Summary Literature 1

Literary text

- Fictional, not (necessary) based on facts

- The theme, the underlying message
- How and What are symbiotic
- How? The linguistic forms used to convey something

In literary you always have to relate form to meaning. You have to read it multiple times and use
textual proof to back up meanings/interpretation.

The poems in this summary:

- 40 love
- Can anyone follow the ways of my pain?
- First day at school
- He’s behind Yer
- Dad
- Midterm break
- We real cool
- Funeral blues
- Street boy
- Rough
 Poems

Analysis: Form and meaning are related, integrated. The poem is written as a tennis game, with the
net in between. ‘40 love’ is a tennis term for game over, the 40 side is wining and the love side is
losing. Which shows that the love is losing in this poem.
The poem is about a couple, as mentioned in the title, probably 40 years old. They are not happy
with each other because there is a net between them. The words in this poem have the same
syllables.

Questions: The title might be called ironic because it says : 40 love , which might imply it’s a love
poem about 40 year old people but if you read on you find out there is no love at all.
* irony - you say one thing but you mean the other.

The layout of the poem = is made like a tennis play, the words are like the ball that goes from one
side to the other.

Roger McGough

FIGURE OF SPEECH

METAPHOR: The space between the two columns is like an invisible net
which suggests to be the gap between the couple. Their relationship is
like a tennis match, they play against each other.

The author tries to explain the idea of separation too, he does it by

separating words, e.g. be-tween, ten-nis. And the rhythm of the poem is
like a tennis match as well, bitty and bouncy.

STRUCTURE
The poem has a total of 20 words. There is no punctuation mark in the whole poem to indicate that
life of marriage is closed and uninteresting. The two words “tennis” and “between” are separated by
hyphens to be symmetric in structure. The words in the poem are set in two sequences, like two
sides of the couple. The middle blank is to separate the two. There are only two words in each line to
symbolize the bouts of the ball. The title of 40-love, the top of the net, is right on the top of the
poem, signifying the scoreboard.
This poem looks like a tennis court with a net being used to separate the words. It is like a tennis
game. This side serves and the other side hits back. The tiring of love.
Chandidás

Can anyone follow

the ways of my pain?

I live on the edge of a razor

That cuts me to shreds as I move

Analysis: he/she is looking for help which you see in the sentence ‘can anyone follow The ways of
my pain?’. He is looking for someone to follow the ways of my pain. He/she is not able to move but
he wants to, if he does he shreds (he lives on the edge of a razor which cuts him to shreds when he
moves).

Associations with a razor are negative.

 Roger McGough

First day at school

A millionbillionwillion miles from home
Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)
Why are they all so big, other children?
So noisy? So much at home they
Must have been born in uniform
Lived all their lives in playgrounds
Spent the years inventing games
That don't let me in. Games
That are rough, that swallow you up.

And the railings.

All around, the railings.
Are they to keep out wolves and monsters?
Things that carry off and eat children?
Things you don't take sweets from?
Perhaps they're to stop us getting out
Running away from the lessins. Lessin.
What does a lessin look like?
Sounds small and slimy.
They keep them in the glassrooms.
Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.

I wish I could remember my name

Mummy said it would come in useful.
Like wellies. When there's puddles.
Yellowwellies. I wish she was here.
I think my name is sewn on somewhere
Perhaps the teacher will read it for me.
Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.

Analysis: this is the first day of a boy/girl at primary school, the boy/girl is not familiar with school
terms such as Lesson – Lessin, Classroom – Glassroom and Teacher- Tea-cher. He/she is confused but
also curious

You can tell he/she is a toddler by the fact that he does not reminds his own name and he/she is not
familiar with school terms. The innocent ignorance, misunderstandings and insecurities of a child on
his or her first day in school, while simultaneously capturing the spirit of childhood innocence and
curiosity.
The sentences: Why are they all so big, other children? Must have been born in uniform. Lived all
their lives in playgrounds. Spent the years inventing games. Show he is new at school. The poem
itself is written in a traditional format, lacking any poetic sophistication or clever techniques. It is
almost certainly written this way purposefully, as a child would have no use for such sophistication.

