The Study of Modern Children's Fiction - Essay Example

CHILDREN’S Children’s ‘must communicate with them about serious matters of life metaphorically and poetically ornot at all’ Children have slower understanding, but they are fond of books. Children’s readership is higher because they tend to keep themselves busy with books about stories and other important life issues. However, considering the inquisitive nature of children, it can be said that there is much knowledge that is often beyond their knowledge, and as such, can be hidden through the use of metaphoric and poetic language. By definition, a metaphor is a position (more often a literary position) where something unfamiliar is presented in terms of familiar. For the children, many things especially those that are important in life are always unfamiliar to them. For that reason, using metaphors will ease things for them such that they can understand what they read. Some examples of metaphor include a heart of gold; noise is music to the ears, keep eyes peeled, and many others. Metaphors are important because they engage the readers more, and also help readers in understanding what the writer is actually talking about. In other words, by involving metaphors in literature, the piece of writing elicits meaning that goes beyond the words alone. This paper will look at the use of poetic and metaphoric language by children’s writers. They tend to make things simple for the young ones because they have low understanding of some of the complex matters of life. The paper also agrees with the claim that children’s writers ‘must communicate with them about serious matters of life metaphorically and poetically.’ As long as children have existed, stories meant for them have also existed; the strategies used by writers in the stories both entertain and teach the young generation. The mere notion that every type of story produced for the children or read by them is enclosed by the terminology children’s literature. This has made it the largest literary area of study. This is because a large genre of stories is entailed in it such as fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and folk. In addition, with the development of technology, children have a large entertainment base including fan fiction, computer games, and electronic texts. Margaret and Michael Rustin in their book In Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children’s Fiction, looks at the literary, psychological, and sociological aspects of different children’s books. According to them, of the three prongs, psychological is the most effective compared to the other two prongs. They look at several literary pieces of writing based on Margaret’s strong grounding in contemporary psychoanalytic theory (Rustin & Rustin, 2007: 5). Rustins tend to delve into the psyches of characters with a view to explaining what in the actual sense motivates the behavior of actors. Though their method is criticized heavily, they tend to defend their approach when they put themselves into the shoes of the actors. Margaret says: The method which we adopt in thinking about these stories may be similar to that which actors and producers seem to adopt in thinking about the text of a play. In order to imagine what it is like to act a part, it seems to be necessary to imagine what that person would be like, to fill in, so to speak, the spaces which the author has left. . . . We are attempting to do no more than fill in such spaces, in order to clarify how these representations correspond to more general truths of childhood experiences (Rustin & Rustin, 15-16). By analyzing the characters and plots of different books, the Rustins bring the reader up to speed with the inherent psychology of children. For instance, the Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden, Carrie has lost her mother, someone she had been so close to. Death has stolen her mother away from her, she could not find a way to communicating with her mother. The grief has showered her with confusion and anxiety between her external and internal reality. She suffers bouts of anxiety about herself. In order to make Carrie come into terms with the reality of her mother’s loss, metaphors would explain that in-depth to her. The other illustration by the Rustins is Finding Oneself Among Strangers: Three Stories by Paula Fox. It is written in the first person, as such, the child’s voice and point of view are able to discover the sensitive interplay between readiness for specific experiences, inner preoccupations, and the cardinal themes of the mental and emotional life of the child that resonate with the strong internal concerns. The following excerpt explains how Fox uses her stories to move the children: The moving quality of the stories, which are often quite simple in themselves, arises from this focus on the child’s fresh grasping of him- or herself, and the extraordinary concomitant flowering of hopefulness, when the inner and the outer worlds of experience are in dynamic connection. What is also very striking about Fox’s works is the combination of such a depth of psychological understanding of her child characters and a rich and precise evocation of the social worlds they live in (Rustin & Rustin, 215). Serious matters of life are those issues that determine either living or dying of an individual. When writing for children, it is clear that they do not understand how grave these issues may be. For that reason, they often think things on the simple side. Whereas of the flip side, things may not be quite the way they perceive them. For instance, children do not seriously consider the matter of dying and going to heaven or hell. This makes the writers use metaphors in order to bring out the meaning clearly. In the case of Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, when Tom goes to the garden every time, he finds himself in a world he cherishes and wants to be there always. And when he goes to the real world, things are different. Children can not dig deeper into the meaning, and as such, going by the definition of metaphor, they will understand better. It is advisable that metaphors are used for young children because so much is still hidden from them, and the only way of making things clearer to them is using metaphors or poetic language. Poetry it itself does not exist, however, its multivariate conceptions exists and will so continue. Poetic language is one that is filled with expressions that capture the readers’ attention. Poetic language is able to express emotions. Serious matters of life are understandable to adults, but to the children, they do not have the time