Korea, by John McGahern

 

Audiobook

Film

Analysis

John McGahern

He was born in Dublin in 1934 and died aged 71. He was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. He grew up in a small farm. His mother was a school teacher, and his father a sergeant in the Garda, the Irish police force. When his mother died, he was ten, and the whole family went to live in the Garda barracks. The sergeant was a violent man and treated his children accordingly.

John trained as a teacher and worked some time in a school. At the same time, he began to write, but when he published his novel The Dark, he was dismissed, and his book banned by the Irish Censorship Board, for its pornographic content, according to the Board. So he went to England, where he worked on a variety of jobs. After some years, he went back to Ireland, and he settled in a small farm far from everywhere.

His six novels are mostly based in his personal experiences.

The Barracks is a description of the life in the Garda barracks. The Dark narrates a young man’s life. The Leavetaking is about his work as a teacher and about being fired. The Pornographer tells the story of a writer who has to write porno for his living. Amongst Women follows the life of an IRA veteran, and That they May Face the Rising Sun explores the Irish rural life.

He also wrote a Memoir, some plays and short stories collections, the last one, Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories, that contains a selection of all his old stories and some new ones.

 

Korea

It’s a curious title for a story set in the rural Ireland; nevertheless, the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 situates the narrative in time and provides its historical background.

A father and his son, who is about to finish his schooling, earn their living by fishing for eels. They also had a small piece of land where they grow some vegetables. It’s an economy of subsistence in a poor rural area. However, the authorities want to limit the fishing quota in order to leave more fish for the tourists that are going there from England. So, prospects for the eel business aren’t very good. The father is worried about his son’s future and, seeing that in Ireland there won’t be opportunities for him in Ireland, proposes him to go to the USA. At first, his son doesn’t know what to answer, but then he overhears a conversation between his father and a neighbour: there are lots of jobs available in the army because of the Korean War; they pay $250 monthly, and, in case of death, the family gets $10.000. Thus, America is a possibility of success and also a risk of death. Now the boy has taken his decision: he’ll stay in Ireland.

As his father goes on insisting in his going away, the son suspects that he wants him in the army in order to get his pay; or even worse, that he wants him dead so he can get the ten thousand dollars.

At the beginning of the story, the father, who fought for the Irish independence and is disappointed with the new country because he hasn’t made any profit by it, tells the boy about an execution by shooting of an adult man and a boy. The man displays a total indifference or even disdain to the firing squad, but the boy cries, struggles and at the end obeys orders as a soldier. This sad scene haunted the man forever, and it’s a kind of allegory of the contrast between youth and experience.

QUESTIONS

-According to you, what is the meaning of the episode of the executions in the story? Is there a parallelism between the two adults and the two boys?

-Do you think that, in extreme cases, the death penalty is necessary?

-In your opinion, why this episode haunts the father in his wedding?

-Why are there quotas in haunting, fishing or collecting some natural products? Do you think that it is fair?

-Must a father send his son to an incertain future if the alternative possibilities are very poor?

-Progress usually destroys traditional ways of living. But, does tourism bring progress to the countries it visits?

-"I fought for this country", says the father. But, what is a country for you?

-It seems that independence doesn’t make some people happy as they hoped. Why do you think is that?

-Could you detail the differences between the short story and the film?

VOCABULARY

rap, tunic, highfalutin, throbbed, bow, stern, beaded, consignment, bows of ridges, coarse, conscripted, shirred, fend

My Polish Teacher's Tie, by Helen Dunmore

Created by ChatGPT

Audiobook

Obituary

Analysis

By Aurora Ledesma

 

HELEN DUNMORE

 

Helen Dunmore was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children’s writer. She was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1952. She was the second child of four children of Betty (née Smith) and Maurice Dunmore. Her father managed industrial firms, but loved poetry, and Helen learned many rhymes, hymns and ballads during her childhood.

She attended Nottingham Girls’ High School and studied English at York University (1970-1973). She lived for two years in Finland, where she worked as a teacher.

In 1980, she married Frank Charnley, a lawyer, and they had two children: a son, Patrick, and a daughter, Tess. Frank had a son, Ollie, from a previous marriage. Helen died from cancer in 2017.

Her best-known works include the novels Zennor in Darkness, A Spell of Winter and The Siege, and her last book of poetry was Inside the Wave (2017). She won the inaugural Orange Prize for fiction, the National Poetry Competition, and posthumously the Costa Book Award.

