about aspects of language – positive and recordings from people of different regions, captured in a permanent form – especially negative – and therefore believe that ages and backgrounds, who spoke in a private conversations among family and certain aspects of language ought to range of accents and dialects about a wide friends. Words are uttered and then they remain unchanged. The ‘rules’ that they variety of things. disappear, leaving no trace. The result speak of are often based on what they is that linguistic research is often based believe to be right or wrong.

28 emagazine February 2018

29

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February 2018 February

© Linda Combi Are We Following Prescriptive In the 1990s corpus, the most frequent split What is certain is that the split infi nitive Rules? infi nitives are: is a common feature of present-day conversational British English. Insights to actually say With the corpus fi nished, we can now start about this and other grammatical to investigate all sorts of questions about the to just go features are very useful – we can help nature of spoken British English, comparing to just sit learners of English by teaching them the present-day speech to that of the 1990s. We features of English they are most likely to really do can do this because a very similar collection to routinely encounter in conversation. of British English conversations was made to really get And the split infi nitive can take its rightful in the early 1990s – the spoken part of the place among them. In the 2010s corpus, the most original British National Corpus – so we frequent ones are: can see how informal chit chat may have Robbie Love wrote this article when he was a PhD Research Student at the University of Lancaster, to just go changed over the last two decades. working with the Department of Linguistics and to just be English Language. One question we can ask of the data is whether the ‘rules’ laid out by to just do prescriptivists actually carry weight in to just have casual spoken discourse. In English, a good Finding Out More to just get example is the split infi nitive. This happens You can fi nd out more about the when one or more words, usually with Interestingly, the most common split BNC2014, which is funded in part by the adverbial function, come in between the infi nitives in the 2010s are split by the Economic and Social Research Council, word ‘to’ and the infi nitive form of a verb. adverb ‘just’. In total, the ‘just’ infi nitive by visiting the project website: http:// Examples include: accounts for 28% of all split infi nitives in corpora.lancs.ac.uk/bnc2014/ the 2010s corpus, compared to 25% of to boldly go where no one has gone before To get in touch, email Robbie Love: the 1990s split infi nitives. Conversely, the Star Trek [email protected] ‘actually’ infi nitive has fallen from 17% @lovermob so they’re going to actually buy the desserts from of the 1990s split infi nitives to just 11% @BNC_2014 the college of the 2010s ones. It seems that the ‘just’ 1990s corpus infi nitive is holding its ground as a resilient you might want to kind of make sure that they’re split infi nitive. This is largely responsible Coming in April highlighted for its rise: the word ‘just’ alone has almost How to do your own investigation 2010s corpus doubled from 3,926 instances per million in using corpus data. the 1990s to 7,484 per million in the 2010s. Some people regard splitting the infi nitive as a grammatical error – something which should be avoided at all costs. In each of these examples, the underlined adverb would have to occur anywhere but in between the ‘to’ and the verb.

The question is: are British English speakers paying any attention to this rule? Well, the evidence suggests not. In fact, they appear to be paying much less attention to it now than they were in the 1990s. In emag web archive the 1990s corpus, the split infi nitive occurs 47.06 times per million words. (In corpus linguistics, frequency is often presented as • Professor Paul Baker: Using a Corpus occurrence-per-million. This allows us to to Analyse Gender and Language, compare how often a word occurs across emagazine 75, February 2017 corpora of different sizes.) But in the 2010s • Gill Francis: Language Change and corpus, it occurs 189.27 times per million – Corpus Data – A Super-Mega-Free- that is, four times as frequently. For-All? emagazine 62, December 2013 • Coming in April 2018: Using a Corpus The Resilience of the Just to Investigate Language – A Guide to Getting Started Infi nitive

What might have caused this large increase? It is hard to say, but the most emagClips frequent forms of the split infi nitives might © Linda Combi provide a clue. • Elena Semino on Stylistics includes discussion of corpus data

30 emagazine February 2018 Flaticon

The Importance of Small Things Style in The Namesake

George Norton offers three ways of thinking about the language and style of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, each of which makes one realise that her ‘lack of stylisation’ in no way implies a lack of style and that the small shifts in the writing perfectly match the subtle changes in identity of the main characters.

I’ve always found writing about language renounced the writerly fl ourish, never once played the characters. Although Gogol’s viewpoint and style in prose fi ction a diffi cult thing. the exotic and […] scaled her characters to actual dominates, different parts of the book are Poetry is so much easier. By their very human existence narrated from the point of view of Ashima, nature, poems use more concentrated while the Guardian’s reviewer noted Moushumi, and, in key passages in the fi rst language, more foregrounding, more that the novel’s two chapters, Ashoke. These shifts between metaphors and complex images; because omniscience and restriction enable Lahiri to the writer’s craft is more obviously on guileless vocabulary and an appealing lack of create a subtle set of ironies. For example, stylisation [conjured] a bleak, arm’s-length mood, display, there are more things to write the scene in which Ashoke presents Gogol a sense of a life spooling inevitably on. about. With prose fi ction – especially in the with the book of his namesake’s short realist mode, with apparently ‘transparent’ So, is the sort of formal analysis, so beloved stories is narrated largely from Gogol’s language – what, I’ve often asked myself, is of A Level examiners, impossible for this perspective; the verbs of perception and there to discuss? text? I want to offer three ways of tackling cognition give us his point of view: the language and style of The Namesake Gogol is especially surprised to see a gift in his The problem of how to talk about the which will, I hope, enable us to answer that father’s hands. ways in which meaning is shaped is one question in the negative. which immediately confronts students of But then the omniscient voice gives us this Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. The realism Complex Shifts of Focalisation key piece of information: of its characters and settings and the He has never been told why he was really named Let’s begin with The Namesake’s deceptively clarity of Lahiri’s undemonstrative prose Gogol, doesn’t know about the accident that simple narrative style. Lahiri moves were recognised by many of the novel’s nearly killed his father. fi rst critics. ‘She writes with journalistic between an unintrusive omniscient The reader knows about Ashoke’s accident precision,’ enthused the Daily Telegraph; the narration and a technique called – it’s narrated analeptically in the opening New York Times was pleased that Lahiri focalisation where the action is narrated from the restricted perspective of one of chapter – but knowing what Gogol doesn’t

February 2018 emagazine 31 Irfan Khan ,Tabu, Sahira Nair & Kal Penn in The Namesake (2006). AF archive / Alamy Stock

know informs our response to his almost marked off as direct speech, the voice of Lahiri is scrupulous in obeying this rule. Her dismissive receipt of the book, making the character takes over from the narrator, symbols are everyday objects (shoes, food, his ingratitude more understandable, and bringing us closer to that character’s clothes) which create important meanings increasing our appreciation for his father’s consciousness). As one of the novel’s most without seeming contrived. One such object stoic sensitivity when he decides ‘to keep perceptive critics, Judith Caesar, has noted, is the mailbox. The Gangulis’ mailbox is the explanation of his son’s name to despite the shifts in viewpoint, mentioned for the fi rst time when they himself’ because his ‘birthday is a day to move to Pemberton Road: we almost never know what the characters are honor life not brushes with death.’ thinking, about who they are to themselves as The Gangulis, apart from the name on their they experience the rush of sounds and sensations mailbox […] appear no different from their Another interesting shift in viewpoint that are their lives. neighbours.’ The mailbox is both a signifi er of occurs in Chapter 10 when Moushumi their assimilation into American suburbia We never learn, for example, how Gogol becomes the focal character. This change in (everybody has one) but also of their otherness perspective is partly pragmatic – the chapter feels about his separation from Maxine and because their name denotes their ethnic deals principally with Moushumi’s affair know only a little more about his reaction difference. A few pages on, the mailbox is with Dimitri of which Gogol is painfully to Moushumi’s betrayal. Caesar argues that vandalised, the name ‘shortened to GANG, with ignorant – but it also enables Lahiri to such absences signify the word GREEN scrawled in pencil following it. develop the ideas of names and naming. the ways in which essential identity […] is beyond Gogol is ‘sickened, certain of the insult his The word ‘Gogol’ appears only twice in the the power of words to describe. We can only father will feel’, but Ashoke is ‘unaffected’, know the surface. chapter, once in relation to Gogol’s change and replaces the letters that evening. of name and once as part of a neutral The Symbolism of Everyday This is the only explicit example in the speech tag. This shows us that Moushumi Objects novel of racial prejudice; as the episode is thinks of her husband only as ‘Nikhil’; his narrated from Gogol’s half-comprehending Gogol-ness is, for her, fi rmly in the past. A second aspect of Lahiri’s style is her perspective, Lahiri allows the reader to But the strategic near-absence of the word intricate use of symbolism, especially the infer that although Ashoke tries to protect from the chapter foregrounds its presence in symbolism of everyday objects. David Lodge his son from the realities of racism, they the rest of the text. Because Gogol is always has noted that are impossible to escape. Later, when referred to as Gogol, even after he changes en route to vacation in New Hampshire, the novelist should make his spade a spade before his name, Lahiri suggests that he cannot he makes it a symbol. Gogol introduces Maxine to his parents, wholly escape who he is; the overcoat of Lahiri reminds the reader of the mailbox Nikhil-ness cannot entirely eliminate his This, he says, is especially important for by having Gogol park next to it. The earlier identity. writers (like Lahiri) who are signifi cance of this becomes apparent aiming to create anything like the ‘illusion of life’. when Gogol and Maxine arrive at the Absence of Free Indirect Style If the spade is introduced all too obviously just Ratliffs’ holiday home: for the sake of its symbolic meaning, it will tend For a novel that uses so much focalisation, There is nothing to mark where they turned, no to undermine the credibility of the narrative as it’s interesting that there is very little free mailbox or sign. human action. indirect style (where, without being

32 emagazine February 2018 Complacently assured of their identities and unappreciated link to his family heritage, the aspects of meaning-making discussed place in the world (Maxine, Gogol realises, he’s listening to an album which is literally here are subtle and undemonstrative. This ‘has never wished she were anyone other white, connecting him to a set of Western is not to suggest that The Namesake isn’t than herself’), the Ratliffs have no need of cultural practices and values (although a political novel but rather to argue that the signifying security of a mailbox; for the ironically many of the songs on the record Jhumpa Lahiri shows us that the immigrant Gangulis, an immigrant family whose social were written while the Beatles were on a identity is constructed by small shifts in position is far more unstable, the mailbox rather ill-fated retreat in India, so Gogol personal and familial relationships, and that becomes a symbol of their tentative claim to isn’t separating himself from his Indian the nuanced and understated aspects of their ‘small patch of America’. Once Gogol culture as much as he’d like to think). her style discussed here – small alterations has moved into the Ratliffs’ house, a ‘willing The choice of the White Album rather than of narrative viewpoint, the symbolism of exile from his own life’, the ‘metal box’ at another of the Beatles’ 13 studio albums everyday objects, the signifi cance of pop his own apartment from which he collects also connects to the novel’s key motif cultural references – function almost as a his mail becomes his only connection with of ‘good’ and ‘pet’ names. Although the metaphor for that incrementally evolving his old life; it is, signifi cantly, ‘nameless’, White Album is what the record is usually dynamic. If, as Arundhati Roy puts it in The the person to whom that mail is sent is called because of its simple white sleeve God of Small Things, Great Stories are ceasing to exist. design, its ‘real’ name is The Beatles, the pet the ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit name becoming, like Gogol’s own, a good comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills Popular Cultural References name. Later, in the short chapter describing and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with Gogol’s solitary activities in New York when the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house A novel with a protagonist named after a he believes Moushumi to be away at a you live in famous Russian writer is bound to contain conference, he listens to the Beatles’ Abbey signifi cant intertextual references to then surely The Namesake qualifi es as a Road which contains their fi nal recordings canonical literary texts; indeed many of the Great Story and one that richly repays and includes a song called ‘The End’, a scholarly accounts of the novel have focused attention given to the ways in which it clear indication to the reader that Gogol’s on the relationships between Lahiri’s text shapes its meanings. marriage is doomed. Lahiri’s pop cultural and Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Overcoat’. I want references almost invariably do more than George Norton teaches English at Paston Sixth to focus on Lahiri’s use of popular cultural locate the narrative in a certain social Form College in North Norfolk. references because it exemplifi es further the moment; they contribute to the novel’s ordinariness of her style. I’m about a year ideas and themes just as powerfully as her older than Gogol (born August 1968) and more conventional literary intertexts. recognise how acutely Lahiri skewers the Author’s Note pretentious cultural interests of the 1980s The Unremarkable Details of middle-class teenager (I never grew a goatee I should probably say this at the end of but, like Gogol, I listened to Charlie Parker Ordinary Life every article I write but this one really couldn’t have existed without the insights and Elvis Costello, and read Nietzsche). Unlike other postcolonial novels dealing of my students at Paston, especially with the immigrant experience (Mohsin Charlie Williams-Burchell and Sarah She does especially clever things with Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Kiran Rigby, my fellow Beatlemaniac, who Gogol’s Beatles obsession. In the scene Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, Salman came up with those brilliant ideas about discussed earlier dealing with Ashoke’s Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses to name only the White Album. present, Gogol is listening to the Beatles’ a few), The Namesake eschews grander White Album, specifi cally to side three of geo-political concerns and focuses instead the double LP which includes a track called on the unremarkable details of ordinary ‘Birthday’. Its choice isn’t accidental. At the life. It is appropriate then that many of moment when Ashoke is offering Gogol the

emag web archive

• George Norton: The Immigrant Experience – Key Concepts and Terms, emagazine 74, December 2016 • George Norton: Imaginary Homelands – The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Other Contemporary Novels, emagazine 69, September 2015

emagClips Flaticon • Dr Priya Gopal on Postcolonial Literature

February 2018 emagazine 33 KEEPING

The Silence of Gertrude in Hamlet

Clare Gunns questions readings of Gertrude that minimise her importance, arguing rather that her character is ripe for rich interpretation. Shakespeare, she argues, offers us plenty of scope for thinking about Gertrude’s invidious position, which is at the heart of the play, rather than peripheral to it.

