Fairy Tales

The main purpose of our last lesson of the year was to re-imagine a fairy tale in a carter fashion.

The lesson kicked off with the class discussing intertextual motifs in "The Bloody Chamber" and their meanings.

We came up with:

Mirror = society’s opinions. How we see ourselves through society’s eyes.

Moon = reason / truth / Aufklarung.

Blood = maturity / sexuality

Virginity = innocence.

Roses = Sexual feelings / danger

Snow = Purity

Chinese Boxes = different layers / ambiguity

Transformations = people not immutable characters.

Animals = men’s sexual Grrr. Or lovely soft feminine softiness (Lamby).

Houses = Patriarchal status quo.

We then discussed our homework from last lesson which was centered around the question:

Could Carter's use of the present tense, then, be related to the distinction between the human and the animal?

This question was answered by most of the class on the last blog post. The answers seemed to be in line with what Christopher Williams commented: "In the case of Wolf-Alice herself, this question can relate to her quite significantly. As the past tense is occuring, she is mostly classified as an animal; due to her being brought up by the wolves. However, as the present tense takes place, she learns the ways of human living and begans to understand what is the norm throughout society in order to gain attraction towards herself"

After this the class considered what Fred Botting Said about carter: "In her late twentieth-century fiction, Carter powerfully and often critically demonstrates the reversal of values and identifications that occur via the Gothic genre. Otherness takes centre stage: sexual transgression, dark desire, and fantastic deviance wonderfully subvert the restrictive orders of reason, utility and paternal morality… In Gothic times margins may become the norm and occupy a more central cultural place."

The final task of the lesson was to reproduce a fairy tale using Carter's style. We done this in groups of 3/4 and had a chance to either write the story out or to perform as a play. The group was thoroughly entertained by all performances as they all involved a degree of creativity. This task also consolidated what we had learnt throughout the last few months about the Gothic genre and Angela Carter.

Homework for the summer holidays can be found in the previous blog by Chris C

Thanks for reading, enjoy your holidays & take care.

'Sonny.

Wolf Alice + Summer Homework

Contents

1. Homework


2. Quotations Explanations


3. Wolf Alice Development Timeline

1 -Homework

- Mr Sadgrove:

If you are unavailable on Tuesday go see him for the holiday homework

Bring memory stick with at least 500mb free space on Tuesdays Lesson.

- Mr Chatterly:

Comment on blog answering this question:

Could Carter's use of the present tense, then, be related to the distinction between the human and the animal?

Over the Holidays:

Short presentation, explaining your chosen book to the rest of the group. Covering

• the basic storyline, but don’t give too much away;


• the author’s background and career;


• any other opinions about the book that you can find;


• what you enjoyed about it;


• what you didn’t enjoy about it;


• if it is adapted into a film, something about the adaptation;


• Anything else you feel is relevant.


• Your stories are the following

Note: those with names have already been taken

(Apologies for the incorrect spelling of names)

• Daniel Crane – New York Trilogy


• Esmeralda Ndregjoni – Norwegian wood


• Aisha Moallim – Secret History


• Akanksha Wagh – The Corrections


• Aleksandra Terzova – Vernon God Little


• Sonny Rehman – The Life of Pi


• Chris Cheung – Regeneration


• Rodie Yagien – Possession


• Tamsin Gough – Oscar and Lucinda


• Saways Zalmai – Remains of the Day


• Chris Williams – Blind Assassin


• Roman Aleksandravicus – Cloud Atlas & history of the world in 10.5 chapters.

Which leaves the following novels to be picked by those who were not here:

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels:

The stories of two men form different generations whose lives have been transformed by war. A young boy, Jakob Beer, is rescued from the mud of a buried Polish city durinc World War II and taken to a island in Greece by an unlikely saviour, the scientist/humanist Atho Roussos. Written in an extraordinary lyrical style, this book will haunt you for years. Don’t dismiss it

Preference:

• WWII,


• Holocaust,


• survivor’s guilt/ repressed memories,


• beautiful writing,


• generation gap,


• philosophy

One hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

Marquez was one of the founders of the magical realist style, by now a hall mark of Latin American Literature. One Hundred years of solitude is a journey through the story of the Buendias family, living in Macondo in the heart of the South American Jungle. The family is filled with inimitable characters who live through love, civil war, tragedy-so far, so good. But what sets this book apart is Marquez’s distinctive style wherein metaphor becomes reality- at one point a character is nervous and so a host of yellow butterflies fly out of her mouth. This is dazzling and engrossing.