Her writings for children include short stories, and novels for older children, such as the Ingo Chronicles (2005). Some of Dunmore’s children’s books are included in reading lists for use in schools.

Dunmore’s readers will not be surprised to learn she loved gardening, and she knew about wild flowers. She was a brave and strong swimmer, venturing into the sea on cold days in a wetsuit. She loved art, buying as much as she could afford and enjoyed collaborating with artists and musicians.

The final poem Hold Out Your Arms, is an intimate and powerful poem of how the novelist recounts her thoughts and emotions as she faces her final days. She invites death to “hold out your arms for me” describing the figure of death coming to take her away. Death is not something to be feared, but caring and gentle. The poem, written just days before she died of cancer on June 2017, was included in her poetry collection Inside the wave. She was ‒first and last‒ a poet.

 

MY POLISH TEACHER’S TIE

 

My Polish Teacher’s Tie was first published in 2001 in the short story collection Ice Cream. The protagonist, Carla Carter, works as a part-time catering staff at an English School. She is half-Polish, but the teachers don’t know that. She is a single mother with a daughter, Jade. Carla’s mother was Polish, and she came to England after the war. She taught her some Polish children’s songs full of rhymes, so Carla spoke Polish till she was six, but her father forbade her to speak Polish before she started school, and that’s why she has forgotten most of it.

One day, Carla overhears the school’s headmaster saying that some Polish teachers want to improve their written English and are looking for pen friends in English schools. Carla asks the headmaster for one of the Polish teacher’s addresses, and she begins writing to Steve. Days later, she receives the first letter from him, and she realises that he thinks that she is an English teacher. When Carla writes to Steve, she doesn’t want to tell him anything about her employment. She tells him about her daughter Jade and about the songs that her mother taught her. Steve tells her that he writes poetry and sends Carla beautiful poems. At first, they write once a week, but later, twice. Their letters become friendly and personal, and a connection between them builds up.

Some time later, the Head announces that a teacher will be coming over from Katowice the following month. His name is Stefan Jeziorny. Carla feels a bit surprised, because she hadn’t read his last letter yet, in which he tells her about his visit. Carla dreads meeting him, knowing he will discover her real job, and thinks he will be disappointed. When he arrives, he will be staying with Valerie Kenward, a teacher at the school. Valerie complains that she can’t understand Steve, because of his accent, and she also makes fun of his tie.

As soon as Carla sees him in the staff room, she goes over to introduce herself. When she sees that he is pleased to meet her and does not care what job she does, she becomes more confident and positive. To her surprise, Steve sings a Polish song. She recognizes it from her childhood, and the two of them sing together.

 

Some Reflections

Sometimes, as happens with the characters in the story, having a low-level job and being a foreigner could make us feel ashamed, insignificant and even invisible.

On one hand, Carla hides her origins from her colleagues and her job from Stefan, she’s ashamed of being just a server. On the other hand, Stefan feels isolated and misunderstood, he just smiles like a child, because he doesn’t know anyone. His way of dressing, his accent and his manners are cruelly criticized by Valerie.

When Stefan shows a warm and inclusive approach towards Carla, regardless of her job, she becomes more confident. She realises that there is so much more to a person’s identity than their surface.

QUESTIONS

-What can a tie, a piece of clothes, a dress... tell us about the person?

-What is more important for you, your mother tongue, or another tongue you have learned along your life? Why do you think so? When are we ashamed of our accent or of our mother tongue?

-Sometimes we feel inferior, and sometimes superior, in front of a stranger. What are the circumstances for every case?

-In your view, can art be really appreciated by somebody without education? What is your opinion about the saying "There's no accounting for taste"? "Good taste" is something natural or something learned?