From a critical perspective, Gertrude has suffered because she is most often constructed as the mother of Hamlet, or wife of Claudius, rather than being analysed as a character in her own right. In fact, Shakespeare gives her just 155 lines, fewer than any of the major characters and around just four percent of the total lines in the play, so it is perhaps understandable that she is treated as somewhat of a bystander in terms of the tragedy. However, by analysing Gertrude’s language and understanding her presence on stage, one can discover unexpected depths both to her own individual drama and role within the play as a whole.

34 emagazine February 2018 MUM Angus Wright as Claudius, Andrew Scott as Hamlet, Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude. Manuel Harlan, with permission of Almeida Theatre and Emma Holland PR

February 2018 emagazine 35 AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo Benjamin Boucvalt as Hamlet and Ginger King as Gertrude, 2010.

Why is Gertrude Ignored? Hamlet, who sees her new relationship as very presence on stage. (Gertrude is on one of lust, rather than strategy. Perhaps stage in 10 scenes, compared with 11 for Gertrude’s motivations for marrying like any son he fi nds the idea of his Claudius and 14 for Hamlet.) She is privy to Claudius are largely missing from academic mother as an object of sexual desire an the visit from the ambassadors of Norway criticism, and the focus on her construction embarrassment, and Shakespeare conveys in Act 1 and is a companion to Claudius as a mother, even more so. Carolyn Hamlet’s distaste by lumping her in with during offi cial appointments such as the Heilbrun, writing in 1957, sought to redress the extended metaphor of degradation that play. She guides conversations, instructing the balance. She pointed out that critical pervades Elsinore. Polonius to hurry up in his speech, and views by male critics such as A.C. Bradley participates in questioning Rosencrantz and who calls her ‘very dull and very shallow’, Reading Gertrude Against the Guildenstern about her son. and Harley Granville-Barker who describes Grain her as ‘but a passive part in the action of the Private Mother, Public Queen play’ are misinterpreting the language of However, there are some aspects of her Shakespeare in his time and removing her presentation by Shakespeare that could It is here then, that the real interest in her importance as a major infl uence on the plot. be read rather differently than critics as a character is revealed, as the dual roles Yet still, Gertrude is ignored or vilifi ed as traditionally have done, giving Gertrude of queen and mother begin to become the audience continues to focus on Hamlet’s more strength and depth as a character, problematic for Gertrude and her power interpretation of events. providing more scope for audience wanes as she attempts to fulfi l the desires refl ection. In Act 1 Scene 2, the initial of both her husband and son. For example, Is this because the play itself chooses to on-stage encounter between mother and after all of their plans have failed to ignore potentially fruitful and fascinating son conveys Gertrude’s authority, and the establish the reasons for Hamlet’s behaviour, angles on Gertrude’s plight, rather than relationship is shown to be mainly positive; Polonius suggests that Gertrude should be a failure of critical interpretation of the Hamlet is not angry with her, but with employed as a last attempt: play? For instance, in events before the Claudius. Gertrude issues imperatives, ‘cast Let his Queen mother all alone entreat him play begins, we can suppose that Gertrude, thy knighted colour off,’ (1.2 l.68) and To show his grief… keenly aware of her loss of power through ‘Go not to Wittenberg.’ (1.2 l.119) where If she fi nd him not, the death of old Hamlet, might seek to Hamlet pointedly explains he will obey To England send him stabilise her precarious political position her, rather than Claudius. Equally, she 3.1. l.183-187 through marriage to Claudius, the new establishes her concern for him and praises King. This was not unusual in Tudor times; his father as ‘noble’(1.2 l.71), recognising Gertrude’s public and private personas indeed Henry VIII’s fi rst wife, Catherine of it is diffi cult when mourning the death of become increasingly mixed and as Hamlet Aragon, was initially married to his elder a parent, but challenging her son that it is and Claudius recognise this duality in brother, Arthur, and after his death, was time to look forward. Gertrude, both mistrust her, or think that wedded to Henry in order to continue an she represents the other’s interests more. alliance with Spain. However, Shakespeare As a queen, too, despite the lack of speaking constructs Gertrude through the eyes of lines, Gertrude retains her power by her

36 emagazine February 2018 In the closet scene, for instance, Hamlet Hamlet, ‘What shall I do?’ (3.4 l.182) as an Gertrude may not have the lines of dialogue accuses her of duplicity by labelling her, indication of her loyalty to him once more. of the other main characters, but it could be argued that this space allows directors to the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife, And were it not so, you are my mother. Ending as Mother not Queen? explore the reactions of the protagonist and 3.4 l.16-17 antagonist to her wavering allegiances. By As soon as Gertrude appears to give up carefully reading her actions and presence her role as a sexual object, it could be The last comment is meant to hurt the most on stage, reading between the lines and argued, Hamlet reclaims his ability to act. – it is an outright rejection of her love – but noticing the shifts in her words and She sacrifi ces her power and position in Hamlet is correct in that she is, as he speaks, behaviour, recent critics have demonstrated court for her son, and is similarly spurred conspiring with her husband against him. that far from minimising her drama, on to act against her new husband during She is failing in her loyalty to her son and Shakespeare’s presentation of her places the fi nal scene of the play. Gertrude’s fi nal thus her reaction to him is not as strong Gertrude at the very heart of the play. words and actions suggest that Claudius as it could have been if she knew she was was correct to question her loyalty to him Clare Gunns is an English and Media teacher at The innocent. For instance, Lisa Jardine points over Hamlet. Marguerite Tassi explains that British School of Brussels. out that she continues to use the formal choosing to oppose Claudius in public helps ‘you’(3.4 l.18) rather than the familiar Gertrude to make amends for her guilt and Further Reading ‘thou’ (3.4 l.10) with which she began simultaneously prompts Hamlet into killing her telling off. What is also interesting Heilbrun, C. ‘The Character of Hamlet’s Claudius and avenging their family unit. about this scene is that the presence Mother’ in Shakespeare Quarterly Vol. 8, of Polonius indicates Claudius’ own No. 2 (Spring, 1957), p201 There is debate over Gertrude’s knowledge mistrust of Gertrude. Her seeming lack of Jardine, L. 2005. Reading of whether the wine is poisoned or not, or understanding is also ripe for interpretation. Shakespeare Historically. when she realises, although her movements Reading the subtleties of pronoun use, and on stage show that she ‘openly goes over Tassi, Marguerite A. 2011. Women the detail of what is said, reveals much. to Hamlet’s ‘side’ leaving the throne and and Revenge in Shakespeare: Gender, Speaking little does not mean that a lot isn’t the King’ before deliberately defying Genre, and Ethics. going on under the surface. Claudius’ order not to drink from the cup. Tassi notes that there is a clear gap of fi ve emag web archive Scope for Interpretation syllables in the rhythm between Claudius’ There are a number of opportunities in this line and Gertrude’s, and it is in this space • Marcella McCarthy: Hamlet and scene for directors to explore the character that Shakespeare makes it clear that she Cinderella – Reading Tragedy of Gertrude, which have implications for the understands Claudius is trying to poison as Family Drama, emagazine drama as a whole. For instance, it is only Hamlet and sacrifi ces herself in his place. 49, September 2010 when Hamlet is absolutely explicit, in this Her last words directly oppose her husband’s • Dr Sean McEvoy: Hamlet’s ‘Mighty scene, that she seems to understand why he attempts to cover his actions as she clarifi es Opposite’, emagazine 64, April 2014 is so upset. Is this blindness, a reluctance to that she is not fainting because of the blood, • Richard Vardy: Stewed in Corruption – acknowledge what she secretly understands, but because ‘I am poisoned.’ (5.2 l.305). Polonius and the Politics of Denmark, or a sign of how little she really knows emagazine 74, December 2016 about the machinations of Claudius? However, she is still not explicit in her accusation of Claudius at this point, leaving • Katy Limmer: Male Friendship in Hamlet, emagplus for emagazine Claudius clearly doubts Gertrude’s feelings it to Laertes to declare, ‘the King’s to 74, December 2016 for him are as strong as her love for blame’. (5.2 l.314). Indeed, Hamlet suggests Hamlet, understanding that as mothers, Gertrude will be in hell when he tells ‘nature makes them partial’ (3.3 l.33) and Claudius to ‘Follow my mother’ (5.2 l.321) entrusts Polonius to watch on his behalf. and labels her ‘Wretched Queen’ (5.2 l.327) emagClips Thus, although we watch the closet scene in a last denial of their bond so that, even in death, Gertrude’s dual roles and motivation knowing that Gertrude is deceiving Hamlet, • Andrew Dickson on Shakespeare are questioned by her son. we must also be aware that she knows she • Dr Emma Smith on is also being watched and judged. Once Women in Shakespeare her husband’s spy is dead, she is free to ask

February 2018 emagazine 37 Where do we find the literary?

EVERYWHERE!

Teacher Gabi Reigh investigates whether a rigid division between the literary and non-literary is either desirable or possible, arguing that many so-called non-literary texts, whether in print or other media, draw on literary conventions as part of the very nature of what they’re doing.

The study of A Level Language and start, there is literary non-fi ction – forms as the use of imagery or conventional plot Literature involves the exploration of like diaries, autobiographies or travel structures, in order to persuade or entertain relationships between literary and non- writing that are written to be read in the their audiences. literary texts. Superfi cially, we tend to same way one might read a novel but think of literary and non-literary texts as are based on real events and experiences Defi ning ‘Literariness’ – polar opposites, the former characterised by rather than invented ones. These clearly Metaphor rich metaphorical language and carefully position themselves close to the ‘literary’ plotted narratives, while the latter is end of the spectrum. However, it could ‘Literariness’ is usually a concept we perceived as being entirely dependent on also be argued that non-literary factual associate with fi ction. Some theorists have objective factual sources, with a radically texts, with a readership or audience that argued that one of the key distinguishing different set of linguistic features. However, is not expecting something ‘literary’, features of such works is the use of it is possible instead to see all texts on a such as newspaper articles or reality TV metaphorical language. In his 1917 essay continuum, occupying different positions transcripts, often exhibit features which we ‘Art and Device’, the Russian literary critic on the spectrum of ‘literariness’. For a normally associate with literary texts, such and linguist Victor Shklovsky aimed to

