nf0056: hello [1.0] er [0.8] good afternoon [0.

2] i know most of you but for

those of you i don't know i'm namex [0.7] er and again some of you will know
this some of you won't [0.4] i don't necessarily know what we'll be doing today
[0.7] i don't lecture from a preset [0.3] plan so it depends a little bit on
you if you don't understand what i'm talking about you want me to repeat things
or explain it [0.5] please wave your hand don't worry if you think that [0.3]
nobody else may be sharing your concerns just go ahead [0.5] er likewise if i'm
going much too slowly and you think yeah yeah we know all of this [0.2] just
let me know again [0.3] i'll stop once in a while and ask you [0.3] there's no
point my going on and on if you're all sitting there going either yes this is
blindingly obvious or saying i haven't got a clue what she's talking about
because this is for you i don't [0.4] it's not for my personal gratification to
come and talk here it's for something that [0.4] you know you can use [0.4] er
i've given you quite a large handout it's just a couple of sections of
text i won't be going through all of them obviously besides just not having the
time [0.3] it's also pretty useless [0.3] i'm just going to use them to focus
on some ideas and talk through some ideas [0.4] er and if we don't get through
all of them then hopefully [0.5] i can just point you ahead at what might be
interesting and relevant about them [0.9] okay [0.6] er [0.9] the lecture is
called Nineteenth Century Fiction and the Dream of Childhood [0.6] now er [0.8]
some people might think oh you know it's a marginal lecture it's going to be on
something quite unimportant it's going to be [0.4] on something to do with
children and it's not very [0.2] important there are not a lot of children in
texts [0.5] in fact this lecture is going to be about all kinds of issues which
are absolutely crucial for thinking about any form of fiction [0.4] including
nineteenth century fiction [1.1] so [0.3] the things i'm going to talk about
here may look like they're focused around the issue of childhood but they have
to do with almost every aspect of thinking critically
about fictional texts [0.6] so all those people who aren't here today because
they thought this is not an important lecture are in very bad luck and [0.2]
you're in good luck [laugh] [0.5] er it's an a common misunderstanding you'll
also find this theme re-emerging [0.4] er in your third year courses for
instance with Wordsworth Dickens and so on [0.3] and we'll pick up on this so
[0.3] something about childhood why is this relevant [0.4] the first issue i'm
going to talk about is the idea that childhood like every other identity is an
idea [1.0] it is not [0.2] despite what most critics say and they say very
strange things about childhood [0.3] it is not a biological [0.3] or somehow
some kind of genetic truth [0.5] neither is there a kind of psychological truth
about it [0.3] no matter what many critics assume [0.3] and what they say [1.1]
er [0.2] it's the same case for those of you who are going to do be doing
women's writing or if you think about gender there is not a truth [0.2] about
women [0.6] or about femininity [0.3] these are cultural ideas [1.4] er it's
significant that we don't talk in the
same way about masculinity [0.7] as being a psychological or a biological or a
genetic issue [0.4] for instance er one famous geneticist [0.2] that i know of
who got very very irritated [0.4] with the kind of simplistic assumptions some
other people make about the role of science in determining identify [0.4] once
said well for instance we have one huge piece of information [0.3] which is we
know exactly [0.3] er what has to do with the majority of people genetically
becoming criminals [0.6] and all the other geneticists he was talking about
went [gasp] what big piece of news is this what huge thing has been discovered
[0.3] and in fact of course as you probably will already have guessed what he
was talking about was the fact that most criminals are men [0.8] and gender [0.
4] is genetically determined you either have [0.3] an X and a Y chromosome or
two Xs and that's what makes you a man or a woman [0.3] biologically speaking
[0.4] er so in fact you know one could make that claim [0.2] in fact of course
it's something which is completely unprovable it has to do
with the ideas [0.3] of politics in society about gender [0.3] what are
appropriate roles appropriate behaviours [0.4] er why they're seen as
appropriate roles and behaviours and the same thing is true of childhood [0.8]
so the reason this subject is so important [0.5] is because instead of talking
about texts as being kind of [0.5] observational [0.8] er systems looking at
what is a child like [0.8] and then saying [0.2] does this text get it right or
does this text get it wrong which is what most critics do have a look around
and test this out for yourself you may find you disagree with me [0.4] but in
my experience i can only offer you that as a devil's advocate go and have a
look [0.4] most critics will say yes it's exactly what children are like [0.4]
in this text the way the child is described spot on [0.3] that's a real child
[1.1] what is this real child in and interestingly another critic will say no
that's not what children are like at all [0.9] why [0.3] because there are
different ideas about childhood [0.3] but it's also the problematic assumption
that fiction [0.5] is about going around and saying [0.2] that's a truth [0.5]
that's what truth is really like [0.4] this novel is about what women are
really like and [0.4] all other novels have got it wrong or [0.3] some other
novels have got it wrong [0.5] i mean it's like looking into this room and
saying [0.3] er [0.2] that person over there is exactly what a woman is like [0.
5] and all you other women are just sort of you haven't got it quite right yet
you know [0.5] it's just that woman who is exactly what a woman is li-, [0.3] i
mean it would be an absolutely nonsensical [0.4] claim [0.8] particularly on
top of that [0.4] if they were talking about a piece of fiction which is made
up [0.2] anyway [1.0] it's the same problem with looking at novels and saying
that's what [0.3] nineteenth century society was like [0.6] no [0.7] they're
made up [0.5] they don't have to be like nineteenth society at all [0.2] in the
first place [0.5] and even if they are which nineteenth s-, century society are
they like which [0.2] aspect of the nineteenth century society [2.4] lot of
people for instance talk about
things like the woman being the angel in the house well most women in the
nineteenth century weren't being angels in houses at all they were working down
coal mines or on fields [2.3] so when i get a whole load of essays by people on
their finals saying [0.7] women in the nineteenth century were locked into
their house and they were the angels in the house and that's because that's
what nineteenth century society was like well no [0.3] [laugh] [1.4] it's not
the case [0.5] these are ideas ideologies [0.8] about [0.7] political and
social assumptions [0.7] wishes desires fantasies [0.4] make-believe [0.3]
about what identities are about [0.8] and childhood is a particularly important
one [0.7] the way childhood is used [0.7] the idea of childhood or ideas of
childhood [0.9] have to do [0.4] with three issues which are crucial to fiction
[0.9] i'm going to come back to this again and again [0.4] but they are memory
[1.4] which is crucial because every text is retrospective [0.2] when you think
about it they're all about things which have by definition happened [0.4] in a
past otherwise
the text wouldn't be finished and in front of you wouldn't have a beginning a
middle and an ending [1.0] so [0.4] childhood is about the idea of memory or
ideas of memory course we don't know how memory works there are only different
concepts of memory but the idea of memory [0.6] they are about [0.2] the idea
[0.5] of language [0.6] that is childhood has to do [0.5] with ideas of
language [0.3] the idea of what it means to be written or to write [0.5] and it
has to do with the idea of consciousness [1.4] what [0.3] kind of view or image
or idea what way [0.2] does someone look at the world i'll come back to this
'cause these are very [0.3] broad categories memory language consciousness [0.
