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A Man For All Seasons Poetry A Brighter Sun ........................................................................ Home Shane The Chrysalids Links |
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Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons QUESTIONS "Keeping up is easier than catching up" Focus ..........i) dramatic considerations ii) themes iii) background iv) characterisation v) plot. Questions to get you started....... i) What is it that Richard Rich wants from Sir Thomas More? ii) Why is Sir Thomas seem so reluctant to go along with Richard Rich's wishes? iii) (pg.7) More and his family are shocked to hear that Cromwell has been appointed the Cardinal's Secretary. Why are they shocked? iv) Cardinal Wolsey summoned More to get his help. Explain. v) What is Wolsey's strongest argument as put to More? There are some fourteen (14) characters in the play. Firstly, write up a clear definition of the concepts below. Secondly, which concept(s) would you use in describing each character in the play? Why? Thirdly, please provide brief quotations (page references in brackets) to support your opinion. Choose any five (5) pairs. Can you think of any other relevant concepts? INTEGRITY INTRIGUE PATRIOTISM TREASON RESPONSIBILITY POPULARITY COURAGEOUS COWARD TRUSTWORTHY CONSPIRATOR CONSCIENCE CONFORMITY FOR COMMON GOOD FOR PERSONAL GREED MARTYR.... ..ASSASSIN |
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Our study of the novel "A Brighter Sun" by Samuel Selvon will lead us to an appreciation of the two
(2) major areas: CONTENT (What about? Story? Theme?) and STYLE (How is it written? The writer's craft/techniques? Characterisation, Plot, Setting, Language) .......that is ANALYSIS. Our concern with EXPRESSION simply means that you will go all out to improve your skill in writing critical essays. ASSIGNMENTS (subject to change)........ 1. Explain and illustrate differences in Tiger and Joe's background as seen in Chapters 1-3. 2. Write a character sketch of Tall Boy (ch.4). 3. Write a character sketch of Boysie (chs. 4-6). 4. Write a character sketch of Sookdeo. 5. Context questions. You must respond to the following questions: WHO? TO WHOM? WHY? WHERE? WHAT ABOUT? HOW important is this excerpt to THEME and CHARACTERISATION? i) Ch.2/p32 "Tiger came in from ......" ii) Ch.3/p38 "I only hope ......" iii) Ch.4/p59 "Tall Boy made fun ..." iv) Ch.5/p65 "Sookdeo lived in a .." v) Ch.5/p73 "It was almost midday ..." vi) Ch6/p95 "Look, done all this ......" vii) Ch7/p109 "Joe laughed loudly..." viii) Ch.7/p117 "After compensation ..." 6. Decisions, decisions, decisions. With close reference to the text, explain three of the most important decisions Tiger made (Chs. 1-9). 7. Briefly outline Tiger's visit to Port of Spain. With close reference to the text, explain what you understand to be the lesson(s) he learnt from this visit. 8. a) What is your opinion of Urmilla? Does she change as the story progresses? b)What is your opinion of Rita? What is her most outstanding quality? |
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<http://www.aristos.org/%7Ekamhi/images/%21alogo.gif> Jack Schaefer, Teller of Tales by Louis Torres [Introduction] "Who is this Jack Schaefer?" asked the seasoned proprietor of a secondhand book shop on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "What else did he write?" his partner wanted to know. Like these two booksellers, most knowledgeable readers have never heard of Jack Schaefer, the American novelist and short-story writer who died in 1991 at the age of eighty-three. Though many have seen or know of Shane, the classic film about a heroic gunfighter and the boy who idolizes him, few are able to identify Schaefer as the author of the equally classic novel on which it is based......... Shane In 1945, while Schaefer was on the editorial staff of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, he began to write fiction in the evenings for relaxation. A story entitled "Rider from Nowhere" was published serially in the popular adventure magazine Argosy that year, and four years later a revised and expanded version was published in hardcover, by Houghton Mifflin, as Shane. In view of the modest origins of this first work, its subsequent success is all the more remarkable. The novel has sold well over six million copies, exceeding eighty editions in some thirty languages. It remains a perennial seller. The opening lines of Shane exhibit the directness and clarity of Schaefer's mature style. The narrative begins: He rode into our valley in the summer of '89. I was a kid then, barely topping the backboard of father's old chuck-wagon. . . . In that clear Wyoming air I could see him plainly, though he was still several miles away. There seemed nothing remarkable about him, just another stray horseman riding up the road toward the cluster of frame buildings that was our town. Then I saw a pair of cowhands, loping past him, stop and stare after him with a curious intentness. Observe that Schaefer begins with the narrator's adult perspective, but quickly shifts to the man's vivid recollection of himself as a boy, at a specific moment in the past. By this device, the boy's thoughts and feelings are brought close to the surface, while the man he would become is