The radicals chose their attire to differentiate themselves from their social peers. The unique social position of the radical community created the desire for unique appearance (16).
\noindent Thus Bazarov's indignant declaration, “I don't share anyone's opinion: I have my own!” (53), can be taken as a true declaration of ideological independence or as an expression of his desire for such originality. To avoid such a dilemma, it is possible to look for indications that Bazarov cares about how he is perceived by others, even if the image he projects is not one which is accepted in mainstream society. We can also examine Bazarov for signs of a desire to be accepted by others at all; such a desire would indicate that Bazarov is not simply a lone intellectual, but actually cares about his social role. Upon investigation, it seems that not only does Bazarov want acceptance, but he is quite good at pursuing it.
Bazarov fits well into Brower's demographic breakdown of a typical nihilist. The son of a doctor, and thus a member of the “honorary nobility” (Brower 44), he was also the son of upwardly mobile ancestors: his paternal grandfather was a peasant (39). While such students were not as well represented within the radical movement as were hereditary nobility, they still comprised a fair proportion, according to Brower. Bazarov was a student at the medical school, a center for the radical movement. (footnote - This central role played by the Petersburg medical school can also be seen in radical literature, such as Chernyshevsky's {\em What is to be Done?} which used medical students as central characters, and models for the “New People”.)
Bazarov's appearance and manner also differs quite drastically from those around him: he wears a Slavophile jacket, long hair and side whiskers, and has a “lazy” voice (6). When he fails to offer his hand immediately to Nikolai Kirsanov (6), Arkady explains that Bazarov is “simple” and not one with whom to “stand on ceremony” (7). Bazarov thus essentially concurs in appearance and manner with that of Brower's radicals (Brower 16). (footnote - A difference worth some note is that Brower describes radicals as generally wearing working class clothes, such as coveralls; however, Bazarov's long tasselled jacket conveys essentially the same show of solidarity with the Russian people, as well as shock value.)
To address the question of Bazarov's motivations for joining the radical movement, it is best to start by examining his attention to social dynamics to determine whether he actually was a lone intellectual; Brower's typical radical cares more for social matters than ideology, and should thus seem socially conscious (Brower 18--19, and others). At first blush, Bazarov simply seems maladroit: he manages to dominate every scene unintentionally, interrupting Arkady's conversation with his father to ask him for a light for his pipe (11) and becoming the center of attention upon his entrance, his intellectual powers overwhelming everyone around him. At first meeting, Bazarov is portrayed as unquestionably intelligent and self-confident, even from the phrenological evidence of the “prominent bulges in his capacious skull” (6). Except with Odintsova, he wins all of his arguments by using much fewer words than his opponent, as Arkady complains of (35). Similarly, during an argument with Bazarov, Pavel becomes visibly intimidated, as his lip trembles (37). It seems that Bazarov lacks both a sense of tact and the ability to use social situations to his advantage. On several occasions, he pushes his points with Arkady, even after it is obvious that the latter has become angry: in criticizing Arkady's father's lack of practicality (14), laughing at the fact that Arkady's father plays the cello at the age of 44 (34), and remarking upon the sad state of the family farm (33). Bazarov continually disparages Arkady on points of disagreement, with leading comments such as “So you still attach significance to marriage; I never expected that from you.” (33). Arkady seems so obviously intolerant of these remarks that one wonders why Arkady wanted Bazarov as a friend at all.
Bazarov's treatment of Pavel and Arkady seems initially puzzling, as though he were either unaccustomed to argument, or didn't much care about the opinions of Pavel and Arkady. The first possibility seems unlikely, as we know that Bazarov has at least two “disciples”, and so must have “converted” them through persuasion somehow. The second possibility seems more likely; Bazarov might realize that Pavel Kirsanov is a lost cause, and might take Arkady's allegiance to him for granted. We see here an elucidation of Turgenev's use of Arkady and Pavel, as foils for Bazarov. Arkady plays the role of the “faithful side-kick” who will remain loyal to Bazarov to the end, regardless of the latter's treatment of him, or so the reader might believe. Pavel, meanwhile, is a man of the 1840's; like Bazarov, he portrays himself as having been formed from the dominant philosophy of his youth, Sentimentalism, and yet is not as entirely committed to it as he professes. A former social lion, he would have likely played a role quite to Bazarov's dominant one; their roles, parallel in time, explain much of their intense rivalry, as Pavel becomes insecure that his jokes have started to fall flat (19, 20) and that Bazarov might dare dislike him (34). (footnote - The parallels between Bazarov and Pavel are manifold, and would alone provide enough material for a paper. Additional parallels become evident later in the book, such as their eventual tragic love for a mysterious or inscrutable woman.)
Bazarov's attitude to those he respects but who do not agree with him is quite different, as he appears to ration his tact for them. He regards Nikolai Kirsanov as quite a pleasant man, but one with too many romantic tendencies (14, 32). Rather than confront him directly, as he might have with Pavel, he tells Arkady to try to alter his father's behavior, such as recommending the materialist book {\em Kraft und Stoff} instead of Pushkin (35). Bazarov also rations his attention, choosing one social encounter over another: he chooses to visit Odintsova who he is quite intrigued by, despite his promise to his parents that he would return that very day (62). Rather than being universally undiplomatic and socially gauche, Bazarov instead makes decisions about which people are worth his tact, and acts accordingly; in the latter case, his decision was even motivated by desire for Odintsova, as opposed to a rational basis. While this rationing of diplomacy may seem unnecessary, it certainly shows Bazarov to be more socially savvy in this respect than one might imagine. One might even argue (without any substantiative evidence) that Bazarov is intentionally undiplomatic and brusque in order to further his image as being independent of social conventions.