5] and i'll i'll show you those in the text hopefully what i [0.2] mean exactly
by this [1.3] and some idea of how texts are narrated has to do with memory [0.
6] er idea of languages how do you represent [0.2] an idea [0.9] consciousness
and language and memory in texts [0.4] and the idea of the consciousness is
what kind of vision [0.3] or perspective [1.0] does the text [0.5] locate [0.4]
to certain identities [0.3] i
mean you might have come across an example of the latter for instance i don't
know if you've ever seen or heard people talking about [0.6] oh [0.2] when
children look at art they have this pure vision [0.6] that's an idea for
instance of vision and consciousness which is allocated at children [0.4] not
only do we have no evidence for this kind of idea whatsoever we've no evidence
children go around going wow great painting you know [0.2] really love that
absolutely fresh vision [0.3] we have no evidence for this whatsoever and even
if it were the case is it case for [0.4] all five year olds do all five year
olds do this [1.1] there are other cultures where ideas about childhood are
entirely different they don't go around thinking that children have some sort
of pure vision [0.2] or innocence about them [0.4] now you've got consciousness
there and how you're going to define consciousness [0.8] okay [0.7] how am i
doing so far am i going too fast or too slow [0.5] do you see where i'm going
shall i keep going or stop [2.0] yes [1.7] keep going [1.4] you
okay [1.1] yeah [0.8] okay [0.5] er i'll pick up the first page on your handout
[1.4] what i want to do with this and the next extract the first one is from
Mrs Sherwood's book The Fairchild Family [0.3] which was published in a whole
range of volumes from eighteen-eighteen [0.2] to eighteen-forty-seven and
please please forget the titles and the dates 'cause they're absolutely no use
to you [0.3] whatsoever [laugh] [0.2] i've just put them on so if you want to
go and look up the text you know where you might find them [0.3] but you don't
need to repeat dates and names they have no meaning [0.3] at all [0.6] er [0.5]
and i'm going to use the next extract to compare to that which is Catherine
Sinclair's Holiday House from eighteen-thirty-nine as it says on the handout [0.
8] the reason i want to use these two texts is first of all to illustrate to
you again [0.8] how there are widely differing ideas [0.2] of childhood [1.1]
for instance you may have heard politicians talk about the ideas of Victorian
childhood and what it was like to be a child [0.3] in the Victorian days a
lot of politicians nowadays seem to think that was a rather nice thing [0.3]
it's a good thing to be Victorian you know some good stiff beating and [0.2]
some strict schooling and some good discipline this is you know a lot of
politicians are very happy with this idea nowadays [0.5] but i want to actually
illustrate here that in two texts which are more or less con-, contemporary [0.
8] more or less [0.4] there are two [0.2] radically different ideas about what
childhood is about [0.8] what it has to do with [1.1] so we'll start with The
Fairchild Family [0.9] Fairchild Family [1.3] shows up in comparison to the
other handout i'll be looking at or the other section of the handout i'll be
looking at in a moment [0.8] two ideas of childhood here the one we're looking
at is evangelical [0.4] it has to do with a particular idea about religion [0.
2] and spiritual status [0.5] where the child is posited [0.2] as not innocent
[0.5] as fallen already [0.8] so the child [0.6] has to [0.2] aspire [0.2] to
spiritual redemption it has to be saved [1.6] okay so this is not a vision of a
child who is innocent [0.5] this is an idea of childhood [0.4] that it is
fallen [0.3] it is in the fallen state [0.4] of man [1.0] and it has to be
redeemed [1.4] so that's the first thing to look at the second issue it has to
do with is class [1.2] ideas of childhood but also gender for instance are
mediated by ideas of class i mentioned before the example of saying [0.3] in
Victorian fiction women are [0.3] angels in the house [0.2] and then saying
well no it depends entirely if you are thinking about [0.3] any connection with
the society [0.2] depends on an ideal of a middle class [0.4] woman or an upper
middle class woman [0.6] er [0.2] who is in the text represented [0.3] as an
idea of purity [0.3] and an idea of non-contamination with the world she has
lily-white hands 'cause she doesn't work [1.5]
she is pure [0.2] because she is not contaminated by society [1.3] that's why
she is in a house that's where the term angel in the house comes from so [0.3]
again ideas in the text [0.3] er [0.2] which are not at all about some simple
view of representing history or history's views or society's views [1.1] well
in this text The Fairchild Family and look at the that name [0.2] fair child [0.
6] beautiful child [0.5] er there's a family father and mother [0.4] and the
children have been arguing together [1.0] if you look at the top of page fifty-
six and here's fifty-six fifty-seven on the er [0.4] photocopy there [0.7] er
[0.5] the father says to his children [0.2] have you not read how wicked Cain
[0.5] in his anger killed his brother Abel [0.7] and do you not remember the
verse in [0.2] one John two-fifteen [0.5] whosoever hateth his brother is a
murderer [0.3] and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life [0.4] abiding in
him [2.0] his daughter Emily not surprisingly here [0.2] says oh papa papa we
will never be angry again [1.3] and what does Mr Fairchild say [0.4] my dear
Emily you must not
say that you will never be angry again [0.2] but that you will pray to God in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ your great redeemer [0.5] to send his Holy
Spirit into your heart and to take away these wicked passions [0.3] so you see
here [0.2] the idea of the child as uncontrolled [0.5] wickedness already
present in its heart [0.3] which it must banish out through looking to the
redeemer the one who redeems [0.5] Jesus who sacrificed his life in Christian
doctrine [0.3] to absolve the sin [1.0] of people [0.8] so this idea that the
child [1.0] is actually in a position of aspiring to banishing out [0.2]
wickedness which is already there [2.2] so here my dear child [0.2] Lucy then
says the other daughter when the [0.2] Spirit of God is in me [0.8] shall i
never hate any more [0.2] or be in wicked passions any more [0.2] if the Spirit
of God isn't there it has to be obtained it has to be found [0.8] my dear child
answered Mr Fairchild the Lord Jesus Christ says by this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples [0.2] if you have love [0.5] one [0.2] towards another
[0.4] therefore if you
are followers [0.3] of the Lord Jesus Christ [0.3] and the Spirit of God is in
you [0.2] you will love everybody even those who hate you [0.2] and use you ill
[0.9] then Mr Fairchild kissed his children and forgave them and they kissed
each other [0.5] and Mr Fairchild gave them leave to dine with him as usual [1.