38 emagazine February 2018 defi ne the intrinsic qualities of literary texts articles, particularly from the tabloids, opera’. Even after her acquittal in 2011, the by stating that: constantly use imagery and hyperbole to media’s fascination with Knox continued, engage the reader and manipulate their as she appeared in a Netfl ix documentary, The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived, and not as they are sympathies. The French literary theorist wrote her memoirs, and was even the known. Roland Barthes commented on the way the subject of a play. The ‘mythologising’ of language of the mass media uses symbolism Amanda Knox in the tabloids calls to mind According to Shklovsky, metaphors are used to create particular ‘sensations’ in their recognisable literary constructs, such as in literary texts in order to ‘defamiliarise’ audience, rather than simply delivering the stock characters of ‘The Black Widow’ ordinary events and present them in a new objective factual information. In the preface and ‘The Femme Fatale’. Mirroring the light. For example, in Great Expectations, the to his collection of essays Mythologies, iconography of these characters, Knox protagonist Pip is threatened by a convict Barthes wrote that his aim was to deliver was stereotyped as a seductive, yet he encounters on the marshes and forced manipulative sociopath. Far from being to bring him supplies. As he watches the an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass culture. factual or objective, the language of the convict eating, he is reminded of the image news coverage of her case was laden with of a dog devouring his food. Dickens uses He expressed metaphors and emotive language. An article a simile to present the scene through Pip’s a feeling of impatience at the sight of the from the Daily Star (1.2.2014) used both homodiegetic narration: ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and metaphor and language from the semantic The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like common sense constantly dress up reality. fi eld of artifi ce: she was described as an ‘Ice the dog. Maiden’, her ‘glamorous’ ‘veneer’ hiding His essays looked at the way real objects the heart of a ‘magnetic and manipulative’ By superimposing two familiar images, or people, such as the actress Greta Garbo, killer; a ‘brilliant actress’ who ‘paint[ed] that of a dog and that of a man eating a are presented in the press through imagery herself as a warm, loving human being’ and pie, we are presented with the ‘sensation’ which recreates them as cultural symbols or shamelessly promoted herself as a ‘TV star’. of Magwitch’s desperation and ravenous ‘myths’ – in other words, literary constructs. hunger, and we ‘perceive’ Pip’s fear and Narrative Structure – The disgust towards him. Amanda Knox – The Myth of the ‘Black Widow’ World’s Strictest Parents Barthes and Mythologies Another defi ning aspect of literary texts The same theory can be applied to the such as novels and drama is the way However, it is clear that metaphorical presentation of Amanda Knox in the media they use particular narrative structures. language permeates every aspect of our in more recent times. In 2007, Knox was Aristotle’s Poetics provides one of the earliest lives – it is part of the way we think about convicted of the murder of her fl atmate theories of what the structure of a literary ourselves and create narratives about our Meredith Kercher in Perugia, where they text should be. When defi ning the elements world. It is there in our use of idioms (as were both studying. Looking at newspaper of the ‘complex plot’ in tragedy, he outlines dead metaphors, such as ‘raining cats and articles written about her, it is possible that it should involve events which evoke dogs’ or ‘speak of the devil’, as well as to see that metaphors and patterns of fear and pity in the audience as they more freshly minted ones such as ‘the glass imagery are used in order portray her as witness the suffering of the protagonist. ceiling’). But metaphorical language in a a charismatic, yet villainous character. In The drama reaches its climax as the hero more ‘crafted’ sense can be found not only her column in The Sun newspaper, Louise experiences a change of fortunes and in literary texts such as novels or poetry, but Mensch described the press representation undergoes the process of anagnorisis – a also in many non-literary texts. Newspaper of the investigation as a ‘macabre soap

February 2018 emagazine 39 moment when they fi nally understand the anything else, or that anything or anyone is really cause of their suffering. This plot structure being addressed, or changed, or helped would be fi nds an echo in another literary genre, the a mistake. bildungsroman. This genre, which has its In The World’s Strictest Parents we see how origins in the novels of Goethe in the 18th even the most ‘natural’ recording of human century, uses a formulaic plot structure behaviour has been edited to follow the which charts the development of a young conventions of a well-known narrative person who, after enduring suffering and structure in order to create an entertaining experiencing confl ict, fi nally matures and ‘drama’ for the audience. gains a greater understanding of the world. ‘The Literary Mind’ Despite the fact that ‘Reality TV’ is supposed to be unscripted and spontaneous, it is So if literary and non-literary texts possible to see how episodes of programmes have many similarities in terms of the such as The World’s Strictest Parents have metaphorical language and plot structures been edited in such a way as to follow the which they use, how does this help us narrative structures outlined above. In an understand what is ‘literariness’? On the episode fi rst aired on Sunday 17th October one hand, it is possible to argue that tabloid 2010, Tamsin, a teenager from Brighton, journalists or TV producers deliberately is sent to New Jersey to be ‘reformed’ include literary features in their texts by the world’s strictest fathers. The or programmes in order to engage and narrative here certainly fulfi ls Aristotle’s entertain their audiences by creating strong defi nition in Poetics of a ‘complex plot’ emotional responses. However, as suggested which provokes shock and pity towards previously, some theorists have contended the protagonist’s actions and results in that ‘literariness’ is something which is a change of her fortunes by the end of fundamental to all of our communication the 60 minutes. Like all the episodes and even our thinking. For the cognitive in this series, Tamsin’s ‘story’ involves scientist Mark Turner, author of The Literary anagnorisis but with a happy ending that Mind – the Origins of Thought and Language, is plotted in terms of the conventions of the presence of imagery and other literary a bildungsroman. Typically, it begins with qualities in everyday communication or the protagonist’s journey, in this case from newspaper articles should come as no Brighton to New Jersey. There is also a surprise. In his book, Turner contests the confl ict between the young character idea that ‘literariness’ is a kind of ‘special and her parents, who are concerned that performance’ only to be found in fi ction or she is taking drugs. However, with the that language is ‘built up from the sober to help of ‘the world’s strictest parents’, the exotic’. Instead, Turner argues that the Tamsin experiences anagnorisis as she ‘literary’ is right there from the beginning, becomes aware of the need to change an essential part of how we make sense of emag web archive her self-destructive behaviour but, unlike the world. In particular, he looks at the way Aristotle’s tragedy trajectory, the typical that parables have been used to explore • Carol Atherton: Graphic Novels – Joe bildungsroman goal of maturity is reached. our place in space and time and to help us Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde, emagazine The narrator of the programme stresses the understand life. ‘Parable’, Turner states: 55, February 2012 • Steph Jackson: A Conveyance need for Tamsin to confess her failings and is the root of the human mind – of thinking, of Meaning – Metaphor in embrace society’s values through a series of acting, knowing, creating, and plausibly even metaphors such as thinking. Life and Literature, emagazine 45, September 2009 Tamsin’s drug use is a major barrier between her According to Turner, ‘the literary’ – be it • Dr Graeme Trousdale: Metaphor and her parents metaphor, parable, or narrative structure – a Figure of Thought?, emagazine and – is present in all texts because it is central 61, September 2013 to our rationalisation of our experiences The dads are slowly getting Tamsin to open up. • Beth Kemp: Metaphors of Life and and our communication with others. Death, emagazine 65, September 2014 All the episodes in the series share the Turner concludes: • Professor Elena Semino: Metaphors same ending, sceptically described by Sam Language is the child of the literary mind. for Cancer, and Why They Matter, Wollaston in a review in the Guardian: emagazine 67, February 2015 • Karina Licorish Quinn: Story-telling By the end of week they’re all hugs and kisses and Gabi Reigh teaches English at The Sixth Form love-yous and tears at the airport and stay-in- College, Farnborough. and Memory in Paris – The AQA B touches. Anthology, emagazine 76, April 2017

• Danuta Reah: Making Monsters According to Wollaston, what we see here – How the Press Decide Who is just as much a fi ctional construct, as a We Love and Who We Hate, simple depiction of real life, because it is emagazine 60, April 2013 television. Nothing more; and to think it’s

40 emagazine February 2018 Native Son The soul frets in the shadow

Although Native Son is over 70 years old, Richard Wright’s narrative voice still resonates, especially in the context of today’s America of cultural suspicion and racial tension. Roshan Doug explores the sense of exclusion and yearning for the unattainable at the heart of Bigger’s tragedy.

In this article, I want to illustrate how the a capitalist society that creates economic very area in which his ‘soul frets in the main protagonist in Richard Wright’s Native alienation. They themselves are excluded, shadows’. The protagonist arouses polarised Son (1940), Bigger Thomas, is a complex ostracised from the social privileges that feelings: on the one hand, empathy character who personifi es the concerns of come with that capital, such as titles, class, and understanding and, on the other, black America by becoming the mouthpiece education, clubs and political contacts. indignation, horror and condemnation of the author. The politics of race are central It is what the French sociologist and when he murders a white girl, Mary to this novel. philosopher, Pierre Bourdieu refers to as Dalton. This is because Wright illustrates ‘social capital’. the plight of the black people with both Often what characters in novels want, humour, understanding and sensitivity. His their raison d’être, is the very thing that Yet, ironically, the very thing Bigger yearns text acts both as an artistic work of fi ction is the cause of their greatest anguish. The for – wealth and materialism, brought and psychological documentary that paints fi ction shows them struggling to come about through capitalist exploitation – is a realistic though complex picture of the to terms with a sense of exclusion, loss the very thing that binds him to poverty main protagonist. or desire for something they cannot yet and injustice, creating the unrest of his attain. James Joyce’s protagonist, Stephen spirit. The world he inhabits is strange and The story centres on Bigger Thomas a Dedalus illustrates this powerfully in the alienating. It keeps him ‘at bay’. Writer 20-year-old ‘son’ who lives in a slum and seminal text A Portrait of the Artist as a Young and social critic, James Baldwin, Wright’s is denied all prospects of breaking ‘the Man, when he comments on the speech of protégé, develops this idea of social and mind-forged manacles’ placed on him his English dean that represents for him a racial disconnectedness in his perspective of by the racist America of the 1930s. With world from which he feels excluded. This is white society: little elementary education he knows how speech that he fi nds unsettlingly foreign and deeply entrenched in poverty he and his These people cannot be, from the point of view unfamiliar but desperately wishes to inhabit of power, strangers anywhere in the world; they fellow black people are. He gets involved and make his own: have made the modern world, in effect, even if in crime, mainly petty robberies. For Bigger, even the harsh sentences passed on The language in which we are speaking is his they do not know it. The most illiterate among before it is mine. How different are the words them is related, in a way that I am not, to Dante, black people for these crimes, exemplify home, Christ, ale, master, on his lips and on mine! Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Aeschylus, Da Vinci, the injustice. Jealousy, anger and hatred I cannot speak or write these words without Rembrandt, and Racine; the cathedral at Chartres naturally build up, elements brought unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so says something to them which it cannot say to about by a capitalist system that thrives on foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. me, as indeed would New York’s Empire State inequity. Bigger is aware that it is no longer Building, should anyone here ever see it. Out of I have not made or accepted its words. My voice slavery but capitalism that ‘shackles’ him. their hymns and dances come Beethoven and holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of He highlights this in his recognition of his Bach. Go back a few centuries and they are in his language. own oppression: their full glory – but I am in Africa, watching the We see the echoes of this paradox in Native conquerors arrive. ‘They don’t let us do nothing.’ Son. It is a novel about racial tension Baldwin, 1953 ‘Who don’t?’ in USA, communal inequity and black ‘The white folks!’ subjugation. But to many readers, it is also Complex, Psychological, Later he acknowledges that it is the white a portrayal of a distinct dichotomy in which Confl icting people who have ‘got everything. They African Americans fi nd themselves as the own the world.’ subject of racial segregation. They serve In Native Son we witness Bigger Thomas wanting equality of opportunity – the

February 2018 emagazine 41 Richard Wright and Gloria Madison, on-set of the Film, “Native Son” directed by Pierre Chenal, 1951. Glasshouse Images/Alamy Stock Photo

The hardship of the depression is captured Bigger Thomas is unable to equate this with ‘No; please,’ Mrs. Dalton said. ‘What is it, Mrs. when Bigger is offered employment by an genuine compassion and, instead, treats it Thomas?’ employment relief agency. The job is as a as a manufactured and patronising gesture Bigger’s mother ran and knelt on the fl oor at Mrs. chauffeur at the Dalton’s palatial residence. of certain class sensibilities. Bigger is Dalton’s feet. ‘Please, mam!’ she wailed. ‘Please, don’t let Although it is something, the meagre salary further perplexed when Jan and Mary ask ‘em kill my boy! You know how a mother feels! will barely support him, let alone his family him to take them to his neighbourhood, Please, mam […] We live in your house […] They as well. Initially, it is the inadequacy of the the ‘Black belt’ to get a feel of what life is done asked us to move […] We ain’t got nothing employment that preys on his mind. like in such a ghetto. It is condescension […]’ at the deepest level but it is the power Bigger was paralyzed with shame; he felt Alienation, Powerlessness, imbalance that bothers and shames Bigger. violated. This sense of powerlessness comes to a Confusion His subjugation and submission to white climax when Bigger’s mother comes to see middle class community is cemented. Later, upon taking employment with Mr the Daltons pleading for his life: Dalton, he notes the mansion and the ‘Is you Mrs. Dalton?’ she asked. household. The opulence is so far removed Baldwin – A Contrived Mrs. Dalton moved nervously, lifted her thin, from his own local familiarity with the white hands and tilted her head. Political Statement ‘Black belt’ ghetto in Chicago that he feels Her mouth came open and Mr. Dalton placed an Despite its success, Baldwin described the a sense of alienation. When Mary and arm about her. novel as contrived and synthetic, where her boyfriend extend a proverbial hand of ‘Yes,’ Mrs. Dalton whispered. the characters are artifi cially brought understanding, friendship and camaraderie, ‘Oh, Mrs. Dalton, come right this way,’ Buckley said hurriedly. together to highlight the themes of

42 emagazine February 2018 positive image of the black male. But it could be argued that Wright is, unapologetically, painting a complex psychological picture of Bigger Thomas, portraying incongruous and confl icting feelings that are themselves capable of both arousing the same kind of confl icting feelings in the reader – both deep empathy and sheer abhorrence.

