著者

北條 文緒

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大學附屬比較文化研究所紀要 (ISSN:05638186)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, pp.61-78, 1990

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This essay traces how the theme of time travel has unfolded in English children's novels of this century. I have chosen to examine some examples which particularly deal with the theme from a moral point of view, trying to bring into harmony the two worlds, the present and the past, and to show readers their location in the continuity of history. They are Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, Alison Uttley, A Traveller in Time, Lucy Boston, The Children of Green Knowe, Phllipa Pearce, Tom's Midnight Garden, and some books for children by Penelope Lively. Before considering each work, I offer a brief survey of the background against which the time travel motif in children's literature should be considered. One feature is picked out for special attention: in the transition from Victorian to Edwardian literature it may be observed that the Victorian sense of the solidity of the visible world is encroached on by a sense of the unseen, the sense of another world which exists outside time. I also point out that in some stories the 'other world' is the world of the past, a world which no longer exists but proves nonetheless to be as real as the actual world. In the discussion of the books mentioned above, my points are as follows: The Secret Garden, though it has no claim to be considered in the context of this discussion, is noteworthy, because in this story all the devices, or settings, of those stories of time fantasy written more or less with moral intent are present; the juxtaposition of two worlds so different from each other that people recognize the people from the other world as ghosts; the physical or emotional isolation of the children who are the main characters; the experience of gaining strength and maturity through meeting and developing an intimacy with people from the past; various objects which have survived from the past telling them that the past was certainly there; and finally the mother figure who has a close relation to the world of the past and who serves as a mentor and protector of the children. In A Traveller in Time and The Children of Green Knowe, picturesque and poetic images of the people of far-gone times are beautifully created, but nostalgic longing for the past (though it is an understandable impulse at the time when England was going through various kinds of transformation) is too strong in the authors so that, despite the fact that the children finally come back to the present-day world and take their place in it, our overall impression is that the children remain suspended between the two worlds with their hearts still on the shadowy figures of the other world. It must also be noted that in these books the children are not simply ghosts in the eye of the people of the 'other world'; they acquire their own identity by becoming one with somebody from that world. Tom's Midnight Garden introduces a new aspect by dealing with the nearer past, which still remains in the memory of some living people; the Victorian garden where Tom plays with Hatty is the world of Hatty's memory into which Tom is admitted. However, if Hatty and Tom meet in her dream, which is her memory, why is it that Tom, when he gets back to his own time, finds under the floor of his room a pair of Hatty's skates with Hatty's note saying she is leaving them to the boy whom she once met? Tom brings the skates back to the other world, and the two of them skate side by side, each wearing the identical shoes. This use of the two pair of skates has often been criticised as a flaw in this almost flawless masterpiece. My argument is that the pair of skates which has broken through, as it were, the wall dividing the timecontrolled and the timeless worlds might be regarded as an objective correlative of the intensity of Hatty's memory. The two pairs of skates stand for the independent identities of Hatty and Tom, ensuring Tom's firm footing in his own world while leaving him something solid by which to remember to the bliss of his midnight garden. The essay ends by making a brief survey of the books for children by Penelope Lively, who in her constant return to the theme of the past and the present is the most obvious successor of the above-mentioned children's novelists. It illustrates how such books as The Driftway, The House in Norham Gardens and A Stitch in Time embody her message that, while it is only through personal memory that we have authentic access to the past, we nonetheless must live in history accomodating all changes. The argument concludes by considering how the traditional devices established in The Secret Garden have been handed down, modified and transformed, right through to the present day novels for children.