2] and after dinner he says to his wife i will take the children this evening
to Blackwood and show them something there which i hope they will remember as
long as they live [1.2] and i hope they will take warning from it and pray more
earnestly for new hearts [0.4] have to get new hearts [0.2] that they may love
each other with perfect and heavenly [0.2] love [1.0] so not again the idea of
a childhood innocence that we find in other texts where the child is an
innocent on earth [0.4] but on the contrary an idea of a child who must aspire
to heavenly love [0.8] to the idea [0.2] of a perfection which it does not yet
have access to [1.2] Blackwood well what is at Blackwood what are they going to
do there [1.2] right i will [0.2] jump now to [0.7] the bottom of
the next page fifty-seven 'cause off they go to Blackwood [2.1] with the father
[0.3] the mother stays home [2.2] and what do they see [0.5] what are they
going to do there at Blackwood [2.0] well at the bottom page fifty-seven it
says the garden was overgrown with grass and weeds the fruit trees wanted
pruning [0.5] and it could now hardly be seen where the walks had been [0.3]
look at that idea of the natural world completely overrun [0.4] the natural
world here is not something which is good as a wilderness it means it
represents the idea [0.2] of an uncontrolled child a naturalness which is
rampant [0.3] which has obscured order and civilization [0.4] which is not [0.
2] pruned back [0.6] again just to notice that the text does not accord for
instance with some modern ecological notions that nature is great when it's
wild [0.3] quite a different kind of ideology attached to this [0.2] here
nature has broken down [0.3] a large brick house which has fallen to ruin the
garden [0.2] the area of cultivation [0.2] is overgrown with grass and weeds if
you
don't cultivate things [0.3] if you don't look for this new heart you're going
to be overgrown by grass and weeds [0.5] the fruit trees wanted pruning [0.5]
they lacked pruning wanted needed pruning [0.6] and it could hardly be seen
where the walks had been [1.2] look what happens next and you'll see the
connections made here this is why description of course is always crucially
important to novels [0.2] description is never just about description i don't
know if you're [0.2] some of the people or some of you or if some of the people
who think oh i'll skip that bit i'll just go on to what happens next [laugh] [0.
3] but in fact the description is crucial it's never just a pretty picture [0.
3] it's always part of how the novel is constructing [0.3] er its own ideology
and its own ideas about [0.2] all kinds of things which are going on [0.2] so
here as well [0.7] one of the old chimneys had fallen down [0.3] breaking
through the roof of the house in one or two places in other words the roof [0.
2] the protection [0.4] of the house has been breached [0.9] because of the
falling of the
chimneys the place is in such disrepair [0.5] and the glass windows were broken
near the place where the garden wall had fallen [0.8] next page [0.4] glass
barriers walls have all been broken through breached [1.6] just between that
and the wood [0.4] stood a gibbet [1.1] on which the body of a man hung in
chains [1.3] it had not yet fallen to pieces though it had hung there [0.4] for
some years [1.6] the body had on a blue coat a silk handkerchief round the neck
with shoes and stockings and every other part of the dress [0.3] still entire
[0.3] but the face of the corpse was so shocking that the children could not
look upon it [0.3] oh papa papa what is that [0.4] cried the children [0.6]
that is a gibbet said Mr Fairchild [0.3] and the man who hangs upon it is a
murderer one who first hated and afterwards killed his brother [1.5] when
people are found guilty of stealing they are hanged upon a gallows and taken
down as soon as they are dead [0.3] but when a man has committed a murder [0.3]
he is hanged in iron chains upon a gibbet [0.3] till his body falls to pieces
that all
who pass by [0.3] may take warning [0.2] by the example [1.2] so [0.4] the
people who pass by according to Mr Fairchild take warning from this example and
he is bringing his children there to take warning [0.3] from this example [0.8]
very different kind of reading of Christianity for instance [0.3] than that
which talks about the forgiveness and compassion of Jesus [0.3] this is a
reading [0.3] which is pretty much [0.3] on the side of scaring the daylights
out of everyone who was thinking anything bad [0.3] so here we're talking about
that kind of image of childhood in such a pronounced way they have to get this
very extreme example of this body hanging there in the wind [0.5] and in fact
if you look at page fifty-nine [0.8] they're talking about the mother of [0.5]
the man who is hanging there [0.6] and Mr Fairchild says [0.4] er your mama and
i this is er pop top page fifty-nine [0.3] used often to go [0.2] and that is
to visit this lady [0.4] and should have gone oftener only we could not bear to
see the manner in which she brought up [0.2] her sons [0.5] she never sent them
to school
lest the master should correct them [0.6] but hired a person to teach them
reading and writing at home but this man was forbidden to punish them [0.4]
they were allowed to be with the servants in the stable and kitchen but the
servants were ordered not to deny them anything [0.3] so they used to call them
names swear at them [0.2] and even strike them [0.4] in other words it's a lack
of discipline a lack of pruning a lack of order a lack of constraint [0.3]
which allows these children to like the garden and the house [0.5] be
completely overrun and fall into disrepair [0.5] this is childhood potentially
as dangerous anarchy [1.3] as the fallen state of mankind [0.4] now look at the
text [0.2] in the next page Catherine Sinclair's Holiday House [2.2] which does
something i'm suggesting quite different and does so in two ways [1.4] the
chapter's called The Terrible Fire [1.8] and here [0.4] there is a notion of
childhood [0.2] which is a notion [0.3] that children [0.3] cannot be possessed
of wicked intent [0.4] they are innocent [0.4] almost no matter what they do [1.
1] the notion
here of innocence [0.2] is one of no evil intent [1.0] whereas in as we just
saw in The Fairchild Family there is a notion of a wicked intent which must be
rigorously banished [0.2] out [2.1] here the [0.2] situation is there's Lady
Harriet and Uncle David who are raising the children who are orphans [0.3] they
are aristocrats they are not as in the other text [0.4] a middle class or upper
middle class family but here [0.3] this is an aristocratic [0.2] family Lady
Harriet is their grandmother [1.0] and the two children are Harry and Laura [0.
9] now i'm i'm also going to look at an extract with you later which i want you
to [0.2] notice this text for as well so keep in mind that it's going to have
something to do with another text later on as well [1.7] er [0.4] Betty the
servant runs breathlessly into the room this is the first section [0.4] first
page [0.5] saying that Mrs Crabtree who's the nurse look again at the name crab
tree [0.6] crabby [0.5] something fruitful natural also [0.4] ought to come
downstairs immediately as Lady Harriet [0.3] this is the children's grandmother
[0.2] had
suddenly been taken very ill and till the doctor arrived nobody knew what to do
so she must give her advice and assistance [0.5] Harry and Laura felt
excessively shocked to hear this alarming news [0.2] and listened with grave
attention while Mrs Crabtree [0.3] told them how amazingly well they ought to
behave in her absence when they were trusted alone in the nursery [0.3] with no
one to keep them in order [0.2] or to see what they were doing [0.2] especially
now as their grandmama had been taken ill [0.4] and would require to be kept
quiet so [0.3] on the one hand it looks like it's going to do something similar
to The Fairchild Family so you know you've got to behave properly sit still in
the nursery don't do anything naughty [1.5] but what happens next [0.5] Harry
sat in his chair and might have been painted as the very picture of a good boy
during nearly twenty minutes after Mrs Crabtree departed [0.3] and Laura placed
herself opposite to him trying to follow so excellent an example [0.3] while
they scarcely spoke above a whisper [0.2] wondering
what could be the matter with their grandmama [0.3] and wishing for once to see
Mrs Crabtree again [0.3] that they might hear how she was [0.4] anyone who had
observed Harry and Laura at that time would have wondered to see such [0.3] two
quiet excellent respectable children [0.2] and wished that all little boys and
girls were made upon the same pattern [0.3] but presently they began to think
that probably Lady Harriet was not so very ill [0.2] and no more bells had rung
during several minutes [0.3] and Harry ventured to look about for some better
amusement than sitting still [0.7] two things are happening here i'd suggest [0.
