The Metafictive in Picture Books: a Theoretical Analysis of the Nature and Origins of Contemporary Children's Picture Books
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THE METAFICTIVE IN PICTURE BOOKS: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE AND ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS. WtTH CASE STUDIES OF CHILDREN READING PICTURE BOOK TEXTS Submitted by David Harry Lewis to the University of London as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Language and Literature in Education in the faculty of Education (Institute of Education), October 1994. ( i%L) 2 ABSTRACT The thesis is about picture books and how children read them, and is divided into three parts. In part one I identify a striking parallel between certain exemplary contemporary picture books and the tendency within adult fiction known as postmodernism or metafiction. I enlarge upon this analogy and attempt to establish a tentative taxonomy of metafictive picture books. Part one concludes with an account of an early attempt at exploring how young children read such texts, and with the establishing of the core questions of the thesis: i.e. what is the relation of the metafictive picture book to the form in general?; why is such a highly self-conscious, reflexive form of text found in picture books for young children?; and how do young children read such books? In part two I begin by reviewing the available literature on picture books and then attempt to construct a theory of picture book text. These core theoretical chapters (chapters five, six and seven) are concerned with the nature of pictorial representations and how readers read them; with a revisionist account of the historical origins of the picture book; and with the developing of a view of the picture book as a distinctivelypolysysiemic form of text - i.e. a form of text closely akin to the novel. An attempt is then made to answer the first two of the three main questions. The final part of the thesis explores, through a number of case studies, how young children might construe metafictive texts and traces some of the different ways in which they attempt to make sense of them. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS AND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CONTENTS page TITLE I ABSTRACT 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 6 PART ONE - POSTMODERNISM AND PICTURE BOOKS 7 CHAPTER ONE - Introduction 8 I. Seeing the problem S 2. Parallels with contemporary adult fiction 9 3. The structure of the thesis 11 CHAPTER TWO - Postmodernism. Metafiction and Contemporary Picture Books 15 A. Introduction B. Postmodemism, Metafiction and the Revolt Against Modernism, Realism and Illusion ism 17 I. Postmodemism as a cultural concept 17 2. Postmodernism in literature: metafiction as exemplar 20 C. The Metafictive Picture Book 29 I. The metafictive picture book: some types and kinds 29 2. The metafictive picture book and learning to read 40 D. Summary and Conclusion 43 CHAPTER THREE - Pilot Study: reading a Metafictive Picture Book with Two Children 44 A. Introduction 44 B. Reading Where's Julius? by John Bumingham 46 1. Myreading 46 2. The children's readings 48 3. Retelling the story 52 C. Narrative Frequency and Metonymic Excess 58 1. Gerard Genette and narrative frequency 58 2. Where's Julius? And metonymic excess 59 D. The Role of the Pictures 63 E. How to Read Where's Julius? - Some Suggestions 66 F. Summary and Conclusions 70 4 PART TWO - A THEORY OF THE PICTURE BOOK 73 CHAPTER FOUR - Literature Review 74 A. lintroduction 74 B. The Limitations of Historical Criticism 75 1. Histories of illustration 75 2. Brian Alderson and the history of the English picture book 78 3. Histories of children's literature 80 4. Richard Rorty and final vocabularies 81 C. Postmodemism and the Contemporary Picture Book 84 D. Approaches to Picture Book Criticism 87 1. Pictures 88 2. Stories 91 3. Words and pictures 91 4. Broad perspectives 94 E. Picture Books and Learning to Read 101 1. The picture book as literature 101 2. Learning to read with picture books 103 3. Texts that teach 106 F. Summary and Conclusion 108 CHAPTER FIVE - Reading Pictures 110 110 A. Introduction B. Words and Pictures: the Same Only Different? 