VOCABULARY

overall, kitty, tipping, chucking, OFSTED, serving-hatch, bin, sod it, stage-whispered, squiggles, swim, bumbled

Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie, by Beryl Bainbridge

BIOGRAPHY & SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was born in Liverpool in 1932, and she was an English novelist known for her psychologic portrayals of the lower-middle-class English life.
At the age of 14, she was expelled from the Merchant Taylor’s Girls School, when she was caught with a “dirty rhyme” (as she later described it) written by someone else in her gymslip pocket. She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School, a boarding school near London, where she found she was good at History, English, and Art. The summer she left school, she fell in love with a former German prisoner of war, Harry Arno Franz, who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for him to return to Britain so that they could marry, but permission was denied, and the relationship ended in 1953.
The following year, she married Austin Davies. She had two children, but the marriage was short, and Beryl soon found herself a single mother. In 1958, she tried to commit suicide by putting his head in the gas oven. In his own words, “When you are young, you have those ups and downs.” She had a third daughter with Alan Sharp in 1965. Sharp, a Scotsman, was at the start of his career as a novelist and screenwriter; Bainbridge would later let it be thought that he was her second husband; in truth, they never married, but the relationship encouraged her on her way to fiction. She began writing to help fill her time, mainly recounting incidents from her childhood. His first novels were very well received by critics and were successful among readers, although they did not bring her much money. Her first novel, Harriet Said... was written around this time. It would be the third that he would publish, since many editors rejected it, and one of them went so far as to claim that the protagonists were “almost incredibly repulsive”.
She was the author of eighteen novels, two travel books, two essays, two volumes of stories and five works for theatre and television. She was nominated five times for the Booker Prize, and in 2011, she was awarded the posthumous prize (she died in 2010) for her literary work. In 2008, The Times included her in the list of “The 50 most important writers since 1945”. The Guardian called her “a national treasure.”

SUMMARY

When Mrs Henderson arrived home, her husband asks her how much the woman she worked for as a maid had tipped her for Christmas. “Nothing at all”, answered she. “We have theatre tickets instead.” “Thank you very much”, Mr Henderson said ironically.  “The kiddies will like it”, she replied, “it’s a pantomime. We have never been in a pantomime.”  Their son Alec, who was still living with them, explained to them that it wasn’t a pantomime, but a play with fairy tale elements, which was about boys lost in Never-Never land. “It’s written on several levels”, he added.

“I’ve been a lost boy all my live”, muttered Charles Henderson when he heard his son. And he was right, in fact, he still is: His son doesn’t respect him - he calls him Charlie, knowing how much that bothers him - and his wife never seems to listen to him. He feels isolated. And as for other important things, he has lost almost everything: his house, his garden, his open spaces. They moved ten years ago, and now they have a house with a bathroom with hot water and good plumbing, but that’s not enough for him. At night, when Charles returns from work and enters that flat - which for him is like the cabin of an aeroplane, high and closed, not being able to take him anywhere - he looks out the window and can only see sky and clouds, and sometimes hundreds of stars. Then, he wonders: “Is life just about taking a good bath?” And besides, “Does a man need so many stars?” He had enough with the only one he could see from his outside toilet. “It’s quality that counted, no quantity”, he thought.

Finally, the day arrived, and everyone went to the theatre: Charles, his wife, his son Alec, and his daughter Moira with her children. One of them, Wayne, who was also characterized by his mischief, got into trouble as soon as they left the house, in the lift. The situation got worse because Alec drove madly. Furthermore, when they passed through the old Charles neighbourhood, he looked longingly at the open fields, and remembered the stream where they fished and the esplanade where people played football. Alec only saw a grimy suburb and laughs at it. “What fields? What stream? Never-Never land”, he mocked him. Charles started to feel sick, his stomach to hurt, but no one seemed to care about that.

During the first act, everything seemed strange, there was an actor playing a dog, and Charles didn’t really understand who or what Tinkerbell was. During the acts two and three, Charles dozed. All was confusing to him, he was dreaming he was fishing in the canal and there appeared a big crocodile with a clock ticking inside it. He had pain in his arm.

His confusion increased when Alec claimed that the fact that Wendy’s father and Captain Hook were played by the same actor was an allegory of the fact that every father wants to kill his children. However, according to Charles, the reason was the savings that this entailed. But who wants to argue with Alec? Indeed, he would like to strangle his son when he says those things.

During Act Fourth, Charles was getting worse and worse. He asked his wife for a peppermint, but she silenced him, everyone seemed engrossed in the play. Charles dozed, confusing things that happened on stage with memories from when his son was a child, like the fear he felt one day when Alec came home late. Suddenly, something dramatic was happening on stage: Tinkerbell was fainting and everyone looked devastated. Charles saw how his entire family, even his wild grandson, were moved to tears watching the flickering of the fairy’s light descend. What was happening? His heart was beating so hard that he though Alec was going to scold him for making noise.