A feeling of insecurity that dominates much of the poem. The child's impression of the school itself is
also frightening, as he or she imagines that the railings may serve to keep out monsters.

The curiosity of the child turns to that of hopefulness at the end of the poem. He/she finds some
sense of relief in the fact that in case he or she forgets her name then from the name tag the teacher
will be able to read the name. The poet uses comic relief to display the child’s reassurance. The
excitement of a new start.

Roger McGough

He’s Behind Yer

‘HE’S BEHIND YER !’
chorused the children
but the warning came too late
The monster leaped forward
and fastening its teeth into his neck,
tore off the head.

The body fell to the floor

‘MORE’ cried the children

‘MORE’ ‘MORE’

‘MORE’

‘MORE’
Analysis: More can refer to ‘they want to see more’ as in a puppet show. In that scenario they would
be the audience/children watching. The reason they scream more (scream because the words get
bigger so the sound probably gets louder) is because they want to know how it continues.

In one of the first lines of this poem they are warning the person by screaming ‘HE’S BEHIND YER’
but later then want more while the last line of the first stanza says the warning came too late.

In this poem the monster might trigger the monsters in the children. The reason why they scream
more might be because it is the ending of a show -> the want more, they want to see the next part.

* in literary text capital letters and exclamation marks are often used to ‘scream’ something,

* Confrontation with violence generates more violence.

W.H Auden

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Analysis: The story behind this poem: The person who wrote this poem has lost his/her better half.
In the poem you find various clues of things that they used to do together but now he/she cannot
cope with the pain he/she gets from all those memories. All the beautiful things they did together, or
which are associated with love need to disappear (i.e. Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
-> normally you let aeroplanes announce love notes). The world of this person stood still when
he/she heard the news, for this reason he/she want the whole world to feel the same. You can see
this person meant the world to him/her in the following lines: He was my North, my South, my East
and West, My working week and my Sunday rest.

Verbal messages:
with the sky message ‘he is dead’ -> everyone has to know that he is dead
cut off the telephone -> for the phone calls they used to make
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

The atmosphere in this poem is sad, nothing matters anymore without that other person. It is an
Elige: funeral poem, it is written/read for/by funerals.

! This poem rhymes in order to memorize it. The title : Funeral Blues, also indicate that it rhymes. In
anglo saxon time they did not have paper so they used rhyme to memorise it.

The speaker wants that sadness to be reflected in everything—from the pigeons in the street to the
stars in the sky.

Heroic couplets used., AABB rhyme scheme and Speaker uses personifications.

Dad
The trouble with me is
i take everything for granted
CAMBODIA - 50,000 dead gee whizz pass the salt.
i take wars for granted
My dad says it's all because I'm younger
than the bomb for granted
He says
i won't bloody well
take it for granted
when it drops on my head.

I take my head for granted.

Analysis:
The poem takes place at the dinner table -> pass the salt. There is a generation gap because dad and
the boy/girl because they do not understand each other. One can say this poem is written by a child
because of poor writing skills. The boy/girl is not aware of what is going on in the world and does not
really care because it is not happening to him/her -> over the news ‘CAMBODIA -, 50,000 DEAD’
he/she says gee whizz and continues with his/her meal.

Notes on verbal messages:

‘Than the bomb’ is written separately, the I are not capitalized (i)

The tone of this poem can be:

Indifference – CAMBODIA – 50,000 gee whiz pass the salt, I take the bomb for granted.
grim – can be substantiated by Cambodia -50,000
patronizing - My dad says it's all because I'm younger than the bomb for granted
(his dad is older and knows everything better, patronizing – father around)

All i's are not in capital. As if he has no opinion or rights to share them.
Narrator seems to be a teenager, being indifferent and not interested in what happens in the world.