Even today, over three quarters of a century later, Native Son continues to resonate with readers who are perturbed about race politics and the ever-growing tide of cultural antagonism. Wright’s concerns are re-contextualised and echoed in the protest campaign, Black Lives Matter and Trump’s explicit vilifi cation of Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants. They act as a reminder of social and cultural inequities and the kinds of prejudice which black people have to navigate. The disparity between wealth and abject poverty – personifi ed by mainly black communities residing in ghettoes and the disproportionate number of black men in prisons in relation to their white counterparts – is indicative of how, more than class, race is the core of civil unrest sweeping through America. Even today, black people remain excluded from wealth, privilege and cultural and symbolic capital which the upper strata of white society enjoys. Like Bigger, black people’s souls continue to fret in the shadows of racial inequality and injustice.

Dr Roshan Doug teaches English at Halesowen College.

References Fanon, F. 1952. ‘The Fact of Blackness’ (essay). Baldwin, J. 1953. ‘Stranger in the Village, an essay published in Harper’s Magazine. segregation, economic deprivation, poverty Critiques of Bigger – Baldwin, J. 1949. ‘Everybody’s Protest and inequality. To him the plot pushes the Justifi able or Not? boundaries of credulity because Bigger Novel’ (essay). Thomas is all too knowing, especially in There is little doubt that Wright was using Forster, E.M. 1927. Aspects of the Novel. the early part of the novel when Wright Bigger Thomas as a device to lecture his Joyce, J. 1916. A Portrait of the Artist evidently places Bigger as someone more readers about the imbalance of wealth as a Young Man. intelligent, more in tune with the politics of distribution, about America’s unfair treatment race than his friends and peers. To Baldwin, of black people and the inhumanity of its the didactic element interferes with the Art ignorance – or cold indifference at their because the text becomes, to him at least, plight. However, for some readers and a mere political statement. Further on, commentators, including black writers, the the humanity and compassion Jan shows representation of Bigger Thomas has been even after his discovery that Bigger killed quite contentious. There has been some his fi ancée, is rather utopian, idealistic and debate about whether Wright plays into the emag web archive thus implausible. stereotypes of the aggressive black male or does something more radical with him (and his readers). For instance, both Baldwin • Oscar Rickett: The Alienated and Fanon argue that Bigger’s propensity to Individual – a Theme in crime, his anger, his hatred and his partiality American Prose Texts, emagazine to violence suggest Wright is negating the 41, September 2008

February 2018 emagazine 43 The Tempest at the Barbican (press image)

Ariel in The Tempest

Servitude and Freedom

John Hathaway uses multiple readings to question conventional thinking about Ariel’s relationship with Prospero and suggest that perhaps ‘delicate Ariel’ has more power than his master. He draws on postcolonial perspectives, psychoanalytic readings, theatrical interpretations by directors and even a re-writing by Margaret Atwood.

44 emagazine February 2018 The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe (press image)

It is perhaps fi tting that a character who a loving, close relationship with his master. Ariel left the stage slowly and reluctantly to is described variously as ‘brave spirit’, He delights in serving Prospero, and is eager embrace his freedom, at one point turning ‘delicate Ariel’ and ‘tricky spirit’, and to show his devotion, asking for work: back to his master, before leaving Prospero who is so strongly associated with the bereft and alone, deserted by the one To thy strong bidding, task elements of air and water, should be so Ariel and all his quality character that knew him unlike any other. diffi cult to pin down in any concrete form. For such a major and instrumental role, and A Postcolonial Reading Ariel remains fl uid, mobile and changing What shall I do? Say what? What shall I do? However, it is also possible to view Ariel’s throughout The Tempest. His importance In a play that examines master/servant relationship with Prospero in a more cynical as a character can be usefully explored relationships from a number of different way, particularly if a postcolonial reading through his relationship with Prospero and angles, Ariel is an example of a servant is applied to the play. Jonathan Miller’s a consideration of the power that he wields. who loves his master and seeks affi rmation 1970 production of the play cast Ariel as an Master and Servant of that love when he poignantly asks educated slave who desired to seize power ‘Do you love me, master?’ He fulfi ls his when Prospero left the island. The play Relationships duties precisely, and, in addition, acts to ended with Ariel brandishing Prospero’s The only character who is aware of Ariel’s protect Prospero, warning him of Caliban’s broken staff menacingly towards Caliban, existence is Prospero, and it is highly plot to usurp him. As such, he is clearly who was portrayed as an uneducated signifi cant that it is Ariel alone who is privy juxtaposed to Caliban, who is repeatedly slave working in the fi elds. Seen in this to Prospero’s plans and ambitions. This referred to as Prospero’s ‘slave’ and openly light, Ariel is just as contemptuous and foregrounds the relationship between these defi es his master. In contrast, Prospero resentful of Prospero as Caliban is. The two characters, making void any assessment calls Ariel his ‘chick’, refl ecting an almost only difference is that Ariel seeks to of Ariel’s role or function that does not paternal, nurturing relationship. The 2016 deceive Prospero and convince him of his consider how he relates to Prospero. Ariel, RSC production captured this dynamic in faithfulness and loyalty as a deliberate on the one hand, is often viewed as having Prospero and Ariel’s relationship when strategy in order to gain power. Whereas

February 2018 emagazine 45 Caliban repeatedly challenges Prospero, Ariel only makes this mistake once, asking ‘Is there more toil?’. The word ‘toil’ is particularly signifi cant, refl ecting the fact that his acts of service are not joyfully completed out of love, but are necessary acts of compliance. It is perhaps fi tting that Ariel is a character associated with illusion as he seeks to fool Prospero with the illusion of his servitude, whilst constantly agitating for his freedom beneath this veneer. His repeated references to Prospero as ‘potent master’ and ‘noble master’ can thus be viewed as nothing more than obscuring fl attery. It was Sam Mendes who in his 1993 production most infamously expressed this view of Ariel. When granted his freedom, Ariel spat in Prospero’s face, drawing gasps from the shocked audience. In fact, so unpopular was this that Mendes altered the production, having Ariel withdraw from the stage defi antly without spitting. Arguably the audience reaction refl ects how easy it is for us to be taken in by the myth of Prospero’s supposedly benevolent dictatorship. In a postcolonial reading, Ariel’s shocking act of spitting in Prospero’s face confronts the audience with the true nature of Prospero’s totalitarian control, drawing clear parallels with colonial relationships.

A Victim of Rhetoric Public Domain

Margaret Atwood, when discussing her rewrite of The Tempest, Hag Seed, called Ariel ‘Prospero’s special effects guy’. Such a view relegates Ariel to the position of second fi ddle to Prospero. After all, Ariel in many ways acts as Prospero’s stage causing Ferdinand to drop his sword and This of course does nothing to hide the manager, enacting his plans and fulfi lling drawing a magic circle. Some productions fact that Prospero threatens a similar but his purposes. He keeps the various groups of rob even these deeds from him, giving them more severe punishment on Ariel than characters separate and leads them around to an invisible Ariel to perform. This begs he suffered under Sycorax, replacing the the island, only allowing them to converge the question: if Ariel is more powerful than ‘pine’, a soft wood, with a fi rmer and more when Prospero wills it. In addition, he Prospero, why does he serve him? Caliban is solid (and therefore more painful) ‘oak’ magically creates the Masque scene and tortured for his disobedience, and yet Ariel that he will ‘peg’ Ariel inside. Threaten, himself takes the role of harpy to allow does not face the same kinds of punishment however, is all Prospero appears able to Prospero to succeed in his goal of presenting that Caliban frequently faces. Perhaps the do. Arguably, the true tragedy of this marriage as a social (and not a sexual) only power that Prospero has over Ariel play is that Ariel never realises he is union and confronting the courtiers with is the power of rhetoric: he bullies Ariel imprisoned in nothing more than a cage of their wrongdoings. Prospero himself tells into serving him and makes him believe words. Orwell wrote that he is indebted to Prospero and in his Ariel after the harpy scene that He who controls the past controls the future control. This explains why Prospero, in the Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated space of a few lines, moves from calling and Prospero here (as he does elsewhere In what thou hadst to say. Ariel ‘my brave spirit’ to denouncing him in the play) presents his version of the past Ariel can thus be viewed as nothing more as a ‘malignant thing’. Prospero’s monthly in order to control and manipulate Ariel than a performing puppet, fulfi lling every recounting of how he saved Ariel from in the future. This explains why Prospero wish of his master. Sycorax’s torture very fi rmly casts himself in continually dangles Ariel’s freedom in front the role of saviour: of him to ensure his compliance. Prospero And yet it is Ariel and not Prospero that recognises that he is nothing without It was mine art… that made gape appears to have most power. After all, the Ariel, and he uses his considerable powers The pine and let thee out. only acts of magic that Prospero enacts of rhetorical manipulation to control in the play are putting Miranda to sleep, and enslave him.

46 emagazine February 2018 The Tempest at Shakespeare’s Globe (press image)

An Inhuman Human against those who have wronged him. It is only Ariel, the inhuman alien, who is able emag web archive Psychoanalytical readings of the play, to remind Prospero of his own humanity, such as Auden’s The Sea and the Mirror, triggering his epiphany that • David Kinder and Juliet Harrison: posit a relationship between Ariel, Caliban The rarer action is Interpreting The Tempest Theatrically, and Prospero which sees all three as In virtue than in vengeance. emagazine 17 September 2002 being inextricably bound together. Ariel • Richard Jacobs: Claribel’s Story in The represents the super-ego, or Prospero’s Ariel therefore acts as Prospero’s moral Tempest, emagazine 28 April 2005 internal desire to do good, whilst the compass, saving him from turning into • Neil Bowen: The Tempest – Authority earthy Caliban represents Prospero’s id, a power-crazed despot who commits and Leadership, emagazine 35 or instinctive desires. This is most clearly inhuman acts by leading him towards • Angus Ledingham: Interpreting seen when Ariel confronts Prospero accepting his own humanity and Prospero, emagazine 43, February 2009 with his own inhumanity, expressing recognising the danger inherent in the • Malcolm Hebron: Prospero – A the sympathy that he would feel, ‘were I god-like omnipotence that he possesses. Renaissance Magus, emagazine human’, when gazing upon the distracted Regardless of Ariel’s true feelings towards 51, February 2011 royal party following the harpy scene. Prospero or questions of who is more • Dr Sean McEvoy: Interpreting The Prospero’s response to Ariel’s pointedly powerful, it is this act that fundamentally Tempest, emagazine 65, September 2014 chosen and moving depiction of Gonzalo’s shapes the play and foreshadows Prospero’s • Fran Hill: The Tempest – Our Noble suffering is telling: renunciation of his magic and release of Selves, Our Baser Instincts, emagazine Ariel. In setting Prospero free from his all- Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 73, September 2016. consuming desire for revenge, Ariel himself Of their affl ictions, and shall not myself • Sam Brunner: Beyond Tragedy? guarantees his own freedom. His fi nal song (One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Shakespeare’s Romances, emagazine in which he celebrates his liberty acts as Passion as they) be kindlier moved than thou art? 54, December 2011 a thematic coda to the play, allowing the This section comes just after Prospero’s audience to contemplate the freedom that declaration of his total power and control: all characters, to a greater or lesser extent, At this hour experience as we applaud Prospero’s emagClips Lies at my mercy all mine enemies. actions after his Epilogue, beguiled until the very end by this masterful manipulator. Prospero’s dangerous delight in having • Andrew Dickson on Shakespeare manipulated all of his foes into a position John Hathaway is Head of English at of absolute weakness refl ects his desire to Glenalmond College. take a more permanent form of revenge

February 2018 emagazine 47 © Linda Combi February 2018 February emagazine

48

Facebook and a Fractured Society

How Online Communication is Changing Friendship and Politics

What, if anything, is the link between getting annoyed by your friends on Facebook and the fake news epidemic which supposedly led to Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump? This article by Dr Philip Seargeant and Dr Caroline Tagg suggests that an understanding of how people communicate on social media can help us understand the way that society as a whole is changing – and can give insights into how to cope with these changes.

