6,5. Boekverslag door een scholier 2284 woorden 15 oktober keer beoordeeld. Elizabeth C. Gaskell Eerste uitgave 1851

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Boekverslag door een scholier 2284 woorden 15 oktober 2008 6,5 33 keer beoordeeld Auteur Elizabeth C. Gaskell Eerste uitgave 1851 Vak Methode Engels Eldorado Author: Elizabeth C.

1 Boekverslag door een scholier 2284 woorden 15 oktober ,5 33 keer beoordeeld Auteur Elizabeth C. Gaskell Eerste uitgave 1851 Vak Methode Engels Eldorado Author: Elizabeth C. Gaskell Cranford, Longmans, London W.1., 1958, 234 paged (first published in 1958) Genre: historical novel Place and time: The whole story takes place in Cranford, a small imaginary town in the north-west of England. In Cranford, all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. No man ever felt comfortable enough to settle in Cranford, because of the female society. Al the events in this book take place in the proper houses of the best friends of the narrator. The time this story plays is the mid-19th century. You can tell by the way people live, the way of transport and the polite manners of the main characters. Summary: This story is comparable with a small rippling stream. There are no great events that attract special attention. The story is written through the eyes of Mary Smith, she tells the story about the life of the women in Cranford. She doesn t tell anything about her own feelings or thoughts; she just reports all the occurrences in chronological order. Mary Smith lodges at lady Mathilda Jenkyn s place. Mary herself is not originally from Cranford, she lives in an other town with her father. In the beginning of the book, Mathilda Jenkyn (or Miss Matty for close friends) looses her older sister; Deborah Jenkyns. The sisters used to live together and this loss is a big shock for Miss Matty. From now on she doesn t have the help of her older sister anymore; she has to manage all her politeness problems by herself. But fortunately for her, Miss Matty has the company of Mary Smith, who loves to spend some months in Cranford now and then. Miss Matty has lost her older brother Peter when she was very young. He ran away from home after a fight with his father. Peter had always been a very outgoing, spontaneous person, but in a small town like Cranford, there is no place for such people. And Peter left England to go live in India. For a long time everyone assumed he was dead, till, at the end of the book, he comes back to his town of birth and to his sister Mathilda. Miss Matty was once in love with a man, Mr. Holbrook. She was very young at the time and when he asked Pagina 1 van 5

2 her to marry him, she got scared and said no. After a few weeks she feels regret, but it is too late. Miss Matty will always feel a feeling of loss and this is the reason she never got married her whole life. In chapter IV Miss Matty goes to visit Mr. Holbrook. He is now an old bachelor. He has always wanted to see Paris once in his life, so at his old age he travels all the way to France. But this trip is too much for him and he dies. Miss Matty is devastated when she hears the news. There is a lot commotion around Lady Glenmire. She is the sister in law of Mrs. Jamieson, who is a dear fried of Miss Matty. Lady Glenmire is a widiow, since Mr. Jamieson is dead. Lady Glenmire is a fancy lady; all the women in Cranford love her. In the end she marries Mr. Hogging, the doctor of Cranford. This marriage causes a lot of friction because Mrs. Jamieson isn t happy about the second marriage of her sister in law. One day Signor Brunoni, a conjurer, comes to Cranford. All the ladies in Cranford are talking about burglaries and they think the conjurer has something to do with it, since he is new, mysterious and they don t know him. But after the Cranford ladies have met him, he turns out to be a very decent man and his real name is Mr. Samuel Brown. And then the whole thing gets clear: there were no robberies at all; it was all a misunderstanding originating from the gossiping of the ladies themselves. Almost at the end of the book, Miss Matty finds out that her bank had financial problems. Suddenly she is very poor, that s why Miss Matty is going to live with Martha, who used to be her maid and her new husband, Jem. To earn money, Miss Matty sets up a tea shop, which turns out to be a great success. She also gets money from all of her friends in Cranford. It is really a happy-ending story: Lady Glenmire is happy with her new husband, Miss Matty is financially saved after the little crisis, her brother Peter is back, and all the other women in Cranford live along in peace. Main characters: Mary Smith: She is the narrator. She is younger than all the other women in Cranford. She is especially a dear friend of Miss Matty. Mary doesn t live in Cranford herself, but she lodges at Miss Matty s place for a few months now and then. You don t get to know her very well, because she only tells the stories about the other women, not about her own feelings of thoughts. Miss Matty (Mathilda Jenkyns): She is a lovely old lady, very friendly and polite. She also is a little insecure; when her older sister Deborah dies, she realises how much she needed her older sister in daily life. Deborah had a very strong personality, and she always told Mathilda how to behave in every situation. Miss Matty loves company, and after the loss of her sister, she is very happy to have Mary Smith over now and then. Miss Pole, Mrs Forrester, Mrs Jamieson and Mrs Fitz-Adam: Friends of Miss Matty and Mary. They all live in Cranford and come together very often to gossip, drink tea and talk about their daily events. Mr Peter Jenkyns: The brother of Deborah and Mathilda Jenkyns. He leaves his hometown to travel and to find adventure in Asia. When he is old, he receives a letter from Mary Smith, who asks him to come back home to Cranford for his little sister Matty. And Peter comes home just as soon as he had left it fifty years ago. Because of all his great stories about travelling, all the ladies in Cranford love him. Pagina 2 van 5

