L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between
Instructions:
1- Divide yourselves into 2 GROUPS.
2- Each group should answer 11 questions.
3- When posting your answers, don't forget to copy and paste the author and the questions you're answering. Finally, write the names of the members of your group.
Deadline: SAT 6th, October -12.00 p.m.
Critical Essays on The Go-Between
Source 1: Jay, Betty. “Method and Myth in L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between.” Studies in Literature and Language. Vol. 5,
No 3,2012,pp.1-9. Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture. Jan 14 2017.
<www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/viewFile/j.sll.../3469>
Questionnaire:
1.Read the definition below of T.S. Eliot’s mythic method. How does Hartley use this method in The Go-Between?
2.What is the brand new 20th Century for Leo Colston? How and Why is he disappointed in it?
3.What makes Leo’s experience in the adult world of Brandham Hall so damaging in the end?
4. Leo says that he excels in “his undertaker’s art.” What does this view imply?
5.”His aspiration leads Leo, in turn, to discover the terrible power of language…” (Jay 2). Explain what this quote means.
6.”Doubly estranged, Leo will struggle to decipher the complex exchanges to which he is party.” (Jay 3) Why does Leo fail in all the strategies he uses (curses, letters to his mother, sabotage, Black magic)?
7.Although he’s somewhat a snob, Leo Colston is unmistakably middle-class. How does he try to fit in in Brandham Hall and who helps him?
8.”Unable to comprehend these elevated figures [the adults at the Hall], Leo instead chooses to associate them with one of the principle structures through which he gives ‘shape and significance’ to the world.” (Jay 4) Why can’t he understand the adults? Which structures does he use to give meaning to the world?
9.How is Leo both like and unlike Icarus/ˈɪkərəs/ [Greek Mythology-The son of Daedalus, who escaped from Crete using wings made by his father but was killed when he flew too near the sun and the wax attaching his wings melted]?
10.”Although Leo undergoes a sexual awakening at Norwich/ˈnɒrɪtʃ/, his experience there also entails a more materialistic element which in turn, leads him to interpret the wealth and privilege of the Hall in a particular way.” (Jay 5). Explain this quote.
11.”The spiritual importance of the Zodiac, which Leo describes as his ‘favourite religion’ (Hartley 62) depends upon the female figure, the Virgin (or Maiden), and is therefore built on illusion.” (Jay 6) How important is Marian in Leo’s psycho-sexual development? How does she disrupt all his epistemological [Relating to the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion] structures? What event makes Leo try to intervene in Marian and Ted’s affair and why does he do this?
12.Why does Leo suffer a breakdown at the end? What elements contribute to this?
Source 2: Mulkeen, Anne. Wild Thyme, Winter Lightning: the Symbolic Novels of L P Hartley. London: Hamish
Hamilton,1974. Print.
<duneizum.ru/tuheh.pdf>
Questionnaire:
1.How is the book structured? What is Hartley’s aim in using such a structure?
2.”Leo’s childlike vision was unreal,.. Leo goes off [to Brandham Hall] totally unprepared.” (Mulkeen 2-3) Explain why this is so.
3.What does Leo think of the heat and why? What is the heat linked to?
4.What do Ted and Marian represent and why?
5.What’s the symbolism behind Leo’s destruction of the belladonna?
6.Which of the author’s favourite motifs do we find in The Go-Between and what does it mean?
7.What type of characters does Hartley favour in his fiction?
8.”Hartley’s novels are peculiarly experiential…” (Mulkeen 5). Explain what this means. What consequences does Leo’s experience have for him?
9.”…the choice of identities or ideals of masculinity open to Leo (to man) at the beginning of the twentieth century is inadequate…” (Mulkeen 5). Explain this quote.
10.”In the figure of Ted… Hartley explored one of his favourite themes: the duality of the natural,…”(Mulkeen 6). Explain this quotation.
