Noah Hatchwin (Dickens caricature)

I walked into the church, knowing I should be grieving, for my sister was dead. Mrs. Joe Gargery had died of a heart failure a week back. I had not been back to visit once since I encountered my great fortune. I received Joe’s letter only yesterday requesting my presence, and of course the only polite thing to do was to attend.

Joe was the first person I spotted in the large space, sitting on the front bench. He was pointedly ignoring me I realized. Who was the boy beside him, fidgeting in his seat either from excitement or nervousness? The door clanged shut behind me and the boy turned around, then sprung out of his seat upon seeing me. He was a scrawny boy, I noticed, of perhaps 11 years of age. He did not look particularly tall with lots of dusty brown hair badly in need of cutting. He walked right up to me as if we could somehow have been dear friends and asked.

“Pip?” In a high pitch voice which did not altogether fit his appearance.

I nodded once in surprised response so he continued.

“The names Noah, Noah Hatchwin. Joe did told me so many stories about you, being a grand scholar and all, but growing up in this here village.”

A wave of confusion ran through my mind, how could the boy know Joe. Although it must have been apparent on my face for the boy’s expression turned downcast, and all of the sudden looked painfully in keeping with the funeral.

“I never knew my father, for he left when I was only a year, my mother died of influenza a while back. Beggar on the streets I was and still would be I’m sure if not for kind Joe taking me in. Well, so glad to be meeting you after all this, sorry for the circumstance” He said as he returned to the ever unmoving Joe.

-Katie

Dickens Caricature

Dickens Caricature



After handing my shilling to the coachman and stepping out of the stage-coach, I found myself lost between the narrow, filthy grey bricks of London. The perpetual grease that coated the crooked buildings made them glow like dull streetlights among the fog that smothered the air. So absorbed was I my awe that I hardly had time to be aware of the sharp elbow that planted itself in my side and the hard smack of leather that threw me onto the street.



“Watch where yer goin’, boy,” snapped a large, intimidating man above me. His large, red face was framed a shocking mass of tangled black wires that was only rivaled by the twitching monster below his nose. His eyes, bloodshot like a maniac, were inches away from my own shocked ones. The reek of alcohol from his leering mouth and the sight of his yellow teeth, more crooked than the street I was lying on, were enough incentive for me to jerk back from the appalling sight.



I gave him my apologies profusely, all the while trying to get up from the filthy street. The man watched, the writhing mass of hair on his face twitching all the while. A hard hand landed arm flashed past my face and I was certain that the man would throw me down on the offending pavement once more. Bracing myself for pain, I was surprised when my portmanteau was presented in front of my face.



He grinned, as bushy and wild as ever, yet I thought his monstrous facial hair had been tamed considerably. “Take care of yerself here,” he said, and disappeared into the foggy mass of London.

Questions

1) When did the English novel become most popular?
2) What is Bildungsroman?
3) Describe the style in which Victorian fiction was written in.

Genre B: Bildungsroman

 
Bildungsroman is a kind of novel that presents the psychological, moral, and social shaping of the personality of a young main character. It usually consists of the following aspects: Protagonist grows from child to adult; the protagonist experiences some loss at an early stage, which leads him or her away from a family setting; there is a long process of maturation, where the protagonist’s needs and desires are constantly challenged by a superior figure; finally, the protagonist finds himself and where he fits into this society. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, the book that we are currently reading, is a great example of bildungsroman that we can see even though we are only partway through the book. Slowly but surely, we can see Pip changing and adapting to the unbending rules of Mrs Joe. Another common example of bildungsroman is Harry Potter by JK Rowling. In the 7 book series, the changes and obstacles that Harry Potter deals with while trying to fit into the wizard world greatly change and shape the person that he is.

- Miss. Pramanick

Genre B: Who Reads, and Popular Fictions

Who Reads and Popular Fictions

First off, readers of this time period were accustomed to adult novels which used long complicated words with extended descriptive sentences
The novels often focused on family values and emphasized societal values
At this time, fiction began to turn towards darker themes
 Began to focus on more realistic tales instead of an idealistic style that used to be more popular amongst writers
Stories began to get more complex in general as fiction began to look more and more similar to life, reflecting their works in visual art as well
The Victorian style of both fictional literature and Victorian artwork are both characterized by their striking similarities to everyday life, not making what is really there any more fantastical than it really is, nor making it too plain to be regarded as a simple re-telling of daily life.
The fiction novels, although this may be a self-contradicting term, could be labelled as “realistic fiction”

- Mr. Wong

Genre B: Origin of the Novel

Origin of the Novel

The novel became the leading type of literature in the 19th century
Novels were for the most part painted, idealizing pictures of difficult lives where hard works love, luck, and perseverance win out in the end
They followed the idea that good was rewarded while evil was punished
There was usually a moral lesson which comes out of the story
Through the 19th Century the novels went from idealistic to more realistic, they also took on a grimmer outlook
Charles Dickens was one of the most popular and best examples of Victorian novelists.
Novels are a type of fiction whose plots are developed through the actions, speech and thoughts of each character.

Reference: http://www.answers.com/topic/novel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature

- Miss. Lawrence

Genre B: History of the Novel

History of the Novel

Novel

Genre: Fiction, Narrative

Style: Prose

Length: Extended

Purpose: Resembles Truth

Novel is a relatively recent literary creation

Precursors

Heroic Epics: Illiad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Beowulf

Greek + Roman Romances + Novels

Oriental Frame Tales

Irish + Icelandic Sagas

Medieval European Romances

Elizabethan Prose Fiction

Travel Adventures

Novelle

Moral Tales

First Novels

11^th Century Japan: The Tale of Genji

Life of 10th Century Heian Court

16^th Century China: Monkey, Water Margin & Romance of Three Kingdoms

Historical novels written in commoner’s language

17th Century Spain: Don Quixote

First European Novel

Psychology of mid-life crises

1679 France: The Princess of Cleves

First European Historical Novel

First novel of analysis dissecting emotions and attitudes

1683 England: Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister

1719 England: Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders & A Journal of the Plague Year

1740 England: Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

Modernism: International Artistic Movement

Radical experimentation and rejection of old order of civilization and 19^소 century optimism

Novels: How things are perceived rather than what is perceived

James Joyce, Dorothy, Richardson, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner

Ÿ Post-Modernism: Post 1970’s – contemporary culture, technology, and art

Ÿ Information Technology, electronic images, and popular arts

Ÿ Rejects difficulty of Modernism

Ÿ Fragmentation and incoherence

Emphasis on Reflexivity: Fictions about fiction

Post-colonial literature: encounter of different cultures, world views and perceptions of reality

1) Name 2 antecedents of the novel.

2) What is arguably the first novel? Specify the country and time period

3) Which events or movements influenced a change in the style of novels?

- Miss. Luo