Seamus Heaney

Midterm break.
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble,'

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,

He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Analysis: A boy/ girl his/her brother died because of a car accident (Line: The bumper knocked him
clear). The narrator is probably out of town because he had not seen the boy in 6 weeks and he had
to be picked up by their neighbours.
The victim is his brother -> you can find this in the line ‘strangers whisper I was the eldest’. We know
his brother is four years old because of the line ‘a four foot box, a foot for every year’.
The word “knell” is appropriate in the context of a poem about death because it is the sound of a
funeral bell. An elegiac tone is established at the beginning of the poem.

The poet is driven home by his neighbours and not his parents, another unusual event preparing the
reader for the idea that something is terribly wrong. He tells us that his father “had always taken
funerals in his stride” but this death is unnatural as well as personal “saying it was a hard blow.” (line
6) There is a terrible double meaning in the phrase. Both emotional impact on Narrator as well as the
impact of the car.

Theme of the poem: how people cope differently with grief/ loss of a relative
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram.
Father was crying , it was a hard blow for him. Mother coughed out angry tearless sighs.

Street Boy
Gareth Owen

Just you look at me, man,

Stompin' down the street
My crombie stuffed with biceps
My boots is filled with feet.

Just you hark to me, man,

When they call us out
My head is full of silence
My mouth is full of shout.

Just you watch me move, man,

Steady like a clock
My heart is spaced on blue beat
My soul is stoned on rock

Just you read my name, man,

Writ for all to see
The walls is red with stories
The streets is filled with me.

Analysis: it is about a ‘though guy’. Crombie is a posh brand of fashion in the UK in de 90s.
he is not very bride because he says ‘my boots IS filled with feet’ which should be are filled with feet.
His heart is spaced on blue beat -> normally a heart is associated with red (warmth), but in this case
it is blue (cold). He is self-indulged-> my Crombie stuffed with biceps and the streets is filled with me.
Shows he finds himself strong and he feels like he owns the streets.
‘Just you read my name, man’ -> might refer to graffiti, a tag of his name.

We real cool.
Gwendolyn Brooks

THE POOL PLAYERS.

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Theme: a wake-up call

Analysis: "We Real Cool" has a powerful message behind it. Gwendolyn Brooks illustrates the
essence of troubled teenagers who will eventually suffer the ill-fated possibility that life renders a
human being if they continue the lifestyle of the streets — death.

The teenagers are not attending school -> we left school. Instead of going to school they try to have
fun by lurk late, sin etc.

It seems as if the teenagers really don't care about their education and go day by day living a happy-
go-lucky lifestyle.

They have no education; they live a carefree life; and they could not care less about school because
they find it tedious. Therefore, that will make it difficult for them to find a job and live a decent
lifestyle, which basically leaves them no choice but to live the street life.

The pool players meet at seven at the golden shovel (place where the pool table stands).

The WE is placed in the end of each line. Why it is there? It is collective. The way is phrased show the
education is not important nor applicable. -> we real cool.

Thin gin -> shows the lifestyle which changes their internal condition

Rough
Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough

and who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes.
 Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street
And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.
I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron
And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms.
I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys
Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.
They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges
Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud
And I looked another way, pretending to smile,
I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled

Analysis:

These street kids flung words just as they threw stones... their verbalizing was aggressive, impulsive
and raw. Generally, the act of throwing stones is intended to provoke someone, to chase someone
away or to articulate contempt.
They wore torn clothes indicate that the though children wear old damaged clothes which is
associated with poor people.
Their wandering aimlessly in the street rendered them 'street kids'. But more significantly, they had
no inhibitions, as they had nothing to lose.

The curious incident of the dog in the night time

Title: straightforward/descriptive with little thematic meaning
Theme: the difference between Christopher and other people, and how other people misunderstand
him.
Protagonist : Christopher
Antagonist: mother/father/strangers
Target group: teenagers and adolescence

The dog’s incident lead to a lot of other mysteries that will be solved.

Who’s Christopher Boone?

Male, 15 years.
Lives in Swindon, England
At the beginning motherless.
He has special needs -> textual proof

Internal conflicts are:

- He does not understand jokes

- He cannot tell lies

External conflicts are:

- All the unknown

- His father and mother
- Yellow and brown
- Strangers

Vernon God Little

Tittle: Cryptic with the title being (part of) theme. The title is the theme/message of the book.