2] the first one is we get a shift of narratorial stance [0.5] where in the
Fairchild Family we have a third person omniscient narrator who talks about the
family mother father and children from the outside [0.4] describing them [1.0]
and allocating to them this position of in the children innate wickedness and
in the parents redeemed [0.2] achieved goodness [0.5] in this text [0.3] the
narrator starts to what is called by many
critics look through the eyes of the child [0.7] what that means however is not
that this narrator knows the truth about children [0.3] which Mrs Sherwood the
writer of The Fairchild Family didn't know [0.3] it means that the text is
starting to see a certain position of consciousness and innocence [0.4] as
valuable [0.8]
rather you know no one wants to look through the child [0.2] eyes in The
Fairchild Family because they'd become really wicked you know [0.2] no one
wants to look from that position of wickedness [0.9] of unredeemedness [0.5]
but the idea of making the idea of childhood as an identity the repository for
the desirable [0.6] the pure the innocent the good [0.4] means that the
narrator who is an adult [0.5] wants to be in the position of looking [0.4] it
also has to do with the idea of understanding children [0.3] any of you come
across this this idea that there's two different ways of dealing with for
instance young criminals i'm sure you read about this in the newspaper [0.4] on
the one hand there's the idea that [0.2] you know who are all these softies who
are being so nice to them who are saying we need to understand them they had a
hard youth [0.3] they can't help it [0.2] that they tear apart the housing
estate [0.2] and then there's the other people aren't there who go [0.3] oh all
these softies completely ridiculous you need to be strict with these kids
there's no point in sitting down and giving them nice therapy and social
workers [0.2] you need to teach them what's good and bad what's right from
wrong [0.2] have you come across this [0.5] seen this in the newspapers this
debate [0.6] whichever side you're on [0.2] yourself personally and that's up
to you [0.3] what i hope you can see is there's no right or wrong about those
two positions intrinsically neither of them er can prove [0.3] that their
approach is necessarily more effective or not if we knew which one worked then
you know you'd be applying it all the time [0.5] the problem is it's based on
two different ideas [0.4] about society's requirement [0.2] about how to deal
with people [0.3] about how people respond [0.5] it's different ideas about
morality about ethics and these will always change [0.7] they always change
depending on what the society desires of its citizens [1.0] there is no one
position you can get to [0.5] and of course it's also divided up because there
are different views about men and women different views about people from
different [0.2] different ethnic backgrounds different views of people [0.2]
from different class backgrounds and so on and those [0.2] categories and items
shift as well [0.7] so it's not something we'll end up you know in ten years we
know all about it [0.3] it will have changed again [0.4] and that it will be
different changes [0.4] so the first one here [0.2] is that the narrator starts
to speak [0.2] both in terms of explaining the children's motives [0.6] not
going on there they were just told if you kill your brother you're going to be
killed too [0.6] don't behave like that [0.4] here [0.4] presently they began
to think their thoughts are being represented their consciousness is being
inhabited [0.4] that probably Lady Harriet was not so very ill [0.5] and no
more bells
had rung during several minutes [1.0] and Harry ventured to look [0.3] about
for some better amusement [0.2] here the idea as well is the children are not
being wicked they're looking for amusement [1.0] they've simply [0.3] they have
no concentration span [0.2] have you come across this as well [0.4] another
changing idea we find another ideology about childhood you may have come across
[0.3] the idea that with all this multimedia [0.5] children have short
attention spans [1.4] that's very interesting you know they're not computer
babies they're not born of computers but there's an idea that somehow the
children become [0.7] what the society associates with them [0.9] the idea is
that kids love video games they love Nintendo and if they love Nintendo video
games they're fast so kids don't have any attention spans any more [2.2] again
we have no measurement of people's attention spans across the ages and anyway
what would you be measuring [1.3] they said this about television when
television came they said this about radio when radio came and they'll say it
again you know now about the internet they're saying it again [0.3] and in a
moment we'll have WAP phones in three years and then they'll start to say that
none of us think about what we see any more 'cause we're only on our WAP phones
so [0.3] you know [0.2] these are different ideas about what the society finds
desirable [0.4] what it demands again [0.3] of its citizens so here the notion
in this text is [0.2] that children want amusement [0.4] and that they have
short attention spans [0.2] it's a couple of minutes they don't hear a bell and
already they've forgotten [0.4] their grandmother who they're shown in the
previous passage to love dearly and to be very shocked at the idea that she's
ill [0.3] they've already forgotten about it probably not that ill i can't you
know can't hold it in my mind that long [1.4] and in this passage [0.2] which
i'll point you towards in a moment as well [0.4] at this moment Laura unluckily
perceived on the table near where they sat a pair of Mrs Crabtree's best
scissors [0.5] which she had been positively
forbid to touch [0.5] the long troublesome ringlets were as usual hanging over
her eyes in a most teasing manner [0.2] look at how this is all represented
from Laura's point of view [0.4] Laura's a little girl [0.6] the long
troublesome [0.2] ringlets troublesome to Laura [0.4] this is her perspective
of her long hair [0.7] were as usual hanging over her eyes in a most teasing
manner teasing to her [0.3] the narrator is completely [0.2] within [0.3]
Laura's perspective [1.0] so she thought what a good opportunity this might be
to shorten them a very little [0.2] not above an inch or two [0.3] and without
considering a moment longer she slipped upon tiptoe with a frightened look
round the table [0.3] picked up the scissors in her hands [0.2] then hastening
towards a looking glass she began [0.2] snipping off [0.2] the ends of her hair
[0.7] Laura was much diverted [0.2] diverted again the notion of amusement
diversion [0.3] the idea that children want to be distracted or amused all the
time [0.6] you can see this can't you i mean maybe some of you have done this
yourself if
you take a child or a baby on an outing it's considered [0.4] desirable to
bring along a whole load of games and toys in in case it starts making noise or
getting bored [0.2] now that whole idea's [0.4] present in this text in a way
it was not in The Fairchild Family you come along and see the man hanging on
the gibbet [0.2] 'cause you know [0.6] you need to know how you ought to behave
[0.5] so she cut and cut on while the curls fell [0.3] thicker and faster till
at last the whole floor was covered with them and scarcely a hair left [0.2]
upon her head [0.2] also the idea here of a child not being able to mediate
rationally [0.2] she decides first she's going to cut off an inch or two but
ends up chopping off all her hair [0.9] Harry went into fits of laughing [0.2]
when he perceived what a ridiculous figure [0.2] Laura had made of herself here
we're back in the narrator [0.4] ridiculous figure [0.2] is Harry [0.6] and the
narrator as an adult now she looks ridiculous [0.9] and he turned her round and
round to see the havoc she had made [0.4] saying you
should give all this hair to Mr Mills the upholsterer to stuff grandmama's
armchair with at any rate Laura [0.2] if Mrs Crabtree is ever so angry she can
hardly pull you by the hair of the head again [0.3] what a sound sleep you will
have tonight with no [0.2] hard curl-papers to torment you [0.5] it's also an
idea here of the girl being liberated by her long troublesome hair [0.3] having
been removed from her by herself [0.3] she has cut herself free [0.4] from the
teasing hair [0.2] and the [0.2] hard curl-papers [0.5] and Harry sympathizes
with her in this plight [0.3] okay [0.3] er move on to a next section but the
point here is i hope that i've illustrated [0.3] two texts which might be
thought [0.3] are both being [0.2] Victorian texts giving two quite [0.2]
different ideas about childhood [0.2] using two quite different narrational [0.
