A Taste of the language of
Literature
Texts 28 and 5
Lesson Objectives:
To examine two linked texts
Explore the form, structure and narrative stance
of literary writing
Comparative analysis
Context of Production
• Charles Dickens was one of the great popular writers of his day. Writing in
the Victorain era, he popularised ‘realism’ in his writing; depicting the
struggles of the poor and the tyranny of the powerful through vivid
characterisation. His writing is now seen as social commentary for the
Victorian era.
• Oliver Twist is set in a workhouse, a typical institution where poor children
would end up, working for the rich. The children were exploited and
treated poorly, often receiving meagre portions of food for hours of
labour.
• By the time James Berry had moved to Britain from Jamaica in 1948, it was
a whole different society in Britain. With the influx of immigration, came a
whole new culture of food and its availability. No longer was healthy,
nutritious food only for the middle classes.
• Whereas Oliver Twist documents the class divisions and with it the food
restrictions that poor people had to endure, James Berry’s poem
celebrates not only the closing of class divisions but also cultural divisions.
Exam Focus
• Typical Exam Question:
– How do the writers of these two texts convey their
attitudes towards and ideas about experiences of
food.
Critical Response Activity
Decide which overview best describes each text
Oliver Twist
The Coming of Yams and Mountain Honey
a. A social commentary about the
hardships of the Victorian workhouse.
a. A celebration of the coming together of
two cultures through food.
b. A criticism of the way in which poor
children were treated by the ruling
classes.
b. A criticism of the UK, through
contrasting it to the beauty of the
Caribbean.
c. An insight into how people in the
Victorian era lived and the food that they
ate.
c. A nostalgic reminiscence of the poet for
his home country
Write a short paragraph that sums up the significant similarities and
differences between the two texts.
Commentary
• Both texts highlight contrasts in society; for James Berry it is
the differences between Jamaica and London, and for Charles
Dickens it is the contrast between rich and poor.
• The texts are very different in their tone and mood. James
Berry’s poem is very much a celebration that two cultures can
come together despite being worlds apart and can combine
successfully. However, for Charles Dickens the contrast
between rich and poor is a division that cannot be closed;
illustrated by the difficulty in communication between the
poor Oliver and the rich Mr Bumble.
Key Terms - Narrative
• Stance – the position and attitude adopted by the narrator
towards the events described or narrated
• Persona – a narrator or voice created by a writer (in prose or
verse) who is different from the writer himself
• Omniscient narrator – a narrator who has a complete
overview of the story and can move freely between different
characters and scenes with full knowledge of what happens
Narrative
Stance
Explanation
First Person:
author
The author writes as himself using
the first person
First Person:
persona
The author creates a character
(persona) from whose first-person
point of view the story is told
Third Person:
omniscient
An all-knowing author is not
directly present in the story but
simply relates it – and has access
to the thoughts and feelings of all
the main characters
Third Person:
indirect/
restricted
The author uses the third person
but only to express the inner
feelings and point of view of some
characters – perhaps even just
one.
Example
Form
In poetry:
• what genre of poem is it? (sonnet, ballad...)
• How is the poem broken down into stanzas?
• Is there a regular pattern (length, rhyme,
metre) being followed?
In prose narrative:
• what genre of prose is it?
• was it written as a single text or produced in
instalments?
• what is the narrative stance of the story?
• how is the text broken down into chapters and
other sections?
• how are the three elements of narrative
employed (narration – description – dialogue)?
In drama:
• what genre of drama is it?
• How is it organised into acts and scenes?
• what use is made of dialogue, monologue,
soliloquy and other dramatic methods to tell the
story?
Structure
All kinds of literary text:
• How does the text start?
• What kind of sequence does the text
follow? Does it:
- develop an idea logically, like an
argument?
- include any digressions or diversions?
If a narrative, does it:
- tell a story in chronological sequence?
- use flashbacks and other devices that
break away from this order?
• How does each stage of the text relate to
the previous one and lead on to what comes
next?
• Where are the points of real tension, crisis
and climax, and how are they resolved?
• How does the end conclude or resolve the
previous ideas and problems?
Oliver Twist
The Coming of Yams
How many paragraphs/ sections is the
extract divided into?
How many stanzas are in the poem and how
many lines are in each stanza? Is there a
pattern?
How evenly is description and dialogue
distributed?
Is there a rhyme pattern of any sort?
Are there any moments of tension and if so
is there anything noticeable about the
paragraph lengths or the sentence lengths?
How does the structure of the poem relate
to any of the feelings and attitudes being
explore?
Oliver Twist
The Coming of the Yams
Set in two main sections; first of all a description
of the room and the boys – to emphasis the
hunger and desperation of the inhabitants of the
workhouse. Secondly, the description of the
action that takes place when Oliver asks for
more...
12 stanzas, 45 lines in total – unequal amount of
lines in each stanza
More description than dialogue. After each
section of dialogue there is more description.
No rhyme pattern
Repetition of the phrase – ‘please sir I want some
more’ emphasises the need for more on Oliver’s
part and the shock at hearing such as phrase on
the part of the master.
The structure is irregular. This could reflect the
displacement felt by the narrator. It could signify
the ‘irregularity’ of seeing such bright sun ripened
colours among the typical London scenery.
Critical Response Activity
• You already have lots of notes on the two texts and are almost ready to do
the exam question. There’s still more to organise though...
• In the exam you only have 45 minutes to write about the texts. This isn’t
enough time to write about EVEYTHING in both texts
• You still need to talk about language and style, so from the list, your task is
to select the most significant features of each text – place them in rank
order
Oliver Twist
Feature
The Coming of the Yams
Rank
order
Feature
Sibilance used in lines 12 – 13
Alliteration and sibilance on line 1
Animalistic imagery to describe
the boys’ hunger
Semantic field of unusual
Caribbean fruits
The description of the master
compared with the description
of the hungry boys
Sensory Images
The use of verbs to create
atmosphere
The tone change in stanza 9
Syntactic parallelism
The imperative used in the
penultimate stanza which
addresses the reader directly
Repetition of the word ‘bowl’
Metaphors
Rank
order
You should now be ready to write a
response
• How do the writers of the two texts convey
attitudes towards and ideas about
experiences of food.