112 1. Words and pictures; space and time; convention and nature 112 2. Words and pictures as signs 118 C. Reading Representations 124 1. Connotation, iconography, iconology 124 127 2. Reading the pictures in picture books 3. A reading of several pages of Sunshine by Jan Ormerod 135 D. Summary and Conclusion 139 CHAPTER SIX - The Historical Development of Picture Books in England 141 A. Introduction 141 B. Children's Literature, Picture Books, Play and Toys 144 1. Puritanism, play and pleasure 144 146 2. Picture books, games and toys 3. Attitudes towards 'book-toys' 150 4. Swnmary and conclusion 154 C. The Influence of the Chapbook 155 1. Chapbooks, children, morals and politics 155 2. The influence of the chapbook on the development of the picture book 158 3. Summary and conclusion 163 D. Putting Words and Pictures Together 165 I. Early attempts at putting words and pictures together 165 2. Blake and Bewick 169 3. Toy books and Alice 171 4. Summary and conclusion 174 5 E. Picture Books, Narrative and Caricature 175 I. Early caricaturists and picture book makers 175 2. The nature of cancature and as influence on picture books 179 3. Picture sheets, comics, the cinema and wordless picture books 182 4. Summary and conclusion 188 F. Picture Books and Experimentation 189 1. Conservatism in English illustration 189 2. Picture books and innovation 191 G. Summary and Conclusion 199 CHAPTER SEVEN - Bakhtin, the Novel and the Picture Book 201 A. Introduction 201 203 B. Bakhtin's Translinguistics 1. Signs, language, consciousness and self 203 2. Heteroglossia 205 3. Utterance, theme and meaning 206 4. Summary 207 C. Bakhtin and the Novel 210 I. From translinguistics to poetics 210 2. The novel as transhistorical process: 'novelisation' 211 3. Polyphony in the novel 213 4. Rabelais, carnival and parody 215 5. Characteristics of the novel: a summary 218 6. Some criticisms of Bakhtin 219 The Picture Book as Novel: Making it New 222 D. 1. The polyphonic novel and the polysystemic picture book 222 2. The flexibility of the picture book 228 3. The origin of the picture book in popular forms 233 E. The Metafictive Picture Book: a Second Look 236 F. Summary and Conclusion 241 PART THREE - CHILDREN READING PICTURE BOOKS: SOME CASE STUDIES CHAPTER EIGHT - Children Reading Picture Books: Methodology 244 A. introduction 244 B. Case Study Methodology: a Discussion 246 1. An outline of the case study approach 246 2. Some problems and difficulties 247 C. Case Studies of Children Reading Picture Books 250 CHAPTER NINE - Some Illustrative Case Studies of Children Reading Picture Books 253 253 A. Introduction B. Reading Pictures: Three Children Reading a Wordless Picture Book 255 1. Introduction 255 2. Where is Monkey?: a description of the book 256 3. Telling the story: the children's readings as evidence 257 4. The children's readings 258 5. Swnmary and discussion 269 6 C Reading the Metafictive: Two Children Reading a Metafictive Picture Book 272 1. Introduction 272 2. Thne to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley: a description of the book 273 3. Commentary: Nigel 277 4, Commentary: Jane 288 5. Summary and discussion 296 D Two More Books 299 1. Introduction 299 2. John Patrick Norman McHennessy - the Boy Who Was Always Late and On The Way Home: descriptions of the books 299 3. Commentary: Nigel 305 4. Commentary: Jane 315 5. Summary and discussion 321 E Summary and Conclusions 324 CHAPTER TEN - Conclusions 329 1. Summary 329 2. Further questions and issues 331 APPENDICES 333 Appendix 1: Transcription conventions 334 Appendix 2: Simon reading Where's Julius? to DL 335 Appendix 3: Claire talking about Where's Julius? To DL 337 Appendix 4: Claire retelling Where's Julius? 340 Appendix 5: Nigel telling story from a wordless picture book 343 Appendix 6: Martin telling story from a wordless picture book 353 Appendix 7: Jane telling story from a wordless picture book 361 Appendix 8: Nigel and DL reading Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley 368 Appendix 9: Jane and DL reading Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley 384 Appendix 10 Group listening to John Patrick Norman McHennessy 393 Appendix 11 Nigel retelling John Patrick Norman McHennessy 401 Appendix 12 Jane retelling John Patrick Norman McHennessy 405 Appendix 13 Nigel reading On The Way Home with DL 409 Appendix 14 Jane reading On The Way Home with DL 417 BIBLIOGRAPHY 423 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS figure 1: Where's Julius? First full page opening 47 figure 2: A page from Sunshine by Jan Ormerod 137 figure 3: Where is Monkey ? First page opening 261 figure 4: Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley Page opening 13 281 figure 5: John Patrick Norman Mcllennessy - the Boy Who Was Always Late 302 PART ONE POSTMODERNISM AND PICTURE BOOKS g CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTiON 1. Seeing the problem This thesis is about the nature of picture books and how children read them. Picture books for the young constitute an expanding area within publishing for children and are considered by many to be an exciting and innovative form. (e.g. Chambers, 1985; Meek, 1 992a; Stahl, 1990) Moreover, picture books are increasingly seen as an appropriate form of text with which children might begin to learn to read. (Bennett,1991; Meek,1988; Snow and Ninio, 1986) Nevertheless, very little attention has been given to the picture book as a special kind of illustrated text, nor has there been any substantial research into how children read them. I first began to pay serious attention to picture books for young children shortly after my own children were born.