4] er techniques [0.3] to think about the desirability or not of that idea of
consciousness [0.3] that is attributed [0.3] under this label here in these
texts [0.5] er and therefore also an idea of for instance gender which becomes
engaged into [0.3]
that notion of identity [0.4] er and the idea of childhood as inherently sinful
or inherently saved [0.2] so two quite ideas which run on [0.2] next to each
other [0.4] er [0.2] throughout [0.2] these texts [2.4] the next one i want to
[0.2] actually look at with you [0.3] incidentally it's called The Terrible
Fire because Harry of course er almost burns the house down as Laura cuts all
her hair off Harry goes away and starts playing with candles [0.3] and nearly
burns the house down [0.2] and significantly they aren't punished for this
because they confess honestly [0.5] the only crime in this text for children is
to lie [0.3] and that's because innocence may not lie [0.8] if innocence lies
it's no longer innocence [0.3] so they may not violate their own positions so
[0.3] er they're no-, not punished in the text because they tell the truth [1.
8] now again you might say oh well they're two children's literature texts
they're very obscure no one ever looks at them and indeed they're not studied
much not even by children's literature critics [0.5] er but i want to
illustrate for you again why thinking about this category's is so important the
next extract is from George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss [6.5] the first
reason i want to pick this up with you [0.2] is to show again how ideas of
identity [0.6] are not also about looking at the real world and saying this is
what children are like [0.5] i don't know if you've come across this if you've
[0.2] looked or if any of you are looking in seminars at a text er [0.3] or at
The Mill on the Floss but even if you're not [0.5] what you'll find is that a
lot of critics go away and say [0.5] this was George Eliot talking about her
childhood this is what she was like as a girl this is what she remembers it
being like this is exactly [0.4] what poor Mary Ann Lewes was like when she was
a little girl [1.2] well i'm going to read the passage with you on page fifty-
eight or fifty-seven sorry [0.2] first page of this extract [0.6] and you think
again about the [0.4] piece about Laura chopping off her hair [0.6] and see [0.
2] whether you don't find them [0.2] eerily [0.4] familiar [1.0] when
you read this [1.5] Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room [0.2]
and saw her go at once to a drawer for those of you who don't know the novel
Tom and Maggie brother and sister [0.4] just like Harry and Laura [0.7] and saw
her go at once to a drawer [0.3] from which she took out a large pair of
scissors [1.2] what are they for Maggie said Tom feeling his curiosity awakened
look at another child who is curious [0.4] amused diverted [0.9] Maggie
answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight across the middle
of her forehead [0.8] another little girl [0.5] cutting off her hair with a big
pair of scissors [0.4] oh my buttons Maggie you'll catch it exclaimed Tom [0.2]
you'd better not cut any more off [0.6] snip went the great scissors again
while Tom was speaking and he couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun
again this idea of fun [0.6] amusement [0.3] Maggie would look so queer [0.3]
do you remember in the passage i've just read the notion about [0.2] ridiculous
Laura looking ridiculous well here Maggie looks [0.4] queer [0.4] here Tom cut
it
behind for me said Maggie excited by her own daring and anxious to finish the
deed [0.3] Maggie even more than Laura [0.3] is excited by the cutting of her
hair and wants to cut it all off in fact needs help from Tom [0.3] you'll catch
it you know said Tom nodding his head in an ad-, admonitory manner and
hesitating a little as he took the scissors [0.4] never mind make haste said
Maggie [0.2] giving a little stamp with her foot [0.2] her cheeks were quite
flushed [0.7] the notion of excitement [0.4] of fun of being caught up [0.3] in
this liberatory move remove the big hair that the [0.3] the girl has to cope
with release yourself into [0.2] a freedom from this [0.3] the black locks were
so thick [0.2] nothing could be more tempting to a lad [0.4] who had already
tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting a pony's mane [0.3] forbidden
pleasures the idea that the more you forbid something to a child the more
attractive it becomes [0.3] again not a psychological truth about childhood or
adulthood necessarily although it may [0.3] fit with some adults with some
children [0.3] but more and again [0.2] it's a spiritual idea a moral idea [0.
6] that you have here [1.2] i speak to those says the narrator who now starts
an [0.2] speaking from an i position [0.6] i speak to those who know the
satisfaction of making a pair of shears meet through a duly resisting [0.3]
mass of hair [0.4] one delicious grinding snip and then another and another and
the hinder locks fell heavily on the floor [0.3] and Maggie stood cropped in a
jagged uneven manner [0.2] but with a sense of clearness and freedom [0.2] here
you're actually told it [0.2] explicitly [0.2] as if she had emerged from a
wood [0.3] into an open plain [0.4] oh Maggie said Tom jumping around her and
slapping his knees as he laughed oh my buttons what a queer thing you look [0.
3] look at yourself in the glass you look like the idiot we throw nutshells to
at school [1.1] now [0.5] i don't know if [0.5] you're as convinced as i am but
i think this passage comes straight from Sinclair's [0.5] passage on Laura [0.
5] the idea [0.3] of the look at the next line Maggie felt an unexpected pang
she had thought before [0.2] hand chiefly of her own deliverance from her
teasing hair and teasing remarks about it [1.4] right [2.0]
so i think not only [0.7] do we achieve nothing of an understanding of what the
text is doing [0.6] by claiming that this is somehow just [0.7] George Eliot or
er again as her real name was [0.3] er Mary Ann [0.2] Lewes er claiming [0.9]
that somehow [0.3] er this is [0.2] you know her childhood her memory [0.2] and
all that childhood in texts is about is just saying this is what it was really
like i really remember it [0.5] so i'm not just trying to say oh yes but
actually it comes from another text [0.4] but also saying that recognizing [0.
2] that it comes from another text tells us [0.3] much more clearly that
childhood is an idea [0.3] an idea you can change [0.2] you can invest with
certain meanings [0.5] moral [0.2] ethical [0.2] political ideological meanings
[0.2] not some sort of truth [0.4] about life [0.4] truth how all five year old
girls [0.2] with long hair feel [0.4] and i think the fact [0.3] that in fact i
don't know of any critic who's picked up [0.2] because m-, so few people have
read the
Sinclair which is not a text which is in [0.4] er publication and it has not
been for a very very long time it just happens to be my area of research
children's literature [0.4] and then when you run into that [0.4] you see only
these tons of critics who've written on Mill on the Floss going oh it's it's
Maggie it's Maggie is Mary Ann and it's George Eliot in her childhood [0.5] and
who don't look at what the notion of gender in childhood is about here because
they're so convinced that it's simply writing down your experience of life [0.