There is apparently a growing trend among dumbing down of culture, for the lowering news stories were promoted on Facebook people working in Silicon Valley to send of IQs, and for creating a whole new and Google which claimed that the gunman their children to schools where the use category of addiction. Research shows that was a supporter of the Democratic Party of iPads and iPhones is banned. They’re people today touch and swipe their phones and had an anti-Trump agenda. These worried, it seems, about the harmful on average over two and a half thousand stories were entirely made-up, and were infl uence that technology – and particularly times a day. And for some commentators, spread by political trolls intent on exploiting social media – can have on the cognitive there’s a direct link between this addiction the tragedy for their own ideological ends and social development of their children. and the seismic shifts that have taken place – a trend which has become ever more They’re worried about its addictive nature, in the political landscape in the last couple common in recent months. the effects it has on the attention span, of years – shifts which are threatening and the pressures that come from constant to undermine the idea of democracy The reaction in the newspapers to this and limitless exposure to the online world. as we know it. incident was to blame Facebook and Google In other words, the very people who are for helping the stories to fl ourish. Ever responsible for designing this modern online Fake News, Personalisation since the beginning of the ‘fake news’ world are now emerging as its leading Algorithms and Filter Bubbles panic, this has been the main response: sceptics. They’re the ones now stressing not blame the technology for allowing people only about how it’s altering the way we At the centre of this panic over the assault to manipulate it for their own exploitative communicate, but how it’s reconfi guring on democracy is the concept of ‘fake news’. purposes. The particular focus for this society as a whole. The phrase ‘fake news’ can refer to a range criticism has been the personalisation of different things these days. At one end of algorithms that the companies use. These Media reaction to sites such as Facebook the spectrum it’s become a cover-all insult are designed to feed users stories that are and Twitter has always swung between used by politicians to disparage their rivals likely to appeal to them, while fi ltering naïve idealism and moral panic. For some, and to criticise occasional lapses in the out ones they’ll be less interested in. In social media has great democratising ‘mainstream media’. At the other end of the theory, this allows Facebook to create a potential. It gives everyone the ability to spectrum it refers to purposefully fabricated positive, individualised user experience. But publish their thoughts and opinions; to have news stories which are spread either for what it also does is create so-called ‘fi lter their voices heard. This, so the argument profi t (from the advertising revenue they bubbles’, whereby users are shielded from goes, offers potent new ways for people can attract) or for political manipulation. ideas and opinions they disagree with. Add to hold those in power accountable. But For example, in the aftermath of the recent to this the fact that news is not editorially for others, social media is responsible for a deadly shooting in Las Vegas, several false scrutinised by the company, and that

February 2018 emagazine 49 Facebook is now used by over two billion Still, I don’t think Facebook is really the place that people – which is the equivalent of the people choose to listen to opposing views, so I entire world population only ninety years usually ignore posts of that nature. ago – and you have an environment where The various responses suggested that, even misinformation can spread far and wide where someone feels strongly about a topic, with great speed and ease. they don’t engage the person who’s made this comment in debate, or publicly denounce Technology or a Product of them. Instead, they respond by quietly Human Interaction? unfriending the offender, blocking their posts from their newsfeed, or simply ignoring them. There’s a lot of sense in this analysis of the situation. But to see it entirely in these The reasons for this are complex but they terms – and thus to claim that the ‘fake revolve around two main issues. Firstly, news’ epidemic is solely a technology issue there’s the perception, for the respondents in – is to overlook how people themselves our survey at least, that Facebook isn’t really a are using this technology. It neglects any consideration of how people’s own actions place [where] people choose to listen to opposing may contribute to the situation, and the way views. desire to come across in a certain way and to that fi lter bubbles may in fact not simply be This is partly because the interaction isn’t align themselves with friends. Whether or a product of the machines, but of human face-to-face, and also because people are not something is ‘fake’ may be less important interaction as well. keen to maintain a harmonious and convivial than questions regarding who shared it and environment. The attempt to create ‘online whether a user is willing to offend them. If conviviality’ is prompted by the wide variety we want to tackle the problem of fake news, of different people that make up any one therefore, we need to take into account the person’s network of ‘friends’ – a miscellaneous impact that people’s desire not to annoy group of parents, extended family, close their friends – or to show their annoyance friends, work colleagues, vague acquaintances with them – might have on their decisions and so on – and the attempt people make to regarding whether to denounce, ignore or manage all these diverse relationships. On the share potentially misleading information. one hand, this diversity appears to increase the chances of any one user being offended, Philip Seargeant and Caroline Tagg both lecture in applied linguistics at the Open University. © Linda Combi because they’re more likely to come into Their most recent book is Taking Offence on contact with a wide range of different views. Social Media: Conviviality and Communication on On the other hand, it seems to stop them Facebook (2017, Palgrave Macmillan). from engaging or arguing with offending posts, as they don’t want to provoke too much confl ict with their ‘friends’. To investigate this issue we carried out a survey of over one hundred Facebook users The True News about the as part of a research project entitled Creating Facebook Experience Facebook. The survey was designed to elicit how people viewed Facebook as a forum for So what does any of this have to do with emag web archive communication, why they behaved in the fake news? Firstly, this research shows that way they did on the site, and how they felt people do have access to opposing views on • Dr Claire Hardaker The Language about their experiences on it. To elicit this, Facebook, and so these aren’t completely of Online Abuse – Seven one of the questions we asked was whether fi ltered out by the site’s personalisation Forms of Antisocial Behaviour, people were ever offended by what their algorithm. Secondly, rather than fi lter bubbles emagazine 64, April 2014 friends posted on the site, and, if so, what being created solely by the technology, it • Andrew McCallum: Why It Went they did in response. seems that people’s own actions contribute to Viral – the Power of Non-standard the echo chamber effect by fi ltering out views Language, emagazine 72, April 2016 What we found was that people were with which they disagree. In other words, • Dr Claire Hardaker: A Linguist in the overwhelmingly offended by political and both the technology and people’s own actions Media, emagazine 75, February 2017 religious opinions that they disagreed with, combine to create the particular experience • Nicola Ball: Online Interactions as well as by posts they found homophobic or that any one user has of Facebook. and Gender Distinctions, racist. For example, respondents told us: emagazine 76, April 2017 • Professor Deborah Cameron: Blogging I remember defriending one person (friend of a What all of this means is that any attempt to friend) as she kept posting her political opinions that fi nd a solution to the problematic relationship About Language – @wordspinster were the complete opposite of mine. between fake news and social media needs Speaks, emagazine 77, September 2017 to take into account the fact that Facebook • Suzanne Williams: ‘Selfi e’ – What’s it I know someone who posts quite racist comments. I isn’t only a news-sharing site; it’s also still all About? emagazine 64, April 2014 cannot defriend her so have simply adjusted things very much a place where social relationships • Suzanne Williams: The Hashtag, so I never see her posts. play out. A place where people are often emagazine 71, February 2016 I have a particularly hard time with pro-gun posts... motivated not by the quest for truth but a

50 emagazine February 2018 Sylvia Plath Reimagining Motherhood Public Domain Public Domain

Brittany Wright explores a much-neglected aspect of the poetry of a poet whose troubled life, early death and marriage to Ted Hughes have threatened to drown out everything else.

Jeannette Winterson once described Plath opportunity to live ‘to the fullness of her mere verse and into the realm of true poetry as a woman born out of time and this ability’ (Hughes, 2004, p.xvi). The idea that a presentation of motherhood characterisation creates the same view of and high-quality poetry are incompatible Plath that we often meet in literary criticism Marginalised Motherhood seems to have been shared in part by of her work. From Plath as naïve, highly- The presentation of motherhood in Ted Hughes, who removed two poems strung schoolgirl to Plath as married victim Plath’s work is subject to far less scrutiny focused on motherhood from the original of male misogyny, we view her with the in academic circles than wider themes manuscript of Plath’s posthumously reverential pity of those who have lived of female oppression and mental illness. published Ariel. Whilst Hughes’ meddling through a feminist revolution and look back Although most academic attention is with Plath’s last poetic work is often seen through history to salvage the dignity of focused on Plath’s poetry collections and as a fi nal act of male suppression of Plath’s our less fortunate sisters. It is this feminist on her novel The Bell Jar, by 1962 she had essentially female genius, it is interesting appropriation of Sylvia Plath, and tendency even written a playscript for the BBC which that two of the poems he dismissed to read her poetry through her life, that explored maternal themes. Three Women: as ‘weaker than their replacements’ potentially marginalises important aspects of A Poem for Three Voices (1962) foregrounds (Hughes, 2004, p.xiii) were ‘Magi’ and her poetry and her identity. It is important the importance of Plath’s role as mother ‘Barren Woman’, both of which explore for us to remember that, as well as being both in her personal life and in relation to the maternal role. a daughter and a wife, Sylvia Plath was her literary works. Despite Plath’s interest a mother and that motherhood features in the maternal, some critics have been Motherhood as Triumph, in her poetry. In the spirit of Plath’s own unimpressed by these explorations. Dobbs daughter’s view, we will analyse three of Miscarriage as Defeat (1977) went so far as to assert that Plath the Ariel poems from the 2004 ‘Restored In ‘Barren Woman’, Plath evokes the aching Edition’ and explore motherhood in the could not deal with maternity or babies in a emptiness of miscarriage. The poem was positive or hopeful manner and at the same time light of the idea that it gave Plath the written on 21st February 1961, in the same raise the quality of her writing out of the level of

February 2018 emagazine 51 month that she experienced this trauma poem, Plath, perhaps wryly, contrasts the While ‘the abstracts hover like dull angels’, herself. The poem opens with glory of giving birth to a daughter with the the voice notes with awe that her daughter birth of ‘several bald-eyed Apollos’. The is only ‘sixth months in the world, and Empty, I echo to the least footfall ambiguity of Plath’s imagery, often seen in she is able’, foregrounding her surprise at and Plath deliberately evokes the her treatment of other subjects, is at work the seemingly extraordinary capabilities of unanticipated silence that she associates here too. Is she contrasting the imagined her young child. By the end of the poem, with the unexpected loss of her unborn birth of a victorious daughter with a clutch the voice has dismissed the goals of ‘these child. Despite Hughes’ dismissal of the of lesser sons? Or, perhaps, instead, she papery godfolk’ and recognised that, despite poem, it seems to me that Plath expertly is alluding to the association between the their inherent levels of goodness and piety, uses structure in order to create a sense of Greek god Apollo and poetry, in order to they are no better at parenting than she is. the speaker’s footsteps echoing through compare the gift of childbirth with what she With a growing confi dence in her own role the ‘museum without statues’. There is sees at this point as the inferior consolation as mother, Plath questions the ‘dull angels’ parity of line length and rhythm across of her own creative process of birth as with a provocative and damning question: the two stanzas, creating a Grecian sense represented in the composition of her what girl ever fl ourished in such company? of symmetry which also fi ts her use of poems. In a much earlier journal entry in metaphor throughout the poem. Far from February 1956, Plath described a short story Arguably, Plath sets out a vision of motherhood being viewed by Plath as that had been rejected by The New Yorker childhood and motherhood here that rejects negative in this poem, it is depicted as her as ‘my baby…a stillborn illegitimate baby’ the limitations usually experienced by reason for being, and her perceived failure (Plath, 2013, p.106), demonstrating that she women in society, asserting the importance leaves her bitterly imagining what could had previously linked the creative process to of new ways of raising daughters to have been. The speaker tells us that she conception and childbirth and could again help them fl ourish rather than fl ounder imagines herself be referencing this here in her dismissive throughout their lives. It is the voice of the poem that is presented as the protector or with a great public, reference to the ‘bald-eyed Apollos’ that she Mother of a white Nike could one day bring into the world. at least the advocate of the child, suggesting that, through understanding the ‘mistake’ and here is another clue that, for Plath, New Confi dence as Protector of previous forms of parenting, she can motherhood is celebratory and should be and Advocate begin to carve out a new approach in revered. The ‘great public’ imagined in the which the power of the mother can in turn second stanza contrasts with the empty In contrast with the sadness of miscarriage, empower the daughter. loneliness of the fi rst stanza, suggesting that Plath’s poetic treatment of motherhood motherhood, far from being lonely, affords is both reverential and confi dent in her Acceptance and ‘Morning companionship and community. earlier poem ‘Magi’, written in 1960. As Song’ with ‘Barren Woman’, Plath plays with Furthermore, Plath’s reference to Nike, gendered expectations of motherhood by Whilst he dismissed ‘Barren Woman’ and Greek goddess of victory, suggests that part using theological references, alluding to ‘Magi’, Hughes honoured Plath’s choice of the pleasure of motherhood is rooted the three wise men (or magi) who attend of ‘Morning Song’ as the opening poem in the legacy that is left behind through the birth of Christ, though the title of the in the Ariel collection, perhaps valuing its the success of one’s children. Rather than poem. The voice of the poem refl ects on the aesthetic accomplishment and its depiction a preoccupation with her own future contrast between this group of ambiguous, of a crucial moment of change as Plath here, she wistfully refl ects on her missed now ungendered visitors, perhaps other refl ects on becoming a mother for the fi rst opportunity to bring another being into the mothers or family members and friends, time. Written just two days before ‘Barren world. Despite the melancholic tone of the and the vitality of the speaker’s daughter. Woman’, ‘Morning Song’ suggests mixed