Finally, while the entire audience applauded passionately at Peter Pan’s demand “If you believe, clap hands, clap hands, and Tinkerbell will be alive”, Charles died. His last words were “Help me”, to which his wife replied “Shut up”, while clapping frantically for Tinkerbell to come back to life.

PERSONAL OPINION

This short story is written on several levels, just like it happened in Peter Pan, according to Alec, or at least it touches on several aspects, such as:

- The class difference. The rich may find it degrading to give money to the poor, but for them, it is more than a necessity.

- The change in life and values after the II World War, when people went from living in the countryside to living in the city, and the capitalism is gaining more and more strength.

- The generational conflict, represented by Charles and his son Alec, who despises his father’s values, ridicules his way of thinking and treats him with open contempt.

- The loneliness you can feel even surrounded by the people you love, especially when communication has long since broken down.

- The irony of sometimes letting ourselves be carried away by what is happening in fiction, causing those feelings of drowning out what we should feel in real life.

For all these reasons, I liked the story and found it very interesting, especially because of the last question I pointed out. Do our own lives seem so uninteresting to us that we are more interested in what happens on stage, or on TV, or in the movies? Is it perhaps a way to escape from our feelings?

I’m sure we’ll talk about it in a while.

QUESTIONS

-Debate: What are your politics about giving / not giving tips?

-What about presents: do you prefer giving money, or presents? When you buy your presents, do you always ask for the “present receipt”?

-What can you tell us about the personality of the characters?

-“One star was all a man needed”. What do you think the real necessities of a person are?

-Driving is a singular experience for every person: in your opinion, what is the most important skill for a driver? What do you think of the French campaign “Drive as a woman”?

-What do you know about Peter Pan? In your view, is childhood so happy as the cliché says? Do you think everybody would rather be a child and not an adult?

-In your opinion, what is the relation between the title and the story?

-According to you, what is the meaning of Charles’s death and the end of the story? 

VOCABULARY

pantomime, head nor tail, smutty, putting up with, by heck, mouthing, outlandish, foregone, (give it) houseroom, bashed, exalted, sideboard, on a par, fiddling, rumpus, turn, belt up, slum, pandering, cosy, carry-on, coddled, yawning his head off, tantrums, tiddlers, moth balls, engrossed, cotton, heatedly, codswallop, throttle, fly off the handle, dangling

Analysis

British Council activities about the story

Interview with the writer

British Council again

Prezi presentation

Another interview with the writer

Mr and Mrs Dove, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Alícia Usart

 

England is where the plot of this story takes place. Reggie has to return to Rhodesia, an English colony, the next day. He’s the only son of a widowed woman, with a tough character. His uncle, at his death, left him a fruit farm there, from which he makes between 500 and 600 pounds annually. He is in love, crazy and desperately in love, with Anne, a girl from the neighbourhood. His love is of the kind we see in literature, a romantic love. He is only able to see the positive aspects of her. He believes that he has small chances to marry her, but anyway, he is determined to find out if she cares for him in the same way he does for her.

He set out for Anna’s house, and nothing could stop him, not even his mother. He found himself in the drawing room and, before the bell had stopped ringing, Anna entered the room and announced to him that her parents were out. At that time, he was only capable of stating that he would depart tomorrow.

Suddenly Anne burst into laughter, and that was not the first time it happened; she apologized, but it was an uncomfortable situation for both. Anne offered him a cigarette and took one for herself, and the conversation turned to his upcoming departure.

At the same time, the doves outside were cooing. Anne moved away from him and allowed him to enter the side veranda because she didn’t want to hear what he was trying to tell her. They were observing the doves’ behaviour, and it seemed to Anne that it was similar to their behaviour; but Reggie was only concentrating on what he was willing to say, and finally did: “Anne, do you think you could ever care for me?” He was released, but Anne replied that she could not. Anyway, he didn’t give up, trying to comprehend the reason why she was laughing at him.

In reality, Anne loved him and appreciated him; however, she believed that what she was feeling wasn’t true love: she thought true love was different, like the way she read in books.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

Their relationship would be as the doves’, one running forward and the other following, one was Mr Dove and the other Mrs Dove. Mrs Dove looking at Mr Dove and laughing, and he, keeping following her and bowing and bowing…, but isn’t the dove’s love a romantic kind of love? They are the symbol of love, they are faithful for life, the male takes long time to choose his partner, he courts her at length, and their bond ends only with the end of the two.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about the mating habits of the doves?