telling the tale. The special poignancy of Shane derives, in large part, from this dual perspective. In these opening lines and in the passage immediately following, Schaefer conveys, through keenly observed details, the growing fascination and admiration inspired in the boy (love, heroism) by the mysterious stranger. As Shane approaches on horseback, the boy is first struck by the appearance of his clothes: the "dark trousers of some serge material," the matching coat "neatly folded and strapped to his saddle-roll," the shirt of "finespun linen, rich brown in color," the handkerchief of black silk "knotted loosely around his throat," and the hat, unlike any he had ever seen, "plain black, soft in texture . . . with a creased crown and a wide curling brim swept down in front to shield the face." As the narrator recalls: All trace of newness was long since gone from these things. The dust of distance was beaten into them. They were worn and stained and several neat patches showed on the shirt. Yet a kind of magnificence remained and with it a hint of men and manners alien to my limited boy's experience. The boy's attention then shifts from these details of attire to the man himself. Shane's steely alertness--as he surveys the homestead where young Bob lives with his parents--unnerves the boy, sending a "sudden chill" through him. But the stranger's first words, asking permission to use the water pump for himself and his horse, dispel all fear. To Bob, the mysterious visitor's voice sounds gentle, bespeaking "a man schooled to patience"--a quality sure to win a boy's heart. (love, heroism) The theme Schaefer has begun to delineate in these opening paragraphs is one to which he will return in later tales: the formative influence a heroic figure has upon the young. The plot of Shane is a simple one. The refined stranger who has happened upon the Starrett homestead, we discover, is a virtuous gunfighter who is attempting to begin a new life (freedom). When Joe Starrett, Bob's father, invites him to stay on as a hired hand, he agrees, having learned from Joe that the previous hand had been run off by Fletcher, the powerful and unscrupulous rancher vying for land with the homesteaders in the area. The trust Joe places in Shane helps to forge an uncommon bond of friendship between the two men, which inevitably embroils Shane in the escalating conflict. Several subplots lend added depth to the story. The most important involves the growing attraction Marian Starrett and Shane feel for each other, notwithstanding her deep love for Joe and Shane's loyalty toward him. (love, family relationship) In the end, however, it is Bob's unwavering love and admiration for Shane (and Shane's tender feeling for him) that is the heart of the story, as is evident in such lines as these, found at critical points throughout: For all his dark appearance and lean and hard look, this Shane knew what would please a boy. . . . [M]y heart ached for him. . . . Love for that man raced through me. . . . and I was so proud of being there with him that I could not keep the tears from my eyes. . . . He knew what goes on in a boy's mind and what can help him stay clean inside through the muddled, dirtied years of growing up. A surprising number of critics have failed to appreciate the significance of this focus. Yet, precisely because the story's perspective seems ideally suited to young readers, Shane is mistakenly marketed as "young adult" fiction by its paperback publisher. It is also widely taught on the junior high school level. But Schaefer did not intend the novel primarily for adolescents--it is an adult novel, and is most fully appreciated by those who bring to it a deeper experience of life. Not all adult readers are entirely comfortable with the novel's open sentiment, evident in the lines quoted above. In my view, however, the narration and dialogue throughout are entirely appropriate to both the characters and the events. Given that the narrator had been an unusually aware and sensitive child, the memory of Shane would inspire in him precisely the sort of language in which the tale is told. For many readers, Shane strikes a deep personal chord. In his Foreword to the critical edition of the novel, for example, western historian Marc Simmons declares: "Shane has been an almost lifelong companion. I return to it whenever I need a bit of inspiration or a boost of energy." For him, as for countless others, the book's message is "as deep and vital as the man it describes." [See Simmons's "A Salute to Shane."] [Excerpted from Louis Torres, "Jack Schaefer, Teller of Tales," Part I, Aristos, October 1996; Shane By Jack Schaefer, 1949, Western Fiction <http://www.likesbooks.com/desert.gif> My all-time favorite romance is somewhat unusual. It's a book called Shane written by Jack Schaefer back in 1949. Most people might say, "Hey, that's not a romance, that's a western." (love, heroism) But this book is about a very powerful love triangle, and yes, it's true, it is a western and the hero and the heroine don't end up together at the end. But I learned an awful lot about creating a romantic hero from this book. (And I've gone on to win RT's W.I.S.H. award for six of my last seven books!) Here's the premise: Joe and Marion Starrett are farmers, one family in a group of homesteaders who have