Post-colonial Literature for Children – EDU32PLC Week 8 Lecture 14

1. Post-colonial Literature for Children – EDU32PLCWeek 8 Lecture 14 Chinese Cinderella and Criteria for Judging Post-colonial Literature © La Trobe University, David Beagley, 2005

2. Criteria for judging literature Why? • All analysis is judgement. By interpreting and placing into our personal frames of reference, we choose, accept, reject, edit, measure and judge. What criteria? • Depends what you are doing with your judgement: • Review and recommendation • Argument to establish belief • Personal aesthetic experience

3. Criteria for judging literature Schemes of interpretation: structures and frameworks around which we analyse an item or idea Example - Four Approaches for Traditional Literature: • Psychological - dealing with the personality, emotions and identity of an individual • Structural - how the techniques of literary creation shape the reader’s response • Sociological - what can be understood of our own society from the elements and features of the story • Archetypal - the cues and clues that keep recurring here, there and everywhere

4. Criteria for judging post-colonial literature Post-colonial literature is defined by: • Its political focus • Its relation to current and past society • Its literary presentation Therefore, criteria could include schemes such as: • Literary techniques • Themes and ideas • Political interpretations • Historical aspects

5. Chinese Cinderella - Literary Structures that define this piece of literature • Auto-biography • Therefore 1st person authorial/character voice, and personal perspective • Non-fiction, prose • Chronological, yet episodic (non-narrative) • Reference to traditional motifs and symbols

6. Chinese Cinderella - Thematic Family relationships: • Parent/child • Stepmother/stepdaughter • Siblings • Extended family • Secrets

7. Chinese Cinderella - Thematic Personal survival: • Individuality • Identity • Resilience • Friends • Gender • Sources of strength

8. Chinese Cinderella - Political Post-colonial interactions: • Chinese - European • Traditional culture and expectations vs introduced fashions and formats • Rigid and predictable structures vsindividuality and personal whims • Niang as Coloniser of the family - exploiting its resources and making arbitrary judgements to suit herself and her descendents

9. Chinese Cinderella - Historical Period of immense turmoil in Chinese history: • European colonisation and exploitation • Japanese invasion • Nationalist/Communist battle for control Adeline as symbol of China: • helpless and exploited • but maintaining identity and resilience until the opportunity to assert independence arrives

10. Criteria for judging literature • In all these schema, an analyst must determine how successfully the work achieves its purpose according to the limits and nature of those specific criteria • The criteria are perspectives, points of view, from which judgements and interpretations can be made. They are possibilities.

11. Criteria for judging literature • They provide a structure, a vocabulary and a range of options that you (the analyst) may choose to use to explore and explain a piece of literature. • They are NOT mutually exclusive. There may be considerable overlap between the interpretations. • They are NOT the only possibilities.