The idea that Bazarov is a lone intellectual is compelled by his reduction of everything to a rational basis; he even opines that he can't stand a stroll without a purpose (35). On the subject of love, he uses a physiological basis to describe the phenomenon, denigrating Pavel for throwing his life away after he is denied the only woman he really loved because one should simply be able to rationally override such feelings (26). (footnote - This is, incidentally, a clear foreshadowing to Bazarov's loss of interest after he is rebuffed by Odintsova.) Treating beauty as objective, he remarks after meeting two females, “There was only one pretty girl” (32). Throughout the novel, he makes many remarks objectifying women, who he claims (as in the conversation quoted above) are useful only for their beauty, in his rationalistic intellectual calculus. Examples of his objectification about: he sees no point in visiting Kukshina if she is not good-looking (49) (footnote - Although he ends up demurring, because he is told that there will be champagne); he claims that he does not like women free-thinkers because “they're all ugly monsters” (58); even after a long conversation with her, he describes Odintsova as having “a delectable body --- perfect for the dissecting table” (61); he tells Arkady that Katya is the real prize rather than Odintsova, because although Odintsova “has a real head on her shoulders”, Katya is malleable “fresh, unspoiled, timid, taciturn, anything you like” (67). Although these comments are made on a “rational” basis, they belie Bazarov's ultra-rationalist pose, by reflecting his desires for these women; Bazarov's “rational” standard is thus nothing more than his personal taste.
Upon closer examination, Bazarov's further sensitivities to the intricacies of human life are revealed, contradicting his pretense of intellectual independence: others find him attractive, and he can selectively apply social charms as needed. This social adroitness makes it seem unlikely that Bazarov is a lone intellectual, but is instead accustomed to being part of a social network. As Brower notes, radicals joined reading groups less for ideological reasons than to seek fraternal companionship while away from home (Brower 192); a typical radical might thus, when away from university, seek acceptance without discrimination by ideology, desiring companionship from even non-radicals.
His attractiveness to others is unquestionable. Despite not having known him very long, Arkady remarks to his father, “I can't tell you how much I value [Bazarov's] friendship.” (7--8) Fenechka's young son Mitya, who is often shy with strangers and backs away even from Arkady, is completely unafraid of Bazarov (32); the servants of the Kirsanov household feel as though “he was almost one of them” (34); Dunyasha, a young servant girl, flirts with him whenever she sees him (34). It also appears that he holds an attraction for a variety of women. From her first impression, Odintsova remarks that he's the only guest at the ball who interests her (57). Kukshina seems to pays him special attention, at one point moving closer to him and suggesting that the group discuss love (52, 54). Bazarov's bedroom in the Kirsanov household even becomes filled with his essence: a mixture of the odors of a medical-surgical setting and cheap tobacco (26).
Even in unbecoming situations, Bazarov makes a graceful entrance and adapts his behavior to fit social norms. When meeting the admired Fenechka, Bazarov alters his personality and manners to charm her, saying things which he would not have otherwise allowed himself to say, and would in fact have criticized others for. He acknowledges her superstitions good-naturedly, when after praising Mitya's appearance, he remarks, “Don't worry, I haven't given anyone the evil eye.” (32). In echo of her statement that she was in good health “thank God”, he begins his next statement with “Thank God” (32). Together with the above evidence of his low opinion of the female intellect, it seems that Bazarov does know that simply echoing Fenechka's chief beliefs is the most effective way of winning her respect. This decision was not simply made rationally; it was his desire for Fenechka which caused him to alter his manner towards her.
Splattered with mud and carrying a writhing bag, Bazarov encounters the Kirsanov men having tea on this first morning of his visit; he greets them and excuses his appearance with a flourish worthy of Pavel Kirsanov (19). Had he not responded so well to smooth over the situation, he may have looked foolish before Nikolai's and Pavel's opinions of him were fully formed; with his smooth greeting, he managed to finesse this potentially awkward situation into looking almost normal. This example also demonstrates that Bazarov alters his normal mode of speaking when speaking with both women he wants to impress and men whose admiration he wishes to win.
At some points, we see Bazarov regretting his behavior, further compelling the argument that he is concerned with others' perception of him and, like one of Brower's typical radicals, desires respect from those around him, even (and perhaps especially) non-radicals. In his second argument with Pavel Kirsanov, for instance, his face turns a coppery color (39) and in the middle of it, he realizes that he has been too expansive with Pavel (40); in other words, Bazarov finds it necessary to remind himself to restrain himself to one line answers.