52 emagazine February 2018 feelings as the speaker crosses the liminal experiences of grieving after a miscarriage. boundary of motherhood. While the fi rst In such a way, we can throw off the Public Domain half of the poem focuses on the sounds chains in which feminist literary criticism of the speaker’s newborn baby, from its sometimes imprisons Plath, constricting our ‘bald cry’ to the ‘moth-breath’ of sleep, the view of her. We can reject the image of her speaker’s uncertainty about her new role as tormented Daddy’s girl or scorned wife is interrupted in the fi fth stanza, refl ecting and instead celebrate poetry that explores, a sense of immediacy and instinctiveness at least to some degree, the power and in her depiction of the role of the mother. fulfi lment of a woman’s role as a mother. ‘One cry,’ the voice tells us, ‘and I stumble This is not to oversimplify Plath’s life and from bed, cow-heavy and fl oral’. The work, reinventing her as a formidable and quick response to the baby’s cry suggests ecstatic matriarch, but rather to reaffi rm that the baby’s ‘morning song’ allows the the poetic value of her refl ections on speaker to transcend her own uncertainties being a mother in the face of the greater and doubts by occupying herself with the emphasis that is often placed on her other present moment. The fi nal line of the poem relationships. Public Domain illustrates the power of the baby’s cries to hold the mother’s attention with the simile Brittany Wright is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick and a postgraduate ‘the clear vowels rise like balloons’. There student in the School of Education at the is a clear sense here of the speaker coming University of Nottingham. to terms with motherhood and recognising the comfort and value afforded by the unconditional love of a child. It is tempting emag web archive to regard this as a poem about Plath’s own References experience of motherhood. If so, perhaps Dobbs, J. 1977. ‘‘Viciousness in the • Susan Bassnett: A Reply to Sylvia this is even more tragic when the timing Kitchen’: Sylvia Plath’s Domestic Poetry’ Plath – Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters, of the poem is considered as, despite this in Modern Language Studies, Vol. 7, emagazine 49, September 2010 poem’s positive, transformational mood, the No. 2, pp. 11-25 • Eavan Boland: Sylvia Plath – Nature references to the baby as a ‘new statue/in a Greenberg, A. and Klaver, Becca. 2009. Poet and Surrealist, emagazine drafty museum’ hauntingly foreshadow the ‘Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women 40, April 2008. setting of the grief-stricken ‘Barren Woman’ Poets – a Professor and Graduate Student • Olga Dermott: A Fractured Identity which was written so soon afterwards. – Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the – Plath’s Search for Self in Ariel, emagazine 49, September 2010 Motherhood as Power Poetics of Female Adolescence’ in College Literature, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp.179-207 • Fiona Salt: Sylvia Plath – ‘The Applicant’ and ‘Daddy’, emagplus While Plath is often seen as a poet who Hughes, F. 2004. ‘Foreword’ in Plath, 57, September 2012 appeals to the interests of teenage girls Sylvia (2004) Ariel: The Restored Edition. and a mistaken idea that they might • Rebecca Platt: ‘The Moon is My be fascinated by depression and death, Plath, S. 2004. Ariel: The Restored Edition. Mother’ – Sylvia Plath and the Cycles (Greenberg and Klaver, 2009), the Plath, S. 2013. The Journals of Sylvia Plath of the Moon Goddess, emagazine representation of motherhood as complex, 62, December 2013 Winterson, J. 2013. ‘Sylvia Plath: confusing, but ultimately rewarding in Ariel • Nigel Wheale: Text and Biography in refl ections on her legacy’, the Guardian allows us to examine Plath as a poet of life Poetry – Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, [online, accessed 30 Oct. 2017] rather than death, and to explore her adult emagazine 44, April 2009 engagement in childbearing and future generations. Instead of defi ning Plath by her depression, youthful preoccupations, and ultimate suicide, we can see how her poems hold experience up to the light and illuminate it in very different ways, from the everyday experience of a mother watching her children play to the darker

February 2018 emagazine 53 Courtesy of NBC Universal February 2018 February emagazine

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Narrative Voice in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

A QUESTION OF TRUST

Agatha Christie establishes trust in her narrator in ways that we might associate more with a writer like Jane Austen. But is that trust wise? Judy Simons suggests that far from leaving us in the safe, comfortable terrain of classic fi ction, Christie draws us into the more murky world of the modern novel, where part of the pleasure for the reader is in having that trust betrayed.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, and who navigates us through the complex, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, multi-layered text. seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence. As with many 19th-century novels, Emma’s As you read this, please don’t think that authorial persona directs the reader how you have wandered into the wrong essay by to view and also how to judge the fi ctional mistake. I am just using the opening words characters, and it conveys a sense of of Jane Austen’s Emma as an example of moral certainty that may leave scope for the sort of fi ction that underpins Christie’s nuanced debate but not for any doubt The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and to which on issues of moral responsibility. Like a the later work is deeply indebted. Despite kindly and occasionally angry parent, the its irony, Austen’s sentence invites readers voice of classic fi ction soothes its audience to relax in the safe world of the book, and with its combination of authority and to trust the all-seeing narrator, who joins in familiarity. It establishes a contract between sharing the jokes at the heroine’s expense, storyteller and reader, and even in a fi rst

February 2018 emagazine 55 Courtesy of NBC Universal

Courtesy of NBC Universal February 2018 February emagazine

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ambiguous, so that any re-reading immediately suggests alternative interpretations. Initially, however, as gullible readers, we are more than ready to be seduced by Sheppard’s measured and objective tone and by his insistence on fi delity and the inclusion of tiny details – afi cionados of crime are after all always on the lookout for clues. In the absence of any other guide, Sheppard appropriates the role of author to introduce all the essential information – characters, names, locations and timings – that is required to enable the reader to solve the mystery. Inevitably this has the added effect of defl ecting attention away from him to the rest of the dramatis personae. person bildungsroman, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Charles Dickens’ Great A Betrayal of Narrative Trust Expectations, where we might question the protagonist’s motives, that voice continues The opening sentences of The Murder of Roger to evoke a recognisable social order and a Ackroyd offer a perfect illustration of the stable set of values, which frame the human betrayal of narrative trust. Do not ignore, drama. Experience has taught us to accept incidentally, the signifi cance of the chapter and adopt the narrator’s version of events. titles in contributing to the obfuscation. ‘Dr Sheppard at the Breakfast Table’, for Trusting the Narrative Voice instance, not only gives the reader the necessary facts about who and where but Many 20th-century novels on the other is suffi ciently mundane to suggest that hand exploit this tradition to subvert (if ‘murder’ did not appear on the book’s readers’ expectations, and The Murder of cover) the sentence which follows – Roger Ackroyd, an early example of this approach, is now considered a milestone Mrs Ferrars died on the night of 16th – 17th in the crime fi ction genre. Its fundamental September – a Thursday premise takes for granted readers’ – could be a routine observation on the complicity in a predetermined narrative part of a doctor who deals with the dying contract. Detective novels enjoy a special regularly in the course of his professional relationship with their readers, who assume duties. The domestic setting, another typical the role of investigator and consequently feature of Christie’s work, helps to create become embroiled in the fi ctional action. the deliberately limited stage for the action, As with all whodunnits, The Murder of Roger in which every character is a suspect. How Ackroyd assembles an intricate puzzle for though does it continue? the reader to solve, but its key trick can I was sent for at eight o’clock on the morning of only work if we trust the narrative voice. Friday 17th. There was nothing to be done. She It is Dr Sheppard’s perspective that in had been dead some hours. turn shapes ours. It was just a few minutes after nine when I reached home once more. I opened the front So, whilst Sheppard’s account is door with my latchkey, and purposely delayed scrupulously accurate, his narrative is a few moments in the hall, hanging up my hat teasingly incomplete. As Hercule Poirot and the light overcoat that I had deemed a wise explains towards the end of the book, precaution against the chill of an early autumn when he refers to the ‘reticence of morning. To tell the truth, I was considerably the manuscript’, upset and worried. I am not going to pretend that at that moment I foresaw the events of the next ‘It was strictly truthful as far as it went – but it did few weeks. I emphatically did not do so. But my not go very far.’ instinct told me there were stirring times ahead.

It is what Sheppard omits that is so telling, On the face of it, there is nothing to arouse and the phraseology is intentionally suspicion in this report. It opens with

February 2018 emagazine 57 establishes a comfortable and familiar to retrace their footsteps, and I defy anyone literary scene, which contributes to the who has been immersed in the story, trying façade of veracity. This is compounded by to outwit Poirot, not to go back and look Sheppard’s professional status. The label again at earlier sections to see what clues of doctor (only his sister calls him James), have been missed. Christie, never one to coupled with his narrative authority, signals be overly modest about her work, switches his personal integrity, and the book’s other the focus from plot and action to the craft statements of fact that are incontrovertible. characters trust him implicitly with the of writing itself. In this way the narrative Yet how many of those statements are result that their confi dence consequently technique becomes not just a vehicle for equivocal? ‘There was nothing to be done’, boosts the reader’s. In particular, Christie relating events but the very heart of the says Sheppard. Does he mean that on draws on the prototype of Dr Watson, the book’s achievement. medical grounds he cannot save the patient, side-kick of the then most famous medical or that as a blackmailer and murderer, he man in crime fi ction, Sherlock Holmes John Judy Simons is Emeritus Professor of English at De realises he is now in the hands of fate? And Montfort University. Watson, honest, straightforward, logical why does he delay ‘purposely? Why is he and faithful, is both the narrator of and ‘upset and worried’? The surface rationale participant in Conan Doyle’s mystery tales, is that, as a doctor, he may have misgivings and a perfect foil for the dazzlingly intuitive about the circumstances of Mrs Ferrars’ Holmes. Secure in the fore-knowledge death. The other explanation is that his that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd will be a behaviour and feelings are those of a guilty showcase for the talents of its star detective, man, who knows that this episode puts him Hercule Poirot, the reader is predisposed in danger. Similarly, the economy of style to slot Sheppard into the Watson mould of and the simple sentence constructions could emag web archive reliable but dim witness. be thought a refl ection of Sheppard’s lack of literary sophistication. Yet with hindsight • Danuta Reah: Gender, Language they emerge as a deliberate ploy. As Hercule An Ingenious Metafi ctional and Crime Fiction, emagazine Poirot drily points out, Surprise 18, December 2002 Dr Sheppard has been a model of discretion. It is only at the very end of the novel that • Melissa Wolfe: The Woman in the reader is made aware that The Murder White – Crime Fiction, emagazine The impression of candour is further of Roger Ackroyd is a metafi ctional narrative, 34, December 2006 strengthened by a series of direct whereby Sheppard’s account of events is • Pete Bunten: Agatha Christie – More admissions. ‘To tell the truth’ and ‘I am not itself a fi ctive artefact to be scrutinised. Than Just a Guilty Pleasure? emagazine going to pretend’, says the villain winningly, Suddenly the text changes direction and 73, September 2016 phrases which instil confi dence, and, turns from a boast into a confession. In • Ray Cluley: Charles Dickens, Serial- which, while genuine, are central to his the fi nal Apologia, Agatha Christie points thriller – The Structure and Genres technique of evasion. out the ingenuity of her own authorial of Great Expectations, emagplus for emagazine 71, February 2016 A Façade of Veracity for the technique. ‘I am rather pleased with myself as a writer’, says Sheppard. • Ray Cluley: Reading the Detective ‘Common Reader’ Genre from Poe to Chandler, ‘What could be neater, for instance, than the emagazine 52, April 2011 In playing with the conventions of classic following: fi ction, Christie was also responding to the The letters were brought in at twenty minutes • Daniel Stanley: Stasis and Blindness literary trends of her age. The detective to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when in Brighton Rock – A Marxist Reading, novel was enjoying a golden moment in I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated emagazine 60, April 2013 the years between the two world wars. And with my hand on the door handle, looking back • Dr Andrew Green: Brighton Rock and wondering if there was anything I had left whilst the avant-garde writing of James – More Than Just Entertainment, undone. Joyce and Virginia Woolf might attract a emagazine 74, December 2016 All true, you see. But suppose I had put a row of highbrow audience, the ‘common reader’ • Jack Palmer: Brighton Rock – A stars after the fi rst sentence! Would somebody Sinister Symbol, emagazine to use Woolf’s term, was lapping up realist then have wondered what exactly happened in 77, September 2017 fi ction that depicted a recognisable social that blank ten minutes?’ order with which middlebrow readers could • Mark Innes: The Birth of the Detective identify. The determinedly traditional, This is an open invitation to readers, naively – The Murders in the Rue Morgue, bourgeois landscape of Christie’s novels thinking that there is no more to unravel, emagazine 76, April 2017

