Representations of Child-Carer Relationships in Contemporary Children’S Fiction
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenGrey Repository Creative Friction: representations of child-carer relationships in contemporary children’s fiction and Om Shanti, Babe, a novel for children. Helen Limon A submission in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Supervisors: Margaret Wilkinson Professor Kimberley Reynolds School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics Faculty of Arts and Humanities Newcastle University 2011 1 Abstract As a way to interrogate and deepen the representation of the two mother-daughter relationships at the centre of my novel, I undertook an investigation of the way understanding of relationships between primary carers and children has been theorised from the mid-twentieth century to the present, paying particular attention to the frequently conflicted period of adolescence. Because my novel is primarily concerned with the relationships between mothers and daughters, feminist theories about mothering were central to my research. The critical component of this submission takes its cue from the way feminists have drawn upon and reworked D.W. Winnicott’s explanations of the ambivalence characteristic of mother-infant relationships. Because adolescence usually involves a secondary separation from carers (the first is associated with the infant’s experience of weaning and toilet training) it is often accompanied by a return of the repressed feelings of ambivalence. My analysis looks at how these feelings are presented in a range of children’s fictions for preteens and teens written between 1975 and 2007. It is notable that across the sample, which examines a variety of carer-child relationships, readers are encouraged to identify good caring models as those which embody a cluster of traditional values and behaviours and which privilege the needs of child[ren] The primary texts are analysed with reference to the theories of Donald Winnicott, Bruno Bettelheim, Nancy Chodorow, Sara Ruddick, Patricia Hill Collins, Rozsika Parker, and Andrea Doucet. Throughout, the conclusions of my research are related to my novel, Om Shanti Babe, which is set in India and compares a mother-daughter pair from the UK travelling in India with an Indian mother-daughter relationship. Nine children’s novels are discussed: 2 Almond, David, My Dad’s a Birdman (2007) Furlong, Monica, Wise Child (1987) Hidier, Tanuja Desai, Born Confused (2003) Magorian, Michelle, Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) Mahey, Margaret, Memory (1987) Morpurgo, Michael, Kensuke’s Kingdom (1999) Reeve, Philip, Here Lies Arthur (2007) Wilson, Jacqueline, Dustbin Baby (2001) Wilson, Jacqueline, The Illustrated Mum (1999) 3 Acknowledgements My thanks go to my two supervisors, Margaret Wilkinson and Professor Kimberley Reynolds, for generously sharing their expertise and wisdom, and most especially for their unfaltering patience. Their inspirational support has made this an infinitely better piece of work than it would otherwise have been and I am immensely grateful to them both. I would also like to thank my fellow PhD and MLitt students for their willingness to critique my work and for the weekly discussion groups which have made an invaluable contribution to my understanding and respect for children’s literature research. I am grateful too for the support of the Children’s Literature and Creative Writing sections in the School of English Literature, Language, and Linguistics at Newcastle University. The staff at Bees for Development, in Monmouth, were very helpful and shared their tremendous knowledge of beekeeping in India – any errors are mine. Many (many) thanks to my partner, Gavin, for his unflagging support, love and encouragement and enormous thanks too to my mother, Theresa, and my daughter, Nathalie - my first readers and in so many (good) ways the inspiration for this work. 4 Novel Synopsis Cassia and her mother, Luella, arrive in Kerala, India on a buying trip for Luella's London shop. Cassia, who is having problems at school, quickly realises neither the trip or India is as she imagined. Her confusion is compounded when she finds out that Luella, who is divorced from Cassia's father, is having a relationship with a local man, Vikram Chaudhury. They travel north to stay with Luella's friend, Saachi (a lawyer), and her daughter, Priyanka. On the way, Cassia is saved from falling from a train carriage by a local boy, Dev. Arriving in Malabar, Cassia is disappointed to find Priyanka is not as she anticipated - 'Princess Priya' is more privileged, and rather bossier, than Cassia expected. In addition, Priyanka is concerned about her weight which disturbs Cassia as her ex-best friend Rachel's anorexia is the root of her problems at school. Cassia feels that she is an outsider in her mother's life in India, and when Priyanka inadvertently reveals Luella and Vikram's wedding plans, she is very upset. Priyanka and Cassia