Preference:

• History,


• Fairy tales,


• family epics,


• tragedy

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides:

No, it’s not about outer London. Calliope is a hermaphrodite, born to Greek- American parents in the 1960’s. Her story is epic: Entertaining, broad, philosophical and gripping. It’s a book about love, family, genetics, immigration, history, secrets and more. – Sunday Times Books of the year:

“This year’s most sumptuously enjoyable book… superb.”

Preference:

• Family sagas,


• epics,


• international fiction,


• twists and turns in plots.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters:

A Dickenson romp in Victorian London with enough plot twists to keep even the most cynical readers gripped. Crime, sex, lesbianism, madness and more… definitely one for the sensationalists among you

Preferences:

• Detective stories,


• Victorian fiction,


• ‘romps’

Spies by Michael Frayn:

In Michael Frayn’s novel Spies an old man returns to the scene of his seemingly ordinary suburban childhood. Stephen Wheatley is unsure of what he is seeking but, as he walks once-familiar streets he hasn’t seen in 50 years, he unfolds a story of childish games colliding cruelly with adult realities. It is wartime and the Stephen’s friend Keith makes the momentous announcement that his mother is a German spy. The two boys begin to spy on the supposed spy, following her on her trips to the shops and to the post, and reading her diary. Keith’s mother des have secrets to conceal but they are not the ones the boys suspect. Frayn skilfully manipulates his plot so that the reader’s growing awareness of the truth remains just a few steps beyond Stephen.

Preferences:

• WWII,


• Childhood,


• psychology,


• unreliable narrators.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith:

Another much- discussed book, “white teeth” is a comic epic of multicultural Britain which tells the story of immigrants in England over a period of 40 years. Set in Contemporary London, the dialogue and stories are comic and richly entertaining.

Preferences:

• comic novels,


• modern Britain,


• multiculturalism

Midnight’s children by Salman Rushdie:

Winner of the bookers- judged the best book ever to have won the booker prize. A swirling and evocative magical realist epic covering the emergence of Modern India. Saleem is born at the midnight of India’s independence and joins 1000 children born at that time, each with an amazing talent. Amazon says “quite simply, Midnight’s children is amazing- fun, beautiful, erudite, both fairy tale and political narrative told through a supernatural narrator who is caught between different worlds’.

Preferences:

• international politics,


• stories,


• India

The god of small things by Arundhati Roy:

Another booker prize winner, this is a gloriously evocative tragedy set in Kerala. It’s about the events surrounding a Christian family in an obviously Indian setting, and while the story itself is gripping, the inventive and original style of Roy’s writing stands out. You might be interested to know that Roy has not written a novel since and is now an international campaigner against the Indian government’s Narmada Dam project – her work on this subject is intensely political and well worth reading.

Preferences:

• Indian politics and society,


• beautiful writing,


• family sages and tragedies

Cold mountain by Charles Frazier:

Yet another film adaptation and once again the book is far superior! Don’t be put off by the Nicole Kidman snooze-fest, this book is subtle and detailed. The story begins near the end of the Civil War as Inman, a Confederate soldier, recuperates from his wounds and reflects on four years of ferocious fighting. Soon, he realizes that he will be sent back to fight some more. Overcome by that thought, he dreams of home instead. He sneaks out of the hospital through a window and begins a long, difficult trek home. At the same time, Ada, his love from before the war, has just lost her father in the hill country in the Smokies. Brought up as an educated lady to her minister father in Charleston, she is unprepared to fend for herself. Soon befriended by Ruby, she begins the unremitting toil to get her farm working again without the proper help, resources and training.

