Voices in the Park

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In adult storytelling, AMC TV series Breaking Bad explores similar themes. Walter White wears a distinctive hat, symbolic of patriarchy, specifically the financial stresses men are under due to capitalism. Across all seasons, Breaking Bad delves into what it means to be a man. Gus Fring understands Walter’s weakness and persuades him to keep cooking meth for him by delivering a persuasive and memorable lecture: As father and son walk to the park, they are downcast. The father “needed to get out of the house”. They live in an economically destitute area, and pass a man sitting on the street asking for money. “Millions of kids”? The kids that Santa gives gifts to? There are many millions of poor children in this world. How are the names symbolic? The homophonous names show that they are all equally human. ‘Smith’ is more common/popular than ‘Smythe’, suggesting some pretension on the part of the rich family. Notice how the children are given different types of names. The rich boy’s name is the name of royalty, of public school educated white boys, typically. Charles is being acculturated into a patriarchal system in which he will enjoy power but also be repressed by its expectations. Below he literally and metaphorically stands in the shadow of the (bowler hat wearing) patriarchy. He already understands the gender hierarchy and that he is at the top of it. He is initially dismissive that he has to play with a girl, and then he accepts that she is good at using the play equipment. Note the distinction between sexism and misogyny: Charles may have had the sexism removed, but there’s no indication that he’ll be free of misogyny just because he’s learned girls can be good at things, too. ( Sexism and misogyny are not the same — and the difference matters.) SMUDGE SMITH Look at the facial expressions and body language of the characters in the illustrations. Can you draw the same person with different expressions / body language to show their changing emotions?

This is the equivalent to WEEKS of literacy teaching and learning - we spent ten weeks in total looking at the work of Anthony Browne using these resources. Fruit Shaped Trees. 10 June 2009. 17 Aug. 2010 < http://static.guim.co.uk/ sys-images/​arts/​arts_/​pictures/​2009/ student exemplars - modelled writing resources used for the “fifth voice” assessment task to guide students as to what their final product should look like. And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated, or respected, or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man. Más (2010), Gus Fring Could you turn the story into a radio play with different children playing the role of each voice in the story?

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

Surrealists put disparate objects together. In doing so, they help their audience to see objects we usually take for granted in a new way. The word for this is ‘ defamiliarisation‘.

Identify the different nouns / adjectives / verbs / adverbs / connectives / punctuation used in the story. Why have these been used in particular places? For Mr Smith the battle is keeping his spirits up in the very dispriting state of being unemployed and needing a job. The text can be a very useful example for children to look at, as a model for writing in different perspectives and as a model for how to effectively create links between the text and illustrations. The font used when it is Charles turn, his font is barely visible due to it being very thin. It can be seen as a week, small voice, and seems to suggest fear (of the mother authority figure). Thinking in compairson o the font of his mother's voice, there are the same type of font characteristics with the tails on the letters. The friendship between the children is blooming, but Browne highlights the difference in class between the two families. There’s the very working class Mr Smith (indicated by clothing, speech, home), and the wealthy status of Mrs Smith. Metafictive DevicesThis is a Literature unit based on the excellent text Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. I love this book for teaching perspective, point-of-view and just the importance of friendship. Notice the ‘a’ in the circle etched into the wall behind him: A symbol for anarchy since the 1970s. Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is sceptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. In this sense, Voices In The Park has an anarchist message. Anarchism also calls for the abolition of the state, which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful. Each character has their own battle: For Mrs Smythe, the battle is in getting her dog and son under control. The dog might as well be her son. “Sit”, she tells her son. For the carefree Smudge, an example of the Female Maturity Formula, her job is to keep her father, and then the boy, happy. ANAGNORISIS The father searches the classifieds looking for a job, which will allow him to provide for his family. But because economic power is so connected to being a man, the fact that he has no hope of conforming to society’s expectation of ‘Man’, this exclusion has ostensibly afforded him a different kind of freedom. He can sit in a park during the daytime and spend time with his daughter.

Stories in which an ensemble cast get an equal voice are generally stories about a society, and this is true in this case as well. One major weakness of our society is the class divide. There is of course much that can be said about that, and how economic stratification has a ruinous effect on us all, especially on poor people. This ending reminds me of a later (wordless) Canadian picture book called “ Sidewalk Flowers” in which a generous girl also ends up with a flower at the end. The flower clearly symbolises innocent friendship in this story but I think it does a little more: A girl who ends up with a flower at the end of a story keeps some of her power/agency, in contrast to Giving Tree plots, in which femme characters are idealised as entirely self-sacrificing. The Laughing (actually Sad) Cavalier and a weeping Mona Lisa sit in a puddle of ‘tears’. The Laughing Cavalier (1624) is a Baroque portrait by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals. The title is an invention of the Victorian public and press, dating from its exhibition in the opening display at the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872–1875, just after its arrival in England. The unknown subject is in fact not laughing, but his enigmatic smile is amplified by his upturned moustache. The Mona Lisa painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. This is probably the most famous painting in the world. Like the man in the Hals painting above, Mona Lisa is said to have an enigmatic smile. I think Browne has chosen these portraits because their facial expressions can belie a number of similar emotions, dependent upon the emotion of the viewer at any given time. Also, both are well-known for their eyes which ‘follow you around the room’. The symmetry of the composition of full bleed illustrations of this story contribute to general creepiness, much like paintings by Italian artist Alessandro Tofanelli. Alessandro Tofanelli, Italian surrealist landscape painter. For more examples of his work see here. STORY STRUCTURE OF VOICES IN THE PARK The best parts of this story are the illustrations. I think the term that would be used to describes them is postmodern, the surreal way they weave popular works of art, distort the landscape and portray adult and child-like themes is stunning. The more you look at the pictures the more you find hidden. For instance one illustration displays a snowdrop disguised as a lamp post and 'The Laughing Cavalier' dancing down the road with 'The Mona Lisa' evoking feelings of joy. Bowler hats are also hidden in many of the illustrations reminiscent of Rene Magritte.

What was the author’s intent for writing this story? -or- why did the author tell the story in this way? having selected a key image, the children can then draw a ‘thought bubble’ to show what the character is thinking Look at the use of light and shadow in the illustrations. Where is the light source? How are shadows formed? Smudge mistakes mini-misogynist Charles for a wimpy one, who gradually warms to her. I believe this is how the reader is supposed to interpret Charlie’s character arc too, but I keep thinking about the distinction between sexism and misogyny, and how Browne only subverts one of those aspects for his boy character. DESIRE