fenced off and built a home on the range. As to be expected, the cattle barons who, for years, have used the wide open plains to feed their herd are not too happy about those fences. Trouble is a-brewin', and folks are talkin' about sellin' out and gittin' before the shootin' starts. (power and authority) And then Shane rides into town. Despite the fact that he doesn't wear a gun, he's clearly a gunslinger, and a durn dangerous one at that. Yeah, okay. The setup is pure dime novel. At first glance, it seems like a clear cut case of good versus evil, right versus wrong, good guys in the white hats, bad guys in the black. But every time I reread the book, I find myself intrigued by the multitude of layers Jack Schaefer has woven into this fast-paced, exquisitely written story. First of all, the book is written in the first person, from the point of view of Bob Starrett, Joe and Marion's young son. If Bob doesn't see or hear it, it's not in the book. But Schaefer is clever; action that takes place in town while the Starrett's are at their house is revealed to the reader through the out-of-breath words of another homesteader who witnessed Shane's run-in with the cattle baron's men. It's exciting and fast moving and a refreshing change of pace from the first person point of view. But that first person point of view is incredibly effective. Since Bob is only about ten years old, there's an entire layer of the story that he overhears and sees yet doesn't understand. And in his innocence he merely reports the words said, reports the emotions in the room, yet he doesn't label or judge -- or condemn. For instance, there's definitely something going on between Shane and Marion. It's a powerful thing, even though they're alone together only twice in the entire book. Whatever they feel is never acted on, barely even spoken of, yet it's always there, between them. And it's between them and Marion's husband, Joe, too. (love) Joe knows quite well about the feelings between Shane, the man who has become his trusted friend, and his beloved wife. He knows, and being the man he is, he even understands. It's an odd love triangle, and one to be admired because all three characters are so thoroughly honorable. If there were ever a college course on Romance Heroes 101, Shane would surely be required reading. Joe Starrett is as much a hero as Shane is -- they are merely two different types. If I were casting Shane: The Movie , I'd choose Mel Gibson for the part of Joe. Joe is the good, sturdy, honest hero, quick to smile and filled with a love of life. And as for Shane himself, well, that would have to be Ralph Fiennes. Quiet and mysterious, Shane is the brooding hero, tortured by the darkness that never fails to invade his life. The fact that the emotion and attraction between Shane and Marion are never acted upon and barely spoken of leaves the reader with a sense of the bittersweet. But that's mostly on Shane's part. After all, Marion's left with Mel Gibson -- you can't feel too bad for her! But the book is called Shane , and it's Shane who leaves me breathless even after countless readings. Jack Schaefer leaves me breathless, too -- for creating such a perfect romantic hero. Shane is a multifaceted, complicated man, filled with countless contradictions. Each time I read the book, I am struck by how effortlessly Schaefer has created such a hero without ever writing from Shane's point of view! (heroism) Each time I set out to create a dark, tormented hero of my own, I think about Shane, and about the way Schaefer could evoke from the reader such emotions as admiration, respect, and -- by the time the book ends -- sheer adoration for a man who was a hired killer. Shane is a fabulous blend of God and Superhero, but his suffering is pure mortal human. And it's that humanity, that anguish over the struggle to do right when every cell in his body wants to do otherwise, that sets Shane head and shoulders above the rest. If there were one thing in Shane that I could change, it would be Marion's pivotal scene with the apple pie. Surely there could be something else Schaefer could have used to show her stubborn strength and spirit. But since he wrote this book in the dark ages of the 1940's, I'll let it slide. (women in society) Shane is a book I read over and over. I keep coming back to it, and each time I reread it, I marvel at how well it's written. Give it a try. -- Suzanne Brockmann <http://www.aristos.org/images/%21alogo.gif> A Salute to Shane by Marc Simmons The following article was first published in The Roundup, the magazine of the Western Writers of America, in May 1974, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Shane. Reproduced by kind permission of the author......... In 1945 newspaperman Jack Schaefer developed an idea for a short story: a lone and mysterious gunman rides into a troubled Wyoming valley, befriends a homesteader and his family, and helps defeat the ruthless rancher threatening to evict them. The story grew in length and complexity as Schaefer worked on it nights, and the following year it appeared as a three-part serial in Argosy under the title "Rider from Nowhere." In bare outline, perhaps, the tale had little to distinguish it from the standard Western fare. But on examining it in detail even the most jaded reader could discern elements