Preferences:

• American Civil War,


• Historical fiction,


• film adaptations

2 – Quote Explanation

There is no wrong answer to this as you being an English literature student should have your own ideas to share.

Note: Think Society + Wolf Alice

‘There is nothing substantial behind the mirror’ – Aiden Day

3 – Wolf Alice Development Timeline

Summarise how Wolf-Alice sense of self change within the novel create a timeline of events.

End of Blog

Hope this helped

Chris.张

Answers for Wolf Alice Timeline:

Did you get similar answers to the following?

• Wild Alice


• Mechanical learning with nuns


• Period / hygiene


• Preparation for period / awareness of time


• Mirror / friend


• Diadem of hair / pride in body to littermate.


• Separation of self to world (Can’t put her finger on it).


• Clothes / no longer animal


• Man Friday’s footprints terrifying to self and to society.

We began the lesson by describing an image of the Erl King that sir put up on the board. The main descriptions that came up were green, weed, and cabbage gone off.

Sir then showed us a video of a German cartoon of the summary of the Erl King. It showed the father riding on a horse,protecting their child from the Erl King. It ends with the child dying in their fathers arms.

We then analysed the first sentence of the story. It said:
"THE LUCIDY, THE clarity of the light that afternoon was efficient to itself; perfect transparency must be impenetrable"

We came to a conclusion that the contradiction in the intro ("transparency....impenetrable")shows purity and enlightenment as an object cannot be "perfectly" transparent and impenetrable at the same time.

Whilst reading, we stopped at any point where there was a change in narrator, or tense. The rhythm went like:

• 3rd person past tense


• 3rd person present tense


• Direct address


• 3rd person present


• 3rd person past

We then pulled out a quote that describes the forest, and drew it up. Mine was "This wood has reverted to its original privacy"

Then we spoke about how the Erl King is manly, but has a feminine side to him, such as his talent in cooking and cleaning. Even in the story he is compared to a housewife, as he is always alone in his house to take care of everything.

HOMEWORK- Discuss Carter's narrative style in "The Erl King"...3 paragraphs- Focusing more on AO2

Sorry for the late blog...there were technical difficulties :)

Saways xxx

The Moon and The Mirror

In the lesson we further discussed Wolf-Alice with particular emphasis on the figures of the moon and the mirror within the tale. We were first asked to find similarities between a mirror and the moon. These included the fact that both these objects reflect light, they both do not have their own presence in the fact that you cannot see them without external light and so on.

The class went on to re-read Wolf-Alice and focus on the mirror and the moon. We also discussed the narrator, who does his best to distance himself from Wolf-Alice by claiming that she is different from "us". We spoke about how Wolf-Alice would have quite clearly been an outcast and as such the villagers would not want to be associated with them; so they share responsibility by referring to "us" and not 'I'.

After finishing the tale, Sir put up quotes referring to the moon and the mirror and asked us to think of what the quotes are revealing about the objects. Examples of these quotes are:

The Moon
"When it again visited her kitchen at full strength...bleeding again"

In this quote the class concluded that this quote is referring to the power of the moon, the way in which Wolf-Alice cannot stop it shows the way women have no control of their body in a patriarchal society.

The Mirror
"The lucidity of the moonlight lit the mirror propped against the red wall, the rational glass, master of the visible"

This probed us to discuss the differences between the moon and the mirror in the tale. We said that the mirror refers to others opinions of us, and because the Duke has no reflection it shows that he is a social outcast so the public has no opinion of him. On the other hand, the moon represents truth and rationality, a constant, that's why it appears every month and Wolf-Alice bleeds.

Sorry for late blog forgot I had to do it.
Roman A.

