"The case of Peter Pan"

Rose, J. (1984). The case of Peter Pan, or, The impossibility of children's ficton / Jacqueline Rose, Macmillan.

I was introduced to Jacqueline Rose during the theory unit of my Masters degree. I quickly discovered that she is the person to quote for anything to do with children’s literature and her work is the aspirational standard. At least, apparently. In actual fact, I notice that while everybody references her, I have yet to see any in-depth analysis or comment on her work (though that may be because I haven’t read much). For my own part, I wouldn’t dare analyse her work - I am too far from understanding it. I have now read the book twice, and was pleasantly surprised on the second reading to discover that a few more grains of wisdom passed through to me. If I read the book about ten more times over the next twenty years, I might passably be able to claim that I have a nodding acquaintance with her ideas (at least enough of an understanding that only the elite might call me out).

The interesting thing about reading Rose is that, because she is the person to quote, there is a distinct sense of pressure to do so. Academia provides its own standards and norms for acceptability, subject to the theoretical perspectives espoused. And then, within children’s literature, you stand or fall by your ability to come to grips with Rose. I wonder how it feels to be in a position like that of Rose? Since I am not attempting in any way, shape or form to compete on academic terms, I have a temptation to rebel against received wisdom. The trouble is, Rose makes sense. I don’t understand her work, but I find it both compelling and exciting. My imagination fails as I try to ponder what it would be like to have a mind as capable of complex thinking as hers. And so, of course, I have to include her.

Unsurprisingly, Rose explores the use of children’s literature as an attempt to shape child development. She provides examples from the English Board of Education, demonstrating the change in stance towards children’s education across the twentieth century. She documents the ways in which the board explicitly set out to dictate the type of language that would be taught to children, with education style divided according to class lines. In the early part of the century, the privately taught, middle class child was encouraged to learn the abstract language of literature, while this form of thinking, speaking and writing was actively discouraged for the working class. The children of this (less / more fortunate ?) class were to be taught to think and describe concrete objects and ideas only, with written language being subordinate to the spoken. Amusingly, this strategy ultimately proved to be maladaptive as the century progressed, as a requirement emerged for a workforce with more complex language skills. But Rose makes clear the deliberate use of language by the government to differentiate and shape its people according to its perceived needs. Books were also carefully chosen and used as prizes, “with the book as a reward for a correctness which it is intended to encourage” (p. 105).

However, Rose does not stop at the level of describing the educational and economic manipulations of language and literature. She points to the desire of the adult for the child in some complex fashion (although, while the concept of “the child” is extensively analysed, I did not see much to define what “the adult” might be):

It will not be an issue here of what the child wants, but of what the adult desires - desires in the very act of construing the child as the object of its speech (p. 2)

For Rose, the adult has an investment in what the child represents; the child is seen as a gateway, making the child disturbingly valuable, not for and of itself, but for what it can offer to the adult. She describes a mythic concept of “the child” and its connection to “nature”, as described by Rousseau and others:

Children’s fiction has never completely severed its links with a philosophy which sets up the child as a pure point of origin in relation to language, sexuality and the state (p. 8)

Despite Freud’s work on the problematic and inherently deceptive nature of language, emphasis is, according to Rose, placed on the innocence and primitive nature of the child, setting it up as the gateway back to an apparently pure point of origin, not only moral, but linguistic. Rose suggests a desire for a perfect and unproblematic mode of communication and of being, in which words can have simple, absolute and non-deceptive meanings, with the child (conveniently universalised across all classes) being used as the representational aspiration to:

a primitive or lost state to which the child has special access. The child is, if you like, something of a pioneer who restores these worlds to us, and gives them back to us with a facility or directness which ensures that our own relationship to them is, finally, safe (p. 9)

Dawkins and Jensen both discuss the ways in which society may attempt to shape its future generations. Rose goes further, by attempting to examine why this might be so. More than merely a desire for the material success of a society, Rose suggests that her undefined “adult” needs the concept of “the child” as a bridge to something which it believes it has lost, but which, in fact, never existed in the first place.

"Lesbian epiphanies"

Jensen, K. L. (1999). Lesbian epiphanies : women coming out in later life / Karol L. Jensen, Harrington Park Press.

As with Dawkins, I did not pick up Jensen with any thought of incorporating her into my research question. But this is one book I am glad I picked up. In the back of my mind, vaguely, I could see the importance of considering child development theory in my work. It is a research area so far largely unexplored by me. Now, having read about the power of societal values and attitudes to profoundly impact upon basic self knowledge and identity, I realise that the question of the power of words is encompassed within a much broader and more complex picture than I had envisaged, one in which I cannot ignore the contributions of areas such as sociology and cultural studies.