-What can you tell us about Rhodesia in that time?

-According to your view, until what extent the family composition influences somebody’s personality? I mean: being the only child, the position among siblings, being the only boy or the only girl, single-parent families, etc.

-Do you think is it possible to love someone whom you laugh at?

-Reginald’s mother has two dogs and Anne shows Reginald two doves: can you find a parallelism between these two couples?

-What is Anne like? Is she a bad person because she makes a fool of Reginald?

-In your opinion, what is going to happen after Reggie comes back to Anne at the end of the story?

 

 

VOCABULARY

a ghost of / an earthly, preposterous, short of, screwed him up to it, jammed, out of the running, steep, jar, grit, top-hole, hollyhocks, pealing, bucked him up, hat-hunting, wan, french window, huskily, cut off

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Saving Grace, by Graham Swift

Saving Grace, by Carme Sanz

 Dr Shah, an eminent cardiologist, was born in Battersea, a famous neighbourhood in London. He was a very peculiar man or, better to say, a peculiar doctor, because while he treats his patients, he likes to relate them the history of his own family.

Although he has never been to India, he has the appearance of an Indian man, because his father came from this country.  In those times, India was ruled by the British, that means, before its independence in 1952.

His father was very fond of British culture, because his family was one of the few that really revered the British, and was educated as any boy in Britain. So, when the Second World War started, he fought for the British and, in the D-Day, he was badly wounded in his leg. It was then when he met Dr Chaudhry and, thanks to him, he could save not only his leg, but probably also his life.

Dr Chaudhry came from India too, and, in those times, not many people wanted to be treated by an Asian doctor, no matter how good he or she was. At this point, Dr Shah liked to say that his father was really lucky also because, thanks to his being in hospital, he met his future wife, Nurse Rosie.

Dr Chaudhry became as a family member, and Dr Shah thought he probably became a physician because of his mentorship.

To end up the story, he explained that his father had been a hospital porter for ten years, and then a clerk, in spite of his poor education. And this, thanks to his wife and probably to Dr Chaudhry.

 

As far as I am concerned, this story is easy to understand. The author presents his main character, Dr Shah, as an honest and calm man who likes to explain what happened to his family with all the issues of the immigrant people, but without any anger or resentment, just with the reality of facts. Things such as prejudice against foreigners were very strong in the past and have changed nowadays, although probably less than we’d like to. And eventually, how a man can feel a longing for his country and at the same time be able to start a new life.

QUESTIONS

What do you know about the English rule in India?

“He was born into one of those families who revered the British”. Is it possible friendship between owner and slave, between colonizer and colonized?

Where is Poona? Can you point Birmingham, Bradford or Battersea on a map?

Why sometimes a foreigner speaks the language better than natives?

According to your opinion, which position had to be the Indian position in the WW2, pro or against Nazis, pro or against British? Remember that Gandhi said that the British should not offer resistance to the Nazis, even when he knew about the genocide.

Do you think our lives are directed by the chance, or that we can decide our destiny?

What do you know about the D-Day?

He had an injured leg, and then he couldn’t go back to fight. Is that good luck? What do you know about SIW?

What can you tell us about amputations?

“If they let him do, he could save them”, being “he” a foreigner. What would you do in your case?

What does “Krupp” refer to?

“His home was in England now”. If you don’t live where you’ve been born, how do you know where is “your country”?

What do you think about following one's parents' trade? Is it a good idea?

He said cardiology was the glamour field. What is it now the glamour field in medicine?

Do you trust in foreigners when it’s an important job? Why? Did you have any experience with them?

 

VOCABULARY

awash, cut up rough, consultant, chapter and verse, on the mend, slot, overtook, mishap, whizzed, saving grace, stump, disadvantaged, pinstriped, against all the odds, disclaimingly, beam, dexterous, worked up, puny, plumply

Mrs Kaminski, by Graham Swift

Mrs Kaminski

This is a very short story about a woman who went dizzy in the street, fell over and was taken to a hospital. There’s a sad/funny dialogue between the woman and the doctor because the woman is very old, and also a bit confused, and the doctor very young.

 

 

QUESTIONS

Tell us the story of Mrs Kaminsky.

What can you say about Tooting?