6] and therefore they don't look for the text [0.4] which i think [0.3] is very
clearly [0.6] er to my mind an antecedent for this [1.5] the second page i've
included for a different reason and this is the idea about the language and
memory i was talking about [0.4] and i'm going to look at another text in this
light as well [1.9] on page fifty-nine the narrator starts doing something
different i've mentioned either a third person narrator [1.0] like in The
Fairchild Family just describing what's
going on and judging it [0.6] i've mentioned the looking through the eyes of a
child that happens [0.4] in the Sinclair [0.3] text [1.4] and some of that
happens here as well but i want to show you something else that happens as
childhood becomes even more valued in this text [0.3] than in The Holiday House
in the Sinclair text [0.5] and show you what the narrator does with the theory
of memory [0.6] and that it's a very very strange [0.2] thing [1.2] we've seen
on this page fifty-seven that the narrator says i speak to those [1.7] and she
says narrator here or he i don't know if it's a he or a she here but i think
it's defined as a she earlier on in the text [0.5] i don't know b-, and by the
way you know the narrator is not George Eliot anyway [0.2] this is the narrator
and not the author [0.5] there's always a narrator in a text never the author
[1.2] i speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of shears
meet through a duly resisting mass of hair so the narrator is saying [0.6] i [0.
6] know about this experience i think this was why so many
critics get confused and think it's just George Eliot talking about her own
childhood 'cause they think that i is George Eliot and of course it's not [0.5]
er an author can make up any narrator they like there are plenty of male
authors who invent female narrators [0.3] there are female authors who use male
narrators [0.3] er there are people writing in twentieth century who make up [0.
3] historical novels about narrators living in the eighteenth century it's
fiction it's all make-believe you can do exactly as you like [0.2] and you can
use all kinds of tricks [0.2] and ideas with this idea of the narrator you can
make them take different positions [0.3] you can make them contradict
themselves you can make them hold a whole lot of different views [0.3] so [0.7]
it's never the author [2.0] otherwise though the author could have just written
my memories of my childhood [0.6] by George Eliot [0.8] wouldn't have needed to
write a novel called The Mill on the Floss [1.4] so here on page fifty-nine and
i'll [0.3] try and [0.2] show you what's happening here okay
how are we how are we doing so far [1.5] are you [0.7] okay [0.9] yeah [1.5]
are you confused by now or [3.2] no [2.5] you've some idea of [0.5] why this is
as any inkling of what this is relevant to overall thinking about fiction
starting to get some [0.8] idea [2.0] yeah [2.0] okay i'll go on stop me
otherwise if it comes up again [3.1] ah my child [0.2] this is the second line
here [0.3] you will have real troubles to fret about [0.2] by and by [0.3] is
the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in our
childhood [1.2] and have repeated to other children since we have been grown up
[1.0] but of course the narrator doesn't know this [0.8] the narrator can't
know if this is true for any reader [0.4] who's reading the text it's a
rhetorical device [0.6] it's a rhetorical device to address [0.8] the reader [0.
8] and the reader may have nothing to do [0.2] with what this person says and
it doesn't matter [0.5] it's a rhetorical device [0.4] er [0.3] er this is very
similar to a politician walking into a hall and saying [0.2] i know what you
think [1.3] but i'm going to tell you something new [0.6] now in fact the
politician
doesn't have a clue what those people think [1.1] he or she [0.2] is playing on
the notion playing on the rhetorical idea [1.3] you have an idea in mind and
i'm going to change it now whether or not this is true for the individual
listeners on the hall er in the hall is really irrelevant [1.0] it's a practice
of rhetoric to set up [0.8] one premise [0.3] and then to say i'm going to
challenge it [0.5] you move [0.2] backwards and forwards between those
movements [0.4] and if the people in the hall don't agree they'll simply walk
out or they'll not vote for the politician [0.7] that's democracy for you [1.3]
here the rhetoric is doing the same thing [0.6] it is [0.3] proposing [0.5] an
idea again about childhood [1.0] as [0.2] a past stage of life that everyone
knows about of course again may not be true for the readers but this is what
the text wants to work with [0.6] and that it has to do with an idea of being
[0.3] brushed off [0.5] not taken seriously [0.3] not seen as having serious
emotions [0.3] and why does the text want to do that well that's what we're
going to try and find
out [1.7] this is a consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us
in our childhood and have repeated to other children since we have been grown
up [0.7] we have all of us [0.4] sobbed so piteously standing with tiny bare
legs above our socks [0.3] when we lost sight of our mother or nurse [0.2] in
some strange place [0.2] look at the nurse there [0.3] that's a class issue as
well [0.3] mother or nurse [0.6] but we can no longer recall the poignancy of
that moment and weep over it [0.4] as we do over the remembered sufferings of f-
, [0.3] of five or ten years ago [1.3] now actually when you think about it
this is a very very odd passage [0.8] because the narrator is saying we can't
remember this after she's just told you she remembers it [2.6] this is the
problem of language and memory [0.8] every single [0.2] text [0.2] negotiates
this problem [0.3] and most particularly if it is a first person narration [0.
8] if you are talking in the i you'll see this with Pip in Great Expectations
next year on your Dickens course [0.4] you'll see this with Jane Eyre i'm
going to look at in a moment for those of you who are reading Jane Eyre or have
read Jane Eyre [0.6] er Villette Lucy Snow [0.2] any i narrated novel has a
problem [0.7] the i [0.5] so-called writing the novel course again it's not the
author but the narrator is supposedly writing the novel [1.1] is writing about
themselves in the past it's therefore already a split [0.2] self [2.2] do you
remember this you try thinking back to [0.2] you know just as a theory again
not 'cause it's a psychological truth but just so you can see the problem here
[0.4] if someone says to you are you exactly the same now as when you were four
[1.6] it already presupposes doesn't it that there are two kinds of you [0.2]
one who is four [1.1] and one who is who you are now [0.6] and it's asking you
to draw links between those two [1.3] and i [0.3] i suppose a lot of you will
give differing answers some of you might say yes yes i'm still exactly the same
person s-, and some of you might say no i'm not like that at all and others
might say i don't remember frankly [0.5] don't
know you might like to test it for yourself [0.3] but the idea that these are
somehow [0.2] ways of thinking we all share [0.9] i think are clearly not the
case but it's also not what the text is interested in the text isn't interested
in proving [0.5] this is how things work it's interested in raising questions
about consciousness [0.4] and language and memory [1.0] so it creates a paradox
[0.4] the narrator who says you cannot remember this i cannot remember this but
i've just told you what i cannot remember [0.3] because of the problem of the i
narration [0.2] and we'll see this coming up every single i narrator text you
look for it you'll see this problem [0.7] every one of those key moments has
left its trace and lives in us still [0.5] but such traces have blent
themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood [0.3]
now gets even more bizarre this is a female narrator talking about manhood [0.