58 emagazine February 2018 Referring with Respect The Way We Talk about Gender Identity

combination of Miss and Sir) and Ind That said, I have a feeling that words like Margaret Coupe (short for individual). The customer’s ‘history’ being replaced by ‘herstory’ and explores the ways in chosen title will then be used by staff ‘women’ being substituted by ‘wimmin’ to when speaking to them on the phone or eradicate the morpheme ‘men’ may have which second-wave in a branch, as well as printed on bank been dreamt up by reactionary fi gures to feminism, ideas about statements and cards. discredit the movement. political correctness and 4. The initialism LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi- Until the mid-20th century, the traditional an increasing awareness sexual and Transgender) has now added terms of address for men were ‘Master’ another letter ‘Q’ to indicate ‘Gender (probably now obsolete) for a boy or young of the experience of Questioning’. Some have argued that an man and ‘Mr’ for an adult male. Women people of trans and additional initial ‘I’ should be added to were ‘Miss’ until they married, when they incorporate intersex individuals (those became ‘Mrs’ and took their husband’s non-binary gender have born with biological characteristics name. At the risk of sounding like David brought signifi cant of both sexes). Attenborough, I could say that perhaps the term ‘Mrs’ was a way of warding off other language change. These four examples could suggest that males and showing that a woman was no the language we use to address gender in longer available. As a woman was ‘given Let’s start with four fairly recent examples: the 21st century has become a positive away’ in church by her father, this was seen minefi eld or that increasing linguistic as a way of passing on property. Feminists 1. In Series 4 of the police thriller Line of sensitivity to the way in which individuals baulked at this and the term ‘Ms’, which Duty the somewhat unreconstructed conceive of their gender is being shown. gave no indication of marital status, was male superintendent Ted Hastings, is introduced. This was often used on offi cial taken to task by Chief Inspector Roz forms – and still is – but some people have Huntley for failing to use language Looking Back – First-wave found the word hard to say, even though which is ‘gender-neutral’. He had Feminism there was a magazine set up in 1985 called called her ‘darling’. First-wave feminism was a period of by the phonetic spelling Mizz. (It folded in feminism from the 1830s to the early 20th- 2. The 2017 MTV Awards had a non- 2013.) Some cynics have argued that whilst century. Its main focus was on gaining the gendered category for ‘Best Actor’. Ms may be a neutral term as far as marital right for women to vote. Second-wave Emma Watson, the winner of the award, status is concerned, it could clearly indicate feminism started in the USA in the 1960s was pictured in the satirical magazine that one is a feminist. and really took hold in the UK in the 1970s. Private Eye holding it and saying: ‘I’d like It broadened the debate to sexuality, to Many women now keep their birth name to thank my parent and my parent.’ contraception and abortion, to family, to on marriage. This was once referred to as the workplace, and to legal inequalities. 3. Since 2016 transgender customers with ‘maiden’ name, with its connotations of Challenges to what was seen as a patriarchal HSBC bank have been able to choose virginity. In the 1980s I was teaching in society resulted in the interrogation of from 10 gender-neutral titles. Those an area that could not be called affl uent. language. Redressing the balance included who do not identify as a Mr, Mrs, Miss I noticed a lot of ‘double-barrelled’ names the introduction of gender-neutral terms, or Ms will be able to choose from a on my registers. I had always associated for example ‘police offi cer’ for ‘policeman’ range of options. These include Mre these names with the upper class, such as and ‘head teacher’ for ‘headmaster’. (an abbreviation of mystery), Msr (a ‘Ponsonby-Smythe’ or Jeeves and Wooster

February 2018 emagazine 59 characters like ‘Gussie Fink-Nottle’. I then government should have looked at wage beyond, through, changing thoroughly’. realised that couples who wanted some equality and the ‘glass ceiling’ rather than In the late 1990s the word ‘cisgender’ measure of equality in their relationship changing language. But words matter appeared in various articles. It denotes were putting their surnames together. and can change attitudes. ‘Mademoiselle’ someone whose gender identity matches I have heard of couples blending their literally means ‘my little hen’. It’s unlikely the identity they were assigned at birth surnames to avoid one partner’s name being that unmarried men would ever have or that they perform a gender role that dominant. I recently read an article in the wanted to tick a box with ‘Mon Damoiseau’ society considers in keeping with their sex. Guardian ‘Family’ section about a couple (‘my little bird’) the medieval equivalent of The lexeme ‘cis’ is also of Latin origin and who had each kept their birth name but had ‘Ma Demoiselle.’ means ‘on this side of’. Why did this word chosen an entirely independent surname for emerge? Perhaps to suggest that if there their children based on the place in Zanzibar Transgender, Non-binary or is no word for those whose bodies and where they met. Genderfl uid? brains are aligned, then this privileges and ‘normalises’ them and marginalises those In 2012, the French government banned Towards the end of the 20th century there of transgender. the word ‘Mademoiselle’ on the grounds was increasing awareness of the experience that it was discriminatory, sexist and of those who identifi ed as ‘trans’ gender. A Another expression which has currency is suggesting virginity and availability. ‘trans’ person is someone whose sense of ‘non-binary’ gender. This refers to gender Henceforth the name ‘Madame’ was to self and gender does not correspond with identities that are not exclusively masculine be used for all women and was to be their sex assigned at birth; or, put another or feminine, and which are thus outside symmetrical with ‘Monsieur’. Apparently way, that their mental and physical sexes of the gender binary. Having a fl uctuating calling a woman ‘Mademoiselle’ was a do not align. The etymology of ‘trans’ is gender identity can be termed ‘genderfl uid’. classic chat up line in France, as it was a from Latin: it is a prefi x meaning ‘across, way of saying a woman didn’t look her age. Some people argued that the French

60 emagazine February 2018 The singer Miley Cyrus has described or ‘she’ in order to prevent transgender said to prefer the pronouns ‘they, them, herself thus, as has the cookery writer students feeling offended by incorrect their’. The writer of the piece heard Dillon and activist Jack Monroe. In an interview pronoun use and to cut down on being ‘misgendered’ multiple times by being the latter explained that being ‘non- discrimination on campus. Deliberately referred to as ‘she’ and by the outdated binary transgender’ meant it wasn’t about using the wrong pronoun for a transgender marked term ‘actress’. Perhaps all this transitioning to male. Jack was transitioning person is an offence under the university’s confusion could be dealt with if the English to being neither female nor male, or at least behaviour code. Human rights campaigner Language was like Hungarian which does a bit of both: Peter Tatchell welcomed the leafl et, adding: not have gender-specifi c pronouns?

I want to be treated as a person, not as a woman This isn’t about being PC. It’s about respecting or a man. people’s rights to defi ne themselves as neither Respect Refl ected in Language male nor female. Incidentally, Jack’s preferred term Gender identity is embedded in many of address is Mx. In parenthesis, I would like to add that people’s self-perception. Language is whilst I can see that the Oxford Student changing to refl ect the notion that gender is Personal Pronouns Union is being well-meaning, someone, a spectrum rather than a strict binary. It is say, who has transitioned from male to vital that the words we use show respect for Use of personal pronouns is a tricky female would embrace the pronoun ‘she’ individuals and that we take care with the linguistic area as far as gender is concerned. as it validates their sense of their own way we address people. In the late 20th century, in order to move gender. Offence would be caused by being Margaret Coupe is now retired, having been an away from an androcentric (male-centred) referred to as ‘he’. In the Royal Exchange Advanced Skills teacher and Head of English. worldview, the third person female personal Theatre production of Twelfth Night, Feste, pronoun was used in academia. For the fool, was played by a trans woman; in example: ‘If the reader traces these themes, the programme notes, she wrote about her she may fi nd…’ In order to avoid privileging hurt at being referred to by the third person the male pronoun fi rst as in ‘he or she’, the masculine pronoun. plural form ‘they’ was often used. In an article in the Sunday Times Style An article in The Independent in December Magazine, the actor Asia Kate Dillon, who 2016 headlined with: identifi es as neither man nor woman, is Oxford University students told to use gender- neutral pronoun ze.

A leafl et distributed by the Student Union urged students to use ‘ze’ instead of ‘he’ emag web archive

• Beth Kemp: Ladettes and Slags, Manwhores and Boyfriends – Gender, Culture and Language, emagazine 45, September 2009 • Julie Blake: Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dogs’ Tails – Critiquing Orthodox Views of Gender, emagazine 33 September 2006 • Professor Deborah Cameron: Gender Stereotyping in the Language of Advertising, emagazine 53 September 2011 • Suzanne Williams: Modern Marking – A Challenge to Gender Neutral Marking, emagazine 66, December 2014 • Claire Dembry: Sexism in Spoken Language – Looking Under the Surface, emagazine

Jack Monroe. Public Domain 69, September 2015

emagClips

• Professor Deborah Cameron on Language and Gender

February 2018 emagazine 61 Greg Wise and Kate Winslet in Sense and Sensibility (1995). Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Women and Mobility in Sense and Sensibility

Katherine Limmer explores modes of transport and journeys in Austen’s novel, revealing the vital importance that access to the means of travel has for the female characters, what it signifi es about them, and what effect it has on their lives. How one travelled was more just than a established route to meeting a wide range and sensible Elinor recognise that they can practical question in Regency England, it of possible marriage partners. Throughout no longer support this symbol of wealth. was also a signifi er of wealth and gender. Sense and Sensibility Austen draws attention They will have no carriage, no horses and hardly Not only was an income of at least a to how the absence of both kinds of any servants thousand pounds (equivalent to around mobility affects her heroines in their £34,000 today) necessary to maintain a pursuit of happiness. is Fanny’s mean-spirited summary of carriage, gender restrictions meant that the impoverished lives the Dashwood’s whilst gentlemen could drive themselves Losing a Carriage – Losing can now look forward to. She also draws about in fashionable curricles, ladies Status and Society attention to the detrimental impact that the needed a servant to undertake any driving, lack of a carriage will have on their social and a chaperone to accompany them if One of the surest signs of the decline lives, ‘they will keep no company’. Mrs unmarried. This had a signifi cant impact in the Dashwood family fortunes at the Dashwood’s initial reluctance to sell the on the lives of the kind of women Austen start of Sense and Sensibility is the sale of carriage, we learn, is not inspired by any made the protagonists of her novels, as their carriage. When the newly bereaved love of show, but her awareness of how access to transport facilitated social as well Dashwood family’s income is reduced to fi ve circumscribed her daughters’ social lives as geographic mobility. Visits to family and hundred pounds a year, both selfi sh Fanny will become without the independence and leisure activities in towns offered a well- mobility that it offers. Without their own

62 emagazine February 2018 Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Gemma Jones in Sense and Sensibility (1995). Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

means of transport, Elinor and Marianne is emphasised through episodes in which women; Mrs Jennings is quite happy to are faced with very serious restrictions on they appear suddenly or leave abruptly. In send her maid on her own to London their movements. This, in turn, limits the Chapter 13 for example, Colonel Brandon by public carriage, for example. The variety of society they can encounter and, immediately leaves Barton Park for London barely genteel Steele sisters are keen to crucially, their chances of meeting suitable on receiving an urgent letter. He is able maintain this distinction of rank and when young men, where marriage is the only to call for his horse to take him to the Mrs Jennings asks how they travelled respectable way for them to improve their nearest town, from where he will travel to London, Miss Steele tells her with economic situation. in a hired carriage to London. Neither cost ‘quick exultation’, nor social restrictions prevent him from ‘Not in the stage, I assure you […] we came post Once the family are settled at Barton acting independently and decisively. Later, all the way.’ Cottage their only means of travel is by Willoughby takes a similarly swift exit from foot. Their company is thus restricted to Barton Cottage when he is dismissed by his Travel to London only becomes a possibility people within walking distance, or those aunt. Even the seemingly passive Edward for Elinor and Marianne when invited by who can travel to visit them. This is further can visit both Elinor and Lucy without his Mrs Jennings for, as a wealthy widow, limited however, because, family’s approval or knowledge. It is this she can provide means of travel in her chaise and suitable companionship in the independence of Mrs Dashwood’s spirit mobility that allows the male characters her own person. overcame the wish of society for her children; to pursue their various ‘attachments’, and she was resolute in declining to visit any whilst Elinor and Marianne have to family beyond the distance of a walk. wait, immobile, in one location, hoping The motivations behind the Dashwood for their return. sisters’ trip to London are subtly teased To understand her qualms, we must out by Austen. Mrs Dashwood is remember the reciprocal nature of To London happy to promote their journey on the hospitality governing regency society. virtuous grounds of entertainment and Rather than be embarrassed or beholden Until Mrs Jennings makes her offer, education, declaring, through receiving a visit she cannot return, the idea of visiting London, where both ‘I would have every young woman [...] Mrs Dashwood chooses to visit only those Willoughby and Edward can be expected acquainted with the manners and amusements families within walking distance. This social to be encountered, seems to be beyond of London.’ squeamishness is perhaps understandable the Dashwood sisters’ ability. In the in a woman whose social status has fallen unlikely event that they were invited to Mrs Jennings’ cheerful vulgarity, however, so dramatically with her widowhood, visit their brother in London they couldn’t is more explicit about the benefi ts of such a but the costs to her daughters’ marital accept, as Elinor tells Lucy Steele. It is visit when she promises, prospects are drawn attention to by Austen. not just the cost that would prevent them ‘If I don’t get one of you at least married before I but also social restrictions. Standards of have done with you, it shall not be my fault.’ The limited mobility of Elinor and propriety demanded of single ladies meant Elinor realises, from her eagerness to accept Marianne is also explicitly contrasted with they couldn’t travel any distance unless the invitation, that Marianne’s motivation that of the gentlemen in the novel, who accompanied by a suitable chaperone, and is not so different from Mrs Jennings’; can both ride and drive themselves about certainly not alone. It’s clear that similar she sees it as an opportunity to advance the country with relative freedom. This restrictions did not apply to working class

February 2018 emagazine 63 her relationship with Willoughby. Young ladies were not supposed to be so forward in pursuing their romantic attachments and this is the reason why Elinor, ‘could not approve of’ the visit for Marianne. Elinor is not unaware that Edward is also staying in London and she is suspected of just such an unladylike pursuit herself by Lucy’s later insinuations. It is not just mean- spirited comments about their motives that young lady travellers risked, however. The cautionary tale of Colonel Brandon’s ward Eliza shows just how dangerous travel to a city of pleasure, away from the protection of their family, could prove for them.

