CHAPTER NINE

NEGOTIATING MIRANDAS VISION

IN THE CLASSROOM:
CRITICAL ENCOUNTERS WITH LITERATURE,
FROM ARCHETYPAL SYMBOLISM
TO DYSTOPIAN FANTASY
TZINA KALOGIROU
AND KONSTANTINOS MALAFANTIS



O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in' t!
W .Shakespeare, The Tempest (V, I)

Today is the Tomorrow you were promised Yesterday.
Shaun Tan
Introduction: Critical pedagogy in the classroom
Critical Pedagogy is one of the most illuminating of recent
epistemological innovations in the field of Education. It brings powerful
insights to understanding education in general, theorizing it within a broad
social understanding of culture. Critical Pedagogy raises questions about
the social spaces where learning takes place. The classroom as seen from
this theoretical point of view is a social space where we can critically
examine our condition in the world raising challenging questions about
issues of race, social power, gender, sexuality, colonialism, justice,
oppression, etc. (Freire, 2000; Freire, 1996; Freire, and Macedo, 1987;
Giroux, 1989; Giroux, 1992; Shor, 1987; McLAren, 2006; Christensen,
2000; Christensen, 2009; Fisher, 1990, Appleman, 2010; Appleman, 2009;


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Wilhelm, 2008; Monchinski, 2008; Johnson & Freedman, 2006; Wolf,
2004).
Thisthesis,thatEducationactuallyconstitutesa discourse(theterm
after Michel Foucault in his seminal book LOrde du Discours, 1971)
through which identifiable social groups and individuals historically have
framed themselves and their relation with others, is closely related
epistemically and technically to the very practice of teaching and learning
in the everyday classroom (Monchinski, 2008). Discourse is considered a
form of power embedded in the social fabric, framing social subjects
through strategies of regulation and exclusion. Critical Pedagogy asks
students and teachers to become aware of themselves as social subjects
who have powerpower to become more inclusive of others or to
marginalize them, to construct themselves and others (Johnson &
Freedman,

2006, p. 30). In the frame of Critical Pedagogy, texts can be
used in the classroom as a means of discussing the complex social realities
that surround the issues of social inequity and injustice. Negotiating the
meanings of literature, students can gain a deeper understanding of social
issues related to themselves as students, as citizens, and as human beings
sharing a planet with others.
Critical Pedagogy addresses issues of power and oppression, opting for
a social transformation that could create a society that is more tolerant,
fair, and more open to diversity. One of the primal concerns of Critical
Pedagogy is the thorough understanding on behalf of the students of the
factors that generate oppression in society. Addressing issues of
oppression through literature in the classroom students can empower
themselves against oppressive situations and resist them. The praxis of
Critical Pedagogy requires critical consciousness and social empathy for
its subjects.
From critical pedagogy to literary theory
Since the mid-20
th
century we have been through a proliferation of
literary/critical theories
1
that have broadened the focus in textual studies,
as the text is no longer conceived as something in isolation but is always
viewed in its relation with its context recipient. Each of these theoretical
approaches to literature brings its own characteristic questions to it. To
name briefly some of the most important strands in modern literary theory,

1
Several guides to literary theory and criticism have also flooded the market since
1980. See, for example, Eagleton, 1983; Jefferson and Robey, 1986
2
; Selden,
1985; Lentriccia and Mc Laughlin, 1995
2
;