Vernon God Little: he did not believe in god, then he met pastor/con Lassele. And start to take his
‘lot’ in own hands. He believed and tried to do good, and that saved him in the end.
He is his own god, because he determines what happens and can change is own path. (search prove
to back it up).
‘I was to page 261

Food

Guns

Media

Shoes

Sex

Satire in Vernon God little.

The mother of Vernon is a satirical person because she is not like a mom to him, his mother says
Vernon has to work while she does nothing but eating.
Lally – the media is not reliable and only interested in money (the elections for execution)

Literary terms
Function of tittle of literary texts:
-Straightforward/descriptive with little thematic meaning
-Cryptic with title being (part of) theme
Stanza: Paragraph in literature
Line : a sentence in literate
Elige: funeral poem, it is written/read for/by funerals.

Protagonist: main character -> good guy

Antagonist: main character -> bad guy

Irony - you say one thing but you mean the other

Tone/ Tone words are used to show mood : examples of tone words are dark, humorous, light,
excited, romantic
Tones can be divided into positive and negative.

Plot:

Freytag Pyramid:

Provides an analysis for the ‘generic’ plot, not always applicant.

The shortest story ever:

 For sale : baby shoes, never worn
The shoes are never worn -> no exclamation mark
The story is though-provoking and profound because you want to know why they are never worn.

Bildungsroman : a gendre, often narrated in 1st person.

Satire
In satire, human or individual abuses and shortcomings are held up to censure by means of humour,
wit or irony ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. although satire is usually meant to
be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humour in itself so much as an attack on something of
which the author strongly disapproves. Using the weapon of wit. examples of ‘victims’ of satire often
include politicians and criminals

Wit= vast, clever response (outwit someone = being more clever than the other person)

Mock test
Christopher can be described as an “unreliable narrator”
* give the definition of an unreliable narrator;
You cannot trust the things he says because it is not objective. You do not know whether the
narrator tells the truth of not. It is first person and you see everything from his/her
perspective.

-First person narrative are almost always unreliable. There is no back up of the story. You
don’t know it things are left out or not. It’s subjective.

Christopher says cannot lie, so we believe him.

Vernon is a clear example of a unreliable narrator.

* explain how the extract shows that Christopher is indeed an unreliable narrator;

And I said, ‘It’s not your fault.’

You cannot actually know whether it is her fault or not. He is not able to asses information.
(direct)

And then she didn’t say anything for a long while. And then she made a loud wailing noise
like an animal on a nature programme on television.
And I didn’t like her doing this because it was a loud noise, and I said, ‘Why are you doing
that?’

He says his mother makes the sound of a whale. But we cannot tell whether it sounds that
way or it’s just a ‘normal sound’ to us. (indirect)

Which theme(s) can be found in the extract? Refer to part(s) from the extract to support
your answer.

And I didn’t like her doing this because it was a loud noise, and I said, ‘Why are you doing
that?’
This indicates the theme of Christopher not understanding other people. The whole book
deals with the difference between Christopher and other people and also how they
misunderstand one another. In the extract you also see ‘it’s not your fault, you cannot check
it, might have been a misunderstanding as well.

Conflict of people who misunderstand each other, in this case people with ‘special needs’
and ‘normal people’.

Family problems

Logos, diagrams, graphs, maps, puzzles and other unorthodox typographical forms occur
frequently in this novel.

* Explain what these various forms might add to the story;

Shed more light on how Christopher’s brain works. Shows how he thinks and how brilliant he
is.
Can The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time be considered to be a
Bildungsroman? In your answer: Give the definition of a Bildungsroman;

A novel about the difficulties of growing up.

It is a bildungsroman because it is written as a first person narrative.

Support your answer by supplying two extracts from the novel.

He overcomes his fears -> going on a train while that scares him because of multiple reasons.

Similes – used with as or like

Motifs in literary texts:
Motifs are functional/meaningful.