Compare and contrast the way love is shown in The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter and A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne. Pay particular attention to the way the authors use form, structure and language to represent love.

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Josie Frodsham

Compare and contrast the way love is shown in ‘The Magic Toyshop’ by Angela Carter and ‘A Sentimental Journey’ by Lawrence Sterne.

Pay particular attention to the way the authors use form, structure and language to represent love.

The two extracts reflect love in different ways for many different reasons, one major reason being their difference in eras. Whilst ‘A Sentimental Journey’ was written in 1768, and thus belongs to the post-modernist genre, ‘The Magic Toyshop’ was written in 1967, and would thus be influential to post-modernist and modernist writers alike (as we indeed know Laurence Sterne was). Devices used by the authors to portray the love within include form, structure and language and their differences and similarities with these aspects serve to emphasise the different types of love evident.

The form and structure of both pieces differs in many places. The first person narrative of ‘A Sentimental Journey’ true to its name, in many respects, walks the reader through, a journey with the writer and their feelings of forbidden passion. Stream of consciousness as a form of story-telling is evident throughout, with fragmented punctuation as tension builds – “I was going to accept it – but I durst not – I have nothing, my dear...” and as the dialogue is recounted. These feelings of doubt and worry shown in the broken clauses within sentences are reflective of the time, social etiquette forbid sexual relations prior to marriage and relationships with significant class difference between a maid and a clergyman. Yorick’s ordeal then, it appears, is to resist this fille de chambre who he has become infatuated with, and battle imagery reflects this “I found I had the battle to fight over again”. ‘The Magic Toyshop’ short sentences are similar to the fragmented punctuation of ‘A Sentimental Journey’ in the way they are used to build tension. “She could not move or speak. She waited in an agony of apprehension.” And the third person narrative from Melanie’s perspective helps us get a better comprehension of her thoughts and feelings. The love in topic in the two extracts, of course, is very different. Finn in many ways feels both casual and unrequited lust rather than love towards Melanie in ‘The Magic Toyshop’; it is harder to tell if the love is indeed returned towards Yorick in ‘A Sentimental Journey’. The first person narrative does leave the reader feeling biased to Yorick’s own point of view with no real idea what the fille de chambre was feeling.

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The setting for both extracts is also telling of the type of love each character experiences. ‘The Temptation’ set in ‘Paris’ in ‘A Sentimental Journey’ builds the reader up to a highly passionate example of love, or lust, as the case may be. The pathetic fallacy of the dark, damp atmosphere in ‘The Magic Toyshop’ “It was growing dark... through the mist, the blur of the city...” and the simile “like a sooty thumbprint” is also a hint of what is to come. The kiss Melanie experiences, her first kiss, does not live up to her expectations. However even Melanie ...

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