And about Lodz?

What do you know about Polish pilots in the RAF?

What do you know about Polish people migrating to the UK? Have you seen the film Moonlighting, starring Jeremy Irons?

Is the woman senile? Can you tell some anecdotes about senile people?

Is it easy for a young person to understand a very old person? What do you think they are the points where it’s easy to have misunderstandings or difficulties in understanding between them?

 

VOCABULARY

(funny/nasty) turn

boilerman

dab

 

The Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Wikipedia

The Thing Around Your Neck at the Wikipedia

The Thing Around Your Neck: summary and analysis, LitCharts

Chimamanda website

Chimamanda independent website

Nigeria at the Wikipedia

Biafra at the Wikipedia

Tedx talk: We should all be feminists (very easy to understand and very funny)

Half of a Yellow Sun (trailer)

Presentation, by Adriana Cruz

BIOGRAPHY

Chiamamanda Ngozi Adichie is a famous writer, teacher, novelist, playwright and feminist activist.
She was born in Agba village, Enugu (Nigeria) on the15th September, 1977. She grew up as the fifth of six children in Nsukka city. 
Her father, James Nwoye Adichie worked as a professor of statistics, and her mother, Grace Ifeoma was the first secretary of the University of Nigeria.
The family lost almost everything during the Nigerian Civil War, including both maternal and paternal grandfathers. Her family's ancestral village is in Abba in Anambra State, Nigeria.
She studied Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the Catholic University's medical students. At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria for the United States to study Communications and Political Science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She soon transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University to be near her sister Uche, who had a medical practice in Coventry, Connecticut.
 She got married to Ivara Esege, and they have one child.
From 2016 to 2019 he won several honorary titles as the Doctor of Humane Letters and the Doctor Honoris Causa, from the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland.
She was the author of many novels: Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (translated into 19 languages), and the essay We Should All Be Feminists. Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions and Notes on Grief.
Adichie divides her time between the United States and her second residence in Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops.

 The Thing Around Your Neck

This book was first published in 2009, and talks about a woman named Akunna who gains a sought-after American visa and goes to live with her uncle; but he molests her, and she ends up working as a waitress in Connecticut. She ends up meeting a man whom she falls in love with, but, along the way, she experiences cultural difficulties with him.
The title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected. Although falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to re-examine them.
The history based in Lagos and USA, and deals about prejudices and difficulties in accepting the pre-established cultural differences and prejudice of sex, ethnicity, macho and white dominant culture, and many difficulties to get a visa.

QUESTIONS

According to the family, what things do you have to get when you are in the USA, and what you don’t?

Personal question: What things do you usually buy as souvenirs when you go away?
They call “America” the USA. Is that correct?

Where is Maine? What kind of place is (or was) it? And Connecticut?
“They were desperately trying to look diverse” (where her uncle is working): What is your opinion about positive discrimination?
The story is told in the second person singular (you). Why?
In Maine they asked her about her hair: What is the best way to deal with “different” people?
Why did she leave her uncle’s house? Was he really her uncle?
How did her boss Juan treat her in her first job?
According to the protagonist, how is life back in Nigeria?
What were the brown envelopes for?
What stories did she want to tell her family about “America”?
What were the usual clichés about black people?
What things did her future boyfriend (the white costumer) know about Africa?
Why did the protagonist say white people were always “condescending” with Africa?
Talk about professor Cobbledick.
The fortune strips of paper she got in the Chinese restaurant were blank. What does it mean for the story?
Can you remember the story of her father in the raining day in Lagos?
She cooked dinner for her boyfriend: how did he like it?
What kinds of presents didn’t she like?
What do people think of them as a couple?
What behaviour and what decisions of her boyfriend didn’t she understand?
Why does she go back to Nigeria?
In your opinion, is she going to go back to the USA then?
What does the title mean?

VOCABULARY

visa, to get in one’s feet, self-tanner, gawp, Greyhound bus, community college, course syllabi, hawk, preemie, shantytown, maudlin, Jeopardy, root for, throw up, MSG, Nawal El Saadawi

Fleet-Footed Hester, by George Gissing

George Gissing at the Wikipedia: click here

George Gissing, The Guardian: click here

Fleet-Footed Hester: review

Fleet-Footed Hester: summary

George Gissing on feminism: click here

Presentation, by Argemir Gonzàlez

Biography

George Robert Gissing was born on 22nd November 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He died on 28th December 1903 in Saint-Jean-de-Luz (France). He was the eldest of five children of Thomas Waller Gissing, who ran a chemist's shop, and Margaret.

