Author Archives: jr148799

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Curiosity and Names

Curiosity killed the cat or in this case the monkey. Curious George brings me back to my childhood. I think when I used to read it I felt like mischief could be pulled off… It seems to me that no matter what George does he is not in trouble by the end of the story. Whether this is because he is a monkey from a foreign land and therefore doesn’t know any better is questionable. After we defined the word curious in class to have a negative connotation, the story can be viewed in a different light. George becomes pretty destructive and all his actions aren’t that good. Pretty much everything that he does hurts others and even himself. Thus George’s whole being is called into question. If his antics put people in danger what makes him so worth saving time and time again by the man with the yellow hat?

I also find it particularly interesting that the man in the yellow hat is just that. He isn’t really given a name throughout the career of the curious George series. His whole suit honestly reminds me of a banana and I wonder if that was the inspiration… Even more curious, in the first curious George book George is constantly referred to as George and even responds to that name however the man in the yellow hat doesn’t name him that until several pages into the story. I believe that, in total, there are only three times throughout the story where a character calls him George. I’m pretty sure giving an animal a name three times does not make that name stick. 

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A Coon Alphabet

As most others who read this alphabet, what struck me the most were both the language used, and the crude drawings portrayed. Particularly for the letter A, the donkey bucks Amos into ‘Gramer Schole’ or, when someone is suffering some sort of punishment, their faces get screwed up into a somewhat humorous position. I do think that these things make the story easier for children to understand but, I’m kinda uncertain as to whether the author is trying to entertain or make a statement and to that point I’m not really sure as to what that statement is. It seems to be that according to a few different dictionaries, “coon” is a derogatory term. I’m not really sure then, linked with everything else, if this is all meant to be a mockery of slavery or to support it. In most of the letters the characters tend to be doing something fundamentally wrong and are therefore punished for it in some way or another: the children take too many grapes and are then sick or, Hiram tries to open the door with his foot and the whole soup spills on him. I think what I’m trying to show is that it seems that when these “coons” are doing some sort of activity that was normal for a slave at that time, they mess it up but when they are left to themselves, they get in all kinds of mischief and seem to hurt someone or another. In that I am unsure as to what the author is trying to get at…

I also found it really interesting to think more about some of the names used: Didimus, Ezra, Amos, Hiram, Xerxy [back to the Xerxes post from before]…etc. These all seem to be biblical names of a sort. This could be stressing the importance of the bible at that time? The other thing that was really interesting was the use of the word mendicant. I actually had to look it up because I was unsure as to what it meant. It Means one who relies chiefly on donations to survive, which I wonder whether children would know or not.

I feel like perhaps this could really be compared to slapstick comedy of today. Today, the three stooges would knock each other around but, before a child would cause mischief and have a soup dumped on him. Perhaps enjoyable to children but a kinda mixed up message.

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Quotes from Alice

Theme:

Power was being transferred from men to women and that represents the rise of feminism in Victorian England.

Quotes:

“Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun ‘Well, of all the unjust things—’ when
his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself
suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.” -Chapter 8

“‘Well, it must be removed,’ said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who
was passing at the moment, ‘My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!'” -Chapter 8

“‘That’s very important,’ the King said, turning to the jury.” -Chapter 12

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A Few Things

I particularly enjoyed reading The Adventure’s of Tom Sawyer however I found some things to be interesting.

I recall from class how there was somewhat of a consensus about how Alice talking out loud to herself at various moments was, for lack of a better word, strange. I am therefore curious about how the few beginning scenes would be reconciled. Between page four and five Aunt Polly speaks a large paragraph out loud to no one but the reader and herself. To me it appears to be a sort of filler/introduction as to the nature of Tom Sawyer. This also happens after Tom is caught by his Aunt Polly and as he’s running away he speaks about how she always switches the color of the stitching on the collar.

I also think it’s really important to mention the words being used here. The slang used by the characters speaking such as: nuff’, lick you, singed cat, pumped on our heads… and many more examples. These can be compared to the language of the narrator which at times is simple but also contains what appears to me to be extravagant words for children such as: ambuscade, adamantine reposeful, ponderously, daintily… and many more examples. This brings me back to the beginning of the year when we had to read that text about an intended reader for specific works. If the group of people in the authors group had deemed the poem they’d read inappropriate for children since it had contained two made up words, how would parents reconcile this novel? These days the slang would not be well known, personally I had to do a google search to understand some of the things that were being said, and the large words I can only assume not all children would know without asking or looking them up. I also think that this combination of words make an interesting comparison. Through comparing both slang and high profile words we get somewhat of a muddling between understanding these characters and attempting to relate to them while being fed differently worded descriptions [perhaps coming from an elite of people not used to the slang].