that raised this work above the ordinary. Houghton Mifflin perceived enough of this to take a chance on an unknown writer and in 1949 issued the revised and expanded text as a hardback novel. Schaefer had tinkered with his serial, added the crucial stump-chopping scene, and retitled it Shane, after the leading character. Four years later, when George Stevens produced it as an award-winning film, preserving the essential theme, creating starkly realistic sets, and selecting the grandeur of the Tetons as a backdrop, Shane was on its way. Now, twenty-five years later, the novel has been printed in seventy or more editions, in thirty foreign languages, and has been adopted in many high schools and colleges as a student text. Its success allowed Schaefer to abandon journalism and devote his full energies to writing fiction. To explain in detail why Shane exercises such strong appeal and evokes such deep response in so many people would require a book in itself, but a few of the main points can be stated briefly. From the beginning, Shane was classed by reviewers as a "psychological" Western, meaning that action and plot development served as a façade for the more fundamental interplay of psychic forces that roiled beneath. In school editions of the book, explanatory notes indicate that the larger conflict in Shane symbolizes the age-old struggle between good and evil, or between civilized and primitive life. And certainly this is apparent in the contrast between the virtuous gunfighter Shane and his antipode, the remorseless killer Wilson. The question of whether resort to a gun can ever be justified is answered by Shane himself: "A gun is a tool like any other, as good or as bad as the man who uses it." (power and authority) While the symbolism in Shane readily lends itself to interpretation in moralistic terms, the book contains an even stronger underlying theme--the one that gives it universality. This theme is also a timeless one--that of man's search for himself, of his efforts to tap his latent potentialities, and of his struggle to establish mastery over the chaotic forces of instinct and the unconscious that threaten him with personal disintegration. (freedom) To impute such conflict to a Western gunfighter, even in a well-developed novel like Shane, is perhaps too much for most people to swallow. But the tell-tale clues are there, sprinkled through the narrative like pearls interspersed in the beads of a rosary. Schaefer himself has disavowed any intention of creating symbols or of probing inside the psyches of his characters, but evidently once he started composing Shane the matter was outside his hands. As analytical psychologists have shown, a piece of writing, particularly one recognized as a work of art, may be laden with unconscious symbols that well up spontaneously in the midst of the creative process. The symbols and the extra meaning taken on by commonplace words and incidents can be discovered by a discerning interpreter, even while remaining hidden from the author. If doubters persist in regarding this as mere intellectual invention or pretentious twaddle, the matter is easily settled by a quote from the book. Young Bob, who narrates the story, describes Shane as "the symbol of all the dim, formless imaginings of danger and terror in the untested realm of human potentialities beyond my understanding." From this it is but a short step to the problem of Shane's inner war, hinted at throughout the book but never made explicit.(freedom) From the opening scene, Shane emerges as an uncommon man--in his personal appearance, his movements, his abilities, his character. Just how uncommon becomes clear as the story unfolds. Drifting through Wyoming Territory, he pauses at the homestead of Joe Starrett, who, with his wife Marian and son Bob, is having a rough go of it. Shane, since he seems to have no destination in mind, is invited to stay on as a hired hand, and the stage is set for development of his friendship with the Starretts and of his entanglement with their problems. The series of events that follow, culminating in the climactic shoot-out in the saloon, all serve to focus attention on the hero and to illustrate the details whose sum portrays a man capable of standing up to any crisis "in the simple solitude of his own invincible completeness." The thesis of the book, then, expresses belief in the essential worth of the individual and in the necessity for his separation spiritually from the mass, the only process that allows attainment of personal autonomy. Above all, Shane is an autonomous man, accepting the responsibility of the ethical decision and exercising a measure of control over events surrounding him. Rather than drift with the tide, he disciplines himself toward wholeness. He is the antithesis of T. S. Eliot's "hollow men" and of the average modern man, sunk in herd morality and feeling himself powerless at being caught in the coils of deterministic forces. When Bob gets a glimmer of what Shane is and represents, it awakens him to the possibility that man can become what he ought to be.