著者

北條 文緒

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, no.2, pp.83-115, 1977-03-20

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This essay, which is intended as an introductory chapter for the essays on Godwin, Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, and Thackeray which I have already published, explores the social and historical context in which the so-called Newgate Novel of mainly the 1830's and 40's should be read. My conclusions are as follows: There are two categories of popular literature which were read even by half-illiterate English people and which seem to have contributed greatly to the conception of the protagonists of the Newgate novels. One consisted of crime news, ranging from penny broadside to The Newgate Calendar, the first standard edition of which was published in 1771. This Calendar was a voluminous collection of the accounts of lives, crimes, trials, and executions of notorious criminals. The numerous editions that followed made The Newgate Calendar a best seller throughout the nineteenth century. The other category is represented by Foxe's Book of Martyrs which, first published in the sixteenth century and used as a sort of companion volume to the Bible in English churches, became one of the most influential books of its time. To this category also belong sensational stories of the Inquisition and martyrdom which appeared in various Methodist magazines at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two types of stories presented by these two genres (one dealing with criminals, the other, with martyrs), always told in an impersonal, matter-of-fact style and illustrated by crude engravings, seem to have overlapped in the imagination of English people and imprinted there one archetypal image of the martyr-criminal or the scapegoat-criminal. It is this image that seems to have inspired the heroes of the Newgate novels, and it is worthwhile to inquire in each Newgate novel in what way this archetypal image is modified, distorted, or intensified by the idiosyncrasies of its author. What triggered the emergence of such progagonists in the specific period of the 1830 was a heightened awareness of the social evils which were generally

著者

ジョージ・ムア著 北條文緒訳

出版者

国書刊行会

巻号頁・発行日

1988

著者

北條 文緒

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集 (ISSN:04934350)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.1, pp.169-170, 2001-09-21

著者

北條 文緒(1935-)

雑誌

東京女子大學附屬比較文化研究所紀要

巻号頁・発行日

vol.46, pp.85-105, 0000

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The books with which this essay deals were mainly published in the 1970s. They were chosen according to the two criteria of literary value and popularity. To avoid the risk of arbitrariness and personal bias in the selection, two lists of English school stories were consulted: one, in a 1982 issue of the quarterly journal Children's Literature in Education, is a list of school stories published between 1970 and 1980 selected according to the above criteria by three specialists; the other is a list of representative recent children's books compiled by the well-known expert in children's literature, J. R.Townsend. For Japanese school stories, Nihon no Jido Bungaku Sho, 1947-1981 (.Japanese Children's Books'. Awards and Prizes) was consulted. This was edited by the staff of Tokyo Children's Library, whose collection is a good resource for a study of this kind. On the basis of these reference materials ten English and five Japanese school stories were selected for discussion. Reference is also made to several more stories from both countries. The difference between English and Japanese stories proved to be most marked in their denouements. Almost all the Japanese stories end in unqualified happiness, with problems solved, troubles eliminated, feuds overcome and bonds of mutual understanding strengthened by shared causes and purposes. The characters are brought closer together and matured or re-born through their experiences. The English stories, on the other hand, end on a drier, less emotional, note, and the characters continue on their school lives more or less unchanged. This difference may be attributed to differences in the two societies in the openness of the ego to the incursions of the outside world. In Japanese stories the protecting shield surrounding the ego is somehow less rigid, less dense. Private lives are more frequently intruded on, the characters, whether adults or children, more readily confront and confess to each other. In English stories the shield is far harder. The characters seldom intrudeon each other's privacy. Instead of intrusion, confrontation and confession we tend to find self-assertion and defiance. Two indices of this difference are crying in the presence of others and the game of staring out one's opponent. The former is almost always deprecated in English stories but is movingly described in Japanese stories. The latter, on the contrary, is encountered rarely in Japanese stories but frequently in English stories. Thus in Japanese stories, mutual understanding is more easily attained and united efforts more readily directed towards a common purpose. Teachers are more sympathetic to pupils and students and more willing to accept their point of view. All sorts of problems arising in present-day Japanese schools are introduced into the stories, and a dominant theme is the enthusiasm of pupils (or students) and teachers to create better schools. In English stories schools are more static. Problems are solved in terms of individual adaptation, and human relationships develop within a framework of strictly observed social distances. Paradoxically, however, what the English school story seems to lack in realism it redeems in such literary qualities as depth of insight, richness of characterization, and narrative skill.