Iser, 2006, Sutherland, 2010.
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 133
Marxist theory in all its variants has been concerned with the work of art
as a superstructural phenomenon conditioned by the material base out of
which it arose. Archetypal Criticism looks for recurring themes, motifs,
narrative patterns, etc., that are identified in a wide variety of works of
literature, as well as in myths, dreams and rituals. Reception theory and
reader-response theories both argue that a text comes into being only when
it is being experienced by the reader. Semiotics point to the fact that the
literary text consists of ambiguous and self-focusing signs that can be read
in a multiplicity of ways. According to the theories of Intertextuality,
works of literature, after all, are built from systems, codes and traditions
established by previous works of literature (Allen, 2000; Worton & Still,
1990). Post-Structuralism stressed that the literary text exploits the play
that is inherent to language, thus inviting us, the readers, to play with and
within it. Gender-Feminist theories uncover and condemn the repressed
messages of women in history and in literature, seeking to locate the
feminine not-said(Showalter,1986,p.141).Postcolonialismtakesunder
discussion the Western hegemony over the colonized, native people who
are often presented in a blatant, stereotyped way as savages and
undevelopedothers.NewHistoricismseizeuponwhathasbeenleftout
of the traditional historiography, or what has been represented
misleadingly. New historians read literature in an un-reductive way,
insisting upon both the historicity of literature and the textuality of history.
All the aforementioned trends in modern literary/critical theory have
radically changed the ways we conceive, read, interpret, and finally teach
literature in the classroom. The various modern literary theories allow us
to understand that literature cannot be explained ontologically, but only in
terms of how it functions. The classical aesthetics, as developed by the
prominent philosophers of the nineteenth century, (Hegel, Adorno, etc.)
have been replaced by modern theory that bears eloquent witness to the
fact that the literary text is multifaceted, as far as it can be considered as a
space that offers multiple pathways for exploration. That is, literary text is
not considered any more as a preconceived and stable entity. In Roland
Barthess (1988) words, our goal is not to find the meaning, nor even a
meaning of the text our goal is ultimately to conceive, imagine, to
experience the plurality of the text, the open-endedness of its signifying
process (p. 262). Modern literary theory helps readers-and students as
readers, as well-to be liberated from the burdensome task of finding the
predetermined,singularhiddenmeaninginanyliterarypiece.
Literary theory is not only suited to a wide range of students, it has
additionally a positive effect on enhancing students engagement and
involvement with literature as far as it requires them to take an active role
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as readers. Appleman (2009) suggests, and we strongly agree with her, that
literary theory is not accessible only by the happy few, that isbythose
who are privileged by social status or other factors to have educational
advantages (pp.112-113). Because many of the theories deal with issues of
power, students on the margins due to particular reasons, such as ethnicity,
class, ability, etc., are often more affiliated to the ideological premises of
these theories, they are often more ready to challenge notions of inequity,
exploitation and isolation.
Both Literary/Critical Theory (or Theories) and Critical Pedagogy
invite studentstothinkaboutTextandtheWorld,oraboutthewordand
the world,asMacedoandFreire (1987)suggestedintheirfamousbook,
through a multiplicity of perspectives. Multiplicity is a key notion in the
educational enterprise. According to Appleman (2009) students can and
should be accustomed to using multiple perspectives, multiple and various
critical lenses in order to read and interpret literature effectively.
Literary theory can help students to construct a sustained plurality of
perspectives. It can empower their interpretive skills, helping them to
overcome the single, super-imposed, authoritarian meaning.
Becoming more adept at viewing a text from multiple and different
perspectives, students can gain a deeper understanding of literature, its
contexts and its discontents. They can have chances for meaningful and
engaging encounters with literature and opportunities to view literary
texts, even the great works of the Canon, in ways never thought of before.
Using the critical tools of various theories students can negotiate the
meanings in the texts, they can unravel and evaluate their ideologies,
opening up a dialogue with them. (Thompson, 1993, pp. 130-54;
Appleman, 2009, p. 128).
As we have seen so far, Critical Pedagogy raises questions, such as:
Who suffers and why? Who benefits from the social/economical/political
circumstances? From the other hand, literary theories raise their own set of
provoking questions that very often resist to conventional, pious or
sentimental readings: Who owes the island, Prospero or Caliban?
Robinson Crusoe or Friday? Is Caliban a monster, a savage, a cannibal
as his very name indicates, or an oppressed aboriginal? Would we agree
with the statement that, within our current system of beliefs, one can only
admire Calibans symbiotic harmony with the islands natural food
resources(Skura,1999,p.82)?Canwefindtodayanyironicalsignificance
to Mirandas vision in the Shakespearean Tempest of the brave new
world?Inwhat waysmoderndystopianfiction rewrites and reworks this
brave new world motif? Is Bertha Mason, the first woman of Edward
Rochester in Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre, simply the monstrous
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 135
madwoman in the attic, or the oppressed woman par excellence, the
alienated Creole, the colonized subject, and finally the victim of
Rochesters patriarchic despotism? Is Miranda an utterly innocent
idealized female or a sexually harassed teenager (by Caliban who actually
triedtorapeher)?OpheliaisanothertragicfigureofShakespearesfemale
characters, which can be viewed as the silenced, betrayed and marginalized
woman (Kiefer-Solomon, 2001). Is it really possible to imagine a life or
even a past for her?
2
How does Ophelia seem similar/different from a
typical girl from the 21
st
century? (Hulbert, 2010, pp. 199- 220).
This paper offers an in-depth analysis of two texts very different to
each other, namely the long surrealist poem The Light-Tree, by the Greek
Nobel Laureate poet, Odysseus Elytis (2004), and the astonishing picture
book The Red Tree by the highly acclaimed Australian illustrator and
author Shaun Tan (2001). The masterpieces of Elytis and Tan, full of
subtlety and imaginative quality, provide students a narrative frame into
which they can explore the open symbol of the tree associating it not
solely with social conditions, but also with primal fears, hopes, and
emotions summarized to a more existential sense of Being. We should also
note that in the full version of this paper a teaching approach to Shaun
Tans dystopian picture book The Rabbits is presented through
Postcolonialist theory.
We would like to thank our students at the Faculty of Primary
Education for their valuable response to the literary texts we chose for
reading and analysis. It is not our purpose though to describe in detail an
elaborated yet empirical teaching framework, but to offer some initiatives
for teaching literature from different critical/theoretical perspectives,
inspiring students to investigate issues of social emergency and/or of
philosophical importance.
The art of Shaun Tan
According to Sandra L. Beckett (2012), the reading of Shaun Tans
picturebooks can be very challenging for readers of all ages (p. 142).
They are widely considered as crossover pieces suitable for readers of all
ages that open new paths for the picturebook genre. Indeed, Tan is the