“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles especially if the new wine lets the bottle explode”

NOTE:
How to comment on blog in school:

Sign into BlogspotWithout "STAY SIGNED IN" ticked


Contents:
1 – Homework
2 - Overused ideas
3 – New Wine in Old Bottles
4 – Rewriting of a passage
5 – Cliché’s in Gothic Genre
6 – Recall of Key Words learnt throughout the lessons

1 - Homework:
(1 page essay minimum)
1. Read the “Lady the House of Love” Starts at page 107

2. How does Carter play with the conventions of the Gothic and fairy tale genres In ‘The Lady of the House of love?’
· Use all AO1 - 4
· New wine in old bottles – Make sure you include this

3. Read The Erl King starts at page 96
– Focussing on shifts in tense/person and narrative mode – what is the effect?

2- Overused ideas
Cliché: Over-used or repeated ideas that come up again and again
List as many Cliché’s as you can for:

· A Horror Film
· A romantic Comedy
· A sporting underdog story

3 – New Wine Old bottles
“I am all for putting new wine in old bottles especially if the new wine lets the bottle explode”
What do you think this means in the terms of Genres and Angela Carters writing?

This can be interpreted as being
• New Wine: The new story new information
• Old bottle: the same structure
• Explode: Angela Carter attempts to challenge the original views and create something original

4- Rewriting of Passage:
Extract from the Lady the house of love

“My heart pounding, I pushed open the chamber door. I peered into the chill gloom. A wave of nausea swept over me… I clutched the doorpost. Was this a dream or was it reality? For there, in the far recesses of the chamber, and poorly lit by the moonbeams stood…”

Now finish this off in another sentence either in:
• Appropriate Gothic style
• Not appropriate Gothic style

5- Cliché features in Gothic genre

• Dark
• Mythical
• Mystery
• Colours (e.g. Black, Red, White)
• Female victims
• Monsters
• Castle setting
• Horror/ Terror
• Isolation
• Romanticism
• Dreams
• Imprisonment
• Aristocracy (Hero/ Villain) (Byronic Hero idealised but flawed character)

Watch this and explain what this clip is suggesting
(Hint: Pay attention to what they are saying)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhrz1-4hN4

“Can a bird sing only the song it knows or can it learn a new song?”
What do you think it means?
Think Protean (Change frequently or easily)
Note: you can draw a picture to express what you think it means.

6 – Recall of Key Words that we have learn't throughout the lessons

• Moral Pornographer
• Inter-textuality
• Feminist
• Mutable
• New wine/old bottles
• Subversion
• Olfactory
• Latent Content
• Metamorphosis
• Binary opposition
• AnimalismTigerish/Lamish
• Protean
• Marquis De Sade

End of Blog
Hope this has helped

Thanks
Chris.张

Intertextuality

We started the lesson discussing intertextuality within Wolf-Alice, and how different elements from the other novels in The Bloody Chamber are apparent in the ending. We came up with the conclusion that red lips, the licking of the husband/duke, the dress and metamorphosis were all evident at the end of the novel, and also appeared in The Snow Child, The Tiger's Bride and The Bloody Chamber.

List of our ideas:
Red lips - the snow child - sexual element, representing labial lips

Puberty/menstruation
Blood
Self is not fixed - immutable
Man/Beast
Snow/Purity
Father's are selfish/absent
The bloody Chamber - both lexically and literally
Mirrors
Transformation (metamorphosis)
Dressing up and licking down of the skin and fur - linked with appearance and identity.

A clip from the movie Alice Through the Looking Glass was put on the board, showing us one of the many perceptions mirrors can give us (Transportation to a parallel world), however there are many implications a mirror can represent.

We then discussed how Wolf-Alice was a 'bastardization' of many stories - Alice in Wonderland, Dracula, Sleeping Beauty. We agreed that Carter did this in order to show how all these intertextual elements are connected.

We then moved back onto the subject of mirrors and how mirrors are presented in Wolf-Alice. Yahaya pointed out that mirrors are used for vanity and shows us on the outside not the inside, this raised the question of appearance vs identity. We then pointed out that mirrors can be used as a sense of self realisation, when we see the difference ourselves we become aware of it, not just people's opinions.