6] often happens with gender incidentally [0.3] and so it comes that we can
look on at the troubles of our children [0.2] with a
smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain [0.3] look at that in one
sentence [0.3] we look on with a smiling disbelief [0.3] in the reality of
their pain [0.3] this narrator has gone one step beyond [0.8] the narrator of
Laura and Harry [0.8] she's not just sitting [0.2] in the child's consciousness
as it were taking the perspective she's created [0.3] as the child's
consciousness [0.4] she's actually able to say i know it all [1.1] i know it
all [0.2] i know what i'm like now i know what i was like then [0.2] you don't
know nobody else knows but i know and even then i say i don't know but i really
do [0.3] 'cause i've just said it [0.5] so in one sentence she knows there is a
real pain [0.3] reality of their pain [0.3] same time she says [0.2] smiling
disbelief [1.7] is there anyone [0.7] the narrator asks i mean this [0.2] is
really quite [0.3] er [0.5] er a very very strong example of the [0.2] is there
anyone who can recover the experience of his childhood [0.5] not merely within
memory of what he did and what happened to him [0.2] of what he liked and
disliked [0.2] when he was in frock and
trousers [0.2] but with an intimate penetration a revived consciousness [0.8]
of what he felt then [0.3] when it was so long from one midsummer to the other
[0.8] this narrator is raising for you [0.2] the problem of memory [0.4] that
is to say [0.2] how adults create childhood [0.9] what this narrator is
illustrating [0.5] asking you to notice [0.8] is that she is saying this is
what childhood is while at the same time saying none of us can remember it [0.
7] and yet that's what [0.5] she's claiming we do all the time [0.3] and it has
to do with the way in all [0.4] of Eliot's novels there is a strong interest in
an idea of empathy [1.0] there is a morality based on the idea of being able to
try and feel [1.3] what another person [0.3] feels [1.3] and on the other hand
realizing that that is impossible [1.0] it's a very particular kind of moral
view [0.4] which the novels rework in many ways including with this idea of the
problem of childhood [0.9] but it's also pointing out that childhood can only
ever be remembered 'cause even with for instance children's books who writes
children's books [1.4]
adults isn't it [0.6] they're all written by adults [2.2] so the whole idea
that adults can become children again is being questioned by this narrator and
at the same time it's being said [0.5] every adult creates a story about their
own childhood [0.4] recreates a concept of what childhood is [1.1] but it's a
problem [1.3] er i'll give you a parallel see if this makes sense to you [0.3]
er it's the same idea the narrator's working on here is the problem of pain i
don't know if anyone of you have been unfortunate enough to ever have suffered
severe pain i hope not but i'm i'm [0.3] afraid perhaps with some of you that
may be the case [0.5] there's a problem with remembering pain [0.3] but it's
also in a sense a salvation [0.3] it's very difficult [0.2] that if you
remember pain to feel it again [0.7] if you would every time [0.6] you thought
about pain you'd had in the past you would re-experience it [0.5] that would be
pretty terrible wouldn't it [0.4] you'd never be able you m-, you might [0.2]
remember the pain you might say ooh it was awful it was awful it felt like
my [0.2] like my leg was being chopped off or something [0.2] but if you would
really f-, really feel it every time [0.3] that's what this passage is
exploring [0.4] the paradox of memory being just [0.2] memory [0.2] and on the
other hand that's the only thing there is [0.7] if you look back and say like i
said before what were you like when you were four [1.0] you'll probably have
some sort of story about that unless you really are someone who says i don't
remember and there are plenty of people who really don't [0.3] but if you have
some idea [0.5] it only a memory [0.3] you don't become four years old again [0.
7]
mm [0.4] i don't know if [0.2] people sitting here being four or with er [1.0]
so [0.2] this is what this text is pondering [0.6] this recreation [0.2] so it
creates a language about childhood which is not [0.2] childhood [1.3] it
revives it but does not feel it again [0.7] it describes it but it cannot be it
[0.6] and yet that's the only way it can [0.2] be it [0.5] that's the paradox
[2.2] it's also the interesting thing here again that [0.3] Maggie what is
meant to be a rhetorical passage also [0.2] alerting us to the idea that Maggie
[0.6] is a particular child a particular kind of child of this sort [0.5] has
all those real pains [0.8] at the same time [0.2] it's argued [0.4] that [0.2]
this is about a boy [0.4] why is a boy used a he [0.2] to talk about a girl [0.
7] another question [1.3] what he felt when his [0.2] school fellows shut him
out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness
[0.2] or on a rainy day in the holidays and we get a whole list of ideas [0.5]
where [0.2] this remembering remembering [0.4] comes from what it is to
remember [0.2]
in fact it's another thing the novel [0.3] meditates again and again and again
the idea of remembering and memory again if any of you are working on this in
seminars [0.2] look at the start of The Mill on the Floss [0.4] the whole
narrative [0.2] is a memory [0.2] a remembering by the narrator [0.8] notice
that [0.3] and you'll see that this passage again is all about what it means to
tell your own life [0.3] to recall to retell [0.2] your life [2.1] okay does
that make sense do you see how this would come up not just in relation to
childhood but i-, in relation to any narration [0.3] which has to tell [0.3]
the story of [0.3] the past [0.6] so i'm using childhood as a specific example
but you could use it for any narrator who looks back [0.2] and tells [0.4] this
[0.2] history of themselves [0.3] or even the history of others by the way [1.
1] Jane Eyre's the next passage i've got to give you an example [0.2] of here
[1.4] classic i narrator [8.6] and i'll just point you to when i said before [0.
3] i think we've talked a bit now about memory but also the problem [0.3] of
language which comes into this [1.6] i want
to think again about how [0.2] can you find a language for something which
doesn't have a language of its own how can you find a consciousness formulate a
consciousness with something which does not express its own consciousness
because childhood [0.5] in these texts a bit like in the George Eliot is seen
as something which cannot speak [0.2] itself [0.7] cannot say itself [0.4] er
i'll tell you what this is about this is about the notion of innocence [0.3] if
you say i am innocent are you still innocent [0.6] i don't mean innocent in the
terms of guilty or innocent in court where but i mean if you say to yourself oh
i'm such an innocent [1.0] it's all you can't even say it as a straight
statement can you it's a contradiction in terms if you know about your own
innocence [0.3] you're knowledgeable [0.3] you're no longer innocent [0.7] it's
a paradox [0.8] er Blake for those of you who are working at all or have been
working or will work on poetry of Blake when he does the Songs of Innocence and
Experience [0.2] this is exactly [0.2]
what the poems do they illustrate that you cannot write innocence [0.8] because
[0.2] a poem which goes i'm innocent [0.3] is no longer innocent [0.8] and the
poetry meditates that problem all the time [0.4] so the notion of how do you
find the language which can talk about th-, the state of an innocent childhood
a childhood which is postulated [0.3] as having no language about itself [2.0]
if you have a a two year old who comes up to you and says i'm a child [0.4] i
am an innocent child [1.5] what would you think about that [0.7] you might want
to think about that [1.2] okay page forty-seven this is the second page Jane
has been fi-, famous scene some of you may know [0.3] Jane has been sent off [0.