to digest. The more reason metaphors help them in getting things clearly (Rustin & Rustin, 2007: 202). The book Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce is an illustration of the use of metaphor in presenting meaning to the plot of the book. For instance, the line “If, standing alone on the back doorstep, Tom allowed himself to weep tears, they were tears of anger.” Philippa Pearce manages to bring the past into the present through the fantasy of time-shift concerning Tom Long, a young boy. Tom is quarantined for measles, and for that reason, he is sent to live with his uncle and a childless aunt for several weeks. The story is about friendship and loneliness coupled with a childhood magic. As the book continues, Tom often visited the garden at night, and he befriended a girl named Hatty. The author uses metaphor when he says that time behaves oddly with the rest of his visits to the garden. There is predominant use of time often in the book (Rustin & Rustin, 2007: 203). The following excerpt presents metaphorical aspect of the story to the children. In the semicircular arch above the dial itself stood a creature like a man but with enormous, sweeping wings. His body was wound around something white. His face was a round of gold, and his feet were the same color and were planted on either side of the clock-dial. One foot seemed to stand on a piece of grassy land: the other went into the sea—Tom saw painted fishes that swam around the creature’s foot, and seaweed. In one hand he held a book, opened towards himself (Pearce, 33). There is an extension of usage of metaphors on serious matters of life. For instance, religion is an important aspect of life because one way or the other, there is something divine feared by individuals. The following is an example of a statement inherent with metaphoric connotations. “And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth for ever and ever…that there should be time no longer (Pearce, 165).” The book presents varied moments of convergence and changes in time; this includes the past, present, and the future. There is also life and death as well as heaven and earth. The fact that Tom is able to avoid time by sneaking back to the garden rings symbolism to the minds of the reader. There is incredible juxtaposition where two opposites meet. Time – representing life meets eternity – representing death. As the book continues, Tom and his friend Hatty rise to the cathedral tower. The tower can be said to be an important aspect signifying meeting of another juxtaposition of heaven and earth. Apparently, serious matters of life such as death and religion are overtly presented throughout the book (Rustin & Rustin, 2007: 203). The other children’s author is Louisa May Alcott in Little Women. It stands out as the book specifically for girls. The story is about the American Civil War and the period after it. The book brings out the unusualness and originality in both children’s and adult’s canon of literature. She reveals her childhood memories portraying herself as Jo, her mother, and sisters. She unveils her father’s incompetence and lastly sketches what would be her home. Little Women presents a flurry of metaphors. It is written during the Civil War and the tension was rife. Jo had many burdens on her shoulder. She contemplates that “keeping her temper at home was much harder task than facing a rebel or two down South (Alcott, 12).” Obviously, the Civil War is metaphoric in nature; there is also an obvious run-in in the book emanating from the conflict between the covert and overt messages (Rustin & Rustin, 2007: 22). The book is a manifestation of the use of metaphors by Alcott to hide the seemingly ‘hidden’ words under the shade away from the children. The girls are supposed to fight the rebels, and the first two chapters help in identifying the rebels which include materialism (the overly thought of worldly things such as food, money, and appearance), discontent, bad temper, quarrelsomeness, and selfishness. The simple and only way to fight these rebels is their use of the fundamental weapon known as self-control. As Meg recalls her father says, “Watch yourself, be the first to ask pardon if you both err, and guard against the little piques, misunderstandings, and hasty words that often pave the way for bitter sorrow and regret” (Alcott, 269). Meanwhile Jo who is restless and quick-tempered is offered consolation by Marmee saying: “I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it; and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so” (Alcott, 78). Metaphor has been extensively used by many authors of children’s books. One thing stands out clearly that metaphor helps in erasing the lack of clarity in the writing among the young ones. Louisa May Alcott and Philippa Pearce reveals the use of metaphor in Little Women and Tom’s Midnight Garden respectively. The title Little Women in itself is metaphoric in nature. This is because the four girls live during and after the war, they are supposed to fight rebels. The irony however, is that the rebels are their own inner peace. The war is actually within them. It is poetic in nature owing to the fact that there is inherent tension with respect to the usage of language especially the overt and covert messages. On the other hand, Pearce evades time to sneak back to the garden at midnight, a place he finds happiness. It is a matter of life and death and for children to understand, the metaphor comes in handy. The claim children’s writers ‘must communicate with them about serious matters of life metaphorically and poetically is agreeable because there are certain complicated situations that can not be understood plainly to the children. Children’s writers have discovered the art of both entertaining and teaching the children simultaneously. The only way to observe a children’s writer’s sensitivity to children’s lack of proper understanding is through jogging their minds with metaphors. They will be able to see through the writer’s mind and the hidden meanings through metaphoric or poetic language. Margaret and Michael Rustin take the authors through a series of children’s writers, from the books; it is noteworthy that, in deed, children need the use of metaphors as opposed to not using them at all. Metaphors simplify things for the readers by disclosing meanings that might otherwise be hidden from the normal context. Most children’s writers want to entice their audience with metaphors to keep them glued to the books. Bibliography Rustin, M. and Rustin, M., 2007. Narratives of Love and Loss Studies in Modern Children’s Fiction. New York: Verso. Read More