2
The shrewdly written young adult play by Michael Lesslie (2012), Prince of
Denmark (Connections, National Theatre London) actually does it. It is set a
decade before the action in Hamlet and present the teenagers Hamlet, Ophelia and
Laertes raging against the roles handed down by their parents. It is a radical
reworking of the Shakespearean play that can be fruitfully analyzed from various
critical perspectives.
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creator of astonishing picturebooks that blend historical details with
science-fiction or surreal elements in order to represent an encompassing
secondaryworldofpurefantasy(Tolkien,2003,p. 55). The imagery of
his fantastic universe contains distinctly alien creatures, surreal hybrid
objects, futuristic cities, and many other various bizarre forms of
monuments, buildings, mechanical items, as well as a totally fantastic
variety of flora and fauna. He plunges the reader into an unsettling and
often terrifying brave new world, conveying his/her feeling of being
alone in a strange and alienated land. Despite how frightening this new
land might be, there is always place for an antipodal utopian world that is
yettocome.ShaunTansutopiaisfullofwhimsicalitemsandbenevolent
creatures, along with an endless variety of animals, plants and fruits.
3

Tans art reminds us that we, human beings, can live up to our dreams,
escaping through fantasy into a wish-fulfilling world, into a never-never
land, far away from fear, loneliness, depression, and control of any kind.
Tan insists upon the liberating power of imagination. Imagination is really
revolutionary, as far as it is a form of power that circulates in and around
the individual, constituting alternative realms of resistance to the given
reality. Imagination depends on the richest possibilities for living and
changing life, designating the most authentic experience.
The Red Tree: Illuminating the imagination
The picture book The Red Tree (2001) is a masterpiece. Less than a
particular story, it can be considered as a series of unfolding one-page or
double-spread pictures, totally of a dream-like or imaginary character, that
invite readers to enter into enigmatic, self-contained words. The whole
illustration refers not to distinct events but to feelings and emotions. The
dominant rhetorical figure (trope) of the book is a metaphor. Each picture
conveys through a complex system of metaphoric images, a visual
representation of an overwhelmingly, at times, depressed mood.
The pictures in its interaction with the minimal text (which consists of
minimal poetic lines such as Darkness overcomes you, the world is a
deaf machine), move the narrative along, providing dazzling panoramas.

3
The most representative book in which Tan depicts this kind of utopia, very much
reminiscentofagardenofearthlydelights,is The Lost Thing (2000) as well as
his Oscar-winning short film under the same title based on the book (2010). For a
similarperspective,seealsothestoryNoothercountryfromhisbookTales from
Outer Suburbia (2008).
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 137
They are open to many interpretations, giving the reader an endless
possibility of meanings.


Figure 1. Shaun Tan (2001). The Red Tree
A nameless and silent little girl appears in every picture. She passes
through darkness, loneliness and isolation, yet ultimately she finds
salvation and happiness in the epiphany of the red tree of her imagination.
At the beginning she awakes to find dark leaves falling from her bedroom
ceiling, threatening to quietly overwhelm her. The accompanying text
says: sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to, and
thingsgofrombadtoworse.Shewandersdownthestreet,overshadowed
by a huge fish that floats above her. The strange thing is that this
enormous being goes totally unnoticed as far as the people in the street
seem indifferent and absorbed in their own thoughts. The text says:
Darknessovercomesyou.Thenthegirlisdepictedentrappedinabottle
washed up on a forgotten shore, or lost in a strange Metropolis. Suddenly,
as happens in dreams, she's on a stage in front of a mysterious, rather
hostile audience, not knowing what to do. The accompanying text says:
sometimesyoujustdontknowwhatyouaresupposedtodo.Justasall
hope seems lost, the girl returns to her bedroom and finds a tiny red
spermatophyte growing in the middle of the floor. In the next page it has
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already grown into a bright and vivid red tree that fills her room with
warmlight:butsuddenlythereitisrightinfrontofyoubrightandvivid
quietlywaiting/justasyouimagineditwouldbe(Figure2).Theredtree
is an open, revelatory symbol of hope and wish-fulfillment, which
celebrates the power of imagination (Figure 3).