Bazarov is hyper-sensitive to his peers' perception of him. While he pays more attention to the champagne than the conversation at Kukshina's (55), when he feels that his validity as an independent thinker has been questioned (in the conversation quoted earlier), he feels the need to interject, “I don't share anyone's opinion: I have my own” (53). His profound concern with others' perception can be seen in his first meeting with Odintsova. Although, as with Fenechka, Odintsova first intrigues Bazarov with her physical attractiveness (56, 58), and causes him to make insinuating remarks about her to Arkady (58), his first meeting with her is quite unlike that with Fenechka and is, in fact, a departure from his usual mode of interaction; he notices his embarrassment and thinks in astonishment, “Well, I'll be. Afraid of a woman!” (59). Bazarov makes a great deal of effort to interest her, and rather than start an argument about nihilism, speaks with her about less controversial matters (60). At his departure, Bazarov blushes and bows (61).
Here we see a marked change from Bazarov's usual attitude: not only does he seem to care about Odintsova's reaction to him, but he is ingratiating to her. As with Fenechka, he does not discuss nihilist ideas, but with Odintsova, he seems even to respect her intellect, discussing botany and other scientific subjects; his treatment of Odintsova does not take on the same condescending tone he shows with Fenechka. This reversal of his usual treatment of women demonstrates that Bazarov recognizes that social context and goals can predominate over ideology. Bazarov optimizes his strategy for interaction with Odintsova, allowing his goal of attracting Odintsova to determine his interactions with her, rather than being driven by his intellectual convictions about how an encounter with a woman should proceed, as expressed in his conversation with Sitnikov quoted above. Contrary to his claim that “People are like trees in a forest; no botanist would study each birch individually.” (64) this encounter shows that Bazarov must indeed believe something to the contrary. (footnote - This comment does, in fact, come during Bazarov's first conversation while visiting Odintsova's estate; it is nonetheless typical of his views.)
A realist novel, Fathers and Sons tries to portray details of its historical milieu supposedly without bias; we might accordingly expect Turgenev's portrayal of its young characters to coincide with a historian's view of a typical radical. Comparison with Brower's description of a typical radical reveals that all four young characters conform fairly closely with their historical model. Although the character of Bazarov appears to be superficially more ideologically committed to radicalism than his cohorts, deeper examination shows him to be subject to social pressures, despite his attempt to appear completely intellectualized and unaware of such influences; many of his actions appear to be motivated by a desire to please others and make a good impression, without apparent discrimination by their ideology. In fact, the effort he expends towards impressing women indicates that he is guided by desire in choosing the objects of his attention. Based on his attention to social dynamics, his hypersensitivity to how he is perceived by others, and evidence that his rationalism is merely part of a pose, it seems more likely that Bazarov would have joined the radical movement due to the “institutional force of the school of dissent,” rather than from the independent ideological motivation he attempts to convey to others.
References
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons, trans. and ed. Michael R. Katz. New York: Norton, 1996.
Brower, Daniel. Training the Nihilists: Education and Radicalism in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1975.
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Essay 2
Beginning with Elene Lieven’s review of the importance of the environment for language learning, discuss the importance of the social and cultural context where child language acquisition is concerned.
Environment
According to Elena Lieven, the roles played by brothers and sisters, and other children and the extent to which adults explicitly teach appropriate language to their children are important in language learning.
By ‘environment’, she means the characteristics of the interpersonal surroundings within which young, language-learning children spend their time whether dyadic ( mainly alone with the mother)or polyadic ( with other adults,with siblings,with a group of children). ( Mercer & Swann, p 36)
Theories of environmental influences on language learning have tended to be built upon the study of the mother-infant dyad where in actual fact most children in the world grow up in polyadic situations where they spend a lot of time in one of the following situations: with the mother and other sibling/children; with older children or others acting as caregivers; sitting around with a group of adults and children. This is not only true of children in non-industrailized cultures; in many economically advanced societies childcare arrangements may be less dependent on the mother staying at home with the children. (Mercer & Swann, p 36)
There are more polyadic patterns of childcare seen in rural, economically traditional societies. The children in Schieffelin’s (1985) study of Kaluli of Papua New Guinea spend their time with their mothers and siblings, while Ochs (1985) reports that, among the Samoans, elder children are set to look after the young child but usually in sight of the mother. Nwokah(1987), in her study of a rural Nigerian village, reports that young children are looked after during the day by male or female ‘maids’(8-12 year old children) while the mothers go to market or work in the house, and that these maids usually take the children to a communal space in the village, largely frequented by children. Bavin (1992) also says that the Warlpiri-speaking aboriginal children in her study spent their time in communal groups surrounded by other adults and children.
(Berman, 1985) reports that Israeli children spend a good deal of time with other children and with caregivers other than the mother. There are also subcultures within highly industrialized countries in which children spend the day surrounded by other adults and children, sometimes with their mothers and sometimes not.
All these children learn to talk and Slobin’s edited volumes(1985) describe the course of their development. ( Mercer & Swann, p 37)
Most Western middle-class children have mothers as primary caregivers. Most of these mothers converse with their children in a particular way: they adapt their conversation to the child’s competencies and needs, and they make frequent attempts to solicit the child’s active participation in conversation from a very early age. They are able to do this well because they know so much about their individual child’s knowledge, experiences, and language practices, and because they are highly motivated to engage their child in interaction and to show off her/his particular skills. This style has been shown to be conducive to the child’s acquisition of a number of important linguistic skills. With this high level of knowledge and motivation, mothers are also likely on many occasions to anticipate their child’s needs before they are linguistically expressed, to fill in gaps in incomplete or poorly expressed child utterances, and to preempt the child’s participation in talking about a difficult topic. This maternal style may therefore not be as conducive to the child’s acquisition of some other types of communicative skills. ( Mercer & Swann, p 38)
Social
Natural languages are constructed so that they do not depend on an extensive amount of shared knowledge or experience of particular events. But as Language is a set of social conventions designed to facilitate communication with other people who have acquired the same linguistic conventions, whenever and wherever they have done so young children brought in the maternal style may have a problem.