Lesbian epiphanies of course relates to the development of sexual identity, and there is an interesting correlation with Dawkins. Dawkins describes the power of adults to shape the belief system of future generations, including for example, the doctrinal belief that women are the property of their husbands. Jensen’s work would suggest that such a belief is not as old fashioned as it may sound. She describes a complex paradox in which sexuality is perceived to be central to relationships, whilst at the same time taboo. The woman is “admonished to dress and paint for him, but is accused of inviting his attention when it comes” (p. 206). According to Jensen, the woman is encouraged to believe that sexuality relates specifically to the male, and her role is to fulfil him, rather than to seek fulfilment of her own, wherever that may lie.

I struggle sometimes to see exactly how she supports her critical analysis, but the picture presented is an alarming one, seeking to account for the fact that a surprising number of women do not even discover their sexual identity until after marriage. She uses the word “script” to describe the overall experience of cultural values which may influence the ability to develop self knowledge, creating an image of values as language: “The power of the social force to marry creates a script for women’s lives that is so powerful that their own internal messages can be, and sometimes, are, overwhelmed” (p. 206).

This quote represents a potential departure from Dawkins in that it explicitly sets up a tension between that which is innate to an individual, and that which forms part of the external “script” that the individual reads in an attempt to negotiate life and social interaction. More than merely imprinting the unfinished child, for Jenkins, social values can have the effect of actually overwriting innate traits or potentialities. This, presumably, is in fact the hope of many morally didactic lessons. And yet, without a great deal changing in the external world, events, relationships and ideas, both large and small, accumulate until for some at least, the “authentic” individual finally emerges from the social construct.

In my reading from years ago, one of my confusions related to the surprising amount of power apparently accorded to subversive literature: a complete religious upbringing and regular exposure to the Bible, could, according to many texts I read, be overturned in an instant by the mere act of reading Harry Potter or His dark materials. Jensen’s work would appear to suggest a solution to this puzzle. If the child’s innate nature is not simply created through moral and social education but overwritten, there is the possibility that the overwrite may not be complete. Fear of words then becomes fear of the fire that is damped but never fully quenched. The text of identity may appear to be successfully overwritten, but life is a hacker, and the never-fully-erased original text is forever in danger of being exposed, to the discomfiture of those who would wish it otherwise.

"The God delusion"

Dawkins, R. (2007). The God delusion / Richard Dawkins, Transworld publishers.

One of the surprising things about this study so far has been the number of times that I am given pause to reflect by works that I never thought of as being in any way related to my research questions. I start to feel a little like Francis Spufford as I discover that so much of my reading appears to connect to what is apparently a central question for me. And everything so far, including the original research ideas with which I naively set out on this journey, has so far not been the central question. I am nibbling at its outer edges and drawing myself, book by book, experience by experience, towards an unknown centre. Do we ever really choose a research question with objectivity? Or do we selfishly ask questions of ourselves and embark on a surprising and unexpected journey?

Dawkins, unsurprisingly, believes that the most important thing is to teach children how, not what to think. He states that “Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.” It therefore appears that for Dawkins, the child is not only an unfinished creature, but one that can be imprinted. Learning and identity do not necessarily continue to evolve, unfettered by the ideas encountered along the way, with each new thought assimilated and new directions and shapes emerging. Instead, the child is “vulnerable” to that with which adults choose to imprint it. Thus:

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.' The adage is true as long as you don't really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds.

Power, then, belongs to that which is most reinforced, or that which converts word into belief. And that is the interesting question: how does this process occur? What combination of factors must be in play for the word to become the [perceived] reality? Saxby discusses stages of reader development, suggesting that guidance is required to bring the reader to a mature level of detachment and critical appraisal. Perhaps for Dawkins, who is a firm advocate for the preservation of the Bible as literature, the power lies, not so much in the words themselves, but in the development, or lack thereof, of critical thinking skills. The difficulty, of course, for both authors, is the implication that the “adult” is highly influential in the extent to which these skills can and are developed. And is it ever entirely possible to separate the “how” from the “what” of thinking?

Faith as danger

Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong.

Richard Dawkins

Thought made visible

I wanted to write on myself so that I couldn't hide from how I feel about myself. I wanted to show I am not always strong, but strong enough to beat the darker thoughts in my head.

Michael Williams (re. self portrait)

Culpable language

What Barrie’s Peter and Wendy demonstrates too clearly for comfort is that language is not innocence (word and thing), but rather a taking of sides (one word against the other).

Jacqueline Rose

The language of creation

language does not simply reflect the world but is active in its constitution of the world.

Jacqueline Rose

Learning

Let there be no other book but the world... The boy that reads does not think, nor gain instruction, he only learns a parcel of words.

Jean Jacques Rousseau


Then why does it require a book to teach people how to teach?

The danger of thought

"Ideas are far more dangerous than any bomb"

Ripper Street