Figure 2 (left) and Figure 3 (right)
We would like to discuss in detail one particular astonishing picture of
the book (Figure 4) in which the girl is depicted on an awkward theatrical
stage before the shadowy, identical figures of the audience, in a moment of
great humiliation and despair. She is represented wearing the clown-like
clothing which used to be worn by the condemned, during their public trial
before the Inquisition in Spain. This outfit included the long conical cap
known as the coroza and the tunic known as the sanbenito. The victims
used to wear also a tablet which fitted over the chest upon which were
inscribed the reasons for their condemnation. Obviously, the main purpose
of wearing this ridiculous costume was the total humiliation and the
contempt of the victim. It is worth noting though that during the period
1814-1823, the great Spanish painter, Francisco Goya, in an album which
is known as the Album C (located in the Prado Museum, in Madrid),
sketched a series of eight drawings portraying individuals prosecuted by
the Inquisition (Moumtzidou, 2005, pp. 218-21). Their postures as well as
their outfit, but most of all the fear and the despair that emanate from these
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 139
sketches,arereminiscentofShaunTanspictureprobably the contemporary
artist wanted to make a tribute to the radical art of this Titan of
Romanticism.
4
Goyas depicted victims of the Tribunal (Inquisition) in
these sketches demonstrate the outraging, totally absurd reasons of their
accusation: For being born somewhere else, for being from Jewish
ancestry, etc. Shaun Tans little girl wears a hat and tunic in purple
instead of the original white of the condemned, and she also bears the
same tablet with a question (in Finnish language) written on it: Kuka sina
olet? (Who are you?). Therefore, instead of bearing the reasons of her
supposed condemnation, she addresses to the readers (and also to the
mysterious hostile audience depicted) an almost unanswerable, open
question, a question ad infinitum, that stands for the existential angst, the
enigma of being, and the scattered identities of modern individuals. All
over the stage there is an extraordinary variety of bizarre forms, surreal
items,hybridobjectsandalienbeasts,whichmarktheillustratorsunique
artistic style. An unsettling detail in the picture is the device of mise en
abyme, used in the image of the little girl who holds in her right hand a
doll identical to her, dressed in the same ridiculous costume. The whole
scene seems very unsettling or even frightening, although it triggers the
readers imagination and curiosity. It really bears in mind the Inquisition
and most of all the horrible ritual of public penance of the condemned
heretics followed by their execution by burning. What is the meaning of
this all? What happens next? How will it all end? Is the depicted scene a
theatrical performanceoran absurdauto-da-f in our own epoch? How
easily can our societies stigmatize certain individuals or groups of people?
Of course, these questions provoke other questions about the diversity of
our world, or about the universal experience of being human.