As they are learning to communicate and acquiring language as a means of communication all at the same time new communicative partners are constantly presenting them with new challenges that require them either to deploy their existing communicative skills in new ways, or else to acquire new skills that will help them to meet these challenges effectively. ( Mercer & Swann, p 39)
Therefore, children need to communicate with other people, even those with whom they share few or no common experiences in language learning.
Studies have shown that children talk in different ways to different people. Infants are selective about whom they talk to and four year olds may whine at their mothers, engage in intricate verbal play with their peers, and reserve their narrative, discursive tales for their grown up friends. By the time they are 8, children have added to the foregoing some of the politeness routines of formal adult speech, baby talk style, and the ability to talk to younger children in the language of socialization. ( Berko Gleason, 1973. p163-7)
To be a competent communicator, the child must learn to communicate in user-friendly, as well as user-unfriendly environments, and this is where fathers and siblings help. In order for children to communicate effectively with adults and children they have never before encountered, it would be very helpful if they had first had some practice with other adults and children with whom they have an affective bond and with whom they have a fair amount of previous social experience. Data have shown even though fathers and siblings are less fluent conversional partners for young children than primary caregiver mothers, they provide the children with opportunities to modify their speech for a less familiar partner. The communicative styles of both fathers and siblings require the language-learning child to make adjustments and develop a variety of pragmatic skills.
( Mercer & Swann, p 40)
Anthea Fraser Gupta quotes the following example of a typically Singaporean ‘checking sequence’ between a father and his daughter ( about 2 years old). Note the use of the ‘pragmatic particles’ meh and a in the questions – an influence of Chinese languages on Singaporean English.
Girl : Aunty wear red red one, the Aunty wear red shoes.
Father: Who wear red shoes?
Girl: Aunty.
Father: Aunty wear red shoes meh?
Girl: Red red.
Father: Red shoes a?
Girl: Yes. ----- Gupta, 1994, p 81)
Contrast the following exchange between an American mother and her 5 year old son.
Mother : How was school today? Did you go to assembly?
Son: Yes.
Mother: Did the preschoolers go to assembly?
Son: Yes.
Mother: Did you stay for the whole assembly or just part of it?
------- (Berko Gleason, 1973, p 162)
Both children, in their different ways are being exposed to what it means to carry on a conversation. Children are, to quote Hatch (1978, p384) ‘cooperative conversationalists’. And, as we have established, language learning evolves out of learning how to carry on conversations, rather than the other way round.
Halliday (1978, p1) has argued that “ A child creates, first his child tongue, then his mother tongue, in interaction with that little coterie of people who constitute his meaning group”. In other words, the child begins by learning what it is to speak like a child and only gradually experiments with other roles.
Here is an example of an older sibling who demonstrates social sensitivity to the communicative needs of his younger brothers. Two Singaporean brothers, aged 7 and 4 years respectively, are attempting to assemble a plastic skeleton. The older boy is aware of the need to use Standard English with the interviewer, but switches to a more friendly Singaporean English to address his little brother. ( note the use of the pragmatic particles ah and lah)
Elder brother : (to adult interviewer) I don’t know whether he
knows how to do it.
(3 sec pause) then to younger brother
A- all this are bones ah?
Younger brother: Yah.
Elder brother: All this are human bones lah.
As seen by the examples above, a child language acquisition skill is enhanced in a good social environment. All babies, whatever the language or languages by which they are surrounded, begin by learning what it is to communicate and then only gradually learn how to use human language to accomplish this. ‘ One learns how to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of this interaction, syntactic structures are developed’ (Hatch, 1978, p404) Therefore, language learning is initially a matter of learning the rules of social behaviour and only later a matter of learning the grammatical rules by which these are realized. ( Mercer & Swann, p 44)
Culture
Culture plays another important role in language acquisition skill. Bullivant (1989, p27) defined culture as a “social group designed for surviving in and adapting to its environment.”
Heath and Mangiola(1991) remind us, “ All cultural groups have some unique ways of transmitting background knowledge about the world and of asking their children to display what they know” (p14). That is different cultural groups have different ways of teaching and learning and different views of what it means to teach and to learn.