become friends only when they realise they share a love of the pop star, Jonny Gold, who is in India apparently looking for a location for his new video. The girls hope to meet Jonny seeing him as the key to a glamorous future. However, when Saachi, whose work Cassia has come to respect, finds out that Jonny is behind an environmentally irresponsible hotel development, Cassia faces a dilemma which is made more acute when her mother explains that her shop is going bankrupt and will have to be sold unless a profitable new sales-line can be found. Travelling into the hills with Vikram Chaudhury, who until this point she has mistakenly believed to be involved in the hotel development, Cassia finds a possible 5 solution to the shop's problems in the form of locally produced beeswax candles. With the help of Dev and his deaf sister, Nandita, Vikram, and Priyanka's grandmother the shop is given a stay of execution. Jonny Gold arrives at the beach to film the video, which is actually an advert for his proposed hotel. Cassia and Dev confront Jonny, and while they do not immediately stop the development, they have at least lost their illusions about his glamour and have learned to stand up for what they believe to be important. 6 Preface My doctoral submission is presented in three parts. Firstly, this preface, which explains how the submission is organised and introduces the second part of the submission, a longer critical piece (and bibliography), Creative Friction, which analyses representations of child-carer relationships in contemporary children’s fiction. In my own creative work I wanted to explore the feelings of anger, resentment, rejection and confusion associated with the period of adolescence, when issues to do with separation associated with infancy may return as part of the process of growing up and individuation. I was particularly interested in the self-reflection associated with managing ambivalence (simultaneous feelings of love and hate) and how dispensing with the guilt and fear associated with separation on both sides, is represented as transformative in children’s literature. I am particularly interested in the way books portraying dysfunctional mother-child relationships often seem to feature surrogate primary carers, portraying this nurturing as a shared, distributed activity carried out by those other than the birth mother. For that reason, although I read widely across a spectrum of children’s literature of the last thirty years – the span of time since the publication of Bruno Bettelheim’s influential work, The Uses of Enchantment (1976) which considers the significance of stories in the emotional lives of child readers - I have concentrated on novels in which these elements are foregrounded.1 The third part of the submission is an original novel for children, Om 1 Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, (London: Penguin Books, 1976) 7 Shanti, Babe. Set in present day India, it explores the relationship between two mother-daughter pairs at a time of change in both their lives. The novel and the critical work have developed in tandem and each has informed the other: in a multi-layered, iterative process, my thinking has been informed by my research and my writing has been informed by this thinking. The challenges of the creative writing have in turn made me review my reading of the texts and reconsider them through a number of different lenses, not least of which is as examples of successful writing for children in both critical, and commercial terms. The dialogue between the two major pieces of work is explored and explained in the critical piece. When I decided to engage in a period of study at Newcastle University I was following an emerging interest in the understanding of ambivalence in the relationship between mother-daughter pairs, a topic I had earlier explored in a picture book, My Mother is a Troll (2006) in which, on her thirteenth birthday, the mother of the protagonist turns into a troll and engages in behaviour the daughter considers inappropriate and embarrassing. I was aware of conflicted feelings in my own maternal relationship, but hoped that I was managing these such that the inevitable separation that would come as my daughter grew up would not mean the end of the relationship. As a writer for children, I was determined that in my own work I would seek to avoid representations of mothers and children that, while acknowledging the significance of these powerful relationships, held to an overtly sentimental view of mothering. It was from this personal situation that the paired research and creative components of this Creative Writing doctoral submission grew. I initially registered for the MPhil programme (rather than MLitt or Creative Writing MA) because it included both a critical and creative component to the thesis. 8 This was important as I wanted to engage with a contemporary critical discourse and then to explore some of the resultant thinking in the form of a novel for children.