4
The artistic style of Shaun Tan owes much to the work of the Surrealist painters,
especially Magrittes and Ernsts, and also to the work of some of the leading
exponents of Science Fiction in literature and in film, such as Ray Bradbury, Fritz
Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott.
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Figure 4
The Red Tree in the classroom: Archetypal criticism
The students at first had the chance to investigate in depth the visual
devices utilized by the illustrator, and to identify elements of visual
design, such as: line, color, depicted characters, layout, angles and frames,
and verso/recto relationship. They insisted upon the metaphoric language
of the pictures and their symbolic associations. Looking at pictures they
tried to identify the surreal objects in abundance while at the same time
making the meaning. They noticed that the red tree is metonymically
present from the very beginning of the unfolding narration in the image of
a singular, tiny red leaf scattered here and there in every picture. We are
not going to describe in detail students responses for purposes of
coherence and consistency to the outline of this paper we are going to
offer a more detailed presentation only of their archetypal reading of The
Red Tree.
A tree is one of the most powerful symbols (Cirlot, 1990, pp. 346-50).
It symbolizes life, growth, connection of earth and sky, as it is reaching
down to the ground and up to the sky at the same time. The archetypal
image of the tree is associated with spiritual life, wisdom and connectedness
with the universe. The students were introduced to Archetypal Criticism
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 141
(Frye, 1957, adapted by Sloan, 2003) and then they were invited to
identify archetypes (symbols, themes, motifs) found in the book, with a
particular emphasis on the archetypal imagery that is divided in two broad
categories: heavenly images referred to the World of Innocence and
demonic images referred to the World of Experience. The names, of
course,directlyrecallWilliamBlakesSongs of Innocence and Experience,
from 1789.
The Red tree is associated with the archetypal World of Innocence
although it cannot easily be translated into a specific symbolic meaning. It
has immense suggestive power; it is associated with hope, love, kindness,
imagination, inner world, psyche, etc., yet students also tended to feel that
Tans red tree is additionally referring to some undefined-perhaps
indefinable-aspect of spirituality or morality. Although the general
archetypal meanings associated with the tree inevitably influenced
students responses to the book (Tree of Life, Tree of Eden, Tree of
Wisdom, etc), it is mainly the way the tree is used in the book itself which
makes it seem so rich in suggestiveness.
The red tree is associated with heavenly images of vegetation,
blooming, sunlight, clouds, birds, and butterflies. Another positive symbol
associated with the red tree is the egg (Cirlot, 1990, pp. 94-5). The World
of Innocence and its heavenly images are opposed to the World of
Experience and its demonic imagery that comes in many forms: beasts
(like the enormous threatening fish), dead leaves, water associated with
drowning and asphyxia. The demonic imagery of urban landscape/modern
Metropolis comes in the archetypal forms of the waste land and the
labyrinth, which generate the sense of alienation and despair.
Odysseus Elytis and the vision of The Light-Tree
The Greek Nobel laureate poet Odysseus Elytis was a leading figure of
the avant-garde scene in the mid-war years in Greece. He is also an
internationally acclaimed poet considered among the foremost Greek
literary figures of the twentieth century. His affluent lyrical style is
characterized by certain types of surreal imagery, startling figurative
language, absurd juxtapositions of distant realities, complex verbal
rhythms, as well as by metaphoric associations of a dream-like quality.
According to the Poetry Foundation (2013) Webpage, Elytis was cited by
the Swedish Academy for writing poetry which, against the background
of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear-
sightedness modern mans struggle for freedom and creativeness. The
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poet highlighted the virtues of sensuality and innocence as well, and also
strivedtoreconciletheseattributeswithlifestragicaspects.
His poetry often relied upon the liturgy of the Greek Christian
Orthodox Church, borrowing freely from it elements of diction, tone,
structure, and symbolism. He also combines various intertextual references
to ancient lyric poetry, Byzantine culture and Modern Greek poetry,