These understandings about culture were important for several reasons. It not only allowed us to see the diversity of children’s own interconnected talk and issues, it also removed the ‘awkwardness’ of ‘the other’ within the classroom. Language learning will be enhanced when we recognize that cultures influence children’s lives and thinking. Schools would then search for a vehicle that would connect home and school and signal to children that who they are is of value in school. (kasser, 1995)
Parents and children who come to North America from other countries have differing views about teaching and learning, views that are different both across and between groups. Many arrive with cultural belief reinforced by their own school experiences that the teacher is the source of knowledge, which she/he communicate to students. Studies indicated this belief in the transmission model crosses both cultural and socioeconomic boundaries. For many immigrants, learning represents the acquisition of a large number of facts through memorization. (Anderson, 1994)
Suzanne Romaine (1984,p164) summarizes a range of anthropological findings on different cultural attitudes to children’s talk, ranging from the Koreans, who (like the Victorian Britons) reputedly stress silence as a part of good behaviour, to the Samoans who treat baby talk as if it were a foreign language, to the Luo and Koya people of Kenya who are not responsive to the language mistakes made by children but do give explicit instructions on the social appropriateness of speech. The British and the Americans appear obsessed with inculcating the social rituals of Hello, Good-bye, Please and Thank-you. Susan Ervin-Tipp (1971, p 34) reports a child playing with a toy telephone and engaging in a rudimentary ‘conversation’ which consisted only of hello, fine, goodbye! Kenji Hakuta (1986, p 112-3) quotes an entertaining example of an American infant who learned to say Phew! as a greeting because it was the first thing her mother would say as she entered the room and caught the smell of a dirty nappy. ( Mercer & Swann, p 44)
In certain contexts it is a matter of learning when not to speak as much as when to speak. The children of Trackton, a poor black American community documented extensively by Shirley Brice Heath, were explicitly taught by adults to be as ‘uncooperative’ as possible in conversation with strangers whose purposes in the community were not known
Eventhough it is noted that across cultures and political affiliations, parents, teachers, and other interested adults seek “the best” for students and their children it is true that both within and between cultures and groups is that there are fundamental disagreements as to what constitutes “the best.” (Heath, 1982b, p 115)
Cultural diversity is a strength for building powerful learning contexts, not a problem to be solved. Difference, not sameness, makes a classroom and society strong. The goal of schools in our modern global society is to create productive citizens who have marketable skills. The goal of education in traditional oral societies is for children to learn how to become human beings-to figure out who they are and where they fit in the broader scheme of things (Oleska, 1995).
Both goal are essential but to become a citizen and to lose yourself as a person is not acceptable within school contexts. If schools truly respect and build on difference, diversity can become strength for creating powerful classroom learning environments.
References:
Anderson, A.H. Clark,A. and Mullin,J. (1991) ‘ Introducing information in dialogues: forms of introducing chosen by young speakers and the responses elicited from young listeners’, Journal of child language, no. 18, pp 663-87
Bavin,E (1992; reprint forthcoming) ‘ The acquisition of Warlpiri as a first language’, reprinted in Slobin, D.I (ed) The cross linguistic study of language acquisition, vol 1, Hillsdale, N. J.,Erlbaum.
Berman, R. (1985) “ The Acquisition of Hebrew” in Slobin, D.I. (ed) The cross linguistic study of language acquisition, vol 1, Hillsdale, N. J.,Erlbaum.
Berko Gleason,J. (1973) ‘Code switching in children’s language’ in Moore, T.E. (ed) Cognitive development and the Acquisition of Language, London, Academic Press.
Bullivant, B.M. (1989) Culture: Its nature and meaning for educators. J. Bankss (eds). Ally & Bacon.
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1971) ‘Social backgrounds and verbal skills’ in Huxley, R. and Ingram, E. (eds) Language Acquisition: Models and methods, New York, Academic Press.
Gupta,A.E. (1994) The Step Tongue: children’s English in Singapore, Clevedon, Multilingual Mattters.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1973) ‘ Language as Social Semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning, London, Edward Arnold.
Hatch, E.M. (ed) (1978) Second Language Acquisition, Rowley, Mass., Newbury House.
Heath, S.B. (1983) Ways with Words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Hakuta, K. (1986) Mirror of Language: the debate on bilingualism, New York, Basic books.
Lieven, E.V.M. (1994) ‘ Crosslinguistic and cross cultural aspects of language addressed to children’ in Galloway, C. and Richards, B.J. (eds) Input and Interaction in Language Acquisition, Cambridge, Cambridge university Press.
Mercer. Neil and Swann. J(eds) ( 1996) Learning English, development and diversity. London: Routledge
Nwokah, E.E. (1987) ‘Maidese ve motherese: is the language input of child and adult caregivers similar?, Language and Speech, 30, 213-37
Ochs, E. (1985) ‘ Variation and error: a sociologuistic approach to language acquisition in Samoa’ in Slobin, D.I. (ed) The cross linguistic study of language acquisition, vol 1, Hillsdale, N. J.,Erlbaum.
Oleska, T. (1995) Communicating across cultures. Juneau, University of South eastern Alaska.
Romaine, S. (1984) The language of children and Adolescents, Oxford, Blackwell.
Richard D. (1996) Issues and trends in literacy education. Ally & Bacon.
Schieffelin, B.B. (1985) ‘The Acquisition of Kaluli’ in Slobin, D.I. (ed) The cross linguistic study of language acquisition, vol 1, Hillsdale, N. J.,Erlbaum.
Slobin, D.I. (ed) (1985; third volume, forthcoming) The cross linguistic study of language acquisition, vol 3, Hillsdale, N. J.,Erlbaum.