Gissing was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield, where he was a diligent and enthusiastic student. His serious interest in books began at the age of ten when he read The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Gissing's father died when he was 12 years old, and he and his brothers were sent to the Lindow Grove School at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, where he was a solitary student who studied hard. In 1872, after an exceptional performance in the Oxford Local Examinations, Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College, forerunner of the University of Manchester. There he continued his intense studies, and won many prizes, including the Poem Prize in 1873 and the Shakespeare scholarship in 1875.

His academic career ended in disgrace when he ran short of money and stole from his fellow students. The college hired a detective to investigate the thefts and Gissing was prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in Belle Vue Gaol, Manchester, in 1876.

In Manchester, he also began a relationship with Marianne "Nell" Harrison, a prostitute, afterwards his wife.

He travelled to the USA with Marianne Harrison in 1876 but lived in poverty and returned the following year then he worked as a teacher. He began to publish in 1880 but without success until 1891 when he published New Grub Street, a novel about literary bohemian life. That novel and The Odd Women are considered his best works.

His style follows the style of Dickens and Gaskell on social content. In 1898 published his study Charles Dickens: A Critical Study.

Critical review

Fleet-Footed Hester, by George Gissing, is the story of a young woman, immature and capricious, and of a not so young man, of weak character and jealous despite being physically strong.

Fleet-Footed Hester is a story, in my opinion, lineal, plain and not credible, halfway between Victorian morals and a reflection about the female condition.

The end is disappointing. The young and free Hester saves her lover John Rayner doing what she can do best (that is, running), but only to deliver herself to a jealous, impoverished, alcoholised man with whom she never will have what she likes most: running races.

The message of George Gissing is clear: the woman must sacrifice her freedom because it is the reason for the disgrace and misery of a man. 

QUESTIONS

What is Private Eye?
What is Grub Street?
 
Talk about the characters: appearance, personality, job...
John
Hester
Albert
Mrs Heffron
Hester’s father. (He was “married without leave”. What does it mean?)
 
What was John’s opinion about Hester’s first job? What kind of occupation did he want for her?
What was John’s opinion about Hester running races?
John and Hester’s different kind of love: what are these two kinds?
Tell us John and Hester first quarrel.
Tell us John and Hester second quarrel.
How did Hester change after the second quarrel?
How did John change along the two years when didn’t see Hester?
Explain Albert and Hester’s courtship and their breaking up.
Last but one Hester’s race.
Mrs Heffron and Hester’s last meeting.
What was Hester’s proposal when she met John at the station?
What does the last sentence (“the red rift of the eastern sky broadened into day”) mean? What does it symbolize?

 

THEME TO DEBATE

I think that Gissing’s story is useful to debate some topics about feminism, moreover when he wrote a novel about the situation of the women in Victorian (or puritan and traditionalist) society.

So, what do you thing about woman and hobbies (sports, DIY, etc.). Don’t you think that there is a vindication, from women, to do “men” hobbies, but not the other way round?

For the only reason of being a woman, you are discriminated? (E.g. I’m thinking about Mrs Thatcher)

What is your opinion about positive discrimination (that is: in equal conditions, to give preference to a member of a minority or to a member of an unfavoured group)?

Do you think men can /must be involved in the debate about women issues?

VOCABULARY

wiry, foreman, stay, paper-chase, woo, plight one’s troth, stinted, bearing, ploughboy, wages, wrath, pickles, fit of temper, comely, shun, lithe, thew, measure one’s length on the pavement, toss, copper, stich, bale, traps

CLERIHEWS

As you could see on the brief introduction before the story, they mention a kind of poem called clerihew. It was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), who was a humorous English writer. It's a comical biographical poem very easy to create.The first line has to contain the name of the person you're telling something about. It has to have four lines of any meter you like, and with the rhyme structure AABB, so they are useful to learn how to pronounce some words, though sometimes the rhymes can be forced. Here you have some exemples:

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I’m going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I’m designing St. Paul’s.”

***

It was a weakness of Voltaire’s
To forget to say his prayers,
And one which to his shame
He never overcame.

***

Dante Alighieri
Seldom troubled a dairy.
He wrote the Inferno
On a bottle of Pernod.

