Faculty of Teacher Training - English Department
Course Title: Advanced English Language IV
Instructor: Dr. Rod
E-mail: sjrod55@gmail.com
The following I recommend reading and we will discuss it in class on Tuesday.
Optional readingFor Tuesday 16th March.
BARRY HINES: Kes
Barry Hines (1939- ) was born in Yorkshire into a working-class family. After finishing school, he had various jobs, among them as a teacher, before he started his career as a writer. He has written a number of novels and short stories which are all set in Yorkshire. The following extract is taken from his most popular novel, Kes (1969), which has also been made into a film. It deals with a working-class boy called Billy Casper, who comes from a fatherless family and is unloved and neglected both at home and at school. At the beginning of the extract, five pupils, including Billy, are standing in front of the headmaster's study, awaiting some sort of disciplinary measures.
When you read this text, observe the attitudes of the headmaster towards his pupils and note them down for yourself and later use.
"I'm sick of you boys, you'll be the death of me. Not a day goes by without me having to deal with a line of boys. I can't remember a day, not one day, in all the years I've been in this school, and how long's that? ... ten years, and the school's no better now than it was on the day that it opened. I can't understand it. I can't understand it at all." ...
"I've taught in this city for over thirty-five years now; many of your parents were pupils under me in the old city schools before this estate was built; and I'm certain that in all those years I've never encountered a generation as difficult to handle as this one. I thought I understood young people, I should be able to with all my experience, yet there's something happening today that's frightening, that makes me feel that it's all been a waste of time. ... Like it's a waste of time standing here talking to you boys, because you won't take a blind bit of notice what I'm saying. I know what you're thinking now, you're thinking, why doesn't he get on with it and let us go, instead of standing there babbling on? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? Isn't it, MacDowall?"
"No,sir."
"O yes it is. I can see it in your eyes, lad, they're glazed over. You're not interested. Nobody can tell you anything, can they, MacDowall? You know it all, you young people, you think you're so sophisticated with all your gear and your music. But the trouble is, it's only superficial, just a sheen with nothing worthwhile or solid underneath. As far as I can see there's been no advance at all in discipline, decency, manners or morals. And do you know how I know this? Well, I'll tell you. Because I still have to use this every day."
He brought the stick round from behind his back for the boys to have a look at.
"It's fantastic, isn't it, that in this day and age, in this super-scientific, all-things-bright and-splendiferous age, that the only way of running this school efficiently is by the rule of the cane. But why? There should be no need for it now. You lot have got in on a plate."
"I can understand why we had to use it back in the 'twenties and 'thirties. Those were hard times; they bred hard people, and it needed hard measures to deal with them. But those times bred people with qualities totally lacking in you people today. They bred people with respect for a start. We knew where we stood in those days, and even today a man will often stop me in the street and say 'Hello, Mr Gryce, remember me?' - And we'll pass the time of day and chat, and he'll laugh about the thrashings I gave him."
"But what do I get from you lot? A honk from a greasy youth behind the wheel of some big second-hand car. Or an obscene remark from a gang - after they've passed me. 'They took it then, but not now, not in this day of the common man, when every boy quotes his rights, and shoots off home for his father as soon as I look at him. ... No guts... . No backbone ... you've nothing to commend you whatsoever. You're just fodder for the mass media!"
He slashed the stick in front of their chests, making the air swish in its wake, then he turned round and leaned straight-armed on the mantelshelf, shaking his head. ...
"So for want of a better solution I continue using the cane, knowing full well that you'll be back time and time again for some more. Knowing that when you smokers leave this room wringing your hands, you'll carry on smoking just the same. ...
"Now get that other junk back into your pockets, and get your hands out."
He picked his stick up from his desk and tested it on the air. The first smoker stepped out and raised his right hand. He proffered it slightly cupped, thumb tucked into the side, the flesh of the palm ruttled up into soft cushions.
Gryce measured the distance with the tip of his stick, settled his feet, then slowly flexed his elbow. When his fist was level with his ear, the hinge flashed open swish down across the boy's palm. The boy blinked and held up his left hand. The stick touched it, curved up and away out of Gryce's peripheral vision, then blurred back into it and snapped down across the fingers.
"Right, now get out."
White-faced, he turned away from Gryce, and winked at the others as he passed in front of them to the door.
"Next."
They stepped forward in turn, all adopting the same relaxed hand position as the first boy. Except for the messenger. He presented his hands stiff, fingers splayed, thumbs up. The full force of both strokes caught him thumbs first, cracking across the side of the knuckle bone. The first stroke made him cry. The second made him sick.
Difficult words:
sophisticated
(here) trendy
gear
(here) clothes
all-things-bright-and-splendiferous:
allusion to children's hymn "All things bright and beautiful"
splendiferous
(infml. or humorous): splendid
cane
stick for beating
thrashing
(here) beating
guts
(infml.): courage
mantelshelf
(old-fashioned) = mantelpiece: shelf above a fireplace
junk
(infml.): useless things
proffer sth.
offer sth.
