Effective use of media in school education

Aspects of feminity in European literature

Through the project Aspects of feminity in european litteraturewe propose a
comparative study of the female characters in few representative works for the English,
French, Spanish, Slovakian, German, Italian and Romanian literature. Literature
represents a bridge between these people, and the characters represents general – human
values. No matter what our culture, mentalities, traditions, customs, religion, physical
appearances, the colour of skin, the feelings, passions, ideals or problems are, in general
we are all the same. The purpose of our activity is to highlight the idea that literature can
‘erase’ the borders between these worlds.
Specific objectives
• * Stimulating the interest in reading literary works - the base for an open-minded
personality
• * Valorizing students’ abilities of documentation, comprehension, argumentation and
personal reflection;
• * Promoting multiculturality through the comparative study of the texts belonging to the
universal literature;
• * Getting the abilities and skills required for giving a personal argumentation, based on
a comparative study and cultural experience;
• * Building a general perspective on what European cultural phenomenon involves, due
to the use of lerant knowledge and conections between them;

The stages of the project

• - Directing the students to see a virtual encyclopedia in order to select some authors and
representative texts for the indicated topic;
• - The study of the selected texts pursuing the proposed topic;
• - Students’ writing portraits of the indicated characters according to the socio-cultural
context of the action, the conflict and the problems these characters face up to;
• - watching some films – screening of the literary texts – subject of the research, through
accessing the Internet;
 • - making a common Powerpoint presentation to synthetize the ideas of research;
French Litterature.Honore de Balzac
The novel presents the drama of a pure soul, whose aspirations are baffled
by the power of money, by the menial interests of the society where she lives.
German Literature. Bernard Schlink

Michael Berg, 15 years old teenager, suddenly ill of scarlet fever collapses after
returning from school, on the way home. An unknown woman helps him to recover and
drive him home. Few months later, Michael goes to Hanna’s home with a bouquet of
flowers as a “Thank you!”. Between the two young persons begins a love affair, passionate,
but ends abruptly when Hanna disappears out of Michael’s life, with no explanation .
The relationship between those two, convicted of a conservative society
requires about half native and half-erotic, each of the two lovers looking likely that
something missing from their existence. The novel is a serious issue in that action is
placed during the Second World War when Hanna has a questionable role in a
concentration camp for Hebrew. Occurrences illustrate the woman’s inner drama who
decides to take his life just one day before being released. In prison she discovers the true
life, and her release would actually mean the death sentence.
Italian Litterature. Federica Bosco
,,Love is not for me” is a novel narrated by the main character, Monica ,an Italian
thirty one years woman ,who lives in New York ,trying to survive and also to fulfil her
‘American dream’. She lives with Mark ,a gay man and Sandra , a black singer ,who is
left by her boyfriend when he had found out that she was pregnant.
As a big fan of Paris Hilton ,Monica’s dream is to :meet her personally and give
her a letter. Besides this ,Monica is attracted by the prospect of writing a novel ,idea
which she constantly puts off ,until the moment she meets Edgar ,an intelligent rich
man ,owner of a publishing house ,who offers himself to publish her book and to support
her on the entire process of writing.
Before meeting Edgar ,Monica had been a victim of many disappointments in her
romantic relation-ships : un engaged man ,David ,who refused to abandon his future wife
and an alcoholic man ,who constantly put her in danger because of his aggressive
behavior.
 His actual fiancé ,Edgar ,lives in Scotland and Monica ,wanting to set herself free
and forget David ,decides to visit Edgar. He wants her impatiently ,because he is very in
love with her. Monica hopes for an ideal life beside the man she things she is in love
with.
In Scotland ,she has a professional life full of success: she works for an editorial
office ,her book ‘Time’s breath’ is published ,fact that makes her very popular.
But ,in her private life ,things aren’t as she hopes for. She suffers because Edgar
doesn’t give her the attention she needs ,always too busy with his business. Another
torment is brought about the memory of Edgar’s former wife ,Rebecca, who passed away
after an accident. Rebecca and Monica’s former boyfriend , David ,haunt the two
characters minds and disturb the happiness of the couple. This difficult situation
determines Monica to make a decision which will change her life. She decides to break
up with Edgar ,without knowing what she will do next. She is divided between going
back to David and remaining besides Edgar.
The novel has an open interpretable end,but it explains the title of the novel.
When the phone rings ,Monica hesitates to answer ,troubled by uncertainty about her own
happiness in love. Disappointments ,her role of a fulfilled woman she plays in front of
others ,make her tired ,but ,in the end of the novel avoids another failure. We could say
that the novel presents another love story. But the tumult in her soul ,compromises she
makes in the name of love ,the contradictions between her professional success and her
unhappiness in her personal life are problems related to human nature ,surprised by the
author with delicacy ,finesse and exceptional knowledge of mind and soul.