***

Daniel Defoe
Lived a long time ago.
He had nothing to do, so
He wrote Robinson Crusoe.

***

Edgar Allan Poe
Was passionately fond of roe.
He always liked to chew some,
When writing something gruesome.

***

John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote ‘Principles of Economy.’

***

The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.

G. K. Chesterton

The novels of Jane Austen
Are the ones to get lost in.
I wonder if Labby
Has read Northanger Abbey

(Labby was an English journalist.)

***

Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Is now a buried one.
He was not a Goth, much less a Vandal,
As he proved by writing The School for Scandal.

***

Solomon
You can scarcely write less than a column on.
His very song
Was long.

***

The Spanish people think Cervantes
Equal to half a dozen Dantes;
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.

W. H. Auden

Sir Henry Rider Haggard
Was completely staggered
When his bride-to-be
Announced, “I am She!”

***

John Milton
Never stayed in a Hilton
Hotel,
Which was just as well.

***

When Karl Marx
Found the phrase ‘financial sharks,’
He sang a Te Deum
In the British Museum.

***

When the young Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt,
He obeyed the Categorical Must
But only just.

***

Lord Byron
Once succumbed to a Siren:
His flesh was weak,
Hers Greek.

***

Oscar Wilde
Was greatly beguiled,
When into the Café Royal walked Bosie
Wearing a tea-cosy.

***

Thomas Hardy
Was never tardy
When summoned to fulfill
The Immanent Will.

***

William Blake
Found Newton hard to take,
And was not enormously taken
With Francis Bacon.

***

Henry Taylor

Alexander Graham Bell
has shuffled off this mobile cell.
He’s not talking any more
But he has a lot to answer for.

***

John Dryden
wasn’t the sort you’d confide in;
there was no limit to the secrets he’d tell
in lyrics set to music by Henry Purcell.

***

William Wordsworth
considered four-and-twenty birds worth
a walk as far as the banks of the Wye.
There are some things money just can’t buy. 

 George Szirtes

e e cummings’
unpublished hummings
will shortly be published in a book –
just l(oo)k

***
Rene Magritte
liked his rum neat
and would never think of adding Cola.
He’d sooner eat his bowler.

***

Pierre-August Renoir
simply adored Film Noir
and kept nagging at Jean
“Make your old dad a Film Noir! Aw, go on!”

***

Claude Monet
resisted all forms of donné.
When someone suggested he should paint the cathedral at Rheims,
he replied, “In your dreams!”

***

George Braque
decided to pickle a shark
as a kind of tableau,
but then left it to Pablo.

***

J M W Turner
liked a nice little earner
and was untroubled by greed,
painting Rain, Steam AND Speed.

Mark Granier 

Trump
was always at home on the stump,
while the White House, unfortunately,
is more of a tree.

Derek Mahon

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Is still read today;
While other Victorian novels degenerate in the attic,
Its reputation remains static.

***

“Strange Meeting”

Wilfred Owen
And Elizabeth Bowen
Never met;
And yet… 

Sex Lives of Poets by Dick Davis

Did Shakespeare get more joy
From a boy as a girl or a girl as a boy?
Whatever: he liked the nice surprises
Engendered by disguises.

***

Alexander Pope
Hadn’t a hope
With Lady Mary Wortley Montague:
“When it comes to inches,” she said, “you certainly want a few.”

***

When it comes to Christina Rossetti
And a sex life  . . . well, not to get petty
There wasn’t any, or at least none that was visible.
This clerihew’s sad, not risible.

Michael Curl

There’s no disputin’
that Grigori Rasputin
had more will to power
than Schopenhauer.

Dean W. Zimmerman

Jesus Christ
Was sliced and diced,
And punched with holes
To save our souls.

Paul Ingram

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Hardly ever went out to dine.
Be the menu never so abundant,
He found “green leafy lettuce salad” tautological and redundant.

Paul Horgan

Luchino Visconti
Saw ‘The Full Monty’
Which he thought was vile,
Bar Robert Carlyle.

Ian Duhig

 ‘Ingmar’,
said his wife, ‘I wish you would sing more,
not just sit there playing chess against Death and being glum’.
But Ingmar kept shtum.

Katy Evans-Bush

Cary Grant
loved his aunt.
When he was alone,
He would try her eau de cologne.