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Essay 3
Write an essay referring to Great Expectations and Fathers and Songs discussing how origins are explored through realist and other conventions. 1500 words
Approaching literature through study of its genres has always been important in literary criticism. In eighteenth century Europe, it was common to think of literature as been modeled on the classical genres of Greece and Rome such as tragedy or epic. However, towards the end of the eighteenth century a contrary view developed, this time, stressing the original and individual in creative works. But nowadays, most people would probably say that what is most important is the individual encounter with a particular work, rather than its classification. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 1)
There are several genre categories which ranges from tragedy, comedy, epic, lyric, pastoral and satire to novel, poetry,drama and Bildungsroman. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 9)
Both Great Expectations and Fathers and Sons would be classified as novels. Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) stressed the uniqueness of the novel as a genre in terms of its openness and especially the way in which its incorporation of other voices, texts and styles which has allowed it to reflect different understandings of the world through time.
In the eighteenth century when poetry and drama were already ancient, the novel was considered new as it has more concerns with everyday life (realism ).
Realism is a style of writing that seeks to convey the impression of accurate recording of an actual way of life in a recognizable time and place. It is concerned with the inner self, the development of individual life in its relation to the environment through depiction of detail by means of ‘a more largely referential use of language’. Realism in literature is both documentary and critical. It gives an account of the norms of the time, but it also stands above them. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 21)
Parts of the story in Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations (1860-1) were drawn from the author’s own life which make it belieavable.
According to Wilson’s 1941 essay, ‘Dickens: the Two Scrooges’ Dickens was fascinated with outcasts, criminals and murderers and had a tendency to portrayed with sympathy neglected children such as Pip. This was actually a cover for the deep pain and shame he always felt as a child- when he had to work in a boot-blacking factory at the age of ten, and his family were imprisoned for debt. It therefore, presents us with a recognizable world, a world we can believe in. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 14)
“ My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. …………… My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening.” ( 1994 edn, p3)
The novel opens with someone telling us his name and how he came by it and the fact that his parents and infant brothers are all dead. He then goes on to describe their tombstones, the churchyard and surrounding location by the river, and the occasion when he gained his ‘first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things… on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening’. By plunging us immediately into what seems to be one individual’s remembered experience of the world, the novel persuades us that this story is ‘real’. This is the common experience of novel readers: that we should come to believe in the characters and their story, even while knowing it is imaginary. It is also what drives us to read more of it.
Unlike most of the earlier authors working within this sub-genre who chose to tell their story from the perspective of the adult, Dickens rather had it spoken by the child or adolescent. His narrative is first person involving an adult narrator looking back over a considerable time and so able to exercise adult judgements about himself. It is important to note the distinction between ‘who speaks’ and ‘who sees’ in the opening of Great Expectations. The speaker is the adult Pip but the child is the one who sees. This gap is vital for the exploration of memory as well as morality in the novel and as it proceeds the adult’s narrator’s voice and comments play an increasingly important part in the way the narrative is mediated. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 138)
In other words, the first person narrative provides a realist perspective upon happenings inherently gothic, melodramatic or non-realist in implications. Insofar as we are brought to share the boy Pip’s viewpoint, we share his sense of the world as arbitrary and frightening; insofar as we are brought back from it by the adult narrator’s viewpoint, we are invited to adopt a more’mature’ position, noting the plausibility of the child’s and then the young man’s experience. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 141)
In this kind of narrative, the moral focus on the individual was central to the formation of realist fiction . It represents the inner workings of the mind, in terms of an inner monologue which aims at authenticity. The strong moral sense that pervades the narrative as presented by the adult narrator can be explained as a reflection of the author’s own beliefs. Dickens was conscious of the distance he had come as a successful public figure whose early background was a matter of shame to him. So when his marriage broke down and even when he had a liaison with an actress, it was kept secret to avoid tainting his public image. The novel demonstrates in the repression of desire and activitiy associated with Satis House, one cost of becoming a gentleman. At the same time it promotes a kind of moral and spiritual gentility. This is shown in Pip’s acknowledgement of the Chistian ideals of love and forgiveness, as when he watches Joe from his sickbed,’penitently whispering’: ‘O God bless this gentle Christian man’ (p 458)
We are likely to identify sympathetically with characters we feel we come to know over time, we also need certain memorable features established and repeated to hold a long and complicated narrative in our minds. Dickens famously created a profusion of characters for his big novels, characters vividly defined so that they needed no reintroduction. The characters in Great Expectations exhibit distinctive verbal and physical mannerisms to keep them in the readers’ minds. One of the most notable among the convict’s mannerisms in the early chapters is a ‘click’ in the throat when his more sympathetic feelings are aroused. (p 19)
The first shocking appearance of the convict brings into play another set of associations with this kind of novel. The narrator successfully mediate the ‘reality’ of this character to us because of the way Dickens presents the character. By making him not only something threatening as seen by the shivering child, but also something comic, as he becomes when mediated to us by the narrating adult. The initial conception of the convict suggests gothic melodrama, but it is melodrama incorporated within a subtle artistic medium to produce complex effects within the reader. For example, when the convict first comes into Pip’s view, he is like an emanation from the graves in the churchyard. He is marked all over his body by the landscape and he tells the boy he wishes he were a frog or an eel. He finally limps off towards the black and deathly gibbet on the river’s edge, which had once held a pirate, looking as if he were that pirate ‘come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again’ ( p 7)
The setting was familiar to Dickens from his childhood, and it was his custom to show friends round the Kent churchyard on which the scene is based eventhough they would see thirteen instead of five gravestone as reported in the book lying there. This reality effect in fiction is created not by literal copying of reality but by the use of certain codes of communication to persuade us to accept the illusion of reality. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 14)
Another example is the familiar reference to Covent Garden in volume II, chapter XV of Great Expectations which at that time was an area of ill-repute and prostitution.
( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 168)
The appearance of Magwitch links Dickens interest in Australia as a place where labourers could do well, although they also became permanent outsider. Australia was established as a penal colony in the late eighteenth century mainly so that England could transport unwanted, excess population of felons to a place, originally charted by Captain Cook. Abel Magwitch is the convict transported to Australia.
While Dickens was hailed for his descriptive observation and truthful perception of realism, he opposed the ‘literal and catalogue-like tendency of the literature of his time, preferring a ‘fanciful treatment’ of his subject, by incorporating popular or subliterary genres like melodrama, fairy stories, Gothic tales and romances. According to Q.D. Lewis,(Dickens the Novelist, 1970, p 288) Dickens in Great Expectations had a ‘freer form of dealing with experience’ enabling readers to move without protest, or uneasiness even, from the “real” world of everyday experience into the non-rational life of the guilty conscience of spiritual experience, outside time and place and with its own logic.
( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 167)
Dickens employs popular sub-genres in a way that tries to persuade his readers to accept that there is another manner of stating the truth at a time when the trend was to be ‘frightfully literal and catalogue-like’. Despite the gothic overtones of her first appearance, the illusion of everyday reality is sustained even in Miss Havisham’s odd environment by added details of her jewels and trinkets, her ‘handkerchief, and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer book, all confusedly heaped about’ before her looking-glass (p 56).
Miss Havisham’s speech in chapter VIII p 56 is patently unreal, the diction and rhetoric of melodrama, but we accept it because we are viewing her through the frightened boys’ eyes, and we have been prepared for his fanciful yet suggestive vision of things. The stopped clock, the wedding garments and the closed room seem melodramatic rather than realistic, but they provide an indirect expression of Miss Havisham’s mental condition, confirmed later by what we learn of her history. Miss Havisham’s gothic surroundings alert us to an understanding of her position beyond anything the young boy could see, although as the adult narrator informs us he ‘saw more’ in the first moments ‘than might be supposed’. Her evil intentions is conveyed to the readers eventhough the boy Pip is unaware of it. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 149)
Great Expectations can even be categorized as multi-genre with its realistic representation, Gothic overtones, mystery and drama. The novel can also be seen as a classic story of self-education, of the rise of a young man from his rural roots towards metropolitan sophistication. Pip’s Bildungsroman is the ‘antihesis’ of those well-known and widely read contemporary chronicles of humble perseverance.
There is universality in Fathers and Sons in the sense that it vividly illuminates the perennial concerns of all men and women. The book was popular because of its topicality- focusing on the burning issues of the day.
It was published in 1862, just one year after the most momentous event in the history of nineteenth century Russia, the emancipation of the serfs. The imperial decree liberated the peasantry from the gentry, whose lands they were obliged to till and as a result, loosened the entire structure of Russian society.
The events in Turgenev’s novel take place just before the emancipation, at a point when landowners such as Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov were being encouraged by the government to conduct experiments in economic partnership with their serfs in order to prepare for wholesale reform. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 176)
Fathers and Sons, now regarded as one of the greatest of nineteenth-century Russian novels, was in its own time, highly controversial since the arguments and conflicts enacted in the book stem from political crisis that characterized Russian society at that era. The Russian political system was so reactionary that any imaginative critique of Russian society was potentially revolutionary. So it is not surprising to see how the character of country doctor, Bazarov, commited to denial and destruction as prerequisites of progress could become a focus of heated ideological dispute.
Turgenev used definite forms of classification in relation to which his characters might be understood. Classifications under gender, age-group, distinction between those who believed in western European solutions to Russia’s problems and those who believed in Russian ones. These forms of classification are interwoven most subtly to create a sense of the complexity of human individuality in society and the world. Example Both Pavel Petrovich kirsanov and Bazarov have firm principles –Bazarov to uncompromising materialism and Kirsanov to ‘civilized’ virtue – yet both are also driven by a powerful sense of self. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 174)
The importance of character is central to both the aim and the effect of Turgenev’s novels. As seen in the first part of the chapter, this emphasis produces a kind of realism that raises its obvious historical connection ‘to the level of universal concerns’.
Bazarov illustrates one of the most important aspects of the development of literary realism in the mid to late nineteenth century: the shift in emphasis from plot to character.
He is a product of imaginative realism as a result of the author’s successful layering of type and archetype, the local and the universal, in the construction of his character.
‘Apropos of Fathers and Sons’, wrote that he
Never attempted to ‘create a figure’ unless I had a living character rather than an idea, to whom appropriate elements were gradually added and mixed in. ( Father and Sons, 1989 edn, p 169)
Turgenev went on to speak of the real life model for Bazarov as being a young provincial country doctor who had impressed him. The historical and cultural significance of Bazarov is most often related to the character’s self-proclaimed nihilism, the denial of all received values and a belief only in the liberating potential of scientific materialism.
( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 175)
The chapter goes on to look at what struck the first readers as highly topical- the account of new intellectual movements of the time. The seeds of discontent, sown by the nihilist in pre-revoultionary Russia, preaching a disdain for established values and a denial of absolutes. Most students embark on their higher education without an upbringing which prepares them to defend their values from the onslaught of these modern nihilists. Others like Bazarov, may have been raised in a pious family, but do not hold dear the Faith and the morals which have been imparted to them. Succumbing to peer pressure and to what is fashionable, they all too easily reject the ‘old’ in favour of something new, without testing it against Truth. Through Bazarov, Turgenev was able to draw our sympathy for his people and their problems leading us to face a ‘realistic’ vision of life, in which our capacity for self-knowledge is sometimes tragically contradicted by our capacity for error.
In constructing individuals who were also representative of classes, groups and attitudes, Turgenev was greatly assisted by the rigidly stratified Russian society. The strict division of the greater part of the population into landowners and serfs- the owners and their human property-and the moral problem that this division posed are issues that permeate the themes of Fathers and Sons. Therefore, we notice the first character to appear in the novel-Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov is a landowner who is speaking to a servant.
In analyzing the realist strategies of the chapter, we notice the use of historical and personal detail, the positioning of characters’ inner emotional lives in relation to an indifferent external world, gives compelling depth to the narrative. The sad truth that human and animal life goes on regardless of the sufferer in its midst is suggested by the feeling of the whole of chapter 1, particularly as Kirsanov experiences mixed emotions of pride in his son and sorrow that his wife is not there to share it with him. Hope and regret meet in Kirsanov’s thoughts of his young son and his dead wife, reinforcing the strong sense of the opening chapter as a moment suspended between past and future.
Powerful moods as seen here is a notable feature of Turgenev’s writing is used as a device to create ‘realism’, since it is in mood or atmosphere that we may be said to experience a sense of our own reality in relation to the world.
( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 172)
Finally the last part of the chapter explores one of the most interesting ways in which Fathers and Sons can be seen to be involved in comtemporary issues such as the representation of women in the novel and the turmoil of 1860s Russia. Most readers find Turgenev’s depiction of women very effective. ( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 168)
The long reign of Catherine the Great (1762-96) marked the beginning of a slow process of improving the social position of women in Russia by removing some of the traditional discriminations against them in education, law and the family. During the 1830s and 1840s Russian male intellectuals began actively supporting women’s claims to greater equality. The rights of women were linked to the emancipation of the serfs in a more material sense. The impoverishment of large numbers of the gentry by the return of land to the peasants created a very real need among many women to find a means of economic support which their fathers or brothers were no longer able to guarantee.
In Fathers and Sons, Yevdoxia Kukshina in chapters 13 and 14 is a liberated woman who is meant to be representative of the radicalism of the late 1850s to 1860s. She has ‘vowed’ to defend the rights of women ‘ to the last drop of my blood’. She has separated from her husband and plans to go abroad to study in Paris and Heidelberg ( p81).
The description of her person and household repeats some of the stereotyping of radical women found in most conservative writing. She is dirty and sloppy in her habits and
person but what is most important is her declaration ‘I’m free, I’ve no children’ (p81).
From a conservative perspective, this would be a death sentence for her.
Another example is Odintosova who was educated in St Petersburg at the centre of new thinking, her ‘reprobate’ father treating her as a friend and equal, which suggests that she has acquired little sense of the value of traditional authority. Like Kukshina, she engages in intellectual debates with men and more significantly she shares Bazarov’s nihilism.
Finally, Turgenev talking about his writing and about Fathers and Sons insisted that ‘to reproduce the truth, the reality of life accurately and powerfully, is the literary man’s highest joy, even if that truth does not correspond to his own sympathies’ ( Apropos of Fathers and Sons, in Fathers and Sons, 1989 edn, p 171).
Turgenev’s aim to reproduce the truth may be regarded as fulfilled in Fathers and Sons. The novel divided critical opinion, and in particular the figure of Bazarov did so in a way that no fictional character in Russian literature has done before. The book act as a lightning conductor for all pent up political energies that began to circulate once Alexander II’s social reforms were under way. Young radical progressives, whose spirit Turgenev has sought to capture accused him of travestying their zealotry in his portrayal of the sensual Bazarov. Conservative critics found Turgenev too sympathetic to the forces of revolution in making his nihilist hero superior to the other characters in the novel. These reactions illustrate both how powerful and problematical a self-proclaimed realist text can be in the Russian political climate.
( Walder,D. 1995, The Realist Novel, p 177).
References :
Approaching Literature: The Realist Novel. Ed. Dennis Walder. London: Open U, 1995
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans.C Emerson and M. Holquist ed. M. Holquist. University Of Texas Press.
Freeborn, R (1960) Turgenev: The Novelist’s Novelist, Oxford University Press
Lewis, Q.D. Dickens the Novelist, 1970. Oxford University Press.
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons, trans. and ed. Michael R. Katz. New York: Norton, 1996.
.Wilson, E. (1941) The Wound and the Bow. Houghton Mifflin.