Romanian literature. George Călinescu

Otilia Marculescu is the female lead character in the novel "Otilia`s mystery" by
George Calinescu.The young girl is the eighteen years old daughter of the second wife of
CostacheGiugiuveanu.She lives the loneliness drama because of his blind future:
CostacheGiurgiuveanu tries to avoid her adoption due to financial reasons and the rest of
the family contest her this privilege.
Otilia represents a female ideal,entire novel gravitating around her. She is always
surrounded by admirators, loved by "papa" Giurgiuveanu,by the young Felix
Sima,byPascalopol,a stranger whose feelings aren`t clearly defined and by her college
classmates.Otilia is typical for the category of young intelligent girls with artistic
sensitivity, attraction to luxury and trips abroad, defining her as an enigmatic woman.
Due to her intelligence, sacrifices and abilities, Otilia is comparable
with Henrik Ibsen or with Jane Austen’s female characters.

Spanish literature. Juan Jose Millas

,,Two women in Prague” has a small group of characters.The widow Luz Acaso,
Maria Jose, a new friend of Luz Acaso, the writer Alvaro Abril and the author, who is
also the protagonist of the novel, who is a reporter obsessed with a thought ,the
adoption.
Even if the action takes place in Madrid the house where LuzAcaso lives is one
like in Prague. I loved the book, especially for the uncertainty about lecture. Yes, you
read about reality, dreams and desires about some groundless. Luz Acaso is a mysterious
woman who decides to attend a writing workshop to find a professional to write the story
of her life. She meets Abril, a young writer obsessed with the idea of adoption at birth,
who will be in charge of writing the life of Light. Through their conversations, they soon
discover that their lives have some points in common. Álvaro is committed to write a
book about the life of Luz and begins a series of interviews with her. As soon as they
trust eachother, monologue becomes dialogue, and they discover their many
affinities:Luz tells him that she lived in a monastery. She left her first child right after
birth and he knows that he was given to another family. After that, Álvaro confesses that
he always suspected that he is adopted too, because his father was a distant man and
long time ago, he heard a suspect conversation between his mother and another person.
When Luz changes her story – that she had no children, her husband died very
young,and she was actually a prostitute - Álvaro does everything to keep up with her new
life story and rearrange his story too. The novel shows the action in two different ways.
The reality is mixed with fiction reaching a point where they are no longer differentiated.
Hard to understand where is the truth and where is the fiction, the novel leaves a good
impression, the full action being focused on the female character,LuzAcaso.The
character creates uncertainty to the readers by the complexity that he is built on.
 British literature. Jane Austin
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about love matters, family misunderstandings and
misconstrued romances. Like in other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties
of the women living in Georgian England and she is doing it with a lot of good humour,
subtle irony and intelligence. The main character of the novel is Emma Woodhouse. She is a
beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, talented, but 'slightly' spoiled young woman of the age of
twenty. Even though she is in many ways mature for her age, Emma makes some serious
mistakes, mainly due to her conviction that she is always right. The only one who seems to
see her as she really was, beyond the perfect appearances, is Mr. Knightly, who never
refrains himself from criticizing Emma’s flaws. Although she has vowed she will never
marry, she delights in making matches for others. She seems unable to fall in love, until
jealousy makes her realize that she has loved Mr. Knightly all along
After the presentations, the students were invited to debate abaut the feminine
characters (differences and similarities).
The conclusions were:
Eugenie Grandet, Otilia, Ema, Maria, Hanna Schmitz, Monica, Luz Arcaso are different by
culture, religion, traditions, historical periods, geographical spaces, but with all of these they
have the same desires of lovea and happiness, ideals and life safety too. All of them are the
symbols of general- human beings.
values.
In the end, the student are invited to answer the questionnaire about their prefferences
of reading books :
• 1.What kind of books do you read?
• 2.Name two books which influenced you. Explain why are they so important for you.
• 3.Which are the characteristics you are looking for when you choose a book?
• 4.Do you consider that in the Internet era, reading is still needed? Give reasons for your
choice.
• 5.How does the Internet influence your selection of books ?
This questionnaire confirmed the fact that internet is not only a main source of
information, but also a modality to explore the infinite world of fiction. In the end, I
realized that I should improve the project by asking students to search for pieces of
information about the country where books were written, such as symbols, people’s
values and traditions, details which are for real the connections of an authentic
intercultural dialogue.