demonstrating his affinity to the exquisite poetic style of Sappho,
Dionysios Solomos and Alexandros Papadiamantis, among others.
Elytis celebrated the splendors of nature insisting upon the beauty and
the mythology of the Aegean landscape. He magnified the essential
features of the Aegean landscape, such as the white-washed houses and
churches of the islanders, the shrines dedicated to certain patron-saints, the
cicadas, the vineyards and the pomegranate trees. Elytis landscape is
indeed a locus amoenus, an earthly and utterly erotic paradise replete of
personified physical elements, nymphs and other eerie female figures. The
sun is the most important element of Elytis personal mythology. It is a
ruler, a sovereign and a protector of human life.
The Light-Tree and the Fourteenth Beauty (1971) contains some of
Elytismostexquisitepoems.TheyarepoemsofmysticavowalofBeauty
and Spiritual Truth. Ramp (1997) believes that the poet is thoroughly
committed to the revelatory power of poetry, attributing what are
essentially magical properties to it, the power to transubstantiate evil into
goodandtotherebycreateanewandhighermorality.Thefourpoemsin
sequence that constitute the long poem The Light- Tree are organized
around the pivotal symbol of the Light Tree, which is a symbol of the
revelatory power of poetry and poetic imagination. It is also a symbol of
love, innocence, beauty, and goodness. It indicates a new and higher
morality which can only be revealed through instances of epiphany and
sudden illumination, and only to those who are gifted with pure heart,
sensibility and vital imagination. The Light Tree flourishes among the
garbage and filth, indicating that if only we had known where to look, we
would have found the paradise for which our soul yearns.
The Light -Tree in the classroom
Greek students of all ages are well acquainted with the magnificent
poetry of Odysseus Elytis. His poetry is taught more or less systematically
to students of all ages, from pre-school to the University level. Our
studentswereinvitedtoreadthepoemTheLight-Tree(seethefirstand
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 143
the second sequence of the poem
5
in the Appendix) in order to experience
the inexhaustible treasure-house of Elytis poetic language. They come
through the intrigued syntax, the imagery, the neologisms used by the poet
(theverywordlight-treeisaneologism),thesimilesandmetaphorsthat
permit the poetic meaning, etc.
The poem dwells upon the rich and meaningful symbol of the tree. As
wehaveseentreeslimbs branch out in all directions; they reach up to the
sky while their roots grow deep in the ground providing stability while
simultaneously finding nutrients in order to grow. The tree represents the
union of Heaven and earth. The light-tree of Elytis fantasy is indeed a
celestial symbol dropped down to earth, which draws on the symbolic
connotations of a tree outside the poem, but needs to be understood
primarily in terms of the way it works in the poem itself. The poem
endows the light-tree with certain associations and connotations. It might
be considered as a metaphor which tenor is a multiplicity of notions and
ideas, such as Innocence, Beauty, Perfection, Holiness, Eros, and Poetry in
itself or Imagination. The figurative language of the poem associates the
light-tree with heavenly, aerial, (or ethereal) yet fleeting images like the
drizzle of snow-white birds breaking on the jetty to become mist, the
spring wind, the piano music that could be heard from the parlor, the
bird which before you could catch his song, the sun, who took into its
redsandset.Thespeakerusesasimile,itadvancedimplacableintothe
lightlikeJesusChristandallthoseinlove,inordertodenotethepurely
immaculate yet at the same time erotic nature of the light-tree as it
triumphantly advances into the Light (probably in the latter verse there is
an allusion to the Assumption).
The archetypal imagery used in the poem invites the reader to put the
light-tree at the center of a world of Innocence. Mineral imagery plays a
crucial role in embellishing the tree with its particular qualities; gold and
radiant tin are opposed to scrap iron. Aerial imagery of arather
overttheological significance permits the poetic composition. The Lamb
signifies purity, innocence, and unwarranted sacrifice (let arrive the far
echo of war sent again from the bowels of the lamb), hence it is
associated in one enunciation with war. The Lamb is a secular and a
religious symbol as well (the Lamb of God). Through its Latin name
though,thelamb,agnus,canbe directly associated with the light-tree; Its
etymologyfromtheGreekwordhagnos( = the unknown, =

