Power, Language, and Literacy in "The Great Gilly Hopkins"

Autor/in	Cairns, Sue Ann
Titel	Power, Language, and Literacy in "The Great Gilly Hopkins"
Quelle	In: Children's Literature in Education, 39 (2008) 1, S.9-19 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0045-6713
DOI	10.1007/s10583-006-9038-9
Schlagwörter	Childrens Literature; Foster Care; Fantasy; Fairy Tales; Power Structure; Language Usage; Literacy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? 'Children''s literature'; Kinderliteratur; Pflegehilfe; Fantasie; Fairy tale; Fairytale; Fairytales; Fairy-tale; Fairy-tales; Märchen; Sprachgebrauch; Alphabetisierung; Schreib- und Lesefähigkeit
Abstract	To compensate for her feelings of anger and helplessness over her mother's abandonment and subsequent displacements, the foster child Gilly Hopkins seeks power and agency through the primary means at her disposal: through the use of language and fairy tales. She constructs a Cinderella fantasy of an idealized mother who will rescue her. She also resonates strongly with the Rumpelstiltskin story, as it is a story about the power of language, and highlights a dynamic of exploitation that seems familiar to her. Through relationships with William Ernest, Trotter, Mr. Randolph, and Miss Harris, Gilly learns, however, to move beyond the habit of exploiting others as objects, and to experience the beauty of language for its own sake. Her emotional and psychological development can be charted through her changing relationship to the imaginative and expressive potentialities of language. Most importantly, literacy becomes not a basis for illusory control and manipulative power, but for the kind of human relationships that make possible the building of a self. Language becomes a rich inner resource, not simply a means for power over others. (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10