(heroism) At that moment of perception, Shane "was no longer a stranger. He was a man like father in whom a boy could believe in the simple knowledge that what was beyond comprehension was still clean and solid and right." This is the meaning of the heroic exemplar to youth or to anyone else who cares to learn. (heroism) Such models have been held up for emulation in the writings of the Greeks, in medieval epics, and in modern literature. L'uomo universale has inspired civilized men in all times and places and created in them an awe similar to that felt by Bob when he confronts Shane, who is "so deep and vital in his own being," and who can so uniquely remain "cool and competent" under conditions of stress. Nevertheless, with all of Shane's attainments, he is still wrestling with the basic problem that besets any man who advances beyond the stage of a drifting robot: how to summon at will the enormous charges of energy that ordinarily lie incapsulated and dormant in the unconscious and to direct that energy toward productive purposes. Shane's difficulty, and it ultimately proves to be his tragic flaw, is that only under the shadow of violence can he trigger a surge of psychic energy that brings about total integration of his personality and results in the "wholeness" for which all humans unconsciously strive. Schaefer refers to this psychic energy metaphorically as "fire," and the meaning is clear. In the last moments of the furious battle to uproot the stump, Shane's eyes "were aflame with a concentrated cold fire. It was all of him, the whole man, pulsing in the one incredible surge of power. You could fairly feel the fierce energy suddenly burning in him, pouring through him in the single coordinated drive." Again, in the instant after the fight with the cowboy Chris, "the fire in Shane smoldered down and out." And later, in the midst of a brawl in which Shane is set upon by four toughs, the blows pelting him "seemed only to feed that fierce energy. He moved like a flame among them." Shane's attempt to gain complete self-mastery by releasing and controlling his latent powers through other than violent means is the element that makes him mysterious and incomprehensible to the homesteader friends of Starrett. Most of them peg him as a tinhorn gunfighter whose identity and manhood rest upon the power of his pistol. Yet Joe Starrett perceives the difference in Shane, and joins with him in that holy friendship that always holds together men of higher purpose. In the end Shane's personal conflict remains unresolved. After defeating the rancher Fletcher and his hired gun, he tells Bob that he must ride on. Of course, this is a fine stylistic touch and one that the book requires. But in his final speech, Shane gives the actual reason that compels his departure. "A man is what he is, Bob, and there's no breaking the mold. I tried that and I've lost." In a sense it is a capitulation, at least for the moment--an admission that he needs the stimulus of violence to reach the higher levels of human consciousness. This dénouement might suggest to the unwary that the mountain peak, which the hero unsuccessfully sought to scale, was in fact unassailable. But such a conclusion would be misleading, as it obscures the authentic message of this novel: that the trail to the top, win or lose, is well worth essaying. Shane is a complex web of allegory; the remarks here only scrape the tip of the iceberg. Since the story can attract readers in Arabic, Japanese, Urdu, Czech, and other exotic languages, we are led to the assumption that its symbolism transcends national and cultural boundaries, for it is the deeper meaning that qualifies a novel for universal popularity and for acceptance as a classic. On this ground it is safe to predict that Shane will still be read and enjoyed after time has ticked off another twenty-five years. Marc Simmons is an independent historian who has written numerous articles and books on the American Southwest. He contributes a weekly column on historical matters to several New Mexico newspapers and the El Paso Times. He was a long-time friend and neighbor to Jack Schaefer, and wrote the Foreword to the critical edition of Shane. |
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Literature Set Texts Links Know your texts.Audio and video tapes help but maximum benefit comes with interacting and knowing the text. These links may be of help to you. Section A. Poetry ... a selection of twenty poems. Selvon's A Brighter Sun (Novel) Bolt's A Man For All Seasons (Drama) http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/man-for-all-seasons.html Quite a bit of background reading. http://nauvoo.byu.edu/TheArts/Theater/studypackets/lesson20/bolt.htm Comments on The common man http://home.pacific.net.au/~greg.hub/commonman.html University of Dallas notes: http://www.udallas.edu/udtravel/england.htm ............................................................ Section B Themes: heroism; love and family relationships; women in society; attitudes to power and authority; freedom; attitudes to the past; dreams and aspirations. Shaefer's Shane links: http://www.nt.net/~torino/shane.html http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmShane02.asp General http://www.oberlin.edu/news-info/99aug/shane_celebration.html http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/schaef.htm http://www.freeessay.com/killer/english/shane.shtml Homepage http://www.aristos.org/schaefer/js-page.htm 2. Wyndham's The Chrysalids links: http://www.lowensteyn.com/litunits/chrysalids/ch7_17.html |