Diplomarbeit / Diploma Thesis
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DIPLOMARBEIT / DIPLOMA THESIS Titel der Diplomarbeit / Title of the Diploma Thesis „TRIVIALIZING THE VILLAIN: The Image of Pirates in Contemporary Picture Books, Didactic and Audiovisual Material for Children“ verfasst von / submitted by Barbara Roiser angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magistra der Philosophie (Mag. phil.) Wien, 2019 / Vienna, 2019 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 190 333 344 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Lehramtsstudium UF Deutsch UF Englisch degree programme as it appears on the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Alexandra Ganser- Blumenau TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES i LIST OF FIGURES i 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1 2. FICTIONAL PIRATES FROM THE 17TH CENTURY TO TODAY ....................................................................... 2 2.1 PIRATES AS CHARACTERS IN LITERATURE AND MEDIA ................................................................................................ 2 2.2 PIRACY AS A TOPIC FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS ............................................................................................ 8 2.3 TWO PROTOTYPICAL FICTIONAL PIRATES .............................................................................................................. 14 2.3.1 Long John Silver .................................................................................................................................. 14 2.3.2 Captain James Hook ........................................................................................................................... 18 3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................ 21 3.1 ADAPTATION STUDIES ...................................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SELECTED MATERIAL ...................................................................................................... 25 3.2.1 Picture Books ...................................................................................................................................... 27 3.2.2 Didactic Material ................................................................................................................................ 29 3.2.3 Audiovisual Material ........................................................................................................................... 32 4. PIRATES IN CONTEMPORARY PICTURE BOOKS AND TV SERIES FOR PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN ................. 36 4.1 PICTURE BOOK: CAPTAIN FLINN AND THE PIRATE DINOSAURS .................................................................................. 36 4.2 PICTURE BOOK: PIRATE GIRL ............................................................................................................................. 42 4.3 TV SERIES: JAKE AND THE NEVERLAND PIRATES (SEASON 1) .................................................................................... 49 5. PIRATES IN CONTEMPORARY EFL MATERIAL AND FILMS FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN (6-12 YEARS) ............. 54 5.1 EFL MATERIAL IN MORE 1: “PIRATES!” ............................................................................................................... 55 5.2 EFL MATERIAL PROVIDED BY THE BRITISH COUNCIL: “PIRATES” ................................................................................ 60 5.3 FILM: THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS! ....................................................................................... 64 6. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 70 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 74 8. APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................. 79 8.1 ENGLISH ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... 79 8.2 DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ........................................................................................................................ 80 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Captain Hook and the Tyrannosaurus Rex Pirate .......................................... 40 Table 2 Fictional Pirates and the Color Red................................................................. 46 Table 3: Examples of Captain Hook’s Hooks in Jake and the Neverland Pirates ...... 52 Table 4: The Portrayal of Female Pirates in the More 1 Student’s Book ..................... 58 Table 5: Super-Pirates in Children’s EFL Material .......................................................61 Table 6: The Treasure Map ........................................................................................... 63 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Captain Flinn – Sample Page ........................................................................ 37 Figure 2: The Tyrannosaurus Rex Pirate ..................................................................... 40 Figure 3: Pirate Girl – Sample Page ............................................................................. 43 Figure 4: Captain James Hook (Disney) ...................................................................... 46 Figure 5: Long John Silver (Disney) ............................................................................ 46 Figure 6: Jake and the Neverland Pirates (Disney Junior) ......................................... 46 Figure 7: Captain Jack Sparrow (Disney) .................................................................... 46 Figure 8: Whirly Hook .................................................................................................. 52 Figure 9: Plunger Hook ................................................................................................ 52 Figure 10: Teacup Hook ............................................................................................... 52 Figure 11: Shovel Hook ................................................................................................. 52 Figure 12: More 1 Student’s Book – Sample Page ........................................................ 55 Figure 13: Female vs. Male Pirates I ............................................................................ 58 Figure 14: Female vs. Male Pirates II ........................................................................... 58 Figure 15: The British Council’s Super-Pirate ...............................................................61 Figure 16: More’s Super-Pirate......................................................................................61 Figure 17: The British Council’s Treasure Map ............................................................ 63 Figure 18: Stevenson’s Treasure Map (1883) ............................................................... 63 Figure 19: The Pirate Captain and his Crew ................................................................. 67 i 1. Introduction The portrayal of piracy has always been characterized by an ambivalence of fear and admiration, which is reflected by jurisdiction as well as popular works of art. On the one hand, beginning in the 16th century, international law referred to pirates as “en- emies of all humankind” and placed them outside humanity (Kempe 356). On the other hand, cultural artifacts have shown them as romantic (e.g. Daphné du Mauri- er’s and Raphael Sabatini’s romance novels), comic (e.g. Captain Hook in J.M. Bar- rie’s Peter and Wendy), or even heroic figures and national heroes (e.g. Thomas Mur- rier’s portrait of William Dampier, National Portrait Gallery London). Famous pirate themes (like the treasure hunt) and characters (like Treasure Island’s Long John Sil- ver) have been adapted to many different genres, and by the end of the 20th century, pirates have become popular movie characters and their legends are frequently dis- cussed in picture books, schoolbooks and other didactic material. The present-day Western imagination of “the pirate” is a simplified representation of an exotic other, which is largely constructed by the pirates’ portrayal in popular cul- ture, predominantly by Stevensons’s Treasure Island (Cordingly 7; Phillips 36). My thesis compares pirate characters in contemporary Western picture books, learning material, movies and TV-series to the two most famous characters in children’s litera- ture, Long John Silver and Captain Hook, with the aim of finding out how these adap- tations are shaped according to their audience, purpose, time and place, while still being clearly identifiable. In particular, the analysis of the selected material aims at answering two research questions. (1) How do the genre conventions of picture books, didactic and audiovisual media for children influence the representation of pirates? and (2) How does the cultural representation of pirates in contemporary children’s texts negotiate the characteristics and spirit of its time and place? The majority of the existing research on pirates focuses on the areas of history and literature. Within the field of children’s literature,