5
It should be clarified that the students do not study the poetry of Elytis in English
but in its original, utterly magnificent language. For purposes of communication
with the wide English-speaking audience we present the poem in the Appendix in a
canonized English translation.
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the pure) suggests that it shares with the light-tree the same essential
qualitiesofunknowingness(itsleavesareseizedforlifebytheunknown)
and purity. The opposite world of Experience is represented by the
anhydrousandfilthybackyard,whiletherearedirectreferencestothe far
echo of warandtothewidespreaddamage,whichmayberesponsiblefor
the deaths of many people.
The light-tree shares essential qualities with the red tree of Shaun
Tans fantasy, even though Elytis tree is more closely connected to
poetry. The light/red tree is a positive, radiant symbol, fully saturated by
the red color of the sun. Both trees appear miraculously in transient
moments of sudden illumination. Both artists, Elytis and Tan, emphasized
the loneliness experienced when one lacks an adequate relation to others
and the painful asymmetry of the relation between the poetic persona (or
in the case of The Red Tree, the protagonist figure of the girl) and the
indifferent others. In the artistic image of the extraordinary light/red tree
radiating out toward the implied/real reader we can find a kind of utopia in
which possible forms of human existence are produced, scrutinized,
revised and consolidated. Both Elytis and Tan want to restore magic and
mystique to human imagination and to reinstate it in a position of real
importance, retrieving it from debasement as a mere attribute of human
mind. In their quest of the unfettered imagination they admit the power of
imaginative visions over the powerful sights of reality.
Imagination is the proper source for the creation of an alternative and
secluded world that accords with human desire. The archetypal symbol of
the light/red tree is associated with dream, hope, and resistance to a dull,
miserable or even pitiless reality. It is of paramount importance; it
indicates the aspects of the mind free from control and the possibility of
alternative forms of living; it is a sign of elevated consciousness fully
capable to obtain the satisfaction of its desires.
The solitude of the personae-they must be alone in order to come into
mystic communion with the treeboth in Elytis and Tans fictional
spheres is not deprived of social ambiance. Moreover, both are artists with
social and ethical concerns. Against the background of a grim, incomplete
and hostile society they bestow a vision, even fragile and temporary, of
personal triumph and happiness. Overcoming themaybe false
dichotomy between individual accomplishment and social action, they
wish to highlight the certain insignificance of the individual (Fromm,
1942/1994, p. 272), the constant sense of being isolated and separated
from each other. But at the same time they pay attentionTan more
directly than Elytisto the various forms of social disharmony.
NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 145
Conclusion: Betting on Utopia
6