Another thing, all the talk about curiosity in Alice also got to me as I was reading about Tom Sawyer and his “adventurous, troublesome ways,” [5]. Is being adventurous or curious ever considered a good quality for children or is it solely bad leading to mischief and connoting of something absolutely negative?

The last thing I really wanted to bring up was the paragraph on pages nineteen and twenty. Not because I really wanted to discuss it more so I thought that it was a really cool statement by Twain and an amazing example of what I believe to be satire. It shows the master of satire doing what he does best. 

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Letters and Words

I found the anti slavery alphabet to be extremely interesting. Clearly it was meant to convince children of the time to be against slavery and the fact that it is written as a poem appears to make it easier to memorize and recite to others. If you are looking for an air of whimsy in this alphabet however, you shall find none. It is presented in a somewhat grim manner for children as seen in many instances: the mother in the jail, the whipping post… Though arguably there are a few letters that are less intense than others there is still this strange sense of grimness. This does actually make the alphabet a success. It’s easy to memorize, seems engaging to read, and communicates the abolitionist message in an easy way. I found two other things that were somewhat curious however.

Number one was the depiction of the letters. What I mean is why did the letters have to have those diamonds with those circles in the middle of them. Why couldn’t they have just been printed as colored letters without any symbols in the middle? I guess one can say that they are just meant to be designs to keep children’s interest but personally I actually found the symbols to be very similar to a clock. The diamonds are the two hands and the circle in the middle is the gear. Now as to what that would mean I have no idea but that was just the way I saw it…

Number two was the letter x. One can guess that X is hard to find a word for, however I’m not exactly certain what Xerxes has to do with anything. I had to look up who he was on the internet and I found that he had been the king of Persia in biblical times. This would explain the use of his name if we’re accepting the assumption that all/most children were raised religiously and would recognize Xerxes as the former king of Persia. I also actually found a website that discussed the letter x in 19th century alphabets (although the anti slavery alphabet wasn’t included in the list), It’s pretty cool as well if anyone is interested.

http://kandelsmith.com/2013/11/07/letter-x/  

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More questions than answers

What I found truly interesting about most of the texts we had to read so far is that none of them really factored in the opinion of the child in any ideas presented. Beverly Lyon Clark didn’t ask whether children disliked being treated like children she just stated they should be seen as “peers”. Ms. Rose clearly states that she won’t address the opinion of the child but she never really explains why not. I was really bothered as to why that was. Mr. Nodelman, unlike the other two authors, seems to address this concept of an implied reader- that most texts are crafted towards a certain reader: adult fiction is written for adults and children Literature is written for the child as much as for the adult. This seems like something somewhat easy to reason out so why then is it that Ms. Rose in her second chapter and even Ms. Clark in her introduction and first chapter seem to ignore the child’s seemingly obvious and important opinion? Honestly I think it comes down to two things.

Number 1: No one is created equal. Meaning to say no adult thinks the same so who could say that any child does? There is no one hive mind for children dictating what is this and what is that. Each child becomes different in their different cultures, religions, social class…the list could go on and on.

Number 2:  Branding of literature into separate categories is a trial. Saying that “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is a children’s book is somewhat pushing it considering the symbolism strewn throughout the pages. As Ms. Rose pointed out, the same goes for “Peter Pan” with its sexual undertones. In the end then, who is it really that picks up a children’s book and says “I want this one!” and walks out of the store with it. Is it the child? Perhaps, but as it turns out it seems to be only after the adult has taken a good look at it and said either, “Hmmm Mary, I don’t believe you’ll like this book,” or “Sure honey lets go get it.”

One final issue arises however from both of these possible explanations that is contrary to Mr. Nodelman‘s exclamations. If the adult, in the end, has the final say, is there really an audience of children out there to write literature for or is it really the parents one has to win over? And even building on that if there is no hive mind for children then what can we say about adults? Meaning to say isn’t all literature really written for no one except for the author to express something they couldn’t in life?? I am unsure of the answer to either issue.