Travelling Home Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Just as getting to London was a delicate and expensive undertaking, returning home proves equally diffi cult for Elinor and Marianne, and reinforces how little control they have over the timings and means Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo of their travels. Once Marianne’s reason for accepting Mrs Jennings’ hospitality is rendered void by Willoughby’s rejection, she wishes to return home immediately. Elinor objects that: civility of the commonest kind must prevent such a hasty removal as that.

When Edward appears equally irrevocably lost to Elinor, however, she is just as keen to leave but, unlike Marianne, she was conscious of the diffi culties of so long a journey. emphasises his credentials as a worthy Both cost and propriety hinder their ability suitor for Marianne: emag web archive to travel how and when they wish, and they fi nd themselves once again dependent not a moment was lost in delay of any kind. • Okey Nzelu: Jane Austen’s Women – on the arrangements of characters Whilst Colonel Brandon travels to Barton Marriage and Money, emagazine 36 whose wealth allows them to maintain in order to be of genuine use and comfort • Rob Worrall: Truths Universally independent means of travel. Elinor’s to Marianne, Willoughby, by contrast, Acknowledged – An Approach to delicate feelings about accepting the offer impetuously drives to Cleveland to obtain Reading Jane Austen, emagazine to travel in the Palmers’ coach, reminds us her death-bed forgiveness. Although we 47, February 2010 of her mother’s unwillingness to become may be temporarily swept away by his beholden to her wealthier neighbours. She romantic gesture, Willoughby’s is a self- is very sensitive about appearing to impose serving mission concerned only with salving on her acquaintances, and it is only when his own conscience whereas Brandon’s is the invitation was that of a true friend. The last journey of the inforced by [...] real politeness by Mr Palmer Dashwood sisters, before their romantic and economic troubles are successfully that Elinor accepts. That her qualms are overcome, is to return home and, in a novel well-founded is evident when her grasping punctuated by the complications of transport brother John congratulates Elinor and journeys, it is perhaps fi tting that its on their travelling so far towards Barton without resolution establishes Elinor and Marianne any expense. living happily ‘almost within sight of each other’. Mobility has never been sought for its During Marianne’s illness Colonel Brandon own sake by Austen’s heroines and a happy proves his disinterested love for Marianne ending is also a stable and settled one. through two key journeys: bringing her mother to visit and taking the recovering Dr Katherine Limmer is English Literature Course Marianne home in comfort. The way in Manager at Yeovil College. which he decisively manages these journeys

64 emagazine February 2018 His dodgy foot Meter and Identity in Poems of the Decade

Jack Palmer’s account of the use of meter in Turnbull’s ‘Ode’, Burnside’s ‘History’ and Barber’s ‘Material’ explains how meter works in poetry before applying this understanding to develop a rich reading of its effect in the three poems.

Meter can often be diffi cult to write about. and sounds, all of which work alongside way to one of understanding, and perhaps The counting out of syllables and stresses meter in dynamic and unexpected ways. even admiration. This shift seems to emerge in the lines of a poem can, in itself, feel Any given poem, then, expresses its own from the allure the speaker fi nds in the like a rather ‘pedestrian’ exercise; what’s identity. Many poems in Forward’s Poems rhythmic aspect of racing culture, and the more, if we do successfully identify a meter, of the Decade anthology are preoccupied strong iambic beats in ‘the throaty turbo we are then faced with the diffi culty of with the nature of identity, and this article roar’, ‘the joyful throb’, and ‘with pulsing relating this rhythm to the meaning of will analyse how the use of meter in three juice’ make the energy of this scene audible. the poem. Many Literature students, for poems – Tim Turnbull’s ‘Ode on a Grayson Similarly, though the fi rst stanza of the instance, will be familiar with one of the Perry Urn’, John Burnside’s ‘History’ and poem maligns the youths ‘on crap estates’ most popular meters in English poetry, Ros Barber’s ‘Material’ – has an important as society’s pariahs, by the fi nal stanza this iambic pentameter. A line of true iambic role in shaping three unique poetic voices. outcast status gives the ‘children’ a unique pentameter, we are taught, repeats the form of freedom: pattern of ‘unstressed syllable, stressed Tim Turnbull’s ‘Ode on a will future poets look on you amazed, syllable’ fi ve times over. Here’s an example: Grayson Perry Urn’ speculate how children might have lived when ‘to race back home, for work next day, to you were fi red, lives so free and bountiful bed’ (my italics). Turnbull’s poem both adheres to and challenges the ‘ode’ form that its title The meter is key to the poet’s message here. But what is the purpose of this rhythm? claims. Traditionally, an ode addresses Following the enjambed ‘when’, the word Often, when a meter is used in a poem, a person or object that captures the ‘you’ that begins the next line disrupts each line follows the pattern closely; this speaker’s attention; in this poem, it is the iambic rhythm in which this poem is means that, as readers, we are tempted to the contemporary artist Grayson Perry’s written. The emphasis on ‘you’ in ‘you were make generic comments about the rhythm. 1999 urn, entitled ‘Language of Cars’, fi red’ changes the fi rst two syllables of the These comments tend to follow a similar that is mused on: line from ‘unstressed, stressed’ to ‘stressed, unstressed’. In metrical terms, this is known trend, such as ‘the iambic pentameter links [a] kitschy vase […] delineating tales of kids in as a trochaic inversion, where a reader the poem to the beating of the heart’, or cars. ‘the iambic pentameter makes the poem expects an iamb, but instead fi nd a trochee fl ow’. The problem with both of these Odic language is normally elevated and (the name of the ‘stressed, unstressed’ statements is that neither engage with the full of praise. However, at the beginning pattern). By upturning the metre, Turnbull specifi c effects of meter within the context of this poem, when the drivers behind suggests that the high-risk existence of these of a particular poem – they treat meter as the wheels of these cars are imagined, ‘free and bountiful’ children gives them the a one-size-fi ts-all backing track. Though the ‘Burberry clad louts’ are treated with power to subvert the monotonous rhythm different poems might use the same meter, an acerbic judgement. Odes are typically that most of society is required to live by. no two poems use meter identically. To written in iambic pentameter, too, and craft meaning, poets can call upon an this is true of Turnbull’s poem. Though the endless range of tones, moods, idioms, boy-racer culture is initially treated with suspicion, this attitude eventually gives

February 2018 emagazine 65 © Linda Combi February 2018 February emagazine

66

John Burnside’s ‘History’ Considering the context in which this poem Later on in ‘Material’, however, the was written, Burnside’s use of meter helps, if tone changes to one of wistfulness, as The subtitle of John Burnside’s ‘History’ is only for a brief moment, to ‘tether’ both the Barber steadies the poem’s pace with integral to our understanding of the poem’s speaker and the reader back to the day-to- polysyllabic words: meaning. It reads as follows: day experience of lived reality. I miss material handkerchiefs St Andrews: West Sands; September 2001 their soft and hidden history. Ros Barber’s ‘Material’ This text was published within three In these lines, the stressed syllables draw weeks of the attacks on the twin towers, In Ros Barber’s ‘Material’, the symbol of attention to the sounds that exist within and the poem’s speaker, a father who is a handkerchief is used to evoke both the words: the repeated aspirate ‘hi’ (‘hidden’ by the sea with his son, is attempting to speaker’s relationship with her mother, ‘history’) and the sibilant ‘s’ (‘handkerchiefs’, locate some kind of coherence in a world and the Britain of her childhood. The ‘soft’, ‘history’) work together to create the of ‘muffl ed dread’. The father’s desire to meter in which the poem is written, iambic effect of a tender whisper, quietly yearning gather something out of the wreckage tetrameter, is essential for re-creating the for a culture that exists no more. This, infl uences the form of the poem (how it is atmosphere of this era. This rhythm, though perhaps, is an example of poetry’s special laid out) as much its content, with ‘History’ still written in the familiar iambic pattern power, of which meter is a vital part. A poem being written in predominantly free verse, of ‘unstressed, stressed’, is repeated in only exists silently when read on the page, but which means that there is no regular rhyme four lots per line – here’s an example from it also exists physically when read aloud, as scheme or rhythm: the poem: ‘she’d have one, always, up her the reader’s voice is guided, almost eerily, sleeve’ (my italics). When voiced, the rhythm I knelt down in the sand by a sequence of stressed and unstressed with Lucas is jolly and jaunty, replicating the cadence beats. This poem, entitled ‘Material’, is an gathering shells of early 20th-century war tunes, many of attempt to conjure up the physicality of a and pebbles which would have been well-known in the ‘soft’ handkerchief; for a moment, the poem fi nding evidence of life in all this speaker’s household. But this meter also taps does achieve this, as the movement of our driftwork into our earliest encounters with rhythm lips, teeth, and tongue turn language into during childhood: the nursery rhyme. Parts Here, Burnside’s use of indentation, blank something materially held in the mouth. By of ‘Material’ which describe the mother, for space, and varied line length make visual this measure, rhythm does not deaden words example, resemble this form: the speaker’s diffi culty in creating order by fi xing them in place, but rather awakens out of the dispersed ‘driftwork’. However, And sometimes more than one fell out language to a new life. part-way through the poem, the poetic voice as if she had a farm up there Jack Palmer teaches English at Latymer Upper where dried-up hankies fell in love does becomes momentarily composed and School, London. contemplative, as three lines are arranged in and mated, raising little squares. steady iambic pentameter: Even when the meter is disrupted, for and though we are confi ned by property instance in the poem’s fi fth stanza, the poet what tethers us to gravity and light does so in a knowingly playful manner. As has most to do with distance and the shapes the text develops, the handkerchief draws emag web archive we fi nd in water out various identities from the speaker’s memory, such as ‘George’ the ‘greengrocer’: Although Burnside’s ‘History’ is a mediation • Richard Vardy: Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘The on the condition of America, it is also a And somehow, with the hanky’s loss, Map Woman’, emagplus for emagazine refl ection on the signifi cance of ‘quiet, local greengrocer George with his dodgy foot. 73, September 2016 forms/of history’ (as he writes elsewhere in It is worth noting that, in metrical terms, • Richard Vardy: And Finally... Looking the poem). This means individual histories a ‘foot’ is a single unit of rhythm – in this at Last Lines in Poems of the Decade, – in this case a father and son – but also case just one lot of ‘unstressed, stressed’. emagazine 71, February 2016 the local histories that we as communities Try reading the above lines aloud: the word • Mark Roberts: Gender Wars? share. The lines Burnside chooses to write ‘his’ curiously introduces one syllable too Poems of the Decade, emagazine in pentameter suggest a fear of a large scale many, making the foot of the line uneven. 77, September 2017 ‘us versus them’ way of thinking, whereby This is known as a hypercatalectic line, people identify themselves in the fi rst one which contains an odd extra syllable instance by their nationality, their religion, or in the fi nal foot. Greengrocer George’s emagClips the ‘confi ne[s]’ of the ‘property’ they own. lagging leg, then, is refl ected fondly, and Burnside instead proposes a more grounded perhaps with an element of the tongue-in- • Jeremy Noel-Tod on Poetry. Includes sense of identity, one which would include, cheek, in the clunkiness of the four syllables readings and discussions of several for instance, humanity’s relationship with that describe it. landscape – ‘the shapes/we fi nd in water’. poems from Poems of the Decade.

February 2018 emagazine 67