Ali Smith - Common

December 14th, 2020.

By: Tina Paunović 460

Milica Jovanović 466
Ali Smith
- BORN - ALISON SMITH, INVERNESS, SCOTLAND
24TH AUGUST 1962

- ATTENDED THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN,

TAKING HER BACHELORS IN THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE

- LATER PREPARED FOR A PH.D. AT NEWNHAM

COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE

- A SENSE OF DIFFERENCE- HER LESBIANISM

- BEST KNOWN FOR - HOTEL WORLD, THE

ACCIDENTAL, HOW TO BE BOTH, ‘’SEASONAL
QUARTET’’
 Background
Basic requirements for understanding Ali Smith’s stories:
One must be the bearer of a sense of humor
One must give up any reliance on the conventions of narrative
realism
One needs to tune emotionally to the pitch of writing that is both
clever and affecting

- She prefers writing using the third person's point of view. As she puts it, the
third person is a gift to the writers as you can do more things, You can tell
the reader five different things by saying one thing

- A short story is like a mythical beast that can change at any time but you
know it will always hold the shape.
Introduction Common themes in Smith's work and in
''Common''
Commonism
Human Rights
The intricate relationship between couples
and generations
Characters in ''Common''
Hugh Whittaker
Katherine Whittaker
Lewis Whittaker
Eleanor Fitzgerald
Great Aunt Hal
COMMONISM
- a new, radical, practice-based ideology
based on the values of sharing, common
(intellectual) ownership, and new social
co-operations

- in contrast to the ideology of

Communism

- Commonists believe in things in

common, across species

- Eleanor’s Commonism ideology

As long as a Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower
living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as
men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who
sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.

Pythagoras
HUMAN RIGHTS
- Human rights are “the rights one has
simply because one is a human being”

- Ali Smith’s view on the Human Rights

Act: “The government keeps calling it
Labour’s Human Rights Act. It’s not. It’s
ours. It was a cross-party formation. It
belongs to all of us.’’

-Conversation about Magna Carta

-The argument about Human Rights Act

between Eleanor and Mr. and Mrs.
Whittaker
CONCLUSION
-Story ends on a positive note

-Why is it important to know your rights?

-There is still hope for humanity if we see

each other as equal and ask for
forgiveness
 References

- Pythagoras – The immortal Sage by Raymond Bernard

- Ali Smith interview by Caroline Smith

- The Guardian

- RADAR - Institutional repository of Oxford Brookes University

- University of Denver - Struggles from Below: Literature Review Of Human Rights Struggles by
Domestic Actors

- Urban Dictionary
 Thank you!
Have a great day ahead.

Tina Paunović
Milica Jovanović