Ryan Coombe           

08 – 04 – 08

ENGL 123

 

The Novel is Dead?

The Great Expectations of Matilda

The Booker Prize author V.S. Naipauls was once quoted saying “The Novel is Dead”(Conversational Reading). This country as well as the world is more literate than ever, but society chooses to read magazines, newspapers, and blogs instead of books. Many people believe that classic literature is irrelevant to modern day culture and it has no meaning in their lives. Perhaps there is an alternative reason why these books are called literary classics and have stood the test of time. Mister Pip is a novel about a girl named Matilda living on an island in Bougainville who begins to read Great Expectations with her class. The novel itself was written in 1860 and its story content takes place in 1812, but Matilda finds this book to be more relevant than anything in her whole world even her friends and family. Novels and stories can be more real, powerful and meaning than reality itself and this idea is expressed thoroughly in Mister Pip.

Mister Pip explores a large variety of themes including the institution of family, the intensity and power of imagination and finding ones identity. Literary characters from Oedipus to Jack Worthing from The Importance of Being Earnest have beseeched the question “Who am I?” Matilda seeks the same answer in her own life on the island, but cannot discover her identity. It took the help of a fictional character named Pip to help her through her identity crisis. Pip is raised poor in the marshes, but then comes into much wealth but at the cost of forgetting who he is and who his friends are.  Matilda draws on Pips experiences and suffering and relates it to her life. She feels a connection to Pip and admits to feeling more of a relation to the character, Pip, than to her own ancestors (p.76).  

Great Expectations not only helps Matilda find herself, but also helps her survive and get through the darkest time in her life. Stories often serve as survival devices to those who face sever hardships.  In 1001 Arabian Nights, Shahrazad uses the power of story to keep her and her sister alive for over 3 years telling a story every night to the ruthless king Shahrayar (p.16).  Matilda with the help of her teacher, Mr. Watts, establishes that when everything is gone in ones life, one still has an imagination.  Mr. Watts said, “We have all lost our possessions and many of us our homes, but these losses, severe though they may seem, remind us of what no person can take, and that is our minds and our imaginations” (p. 123).  Matilda discovers that listening and reading about Pips hardships makes her hardships a little bit more bearable because she feels she’s not alone and that everyone suffers.

Not only are reading about character’s hardships helpful, but personally writing about ones experience is just as therapeutic and also a survival technique in itself. Ghost Rider is a book about the Rush Drummer, Neil Peart, who within 6 months looses his daughter in a car accident and looses his wife to cancer. He choose to embark on a yearlong motorcycle journey around North America and decided to write about it. Peart used the experience of the journey to get past the death of his family but more importantly writing about the healing process saved his life. The Diary of Ann Frank is another example of a young Jewish girl going through great adversary who discovers the saving power of writing and telling the tale about their struggles and sacrifices in hopes that their stories might help someone suffering somewhere else.

The Diary of Ann Frank and Ghost Rider are true stories about life and loss, but Great Expectations and Mister Pip are works of literary fiction. There are those who believe in storytelling as pure forms of entertainment and not educational. Matilda’s mother would have approved of her reading Ghost Rider or The Diary of Ann Frank because those stories actually occurred, but she would have no regard for fiction because it was “made up.” Dolores, Matilda’s mum, believes in only one book, the Bible. However the Bible is a story. It has real people and factual events but it is a story nonetheless. The same lessons can be extracted from the bible as can be taken from any novel. Pip never existed along with Matilda, but does that make the story and the message any less meaningful? If The Diary of Ann Frank was discovered to be farce and without truth, does it make the book worthless and irrelevant? Matilda will remember the name Pip long into her life and perhaps will never forget that name. Even though Matilda is a fictional character, hundreds of thousands of people have read Great Expectations and the novel has largely impacted many of their lives.

At the end of Mister Pip, Matilda finally realizes the awesome power of storytelling. She has survived the island and the redskins and has coped with the deaths of her beloved friend, Mr. Watts and her mother with the help of Mr. Dickens. She now must become a storyteller herself and become the voice that saved her from the island.  Mr. Watts said to Matilda “No one in history of your short lives has used the same voice as you with which to say your name…your special gift that no one can ever take from you. This is what our friend and colleague Mr. Dickens used to construct his stories with” (p. 124). Matilda realizes her connection with Charles Dickens. Matilda believes she is an orphan of sorts and relates to Pip is also an orphan who also is somewhat of a bio-character of Mr. Dickens. Mr. Dickens went through some tough times in his life and wrote a story about his endeavors through a novel that has touched thousands of lives including hers. Now she knows she must share her experience and tell her story to the world. Matilda will come full circle a storyteller. One who has listened to stories and one who can tell her own.

Matilda and Pip along with other literary characters taught people the fact that whether a story is true or completely designed and created is irrelevant and inconsequential to the message and the power it has over people. Imagination separates the human race from any other species on the planet. Stories have the power to inspire, to shelter, to free and to save. Just because the story was created doesn’t mean it wasn’t made real by the reader from the impact it had. Kyle Brofloski, a character from the animated sitcom, South Park, in an episode entitled Imagination land said this about the power of imagination; “ Hadn’t Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your life’s more than most real people…they had more of an impact on the world than any of us. Same as bugs bunny and superman and Harry Potter. They’ve changed my life, changed the way I act on the earth. Doesn’t that make them real? They might be imaginary but, their more important than most of us here and they’re going to be around long after we’re dead. In a way those things are more realer than any of us” (South Park) Today’s culture has forgotten their voice as Matilda did.  If it is not remembered then the novel is dead.

  Works Cited

 

·      Jones, Lloyd. Mister Pip.  New York; The Dial Press, 2006.

·      “Conversational Reading.” The Novel Is Dead. 3 Aug. 2008. http://www.conversationalreading.com/2004/10/vs_naipaul_the_.html

·      Hadawy, Husain and Muhsin Mahdi. The Arabian Nights. New York; Norton, 1990.

·      Peart, Neil. Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. Toronto; ECW Press, 2002.

·      Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. New York; Doubleday, 1967.

·      “Imaginationland Episode III.” South Park.  Tray Parker and Matt Stone. Comedy Central. 31 Oct. 2007