3] for having a tantrum to the red room [0.4] and she's terrified of the red
room because her uncle died there [2.0] so she sits there [0.7] because John
her cousin has hit her [2.0] and she says [0.8] on page forty-seven half way
down [0.7] what a consternation of soul [0.5] was mine that dreary afternoon [1.
0] see this is all past tense it has to be past tense because it's [0.3] the
adult Jane writing [0.2]
her past [0.7] how all of my brain was in tumult and a-, all my heart in
insurrection [1.1] yet in what darkness what dense ignorance [0.2] was the
mental battle fought [1.0] i could not answer the ceaseless inward question [0.
2] why i thus suffered [0.3] now [0.5] at a distance of i will not say [0.3]
how many years [0.4] i see it [0.6] clearly [1.7] so here we are [0.4] the
adult Jane commenting on her past self [0.5] saying [0.9] she kept asking
herself why she suffered [0.6] but she didn't know then what she knows now she
didn't know then [1.1] this is the paradox of the moving back and forth between
the idea of [0.4] the unself-conscious [0.2] innocent child which is being
constructed here the child who simply feels [0.2] and this is an angry [0.3]
little girl being described here but it's still an anger which is unself-
conscious [0.9] and it moves to the adult Jane saying i know i felt that way
then but i didn't know [0.3] what the answers were but i know now what the
answers were to what i felt then [0.4] though i didn't know those were the
question [0.2] and the text does this all the time [0.5]
mediating the question of [0.3] what is truth [0.4] what is experience [0.3]
what is memory what is identity [0.3] how do you create a story of yourself [0.
8] and what are the conditions [0.4] for that story [0.6] and here in this
sense [0.6] i could not answer the ceaseless inward question why i thus
suffered [0.4] now at a distance of i will not say how many years [0.3] i see
it [0.3] clearly [1.1] the passage [0.2] repeats this move this questioning [0.
9] i was in discord [0.3] in Gateshead Hall it proceeds to give the answer
which it couldn't give then [0.4] so it looks back and it says well this was
what was going on [0.2] i didn't know it then but i know it now [0.3] about my
position then [0.3] i was in discord at Gateshead Hall i was like nobody there
[1.1] i had nothing in common [0.3] er sorry nothing in harmony with Mrs Reed
or her children [0.2] or her chosen vassalage [0.4] if they did not love me in
fact [0.2] as little did i love them [0.7] they were not bound to regard with
affection a thing that could not sympathize with one [0.2] amongst them [0.2]
this is not what the little Jane knows [0.2] this is what the adult Jane
looking back and analysing her situation at that time [0.3] comes back to [0.3]
and analyses [0.3] at that point [1.4] so that idea [0.4] coming back [0.2]
creating your past self retelling it reformulating it [0.2] giving it a
language it didn't have at the time [0.3] giving it a consciousness and a self-
consciousness [0.2] it did not have [0.3] at the time [0.9] that's another
theme there perhaps [0.3] to think about that problem [0.5] of [0.3] language
[1.0] i see we're running slightly out of time so i'll just point you towards
what [0.2] er the last two bits on the handout do [1.8] er the one is a passage
from Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall i think an extremely interesting
text which isn't studied enough but that's my personal view [0.7] er [0.4] i
just put in this passage just to point you towards it [0.4] er first of all
what [0.2] er this passage does it's Mrs Graham [0.2] a mother talking about
her son [0.8] with a man Mr Markham [0.3] and they're talking about the raising
of boys and girls [0.8] and something very interesting is going on here because
the text takes apart [0.2] the organic
metaphor about childhood [0.9] what we see is that in some texts again a
childhood an idea of childhood is created [0.3] which [0.2] makes childhood
like a plant [0.5] it grows [0.9] it's an organic metaphor it's a metaphor
which is used even nowadays about childhood again the idea that the child is
like a plant [0.2] it grows it has developmental phases you can't stop them it
just happens [0.3] we have no evidence for any of this the whole idea about
childhood in phases is an extremely muddled language and psychologists [0.3]
spend a lot of time arguing and discussing this [0.3] but it's a metaphor [0.4]
for an idea of growth and childhood [0.2] it's postulated as a time of growth
again not an inevitable idea [0.3] but one which [0.3] we find in this text [0.
3] and what this er Mrs Graham does [0.9] is show that this org-, organic
metaphor [0.6] first of all is a metaphor [0.4] she takes it apart she does not
accept it [0.6] as an inevitable description of natural childhood [0.2] and
secondly [0.3] she analyses it as a heavily gendered metaphor [0.9] Mr Markham
keeps saying you should expose
your little boy [0.2] to all kinds of temptations like alcohol [0.6] because
that will make him strong that will make him know what he ought to resist [0.9]
and then er Mrs Graham says and should i do that with [0.2] little girls as
well if it had been a little girl should i do then and he said oh no no of
course not you shouldn't give a little girl alcohol and [0.2] cigarettes and
whatever you no no no very bad idea and she says well why [0.3] not a little
girl and why a little boy [0.6] does that mean little girls are so weak they
can't resist and he ends up of course all the time getting more and more upset
because everything he says she takes [0.3] she analyses as being an extremely
sexist position [0.3] which basically says little girls [0.2] must be kept away
as little hothouse flowers [0.2] but little boys must be rough and exposed to
the elements and become strong men [0.2] and she completely takes the position
apart so you might want to look at that if you're interested in that kind of
issue [0.3] er i think it's a text which er
does that in a in a very unusual way [0.4] and the last one [0.7] comes from
another children's book [0.2] and i don't mind by the way what you call these
texts children's books or adult texts [0.4] er it doesn't really matter [0.2]
er they're just publishers' [0.3] categories [0.6] er and this one is from
George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind and you might want to look
here [0.3] how at the end of this text when the little boy who's the hero of
the story called Diamond who is the epitome [0.4] of the pure innocent and
spiritual child dies [0.2] and this is a metaphor that happens in a great many
texts [0.2] the idea of the child being so pure that it must die to avoid
contamination [0.3] Oliver Twist is another example where [0.3] er the friend
of Oliver [0.3] the little boy dies [0.2] and the that death is a is a perfect
spiritual moment [0.5] so this idea [0.2] here if you look at it is you will
see that this little boy is so perfect that the narrator of this text [0.3]
goes a step beyond even the other narrators we've looked at [0.3] and
completely claims that [0.3] only he and
this little boy are perfect are spiritually perfect he completely identifies [0.
2] with the perfect position of childhood [0.2] he is the adult who has become
a child again [0.2] because childhood in this text is absolute perfection [1.2]
so i hope what i've [0.6] talked about a little bit today [0.3] of showing you
both that childhood carries a whole load of ideological weights [0.3] in terms
of moral positions ethical positions [0.3] er ideas about memory and
consciousness and gender [0.3] and that all of these issues are crucial to the
reading [0.3] of fiction [0.2] in general thanks for your attention