Sir then put on the board a series of symbols mirrors can represent:
Reversal/opposites
Barrier/ Gateway
Subject/ object
Aufklarung - enlightenment, questioning whether God existed, strong in 18th Century writing
Perception
Constructed Identity - how we perceive ourselves and others

We then answered a series of questions which asked us about the intertextuality of objects throughout all of the short stories in the Bloody Chamber, and how all these came into context in Wolf-Alice.

Next lesson we will be continuing to study Wolf-Alice and the intertextual elements throughout, due to the fact that there is a lot more intertextual information to analyse. Our homework is to comment on this blog, and to find quotes on one of these four elements throughout the Bloody Chamber; Main characters, other characters, wolf figure and settings, due next lesson wednesday.

Leigh

Marquis de Sade, Feminism and Moral pornography

At the start of the lesson we were asked the question "Is pornography bad?" which started the debate of feminism and morals vs "it`s okay as it`s their job".
The article we had read after that was by feminist Gail Dines and titled "All authentic desire is rendered plastic by this multibillion-dollar industry." Despite the unappealling title of the article it opened our eyes to possibly accept that porn only on the surface seems to empower women, as "savvy" businessmen put the ideals in their heads that it does empower them when in reality it does not.
We discussed Marquis de Sade breifly as he wrote pornographic texts which Carter later refered to in her works. Because of this we read the sheet titled "Angela Carter`s The Sadeian woman" which discussed Moral pornography. We found out that moral pornographers use their pornographic material to create a peice of "art" that empowers both genders about their sexuality and shows how real relationships are instead of the usual sexism displayed in contemparary ideals of porn.
We were told to write our own definition of Moral pornography and what it would be used for.
Lastly we had to gather evidence that showed Patriotarchy and women being victims of it and if it showed moral pornography. We had to find five quotes and do an Ao2 analysis of them. This was preparation for the practice essay we will do on Thursday.

For homework we have to handwrite ten facts on Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), look up sadomasochism and do the questions on the Bloody Chamber on the handout sheet. Also comment on the blog.

Tamsin (feel free to add anything I missed if I did miss out anything and sorry for spelling mistakes).

The Bloody Chamber

Hello fellow classmates, welcome to my first blog post of the year.

This fine Tuesday morning we started the lesson by reading an extract from a Gothic text and were asked to comment of its successes and failures. In fact this particular piece was from "The Raven" by Edgar Alan Poe, so there weren't many corrections to make. Here is a link to the poem - http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html

The next thing we had to do was to think about stereotypes that appear in traditional fairy tales and how they are opposed in Angela Carter's work, focusing on characters primarily. This is a list of what we came up with as a class :

Traditional Fairy tales :

* Virtuous, pure, beautiful women - a damsel in distress who must be saved

*Men are heroic and strikingly handsome

*Two dimensional characters

*Male protagonists are always morally correct

*Ugly women = Evil women

Angela Carter's stories :

*Women are virtuous to begin with but grow more sexually promiscuous as the story progresses

*Characters are tempted by materialistic objects

*Men are monstrous

* Three dimensional, "deeper" characters

*Women gain power

*Highlighting of mechanisms of patriarchy

* Fathers/father figures are evil or weak and materialistic

*Metamorphosis is present, gender roles and identity is not fixed

After this we were asked to look at a list of possible things that can occur or be seen in a fairy tale and point out the ones that would be seen in a Carter story, an example of this was having a strong female character.

We then looked at critic's opinions of Angela Carters work and commented of the similarities between the two, here is what I wrote -

"Both reviews point out that Carter is challenging preconceptions about the roles of men and women in society, her stories are far more dark and dangerous in order to successfully point out the problems and inequalities we face today.

Fairy tales ingest patriarchal values into their audiences from a very young age."

Now, for the HOMEWORK:

*Read the introduction of the "Bloody Chamber" (the book, not the story) and make one to two pages of notes.

*Read Bluebeard (which was handed out in class, if you weren't in here's a link to the story - http://childhoodreading.com/?p=20 ) and note down the things that Carter would object to and which enforce patriarchal values.

*Comment of this blog too please

Much love, Aleksandra