This paper brings together through multiple critical perspectives some
texts very different to each other, namely the long surrealist poem The
Light-Tree, by the Greek Nobel Laureate poet, Odysseus Elytis, and the
astonishing picture book of the Australian illustrator and author, Shaun
Tan The Red Tree. Students were invited to interpret these texts, using
literary theories under the broad theoretical paradigm of Critical
Pedagogy. From archetypal readings to critically oriented discourses,
students tried repeated critical and intertextual readings of the
aforementioned texts in order to find as many nuances as possible, in
poetry and in visual narrative as well, gaining additional pleasure in
seeking this variety. The students offered analyses that were influenced by
several critical theories looking at how texts deal with issues of social
power, identity and cultural conflict. The implementation of literary
theories to the texts under discussion gave them the opportunity to broaden
their repertoire of knowledge in the field of literary analysis.
Further on, the reading and teaching of literary texts such as those of
Elytis and Tan is of great importance for the mental growth and the critical
awareness of our students. It is undoubtedly true that literature in general
has a potential liberating effect in the lives of our students, generating
change within them. Literature can inspire students to negotiate the present
and anticipate tomorrow. It can help them to understand the decisions that
will make ours a better world in which to live; and to recognize that, after
all, they are human beings capable of making dreams possible, betting on
achievable utopias (Monchinski, 2008, p. xiv). To put it in Elytis
words, literature can strengthen them to carry on their struggle with the
Not and the Impossible of this world.
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A phrase of Paulo Freire (1996), quoted and discussed by Monchinski (2008, p.
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Chapter Nine

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Chapter Nine

148
Annex: From OdysseusElytis(2004,pp.225-6)
The Light-Tree (I, II).

I
My mother was still alive a dark silk shawl about her shoulders when it
First passed through my mind to find an end in happiness

Death drew me like a strong glare wherein you see nothing else And I
Didntwanttoknowdidntwanttolearnwhatmy soul made of the world

Sometimes the tomcat who climbed to my shoulder fixed his golden eyes
Beyond and it was then I felt a reflection come to me from opposite like an
incurable
Nostalgia as they say

And again other times when the piano lesson could be heard from the parlor
below
With forehead to the pane I looked far off above the woodpiles a drizzle of
snow-
White birds breaking on the jetty to become mist

Unknown how the wronged can live within me but perhaps

The wind heard my complaint on a distant May first because look: once or
twice
The Perfect appeared to my eyes and later again nothing

Like a bird which before you could catch its song the sun took into its reds
and
Set.

II
Others went down as I went up and I heard my heel in the empty rooms
Somewhat as in church when God is not there Even the worst things become
Peaceful

Someone would have come though perhaps even love but / At two in
The afternoon as I leaned on my window to happen on something angry or
unlucky
There was only the light-tree

There in the back of the yard among the stinkweeds and scrap iron
Though With no one to water it but playing with my spit to aim it from
Up high We passed the days until

NegotiatingMirandasVisionintheClassroom 149
All at once spring broke the walls the window frame fell away from my el-
bow and I stayed nose down in the air to see

What kind of thing is truth all round leaves tin-glinted red on the
Side toward the sun five ten hundreds seized for life by the unknown

Exactly like us And let disasters rage all around let men die let arrive
The far echo of war sent again from the bowels of the lamp it only stopped
For a moment to be tested for endurance

Finally it advanced implacable into the light like Jesus Christ and all those
In love