3 Signor Brunoni (Mr. Samuel Brown): The conjurer, everyone is a little scared of him first, they think he has to do something with robberies. But he turns out to be a very decent man. Martha: Miss Matty s maid, she is a very honest and friendly girl from the country. When Miss Matty has a financial crisis, she offers Miss Matty a stay in her house. Motives: No men, in whole Cranford there are only a few men. The main part of the society are women, all the expensive houses are in possession of the women of Cranford. You might even say that the women in Cranford are a little afraid of men, marriage and all things that have to do with men. (Pretended) fear of renewal, all the women in Cranford are happy with the way things are. They don t need new gadgets and they certainly don t need husbands. They think things are just fine the way they are, it is nice and safe. One point where this motive shows very clearly, is the moment where the conjurer comes in Cranford. He is a very good entertainer and he stands Cranford on its head. The Cranford-ladies act as if they don t like the renewal and the excitement, but deep within they are all very curious, with a little edge of fear. But out of politeness and fear to stand out, they all hide their curiosity and fear. Hidden poverty, There is one silent rule in Cranford: never talk about your financial situation. Everyone knows of everyone how poor they are, but the rule is that you never mention it. The Cranford-ladies don t have very much to offer, but they all have their own ways of saving money. Miss Matty and Miss Deborah for example burn only one candle per night, but because it doesn t look wealthy enough for the visitors if there is only one candle that shows burning-marks, they switch the light every fifteen minutes from candle to candle. So that both candles are equally consumed and it looks as if they always burn two candles at the time, this looks a lot wealthier in case there would come a visitor. All the women think it is very strange when a certain man and his two daughters (the Brown family) move to Cranford and don t do everything to hide there poverty. They talk about it very openly. I think this is an eye-opener to many of the women in Cranford. Gossip, All the Cranford-ladies come together now and then to gossip and to discuss all the novelties. These meetings are the main line of the story. Theme: Regularity and harmony Title: The whole story plays in Cranford, so that s why that is the title. Writing style: The story was written through the eyes of someone who actually stands outside the regular group of Cranford-ladies. You don t read a lot about the feelings or thoughts of the narrator, neither about the Pagina 3 van 5

4 feelings of the other ladies in Cranford. The story is told from a little distance, you just read about the events, not about the thoughts, feelings or opinions of the persons involved. The language-usage is very formal, the sentences are quite long and the words aren t always as easy. I think that gives the story a higher level. The language-usage fits perfectly with the polite, decent ladies of Cranford. Place in the history of literature: Elizabeth Gaskell was born in an outskirt of London on 29 September She was the youngest of a family with eight children. Her father was a Scottish Unitarian minister. Her mother died a few months after Elizabeth was born and her father got married again in 1814 to Catherine Thomson. Gaskell lived with her aunt; she didn t see her father very often. Her whole youth Elizabeth wasn t very wealthy and her future was very uncertain. She spent a lot of time at her grandparent s house. A big part of Elizabeth s youth was spent in Cheshire in Knutford. Later she would use the characteristics of Knutsford to invent the imaginary town Cranford. Round 1832 Elizabeth married William Gaskel, the minister at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel. He was a novelist himself. From 1833 to 1846 Elizabeth gave birth to six children. Elizabeth and her Husband rented a villa in Plymouth Grove, all Gaskell s books excep one were written at Plymouth Grove. The family had lot s of friends who were writers themselves. Gaskell died at the age of 55 in Holybourne, Hampshire in Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, was published anonymously in The best known of her remaining novels are Cranford (1853), North and South (1854), and Wives and daughters (1865). She became popular for her writing because of her friend Charles Dickens, who published her ghost stories in his magazine Household Words. All Gaskell s books were published in the Victorian era. Typical for this era were the kolonialism, imperialism and the social inequality. The literature became more romantic. Characteristic for this new style of writing were: intuïtion, emotion, spontaneity and imagination. Gaskell s style of writing contains a few points of the new, romantic view on literature. But most of her books don t really fit in this view on literature. Cranford is not really a romantic book, it is not very imaginary and not very controverse eighter. I think those are the main points of a typical novel from the Victorian era. And Cranford doesn t contain a very spontaneous, fictive story. (I ve found all the information about Elizabeth Gaskell s biography and about the Victorian era in the dutch Opinion: The fact that the story is told with a very objective view, makes is easier to read, because you can t get entangled in all the different opinions an emotions of the characters. You just read about the event, how it happened and that s it. That makes it easy to read, which is a good thing. But on the other hand it makes the story kind of flat; there is less depth in the story. The theme of this story is certainly not one of my favourites; I am more into adventure and books that contain a lot of unexpected turning-points. And Cranford is actually quite the opposite of this; the whole story is a rippling brooklet. But even though you would expect the opposite, the book is not boring at all! Pagina 4 van 5

5 The differences between the characters and the few events in the book, make that you don t loose your interest. I think it is very admirable that Gaskell had managed to write a book with such a theme, but the book isn t hard to get through. I really liked the differences between the personalities of the main-characters. For instance Miss Matty is the example of a loving, caring old woman. But her sister Miss Deborah has a very sharp, maybe even bitter, personality. And if you would look in this way at all the women of Cranford, you will find out all these different characteristics. I think that makes he story very interesting. In short: I would definitely recommend this book. It gives you a very peaceful and harmonious feeling. It is really a very nice book. All though you have to be in a relaxed and quite mood to enjoy it, because otherwise I think you would get bored reading the Cranford story. Pagina 5 van 5

Every Wimbledon tournament has twenty winners. The greatest tennis players participate in every Wimbledon tournament. The greatest male winners:

Every Wimbledon tournament has twenty winners. The greatest tennis players participate in every Wimbledon tournament. The greatest male winners: Werkstuk door een scholier 1671 woorden 23 mei 2005 6.5 42 keer beoordeeld Vak Engels Introduction & research question The subject of my assignment is Wimbledon. I play tennis myself, so that s one of